Religious Language Flashcards
Via positiva/cataphatic
A way of speaking about God that focuses on what God is
Via negativa/apophatic
A way of speaking about God using only terms that say what God is not
Agnosticism
The view that God cannot be known, we are unable to experience or know about God- God may or may not exist
Univocal language
Words that mean the same thing when used in different contexts
Equivocal language
Words that mean different things when used in different contexts
Who came up with models and qualifiers?
Ian Ramsey- Bishop of Durham
What are models?
Familiar qualities we use to speak of God. We understand them in a human sense so use them to speak of what we have discerned about gods nature
What are qualifiers?
We quantify the model with the extent of the quality, e.g. God is all loving
Karl Barth
Who came up with signs and symbols?
Tillich
What are signs?
Language or images which represent one chosen thing. it does not matter what the sign is as long as there is an agreed meaning
What are symbols?
Language or images which convey meaning which is often shared but is subjective to the individual looking at it
What is tillich’s view of God and how is it different to the abrahamic view of God?
Tillich’s view:
* God is being or existence itself. God is life
* Words like omniscience and omnibenevolence only symbollically descrabe our own desire of what we want God to be like
* Forms of worship symbolically reflect our own desires of wanting a relationship with God
* ‘God’ is a notion which symbolically represents our desire for a being who is concerned with and loves us
Abrahamic view:
* God is the creator of all things
* Words like omniscience, omnibenevolence, describe God’s qualities
* God should be worshipped
* God exists
What are the problems with symbolic language?
- symbols can change meaning
- they can be equivocal
- can be misused
- they are interpreted differently
- influenced by language and culture
What did Hick argue Tillich does?
Tillich over emphasises the artistic mature of religion and forgets that religion can have factual elements rather than simply symbols supposed to evoke emotion
Why did Moses Maimonides support Apophatic language?
- God is a transcendent being
- human reason & language is too limited to grasp the full being of God
- we should either ‘stay silent’ & not talk about God or only use apophatic language to make statements about what we know God is not
any positive statements put limits on the true nature of God
Why does Pseudo-Dionysius support apophatic language?
- God is beyond the realms of human understanding and conception. We will never be able to accurately think of God let alone use human lang to describe hime
- using language is for those ‘less intelligent’ and unable to experience God
What are aquinas’ two analogies?
- analogy of attribution
- analogy of proportionality
What is Aquinas’ analogy of attribution?
- where there is a casual (cause-al) relationship between two things
- if there is love in the world we can attribute God as the cause
What is Aquinas’ analogy of proportionality?
- telling us about the proportion of a characteristic
- God’s love is in far greater proportion to human love
