Religious Language Flashcards
1
Q
what is cognitive language?
A
- deals with factual statements that can be proved to be either true or false + empirically provable and contain meaningful factual content.
2
Q
what is non-cognitive language?
A
- deals with statements that are not to be taken factually but ar e intended to be understood in other ways.
- truth of falsify of a statements depends upon its context.
3
Q
What is a realist?
A
- take reality as their starting point- for every statement there is a state of affiars that exist if that statemment is true.
- follow correspondence theory : we can cehck whether a statements corresponds in reality; by checking it w/o the sense statements are only meaningful if they can proved by checking them in reality otherwise statements or meaningless
4
Q
What is anti-realist?
A
- realists is seperate from language, meaning is a matter ofcorrespondence and coherence.
- coherence theory : a statement is meaningful and true through its relationship to other ideas/ activities.
- It does not have to be proved to be true in reality, it just has to make sense and the coherent in the context , it is being used.
5
Q
Evaluate cogntivie approach and non cogntive approach.
A
- God is transcendent and wholly other using our language to describe and is inadequate because we cannot have direct experience of him.
- non-cognitive: issues of havng to prove our language. We do not have direct experience of God and our language about God can be used in a more symbolic way.
6
Q
what is the religious language debate?
A
- logial positivism who claim our language is limited o things which are within our realm of reality , vs reliiogus believers who claim God is with a reality so we can speak meaningfully , in regards to it.
7
Q
univocal vs equivocal
A
univocal: word was exactly same meaning at all times .e.g cow
- equivocal : same word is used with 2 completely different meanings e.g. nights , bat.
8
Q
what is the via negativa?
Apopathic Way
A
- only speaks about God in “ negative terms and what God is not.
- emphaisses the difference between God and humanity.
- problems arose as to whethr this can bring us closer to the true qualtiies of God.
- ## relies on a reference point
9
Q
Outline Plotinus’ views
A
- 3rd century, neo plotinist philosopher Plotinus used the via negativ to describe the form of God.
- proposes Gnosticism - people claimed that the good ( or God) could be known through secret knowledge.
- Plotinus regused this saying that the good ( God) is seperate to the world and is unknowable - how is it relevant?
- seperates God from anything in this world.
- He accepts that there is no such things as secret knowledge
- maintains God’s transcendence.
10
Q
what is Pseudo Dionysious’ views ?
A
- 6th Century Christian mystic
- believes that using positive language limits God to our understadning of those words and runs the risk of anthromorphising God.
- God is “ beyond all being and knowledge”
- Instead, he argued that people should recognised God as a mystery as he is the perfect and unique cause of all things”
- People who are genuinely seeking God to understand God should stop describing God is positive terms and just allow Gid to soeak.
11
Q
What is Moses Maismonides’ views?
A
- Jewish philosopher who strongly supported the via negativa
- He believed that human language is useful in definting, explaining and distinguishing in the finite world
- Those who state attributes of God don’t first lack sufficent knowledge concerning the creator , but they also unconsciously lose their belief in God.
- uses Analogy of a ship.
- ” it is clear that the tenth person has arrived”.
12
Q
Davies critique of Maimonides.
A
- saying what soemthing is not gives no indication of what is actually is.
- ” It is simply unreasonable to say that someone who has all negations mentioned in it “ has almost arrived at the correct notion of a ship. Could be a warfare.
- doesn’t work with someone who began by know nothing about God. Process of elimiinating requires possibilities.
13
Q
Give the strengths of the Via Negativa
A
- The Via Negativa is honest about the limits of our language but also acknowledges the fact
that we still have a desire to talk about God and attempts to find a way of doing that. - This way of speaking about God does eliminate the possibility of limiting him to our
understanding of particular ideas. - It is a way of conveying the essential otherness and mystery of God and underlines that he
is not like us. Avoids anthropomorphising God. - It is a means by which we can say something about God that is literally true and does not
need interpretation.
see document for better evaluations
14
Q
Give the weaknesses of Via Negativa.
A
- Saying what something is not does not actually help us to understand what something actually is! Flew
argues that negatives amount to nothing- we are told nothing about God. - It confuses atheism and theism since to say that God can only be spoken of in negative terms may means
denying God’s existence altogether, because ‘existence’ itself is a human concept. - Davies- In order to discover what something is through a process of elimination we need to know what
the possibilities are. If we have had no experience of a certain thing and don’t know what it is, we will be
unable to discover what that thing is through elimination. (It may work for someone who believes) - Renders all biblical texts meaningless- The Bible does not talk about God in negative terms
15
Q
Outline additional scholarly views on via negativa.
A
FOR:
Hart: Hart supports the via negativa as a way to grasp the ineffability of God. He argues that the via negativa is essential for articulating the divine mystery, emphasizing that positive descriptions of God are inherently limited and can lead to misconceptions.
Kearney: : supports the via negativa within a framework of “anatheism,” which emphasizes the need to re-engage with the divine through a negation of conventional understandings.
16
Q
Outline additional scholars who critcise the via negativa
A
Jennings: challenges the via negativa by arguing that it can lead to a form of theological elitism, where only a select few are deemed capable of understanding the divine through negation.
Dawkins: Dawkins criticizes the via negativa as a way to avoid addressing the real, empirical problems associated with religious beliefs. He argues that the via negativa may be a way of sidestepping substantive critique by emphasizing the unknowability of God.
17
Q
Outlin Aquinas’ approach of analogy.
A
- believes the use of language automatically limits or anthromorphises God.
- He believes that, unlike the Via Negativa, we could make positive decisions about God if we understand that the words we have an analogical rather than a literal interpretation
- if we want to know what God is like , look at what God has made.
- ## “Analogies are proportional similarities which also ackniwslsdg e disimilar features”.
18
Q
Give the analogies Aquinas proposes
A
- analogy of attribution
- analogy of proportion.
19
Q
what is the analogy of attribution?
A
- atrtribute the world to God and therefore , as God’s creation , we reflect his attributes.
- uses the analogy of a Bull to demonstrate this sisnilar to how a Bull’s health is determined by examining its urine , humans can examine God’s creation and see a reflection of his qualtiies in this.
- th distinctiojn is that the bull’s health is not contracted within the urine but within himself similar to how God’s qualties are merely refelcted and not encompassing of his true nature
20
Q
What is the analogy of proportion?
A
- although we possess qualtiies like those of God , we posssess those qualities in a lesser proportion to God.
- Hick offered the examples of upwards analogy, for instance speaking of a dog’s faithfulness and then going upwards to human faith in God.
- Thus we can now add to our statement that God has qualities analogous to ours that he has them in greater proportion. So God’s love/knowledge/power is like ours but proportionally greater.
21
Q
What is Ian Ramsey - Models and Qualifiers Aproach.
A
- A model is an analogy that helps us to express
something about God, such as ‘God is good’.
. The model is the word ‘good’.
. We know what good means in human terms and
when we apply it to God, it gives us a model to
understand the goodness of God.
. In the same way we can qualify the model to
improve our understanding by putting God’s
attributions on a greater level, for instance by
adding that qualifier that God is infinitely good.
. In this way we can think of God’s goodness in a
deeper and more meaningful way.
22
Q
Evaluate the strengths of analogy:
A
- avoids anthromorphising God.
CA: it does not bring us any closer to understanding God. - inductive leap we do not know what God is due to his transcendence - Analogies are relatable; easier to understand as the qualities match those of humanity.
- we can talk positively about God and his qualities.
- Aquinas never claimed that we can describe the nature of God - analogical language allows us to talk about God and avoids the problem of anthromorphising God.
see document for more
23
Q
Evaluate the criticisms of using analogy
A
- The analogy of attribution can be used to prove that God is bad. All we need to do is to use the same form
of argument that suggests that God has whatever it takes to produce badness in humans. (Aquinas covers
this by arguing that evil in humans is not a thing in itself; rather, as Augustine argues, it is an absence of
good.) - In order for it to work, the language we use to describe God has to be in part univocal and cognitive, based
on factual observation, rather than non cognitive. There must be something in common between God’s
goodness and human goodness, otherwise we can’t understand the analogy. But if goodness in God and
humans is understood univocally after all, then we have gained nothing. - Aquinas believes that God was ultimately responsible for the creation of the Earth and that humans were created in the likeness of God. If we don’t accept Aquinas’ assumptions, we don’t have to accept the idea
that we can work out what God is like by examining a creation that may or may not be his. (Darwin,
Dawkins) - Aquinas picks some qualities (i.e. good qualities) but not others. Does God possess evil qualities as well?
Again this can be countered by Aquinas’s view on evil. - Swinburne - Aquinas has produced an unecessary theory. He claims that we can speak of
see document for more
24
Q
Describe Tillich’s theory of symbolic language
what example does he use
A
- RL is symbolic not literal. He said that symbols are something that we can all participate in
- Religious symbols are not arbitrarily invented. They grow out of the culture and collective unconscious minds of a religious tradition.
- Tillich uses the illustration of a national flag. It isn’t a random sign pointing to a country. It is part of what it points to. It participates in the power and dignity of a nation. Seeing a flag mentally connects a citizen to their country.
- the function of religious symbols is to spiritually connect people to the religious dimension of reality.
