Religious language: Negative, Analogical or Symbolic

• univocal

  Words that have one objective meaning e.g cat always means cat
• equivocal

  Words with subjective meanings or meanings based on context e.g. a king is a ruler, and a ruler is a measuring device
• anthropomorphism

  the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities e.g. God
• positives of the apophatic way

  -more respectful as acknowledges He is beyond human understanding

  -implies the positive e.g. saying God is not limited by time implies he transcends universal laws

  -avoids anthropomorphism
• negatives of the apophatic way

  -describing something by what it is not can often lead us to the wrong conclusion

  -religious believers view God in positive terms, so describing Him in negative terms therefore makes no sense

  -at best it can only give us a limited understanding of the nature of God
• positives of analogies

  -Aquinas's analogy of attribution avoids problems of equivocal language as there is some similarity between God's love and love seen in families (for example)

  -avoids anthropomorphism by using analogy of proportion (recognises God is proportionally greater than humans)

  -Hick supports, as enables us to make some statements about God but preserves a degree of mystery

  -Ramsey used models and qualifiers to build on theory e.g. a 'shepherd' is a model we can understand from experience but by adding a qualifier, 'good shepherd' shows that God is the same but different
• negatives of analogies

  -we may still limit God by attributing similarities to Him, because how do we know anything about God if he is beyond our understanding?

  -an issue with analogy of proportion is how do we know how much greater God is? (no point of reference to judge the appropriateness of analogy)

  -Scotus argues analogy is too vague and leaves us unable to understand God or His actions

  -assumes a similarity between God and humans; if God is completely different there is nothing to compare him to
• omnibenevolence

  'All-loving'. According to Christian teaching, God proved his all-loving nature by sacrificing his only son, Jesus, to make up for humankind's sins
• sign

  Points to something or instructs you to do something
• Tillich symbol example

  -symbolic statements about God are cataphatic or apophatic

  -'God is love' affirms His positive loving nature

  -it also recognises the word is inadequate when describing God's love, so it is symbolically understood

  -involves our own understanding of the word 'love' and includes that in understanding

  -can be problematic, as we all understand symbolic language differently
• positives of symbolic language

  -preserves mystery of God and the sense He is beyond words (avoids anthropomorphism) while still communicating something deeper than words (as if it enables us to participate in a deeper reality)

  -allows us to say something, unlike the apophatic way

  -the fact it changes over time could be good, as it can remain relevant to culture and time

  -Tillich considered religious language to be cognitive as it expressed something about the ultimate, the true reality
• negatives of symbolic language

  -Hick questions what is meant by 'participates in' e.g. for 'God is good', is the sentence the symbol or the underlying concept of His goodness?

  -open to interpretation & change, loses meaning over time, which suggests it's too subjective & non-cognitive to be of use except to the person/community in which it's used (limitation of God-talk)

  -Randall suggests symbols are non-cognitive with no objective reality; like how music/art touches emotions that can't be reached in other ways (religion performs a valuable cultural function, but is a human endeavour)
• Tillich's 'Being-Itself' ('ground of being')


  -Tillich maintained that religious language is a symbolic way of pointing towards the ultimate reality (God), the vision of God which he called the ‘Being-Itself’ 

  -Being-Itself is that upon which everything else depends for its being. Tillich believed that we come to have knowledge of this through the symbols which direct us to it

  -Tillich uses the example of a painting. He says: 'It is possible to describe a painting but the description is useless without having the painting there'
• symbol functions

  -take us beyond the world available to senses

  -are understandable and accessible by all

  -point beyond themselves to the ultimate reality e.g. God

  -include visual images, rituals, saints, stories, ideas

  -'participate' in the object they represent e.g. a national flag is part of the national pride
• four elements to symbolic meaning

  -pointing to something beyond itself: the crucifix ‘points’ to Christianity and religious language ‘points’ to religion/God

  -participation: symbolic language participates in what it points to e.g. the crucifix is part of Christianity and religious language participates in the being of God/Being-Itself

  -reality: to be symbolic has to reveal a deeper meaning; symbolic language 'opens up levels of reality which were otherwise closed to us'

  -soul: symbols open up the levels of dimensions of the soul that correspond to those levels of reality
• Tillich's argument

  -symbolic language helps us understand the nature of God, and also unlock truths about ourselves e.g. think Union Flag and nationalism

  -symbols change meaning over time e.g. the Hindu symbol of divinity and spirituality and the Swastika

  -they grow out of the culture and collective unconscious minds of a religious tradition
• analogy of attribution

  -Aquinas argues there is some connection between creatures and the creator and so there is something that can be said about God

  -For example, using medieval medicine, if a bull's urine is healthy, then health is attributed to the bull too

  -B. Davies uses an analogy of bread and a baker. While the bread is not good in the same sense as the baker (the baker is not light, crusty and well-baked), the goodness of the bread is attributed to the skill of the baker. Similarly, we can attribute goodness to God because we see something like 'goodness' in His creations
• analogy of proportion

  -Aquinas says when we talk about God being good, it means more than human goodness (God's goodness is proportionally much greater than our goodness)

  -Like comparing violin playing of your sister, who is good for 7, with that of a professional who is proportionally much better

  -Theologian Baron von Hugel's example was that the faithfulness of a human would be proportionally more than that of a dog. Similarly, 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
• analogy summary

  -by using both analogy of attribution and analogy of proper proportion, Aquinas hopes to avoid the pitfalls of univocal and equivocal language to counter the apophatic way

  -he claims it is possible to say something positive about God while recognising that words are limited, because He is beyond human comprehension

  -he hopes to retain the mystery of God and avoid bringing God down to the level of humans
• Tillich

  -claimed religious statements were not literally true

  -all religious language attempts to describe God symbolically

  -e.g. 'God is good' isn't literal, instead describing God symbolically

  -God isn't part of the empirical world so can't be represented by literal language

  -'ground of being' is the only non-symbolic statement that can be made about God; He is the source of everything

  -like art, symbolic language enables us to gain a greater understanding of God

  -known for 'theory of correlation', which was correlation between faith and culture
• analogy of proportion

  -Aquinas says when we talk about God being good, it means more than human goodness

  -God's goodness is proportionally much greater than our goodness; the extent to which a being can be said to have certain properties is in proportion to the type of being we are describing
• analogy of attribution

  Aquinas argues there is some connection between creatures and the creator, and so there is something that can be said about God; the words we apply to human beings are related to the words we apply to God because there is a causal relationship between the two sets of qualities.
• similarities in talking about God-the mystery of God

  -via negativa: preserves the mystery of God because He is beyond our language

  -analogy: Aquinas' analogy of proportion recognises that God is so much more than our limited human words can describe

  -symbolic talk: preserves the mystery of God because the 'ultimate' cannot be talked about in literal ways
• similarities in talking about God-univocal and equivocal words

  -via negativa: rejects univocal and equivocal human terms to talk about God because He is beyond language

  -analogy: Aquinas rejects both univocal and equivocal language to talk about God; analogy is a middle way

  -symbolic talk: God-talk is neither univocal or equivocal , it is symbolic and opens up depths in the soul that can't be reached by ordinary language, in the way that art or music touches us at a deeper level
• similarities in talking about God-use of apophatic and cataphatic way

  -via negativa: Pseudo-Dionysius suggested that the cataphatic way (via positiva) could be used initially but then believers should move into the apophatic way

  -analogy: Aquinas' analogical approach is cataphatic as it allows something positive to be said about God

  -symbolic talk: Tillich's approach uses cataphatic language such as 'God is love', but also suggests symbolic language opens up the soul and language is negated
• differences in talking about God-what type of language can be used?

  -via negativa: apophatic approaches (e.g. Maimonides) prefer to negate language when talking about God, so say what God is not

  -analogy: Aquinas claims we can use analogy to attribute characteristics to God from His creation (e.g. God is good) but God is proportionally greater than His creation

  -symbolic talk: symbolic language does not simply point to what God is, it participates in the reality of God, e.g. 'God is love' participates in love and God
• differences in talking about God-what can be said about God?

  -via negativa: Gregory of Nyssa rejected talk about God because God is beyond language; we need to move into the 'outer darkness'

  -analogy: Aquinas recognises that words about God can be understood to an extent, through analogy of attribution and proportion

  -symbolic talk: the only non-symbolic phrase that can be said about God is 'ground of being'
• apophatic way example

  Hebrews 6:10 'for God is not unjust'.