religious language 1 Flashcards
via negativa
The via negativa states that positive attributes are misleading and God is beyond all human imagination.
via negativa is the belief thatwords limit our understanding of a transcendent God - therefore instead of saying what godis,we should state what he isn’t to gain understanding
pseudo dionysius
Pseudo Dionysius stated that god is ‘beyond assertion’ and ‘beyond denial
- Emphasizes ineffability and transcendence of the divine.
- Allows for a deeper sense of mystery and wonder, by avoiding imposing human limitations on the divine.
Pseudo-Dionysius illustrates with Moses’ ascending of Mount Sinai to receive the ten commandments from God. He describes Moses as plunging into the ‘darkness of unknowing’, ‘renouncing all that the mind may conceive’.
moses maimonides
- moses maimonidesused the example of a ship – by describing what a shipisn’t, we get closer to understanding what a shipis
- maimonides’s ship example has been criticised because it compares God to aninanimateobject rooted in human understanding
brian davies
means we don’t know if what remains is God or something else
- how can we describe what God isn’t if we haveno ideaof what he is? circular/incoherent
- negative language only allows us to actually gain knowledge in “special cases”, such as when we know exactly what possibilities there are for a thing
- May lead to a lack of concrete understanding and specificity - It leads to negligible understanding
hick criticism
Hick points out that it is a contradiction to say that God is beyond human comprehension, yet to say that he can be found in the Bible.
If he can be known through storytelling and symbolic language which is presented in the Bible, then he therefore is known without the use of the via negativa.
- The Bible describes God in positive terms.“God is love” and “God is spirit”.
- God even himself describes himself in positive terms: ”I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”
W R Inge
- W.R. Ingesays we cannot get rid of descriptions of god because we then lose the link between humans and the world, making worship too difficult and almost pointless
- counterproductive because it separates us from God.
*** the via negativa is a reminder not to anthropomorphosise god but achieves this at the expense of any truly informative statements.
aquinas analogy of attribution
we can attribute qualities to the creator of a thing that are analogous to those of its creation
we humans have qualities like power, love and knowledge, so we can conclude that our creator also has qualities of power, love and knowledge that are analogous to our own.
attribute a quality/predicate to an object by virtue of its causal relationship with another object.
Brian Davies gave the example of the bread & the baker when explaining the analogy of attribution:
Aquinas has his own example:
If a bull’s urine is healthy, then an expert can infer that the bull itself is healthy, though clearly the bull is not ‘healthy’ in the same sense
aquinas analogy of proportion
God is the greatest being and thus has qualities to a greater degree of proportion than humans.
Thus we can now add to our statement that God has qualities analogous to ours that he has them in greater proportion.
Socrates is wise” “God is wise”: what we are saying is that God has wisdom in a way that is appropriate for God, and Socrates has it in a way that is appropriate for humans
Aquinas is using the mathematical model of proportionality to show us how we can meaningfully talk about God: “2 is to 4 as 8 is to 16” or “(Human) wisdom is to man as (Divine) wisdom is to God”
criticism of aquinas
Inappropriate to say that God’s justice/love/mercy is analogous to ours in any proportional sense – God is ontologically other.
theologically inappropriate - means that our understanding of God’s just nature, for example, is derived from us being just
Brummer points out that we do not know God’s nature, so we cannot know the way in which God is loving. We are merely saying that God is not loving in the way humans are loving, but we cannot say in what way God is loving.
Attribution can tell us that God is the source of human qualities, but it cannot tell us in what way God has those qualities. However, we are merely saying that God is the source of love. Analogy does not enable us to say in what way God is loving.
Circularity: we have to know that God is the first cause for analogy of attribution to work.
If God can be attributed with love because it exists in the universe and He is thus its cause, can he also be called “evil”,
incomplete theory of religious language, as Aquinas does not do justice to the full range of functions that religious language requires: myth, symbol, prayer, praise, confession, moral teaching
tillich
Tillich, on the other hand, stated that religious language is symbolic and communicates the most significant beliefs and values of human beings
- theypoint to something beyond themselves
- theyparticipate in that to which they point to
- theyopen up levels of realitywhich are usually closed to us
- theyopen up dimensions of the soul
tillich said that god was the ultimate symbol, calling him“the ground of all being”.
randall - motivating, socially binding people, communicating, disclosing
strength of tillich
- asserting the inadequacy of language: analogies conceal more than they reveal; symbolic expressions enable meaning to be found.
- help, according to Hick, guard against the idolatry of thinking of God as though a greatly magnified human being (anthropomorphism).
- Universal – no problem of translation
successfully captures the feature of religious meaning most important to religious believers – spiritual experience.
When a Christian looks at a crucifix or prays, there are deep spiritual feelings and experiences which can be the most significant and meaningful thing to them.
Tillich’s theory is successful then in understanding that religious language is about that sort of meaning, rather than simply reporting cold hard factual/literal content.
paul edwards/william alston
Paul Edwardsargues that symbols are meaningless because theycannot be verified or falsifiedthanks to their subjective nature:“it doesn’t convey any facts”
William Alston objects that religious language must involve facts
Alston argues that important Christian doctrines like heaven and hell have to be taken as factual, not as symbolic.
Religion is primarily about our ‘ultimate concern’, which isn’t anything historical, scientific or otherwise factual
Tillich is therefore right to refocus Christianity towards the spiritual aspect of human life. It is about surrendering to our need for spiritual fulfilment.
faith is directed towards something objective, such as God or the ground or being. When we use symbolic religious terms, we express our personal subjective faith. Yet, we thereby also make an objective act of faith through our souls connecting to spiritual levels of reality.
Hick criticised Tillich’s idea of participating, calling it unclear - he argued that there is little difference between a symbol and a sign
- Enables individuals to connect with the divine through tangible representations.
- Fosters a sense of shared understanding within religious communities.
- Promotes a deeper sense of connection with religious beliefs.
