Religious Language 1 Flashcards
What is the apophatic way?
The apophatic way or via negativa claims that because words are unable to adequately describe God, the only possible statements that can be made are negative statements; statements about what God is not
How is God ‘beyond description’?
-God is beyond our ability to describe. Just as in Judaism where the name of God is not uttered, and in Islam where picturing God is forbidden, the via negativa is aware that the danger of using human language language of God is that we will imagine or picture our human version of the word we use
-When we say that ‘God is good’ we cannot help but understand the word ‘good’ in terms of human goodness. Yet God is not ‘good’ in this sense, his goodness is beyond our comprehension. The same is true of all God’s attributes
-All words when applied to God are equivocal
Who are the key thinkers of the apophatic way?
Pseudo-Dionysius and Moses Maimonides
What did Pseudo-Dionysius think?
-He believed that God was beyond assertion.
-He was also influenced by Plato and was aware of the limits of our senses as well as our language. To try and make positive statements about God would be to risk an anthropomorphic idea of God
-Hence only negative terms can preserve the mystery and ‘otherness’ of God
What did Moses Maimonides think?
-He argued for the use of the via negativa in his guide for the perplexed. The only positive statement that can be made about God is that he exists. All other descriptions of God must be negative so as to ensure that we are not being improper or disrespectful.
-He argues that the negative can bring us some knowledge of God
-He uses the example of a ship. If we say that the ship is not an accident, not a mineral, not a plant etc then he argues that by the tenth statement we will have some knowledge of what a ship is
-In the same way, the via negativa allows us to gain some knowledge of God
What are the key strengths of via negativa?
-Any language that is used of God is inevitably pictured by its hearers in human terms. This reduces God to a human level. The apophatic way prevents anthropomorphic representations of God
-Following from this, it can be argued that the apophatic way is hence more respectful in it’s approach. It recognises that God is transcendent and wholly other to the human realm
-This approach fits with how religious experiences are perceived by those who experience them, particularly in mysticism. As william James observes, religious experiences are ineffable; they cannot be described in ordinary language
What are the key weaknesses of via negativa?
-Even if the apophatic way does give some knowledge of God, it is incredibly limited in what can be known. It is not clear from Maimonides’ example that a ship can be described in the way he maintains. It is even less likely that this method can bring any knowledge of God
-The apophatic way is not a true reflection of how religious believers speak or think about God. The scriptures of all major faiths describe God in positive terms
-The apophatic way means that the believer has no means of communicating with the non believer about the subject of God
-W.R Inge, argued that denying any description of God leads to an annihilation of God wheee we potentially lose the connection between God and the world. Flew’s argument on falsification would seem to support this view. The idea of a God who is not visible, is intangible, etc seems to bear very little difference to there being no God at all
What is the cataphatic way?
-The cataphatic way or the via positiva, unlike the apophatic way, argues that positive statements can be made about God. Aquinas’ theory of analogy, which is an example of the via positiva, sits between univocal and equivocal theories of language
What does Aquinas say about analogy?
Aquinas argues that language applied to God is not literal but is analogically. He understands this happening in 2 ways:
1. The analogy of attribution. The word that we apply to human beings are related to how words are applied to God because there is a casual relationship between the 2 sets of qualities. Our qualities such as love and wisdom are reflections of those qualities of God. Aquinas uses an interesting example to illustrate this. In medieval times, it was believed that if a creatures urine was healthy then the creature that produced the urine must also be healthy; so ‘if the urine is good, then the bull is good’. The bull after all is the cause of the urine! Likewise by examining human love, wisdom or power we may see a pale reflection of those divine attributes
-The analogy of proper proportion. The extent to which a being can be said to have certain properties is in proportion to the type of being we are describing. To say that a 10 year old is a good footballer is different to saying that an England international is a good footballer. When we say that a human is ‘good’ we are speaking of a finite being. When describing God, we are speaking of an infinite being so the ‘goodness’ is in proportion to that
