Religious Language

“Great is our God, the creator, whose work is always perfect, for all his ways are just, a faithful God who does no wrong: how righteous and true he is!”

  • demeaning god with descriptive words that can also be applied to human or animal e.g a dog is faithful

  • nthropomorphisis : describing God using human qualities e.g in the bible God being described as a “father” and a “shepherd”

  • problem with descriptions of god is we cannot prove it , issue of no empricial evidence

  • the problem is what other words can we use?????

  • the notion of us understanding these reserved words exclusive for the god of classical theism is incapable for our finite minds to understand (omnipotent,omniscient,omnibenevolent)


Univocal - words that mean the same thing in different context

E.g. all of the omniqualities, triangle(always means a shape with the three sides, water(primarily univocal in its core scientific sense but possibly equivocal depending on if we use it as a noun or a verb)

Equivocal - words that mean different things in different contexts

E.g. ball, nail, tea

Cognitive - word/ statements that contains a factual quality that is provable

E.g. Mrs onuegbu is a woman

Non-cognitive - a word/statements that does not contain a factual/provable quality

E.g. god exists, there is life after death

- we aim to talk about god cognitively + univocally


THE VIA POSITIVA

The Via Positiva (the positive way) is an approach to understanding and describing God by focusing on the qualities that can be positively attributed to him. Rather than saying what God is not, believers use human language to additive God’s attributes, such as claiming that God is loving, just, wise and good. However, because God is believed to transcend human experience, many theologians argue that these descriptions should be understood through analogy. Most notably, Thomas Aquinas maintained that language about God is neither completely literal nor entirely different from human language; instead, terms such as “good” apply to God in an analogous way, This allows meaningful statements about God while recognising that God’s nature is infinitely greater than human understanding.


Analogy of Attribution


- Aquinas saw human attributes as a reflection of Godly attributes - since God is the cause of them.

- it must be remembered however that we as humans are seen to be an imperfect reflection of a perfect God.

- The Ox and the Urine analogy :

   The ox is healthy , the ox displays the attribute of health more perfectly and completely.

   The urine reflects the attribute of health. We can test the health of the ox by testing the health of the urine.

- So we might display the quality of goodness for example but we are reflecting that imperfectly because God actually is goodness and we are just a reflection of.This helps us to understand the greatness of God.

- God is the source of qualities in the universe and God possesses these qualities first and most perfectly.

- This sets up an order of reference, meaning that these qualities apply to God first and foremost, then to other things secondarily and analogically. Because we are created in the image of God, it is possible to say that we have these attributes (wisdom, goodness etc.) analogically: these qualities are attributed to us, whilst God has them perfectly.

- What about a human with bad attributes, if we are meant to be a reflection of god, so is a bad person a reflection of good and where are these bad qualities coming from.


Analogy of Proportion


- We possess qualities like those of God (goodness, wisdom, faithfulness etc.) because we were created in his image and likeness, but we are inferior to God, we possess those qualities in lesser proportion to God.


THE VIA NEGATIVA

The Via-Negativa, also known as the Apophatic way, is the theology of “unsaying”. This is the traditional approach used by theologians that uses negative prefixes such as ‘in’ or ‘im’ to describe God. E.g infinite and immortal.The distinction between talking positively (via-positiva) and negatively (via-negativa) was first made by the theologian Pseudo Dionysius. It was later developed by the Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides and is in-line with writings in the Torah that establish the Jewish belief God is beyond description. Maimonides uses the “analogy of the ship” to put forward his argument.He says that if a person had never encountered a ship before, nor knew what the word ‘ship’ ascribed to, that they could come to a clear understanding of a ship by negative attributes only. E.g it is not a flat object, it is not solid. Maimonides offers up 10 negative descriptions and claims that by the tenth negative, a person would have almost arrived at the correct notion of a ship. Maimonides then argues that “in the same manner you will come nearer to the knowledge and comprehension of God by the negative attributes.


THE CATAPHATIC WAY - MODELS AND QUALIFIERS


QUALIFIERS are adjectives such as ‘perfect’ and ‘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 - models and qualifiers

- Ramsey was a British Anglican bishop and academic

- He was a Professor of Philosophy or Religion at the univeristy of Oxford.

- he wrote extensively on the problem of religious language, Christian ethics, the relationship between science and religion, and Christian apologetics.