The question stated in the title of this paper may seem absurd to many who are unacquainted with the concerns of contemporary philosophy. ‘Is language about God fraudulent?’ How strange (they may say) that anyone should be silly enough to raise the question! Because, therefore, the seriousness of the issue and the genuineness of its challenge may not be immediately apparent to everyone, it will not be amiss to sample some of the ways in which innocent-seeming language is liable to mislead. The failure of philosophers to make such preliminary points—which to them are platitudes too familiar to require repetition—may account for the sense of unreality which many non-philosophers find in modern critiques.