Religious Language: Negative, Analogical or Symbolic Flashcards
Discussing RL
“God talk”
can we really use our language to talk about about if he is so different from us?
cognitive statements
statements that can be either true or false
non-cognitive statements
a statement that cannot be deemed as either true or false.
Richard dawkins
religious statements are cognitive and false
religious believers
religious statements are cognitive and true
apophatic way/ via negativa
a way of religious language
it is a process of negation - we should talk about what god is not.
it is not possible to talk about what god is because he is far beyond our understanding and this leads to misinterpretations as he is different from anything else.
mysticism
we have to erase our human understanding of what God is, so that we can find out what he isn’t.
Plotinus
the mind can only approach God through imageless and apophatic meditation. god is beyond description and language.
meister Eckhart
“the cloud of unknowing”
moses Maimonides
denying every attribute applied to God brings you one step closer to God.
speaking of God using human language poses a danger of anthropomorphism
pseudo dionysuis
language becomes restrictive as thought becomes more complex.
language cannot be descriptive of God as he is the most complex thing so is far beyond it.
you must only talk of god negatively - descriptions of god are evocative, instrumental and non-cognitive.
via negativa procedure
start with assertions about the lowerst of creatures
whatever we can same about them positively, we must deny him of these attributes.
through progressive denials you ascend into the divine realm.
Aquinas
“the first cause surpasses human understanding and speech”
we are more accurate when we say god is not something than when we say he is something.
the essence of God is beyond our human understanding
general criticisms of the via negativa
“God is not a bicycle” unhelpful!
HOWEVER we do know that he is not physical, which does tell us something about him.
why shouldn’t we use anthropomorphic language when God became flesh?
The bible speaks of God descriptively.
We will never have a full understand of God but we do have a wide range of language so why shouldn’t we use it to get as close as possible?
if the truth cannot be spoken then why are we bothering to speak about it at all?
VN ends up saying nothing about God.
W.R. Inge
Denying God his descriptions would lead to the annihilation of both God and humanity.
we lose the essential link between us and God.
if we cant speak about him positively we wont speak about him at all.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Finding God through our material existence was part of his divine plan. Talking about God through the love we experience as humans says something positive about God.
Via positive - cataphatic way
we can and SHOULD talk about God positively
this does not mean we are accurate, we are still limited
Both approaches
used by eastern churches. the aim of life is theosis (unity with God)
mystical contemplation helps worshippers move towards a greater understanding of God. they use a limited positive approach + via negativa. (our language is used to express encounters with God)
strengths of via negativa
human concepts of images of the divine are inadequate.
god is beyond human signs and language.
positive talk of god limits him
anthropomorphism reduces god to human terms.
enables understanding of equivocal language
david hume
“all desriptions of God fall into the danger of anthropomorphism”
analogy
comparison between 2 different things
Aquinas and analogy
we can speak analogically of god because he is the cause (creator) of all things.
god is good because he is the cause of all goodness, which is mirrored imperfectly in his creation.
humans understand that words have different meanings when we apply them to god.
positive things can be said about god.
Aquinas on equivocal language
he rejected it.
it conveys no information about god, only that he is different to us.
it takes the objective meaning away from words such as love.
analogy of attribution
when a term, originally used with reference to one thing is applied to a second thing because one causes another.
e.g. humans wisdom is a reflection of gods wisdom
analogy of proportionality
when a word is employed to refer to a quality that a thing possesses. humans have an experience of God’s power, it is proportionality less than god’s omnipotence but it allows us to have an understanding of it.
ian ramsey
good is a model - it helps us to understand God’s goodness
models are qualified - whatever our goodness is, gods is infinitely greater.
remotion and excellence
we need to remove our imperfections from our model to understand his excellence.
c.brown
god has revealed himself in action, thought and word. it is appropriate and meaningful to express God analogically.
problems with analogy
it presupposes the existence of god.
god is beyond all human understanding so we cannot use him for comparisons.
it lacks a clear understanding of god
analogy is proportionality is only meaningful is both terms are known - we do not know god so it is pointless.
symbol
something which stands for something else.
they communicate something much more powerful, helping us towards a greater understanding of God.
w.stephens
“we do not live in the world but a picture of it”
p.tillich
words are more than a some of their parts
symbolic language demonstrates god as “being itself” - meaning ‘all that is’.
god talk is symbolic and cannot be translated into literal assertions.
symbols help us look beyond the world towards the ultimate reality.
it opens up new levels of reality, transcends facts and ‘unlocks dimensions and elements of the soul’.
j.r.randall
RL stirs emotions and binds communities together.
erkia dinker-von Schubert
symbol expresses what is beyond rational recognition. it distinguishes humans and animals.
p.Edwards
criticises symbol.
they do not convey factual information and are therefore meaningless.
they cant be verified using sense experience.
criticisms of symbol
they are culturally determined and can be misleading.
they are superficial, inadequate and inappropriate.
subjective
trivialised e.g. jewellery
