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Pre 20th centry religious language - Coggle Diagram
Pre 20th centry religious language
Apathatic way
Via negativia - the only legitimate way to talk of god is to say what he is not, god is infinite, indescribable and unknowable.
Using this allows us to not bring god down to a human level (anthropomorphism)
Pseudo Dionysius - says that the apathatic way preserves the mystery of god, the catacphatic way would use positive words to describe god such as ‘good’ a word we would use to describe humans. Bringing god down to a human level.
Moses Maimonides - the guide for perplexed 10 step using via negativia to discover what the thing is at the end. A ship
B Davies critiqued this and said we could easily also get a wardrobe.
Cataphatic way
Via positivia - uses positive language to decruibe the qualities and nature of god, god is good, loving and just.
Aquinas analogy
Univocal- a words used in the same way in different contexts. Risking bringing god down to a human level
Equivocal- a word has different meanings in different contexts, bat the animal and bat something you hit with.
Connection between creatures and the creator. We can attribute goodness to god because we see something like ‘goodness’ in his creations.
If we talk about god being good, it means more than human goodness. Gods goodness is proportionally much greater than human goodness. Because god is infinite
It is possible to say something positive about god while recognising that words are limited because god is beyond human comprehension
This avoids the pitfalls of univocal and equivocal language and to counter the apathatic way
Tillich’s symbolic language
When belivies talk about god or say ‘ god is love’ they are not only pointing to the existance of a spiritual reality. They are also participating in it.
Could be classed as cataphatic or apathatic
He wants to use positivite language that says we can relate to god while recognising that god is far beyond any words human can use