Religious Language

Question 1

Via negativa:

Answer 1

Human language can’t represent what god is so let’s say what he isn’t instead cause that’s Way better - similar theory to why no depictions of Allah are allowed, goes back to Plato, if we can’t even know about everything about an ant, how can we know god? aka the apophatic way

Question 2

Via negativa and the Bible

Answer 2

Generally accepted that god’s pretty ineffable, only the most holy like Jesus and prophets could communicate with him, early theologians struggled cause even saying ‘god is good’ limits him

Question 3

Via negativa and Pseudo-Dionysius:

Answer 3

Made the first distinction between apophatic and catophatic theology, suggested that we have to say god is not good cause he’s better than our understanding of good, and the only way to describe him positively is to go all world of the forms and say words can only apply if originally derived from him, so all good things are reflections of god’s goodness, still preferred the negative way cause there’s less risk of misunderstanding him and we can definitely say god isn’t hateful or whatever

Question 4

Via negativa and Aquinas:

Answer 4

Thought it was pretty neat, but only a prelude to analogy which was better, but he does use it a bit

Question 5

Via negativa and the Cloud of Unknowing:

Answer 5

Guidebook on prayer, knowledge and rational thought are put aside (never a good sign) in favour of spirituality (oh god). CoU as a concept is that there’s a cloud that hides god from humanity and reason that can only be passed through by ~love~, links to mysticism

Question 6

Via negativa in the Modern Age:

Answer 6

Mostly in the eastern orthodox church, still important, they think it’s better than the western one cause it’s more accurate and authentic

Question 7

Via negativa and the Scary Criticisms:

Answer 7

It’s not used anymore except in a few sects, people panic that it might be saying god isn’t even real at all, might destroy the link between god and the world, places god too far away from humanity to be able to actually sustain an organised religion and convert people and stuff (oh noooo….), confuses potential converts and people who aren’t Really religious, hard to differentiate between god and literally fucking nothing (hmmmmm), you just Can’t Not Compliment God and say nice stuff about him :(

Question 8

Via positiva:

Answer 8

Tends to use analogy, aka the cataphatic way, analogy is used in law, science and philosophy

Question 9

Aristotle and analogy:

Answer 9

Came up with some interesting theories based around the idea of shared attributes - if humans and dogs both have hearts, then the hearts will behave much the same - doesn’t mention when an analogy ceases to hold tho - leads us to four characteristics of analogy

Question 10

Four characteristics of analogy:

Answer 10

The strength of the analogy depends on the number of similarities between the things being compared
Similarity is only in identical properties
Good analogies are based on common causes/general principles
Good analogies don’t need to assume acquaintance with the underlying generalisation