ramsey's cataphatic way (analogies)

qualifiers are adjectives such as ‘perfect’ or ‘infinite’

models express these concepts of God in understandable terms, (like analogy), whereas qualifiers are applied to show that God is proportionally different to us

ian ramsey:

  • british anglican bishop n academic

  • professor of the Philosophy of Religion at Oxford Uni n Bishop of Durham from 1966 til death in ‘72

  • wrote extensively on the problem of religious language, Christian ethics, relationship between science n religion, Christian apologetics

ramsey’s models n qualifiers:

  • ramsey’s ideas concerning religious language link with use of analogical language » meaning of a term changes proportionally, depending on what’s being described

  • ramsey suggested that words describing God, function as ‘models’ (agreeing w Aquinas) eg models in everyday life help us to understand something » words describing God tell us something about God, but in a simplified way

  • in response, ramsey said that models always need to be qualified:

    • used the word ‘qualifiers’ eg to understand God’s goodness, the model ‘good’ needs qualifying

      • the qualifier that God is ‘infinitely good,’ must be added to the expression to deepen our understanding of what it means that God is good

analogy » the brain, like a computer:

  • brain damage = brain’s hardware failing to function properly

  • the ‘model’ of the brain as a computer needs ‘qualifiers’ eg:

    • the brain is not made of microchip computers as a computer is

    • the brain can’t be programmed in the way a computer can

  • ramsey suggested that models can help a person to gain insight n understand more clearly what is being talked about

  • he applied his idea of ‘models’ n ‘qualifiers’ to religion, suggesting that when we use religious language to describe God, the language functions as a ‘model’ that must be qualified to deepen understanding of God

  • another example:

    • exercising complete free will = total commitment, religious commitment different to usual commitment

flaws:

  • analogies can interpreted differently by different people

  • apophatic way via negative may be more successful

  • qualifiers still come under human language » may be flawed/inefficient in describing God n understanding His attributes