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Religious language - Coggle Diagram
Religious language
The apophatic way (via negativa)
- The apophatic way claims that because words are unable to adequately describe God, the only possible statements that can be made are negative statements - statements about what God is not
- God is beyond our ability to describe - just as in Judaism where the name of God is not uttered, and in Islam where picturing God is forbidden, the apophatic way is aware that the danger of using human language of God is that we will picture our human version of the word we use
- When we say that 'God is good' we cannot help but understand the word good in terms of human goodness - yet God is not good in this sense, his goodness is beyond our comprehension
- All words when applied to God are equivocal (have multiple meanings)
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- Pseudo-Dionysius believed that God was beyond assertion - he was influenced by Plato and was aware of the limits of our senses and language
- He argued to try to make positive statements about God would risk an anthropomorphic idea of God (a description of God in human terms)
- Therefore only negative terms can preserve the mystery and 'otherness' of God
- Believers should move into 'the divine darkness', beyond cataphatic language and into a communion with God that cannot be put into words
- Pseudo-Dionysius - "We must not dare to speak, or to form any conception of the hidden"
- Gregory of Nyssa described the spiritual life as a 'mysticism of darkness'
- He argued there comes a point at which a believer enters an outer darkness and into the apophatic way of God's ineffable, transcendent reality
- At this point, there are no words to describe the understanding of God, it is completely beyond words and images
- Maimonides claimed the only positive statement that can be made about God is that he exists - all other descriptions of God must be negative to ensure we are not disrespectful
- He argued that the negative can bring us some knowledge of God
- He uses the example of a ship - if we say that the ship is not an accident, not a mineral, not a plant etc, then he argued by the tenth statement we will have some knowledge of what a ship is
- Talking about God negatively, such as God is indescribable or unknowable, gets us closer to understanding God
Tillich's use of symbolic language
- Tillich argued that religious statements are not literally true - almost all religious language that attempts to express ideas about God is to be understood symbolically
- Tillich began by defining signs and symbols
- A sign points to something outside of itself, such as a traffic light or a road sign
- A symbol participates in that to which it points, for example a cross is more than just a sign of Christianity, it participates in the religious belief
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- Tillich developed this in his use of religious language
- When believers talk about God, or say 'God is love', they are not only pointing to the existence of a spiritual reality, they are also participating in it
- Tillich suggested that when saying 'God is love', God participates in this just as much as the believers who advocate it
- Tillich argued religious symbolic language prompts deep emotions that are not available in other ways, and tries to say something about ultimate reality
- Tillich calls this ultimate reality 'the ground of being' rather than God and says ground of being is the only non-symbolic statement that can be made about God
- Tillich also claimed that symbols' meanings can change over time - just as the Hindu symbol of the swastika has lost its meaning due to Nazi use, the words we use to describe God may change over time as some word pictures become more helpful or unhelpful
- Tillich's position on religious language could be classified as cataphatic, apophatic or both
- He wanted to use positive language that says something we can relate to about God while recognising that God is far beyond any words humans could use
- Therefore he argued that symbolic language is both affirmed and negated by that to which it points - eg 'God is love' is asserting that God really is love (affirms), but also recognises that the word 'love' is inadequate (negates) and means far more than these human words can express
- Tillich - "Every symbol is double edged. It opens up reality, and it opens the soul"
- Tillich - "Symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate because it transcends the capacity of any finite reality to express it directly"
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The cataphatic way (via positiva): Aquinas' use of analogy
- The cataphatic way argues that positive statements can be made about God
- Aquinas partly agrees with apophatic thought, that God is mysterious and beyond human understanding, but argues that theists want to talk about God positively - the cataphatic way
- Aquinas argued that when Christians talk about God as good or love, they mean something similar to and more than the human versions of goodness and love
- Aquinas used two types of analogy to find a middle way between univocal and equivocal language
Analogy of attribution
- Aquinas argued that there is some connection between creatures and the creator and so there is something that can be said about God, using the analogy of attribution
- Aquinas used the example of a bull's urine - if the bull's urine is healthy, then health is attributed to the bull as well
- In the same way, we can attribute goodness to God because we see something like 'goodness' in his creations
Analogy of proper proportion
- Aquinas said when we talk about God being good, it means more than human goodness - God's goodness is proportionally much greater than our goodness
- When we use a human word to describe God, such as faithfulness or love, it applies to God in a much greater (proper) proportion because God is infinite
- Aquinas - "It seems that no word can be used literally of God"
- By using both analogy of attribution and analogy of proper proportion, Aquinas hoped to avoid the pitfalls of univocal and equivocal language and to counter the apophatic way
- He claimed it is possible to say something positive about God while recognising that words are limited, because God is beyond human comprehension
- He hoped to retain the mystery of God whilst avoiding anthropomorphising God
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