aquinas' approach

• Aquinas starts from the view that God is spaceless + timeless + so completely different from the world of human experience
• Aquinas argues that religious language is neither univocal nor equivocal

  • it is analogical
• analogy of attribution:

  • God is completely different from the universe, but there is a causal relationship between him and the universe (since God is its creator)
  • e.g. the bull is healthy; the bull's urine is healthy
  • God is good, wise + loving; Vanessa (God's creation) is good, wise + loving
  • although we have no idea what it means for God to be good, the assertion that God is good is meaningful
• the analogy of proportionality

  • the meaning of the word is proportional to their respective nature
  • both humans + God can be described as powerful, but there is proportion within the statement
• evaluation of Aquinas' doctrine of analogy:

  • it avoids the issues caused by the use of univocal and equivocal language - BUT what can be said about God is then very limited, since God is essentially unknowable
  • its use of observable experience makes the language cognitive
  • it encourages the believer to push beyond the limited meaning of goodness etc. that relates to everyday experience - BUT the same approach could be used to argue negative language about God e.g. that he is evil