Religious Language, Apophatic and Cataphatic use (Chapter 3) Flashcards
What is a cognitive sentence?
A sentence about which it is appropriate to ask whether it is true or false.
What is a non-cognitive sentence?
A sentence when it is not appropriate to ask whether it is true or false. e.g. orders/prayers.
What is the theory behind Via Negativa?
That humans have such limited understanding we will be unable to describe God using our human words. Thus, we can only use negatives to describe what we understand.
What did Moses Maimonides say about Via Negativa?
God is transcendent so it is impossible to know what God is.
Said that by giving positive words to categorise God we are in fact having the opposite effect and are instead lowering him to vocabulary of our human understanding. e.g. Via Posativa is bad. The only positive statement about God is that he exists.
How did Pseudo-Dionysius extend on from Maimonides regarding Via Negativa?
States that God is beyond assertion meaning that whatever you say about God doesn’t tell us what God is but simply provides a spiritual understanding of him.
How does Vienna Circle criticise Via negativa?
Say only analytic and synthetic propositions are meaningful.
Analytic because the knowledge comes through logical reasoning e.g. the man was dead so not alive
Synthetic because they can be proven true or false. So there meaningfulness can be easily shown. e.g. measuring temperature.
How does Paul Tillich say we can speak meaningfully about God?
Symbols. A symbol stands for something other than what it represents. e.g. American flag not only stands for America but the unity of the country it represents.
He says these symbols have many different interpretations that are personal to each individual this is the same for God who represents love, justice, peace etc and religion symbolises these and allows us to understand.
Therefore, these symbols provide meaning to talking about God.
How does Brian Davies criticise Maimonides?
He says only stating what something isn’t gives no actual indication as to what it is.
How does Aquinas agree with Via Negativa?
NOTE AQUINAS DOES NOT DIRECTLY SUPPORT VIA NEGATIVA BUT ONLY ASPECTS OF IT AS HE IS BEHIND VIA POSITIVA
Aquinas read Maimonides and was persuaded by his skepticism concerning the positive meaning of terms applied to God. He strongly disagreed with the univocalism employed by scholars like St Anselm and absolutely rejected the idea that people can know and describe the nature of God sufficiently to analyze it and find necessary existence within it a priori, as proponents of the ontological arguments do.
What was Aquinas quote to support Via Negativa?
NOTE AQUINAS DOES NOT DIRECTLY SUPPORT VIA NEGATIVA BUT ONLY ASPECTS OF IT AS HE IS BEHIND VIA POSITIVA
In Summa Theologica 1:2:2 Aquinas wrote “because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition “God exists” is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are known to us…”
How does Aquinas build on from Via Negativa?
Put forward the idea of analogy.
Analogies of attribution and proportion.
What does the analogies of attribution and proportion mean?
Attribution = our goodness comes directly from God. e.g. analogy of bread and baker, bread is good BECAUSE OF baker.
Proportion = This states that there is a proportionate relationship between all things. For example, the following statements are all proportionate to one another:
God has life
Humans have life
Plants have life
