Religious Language: Detailed Notes

• Via Negativa (apophatic way) argues that since we can’t understand God, the only meaningful way to talk about God is to say what God is not.
• Aquinas’ theory of analogy (via positive / cataphatic way) argues that although we can’t know or say what God is, we can know and thus say what God is like.
• Tillich’s symbolic approach to religious language claims that religious language doesn’t try to refer to God but instead connects our minds to God.
• Pseudo-Dionyisus argued that since God is completely beyond our understanding, we cannot possibly talk about what God is. God is ‘beyond every assertion’, beyond language. He cannot be described is positive terms i.e by saying what God ‘is’. God can only be described negatively or ‘via negativa’ – by saying what God is ‘not’. This approach is also called the apophatic way.
• If God is beyond all language, then God is beyond all distinctions we can make. It’s like saying God does not exist on any spectrum of meaning that we can possibly imagine.
• “there is no speaking of it, nor name nor knowledge of it. Darkness and light, error and truth – it is none of these. It is beyond assertion and denial.” – Pseudo-Dionysius.
• Knowing God by knowing nothing. Trying to understand God is not just pointless but actually counterproductive because it separates us from God. Pseudo-Dionysius illustrates with Moses’ ascending of Mount Sinai to receive the ten commandments from God. He describes Moses as plunging into the ‘darkness of unknowing’, ‘renouncing all that the mind may conceive’.
• Accepting the Via Negativa view helps us to break free from our grasping for knowledge of God. This causes an “inactivity of all knowledge” which leads one to be “supremely united to the completely unknown”. By this, one “knows beyond the mind by knowing nothing”. This is not knowledge in the sense of the mind understanding God; that is impossible. It is knowledge gained through “unity” with God.
• • Exactly what Pseudo-Dionysius means by ‘unity’ is a matter of debate. He clearly at least thinks that following the Via Negativa method and giving up on trying to understand what God is actually helps you become closer to God in some way.
  • The idea that it is our desire to know God which stands in the way of our unity with God sounds very similar to the theme of the fall. Adam and Eve’s disobedience and subsequent separation from God was caused by their egocentric desire for knowledge. Saving humanity from the pride that leads to sin is the goal of Christianity. So Pseudo-Dionysius’ notion of ‘unity’ may be vague, but it deeply resonates with the central theme of Christianity.
• A further strength of this approach is that ‘unity’ with the divine being the centre of religious experience is universally attested to by mystics like St Theresa of Avila and those who have studied mysticism like William James.
• The main strength of the Via Negativa approach is that it is true to God’s transcendence and otherness. Almost all theologians agree on God’s transcendence. Otto called God “wholly other”, meaning radically different to anything else we experience or understand. Augustine comments that whatever we can comprehend is not God.
• This leads to a further strength in helping us to understand the Bible and its descriptions of God’s immanence. Maimodenies argued that seemingly positive descriptions of God in the Bible should be interpreted as referring to God’s immanence, such as God’s actions in the world.
• Via Negativa is thus often defended by distinguishing between:

  • God’s transcendence: God’s actual but unknowable being which can only be described negatively.
  • God’s immanence: God’s actions in the physical world which can be described positively, since God’s unknowable being/nature is not being described. This is what all biblical language about God is argued to refer to.
• Weakness: The Bible describes God in positive terms.

  There are other descriptions of God as having a ‘face’ or ‘walking’ in the garden of Eden. These can be dismissed as metaphorical language, or perhaps just referring to God’s immanent actions.

  However, there are Bible passages which seem to describe God’s nature itself that seem difficult for Maimodenies’ argument to explain.

  In the Gospel of John God is described positively: “God is love” and “God is spirit”. God even himself describes himself in positive terms: ”I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” (Exodus 20:5).

  So, the Bible seems to suggest that via posititiva language about God is valid. The Via Negativa approach appears to conflict with the religious language of the Bible.
• • Maimodenies responds that the Bible was written in limited human language and thus requires careful interpretation.
  • Describing God as love could simply refer to God’s loving actions in the world.
• • So, the Bible doesn’t simply describe God’s actions. It also describes God’s nature (spirit) and personality (loving) in positive language.
  • Describing God as ‘spirit’ especially destroys Maimodenes’ argument, because it’s hard to interpret it as referring to God’s actions. It is a description of God’s nature, specifically what type of being God is.
• Maimonides argued for the via negative view. He used the illustration of a ship. Imagine someone who knows that something called a ‘ship’ exists, but doesn’t know exactly what the name applies to. Maimonides then runs through ten persons using examples of negative language, that a ship is not e.g., a sphere, flat object, property, plant, mineral etc.
• • Brian Davies criticises Maimodenies. 

  He points out that negative language only allows us to actually gain knowledge in “special cases”, such as when we know exactly what possibilities there are for a thing. E.g., if we know a person is not left-handed and not ambidextrous, then we can know they are right-handed.

  However, most cases (including God) are not like that.
• “Suppose I say that there is something in my room, and suppose I reject every suggestion you make as to what is actually there. In that case, you will get no idea at all about what is in my room. And, going back to the above quotation from Maimonides, it is simply wrong to say that someone who has all the negations mentioned in it ‘has almost arrived at the correct notion of a “ship” ‘. Such a person could equally well be thinking of a wardrobe or a coffin.” – Davies
• • Maimodenies may have gone too far with his approach. We cannot get ‘nearer’ to knowledge of God through process of elimination negation in the way we can with a ship.
  • However Pseudo-Dionysius’ approach is more successful. Via Negativa functions through shutting down our attempt to intellectually grasp God, which is what gets in the way of our knowing God through ‘unity’ with God.
  • This is a much more defensible sense in which we can get ‘nearer’ to knowledge of God through negation.
• In popular imagination God is often imagined in human terms, sometimes due to religious art. A strength of the Via Negativa approach is in helping Christians not have this mistaken view of God.
• • Aquinas claims of negative language that it is “not what people want to say when they talk about God.”
  • Talking about God Via Negativa is not really how most religious believers want or intend to talk about God. We could add to Aquinas’ point that the religious language you hear during worship and even in the Bible is not consistent with Via Negativa.
  • E.g., the Bible says “God is love” and “God is spirit”. In Exodus God even himself describes himself in positive terms, saying “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”
• • Aquinas thinks his theory better captures religious language. The analogy of attribution and especially proportion arguably actually are ideas that the average Christian accepts.
  • When speaking about God, they probably do accept that their description depends on their human experience/understanding which they are attributing to God by analogy, yet accepting that God is nonetheless infinitely greater.
  • When Christians (or the Bible) says ‘God is love’, Christians know that God’s love is beyond anything we can understand, but it is still analogous to human love, though proportionally greater.
• However, this weakness is unsuccessful because Pseudo-Dionysius explains that ‘unity’ with God can be gained once we give up on attempting to understand God through reason. The spirituality involved in a relationship with God is not only captured but strengthened once we give up on our false and spiritually distracting rational conception of God.
• Furthermore: The average Christian is unlikely to think of or intend their religious language to be analogical. Aquinas may have successfully figured out a philosophically defensible way for religious language to be meaningful, but he has not captured the role it actually has in people’s spiritual lives.
• Aquinas thought we could go a bit further than only talking about God negatively. We can talk about God meaningfully in positive terms (cataphatic way) if we speak analogically. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand by using a comparison with something familiar and easier to understand.
• • univocal language: when words have one meaning. E.g. when I say God is loving, the word ‘loving’ means the same as when I say humans are loving. This fails because God is beyond our understanding. We can’t apply the same word to God as we do for humans because God is a transcendent being. We can understand the word when applied to humans, but we can’t understand God, so can’t use the same word for God.
  • The opposite cataphatic approach is called Equivocal language. E.g. when I say God is loving, the word ‘loving’ has a different meaning to when I say humans are loving. This also fails. Since we don’t know what God is, we simply wouldn’t know what the word loving means when applied to God, so it would be meaningless.
  • Aquinas thinks he can find a successful middle ground between these approaches to show how we can meaningfully talk about God.
• • We are not the same as God – that’s why univocal language fails. However, nor are we totally different to God. As Genesis says, we are created in God’s image and likeness. We are not the same as God, nor are we totally different to God. The middle ground is that we are like God. We are analogous to God.
  • So, religious language such as “God is love” can be understood analogically, as claiming that God has a quality of love that is like/analogous to the human quality of love.
• Analogy of Attribution. Aquinas thinks we can tell something about the creator of a thing by looking at what it causes. Certain effects flow from certain causes and are stamped with something of the character of their creator. This means we can attribute qualities to the creator of a thing that are analogous to those of its creation. Aquinas used the illustration of seeing that the urine of a Bull is healthy, from which we can conclude (and therefore meaningfully say) that the Bull is has an analogous quality of health, even if we can’t see the Bull. Similarly, we humans have qualities like power, love and knowledge, so we can conclude (and therefore meaningfully say) that our creator also has qualities of power, love and knowledge that are analogous to our own.
• Analogy of Proportion. A being has a quality in a degree relative to its being. Consider this example: A virus has life, plants have life, humans have life, God has life. This illustrates that different being have a quality like life to different degrees of proportion depending on their being. God is the greatest being and thus has qualities to a greater degree of proportion than humans. Thus we can now add to our statement that God has qualities analogous to ours that he has them in greater proportion. So God’s love/knowledge/power is like ours but proportionally greater.
• • A strength of Aquinas’ theory of analogy is its basis in his natural theology. Aquinas accepted that human reason could never know or understand God’s infinite divine nature. However, he argued that human reason can gain lesser knowledge of God, including God’s nature by analogy, through the analogies of attribution and proportion. This makes Aquinas a proponent of natural theology through reason, which he claimed could support faith in God. Natural theology is the view that human reason is capable of knowing something of God, in this case what his qualities are analogous to.
  • Reason is involved in Aquinas’ theory of analogy, in figuring out and understanding the analogies of attribution and proportion. On the basis of that reasoning Aquinas concludes that we can meaningfully talk about God’s qualities by analogy.
• • Weakness: Natural theology places a dangerous overreliance on human reason. Karl Barth was influenced by Augustine, who claimed that after the Fall our ability to reason become corrupted by original sin.
  • Barth’s argument is that is therefore dangerous to rely on human reason to know anything of God, including God’s morality.
  • “the finite has no capacity for the infinite” – Karl Barth.
  • Our finite minds cannot grasp God’s infinite being. Whatever humans discover through reason is not divine, so to think it is divine is idolatry – believing earthly things are God. Idolatry can lead to worship of nations and even to movements like the Nazis. After the corruption of the fall, human reason cannot reach God or God’s morality. That is not our telos. Only faith in God’s revelation in the bible is valid.
• Barth’s argument fails because it does not address Aquinas’ point that our reason is not always corrupted and original sin has not destroyed our natural orientation towards the good. Original sin can at most diminish our inclination towards goodness by creating a habit of acting against it. Sometimes, with God’s grace, our reason can discover knowledge of God. The analogy of attribution and proportion are examples of the valid use of human reasoning to figure out what we can and can not meaningfully say about God.
• • Barth still seems correct that being corrupted by original sin makes our reasoning about God’s existence and morality also corrupted. The bad in our nature unfortunately means we cannot rely on the good.
  • Humanity’s belief that it has the ability to know anything of God is the same arrogance that led Adam and Eve to disobey God. Humanity believing that it has the power to figure out right and wrong is what led to the arrogant certainty of the Nazis in their own superiority. This arrogance of natural theology is evidence of a human inability to be humble enough to solely rely on faith.
• • Strength: Aquinas’ theory of analogy cleverly manages to avoid the problems of standard cataphatic language by finding a middle ground between them.
  • Univocal language fails because we are not the same as God and equivocal language fails because we are not completely different. The truth does seem to be in the middle – that we are like God, that God has qualities analogous to ours but proportionally greater.
  • This is also biblically supported. Genesis says we are made in God’s ‘image and likeness’, suggesting a likeness between us and God.
• Weakness: The accuracy problem.

  Brummer objects that the analogy of proportion fails. It claims that a being has a quality to a certain degree relative to its nature. Human love is to human nature like divine love is to divine nature.

  However, Brummer points out that we do not know God’s nature, so we cannot know the way in which God is loving. We are merely saying that God is not loving in the way humans are loving, but we cannot say in what way God is loving.

  “The analogy of proportionality thus takes us no further than a negative theology” – Brummer
• The analogy of attribution is meant to deal with this issue. If we can say that God’s love, whatever it is, is analogous to human love. We can then further add that God has love proportional to his nature.

  However, Brummer also criticises the analogy of attribution. God is the source of everything. Attribution can tell us that God is the source of human qualities, but it cannot tell us in what way God has those qualities. Since humans are loving, we can attribute to God love to God. However, we are merely saying that God is the source of love. Analogy does not enable us to say in what way God is loving.
• Brummer’s objection is unsuccessful because it misunderstands Aquinas’ approach.

  Aquinas would accept Brummer’s point, that analogy does not enable us to know or say what God’s qualities actually are.

  Aquinas’ goal is to say what God’s qualities are like. To assert that there is a likeness between God’s qualities and ours.

  We may not be able to know in what way God’s qualities are like ours, but Aquinas is only arguing that we can know that they are alike.

  We cannot know what God’s qualities are like, but we can know that they are like ours. We can therefore meaningfully say this minimal statement; that, whatever they are, they are ‘like’ – analogous to – our own.

  Whatever God’s qualities are like, they are like ours. So, God has qualities that are like human knowledge, love, wisdom and power, though in a way proportional to God’s nature.
• Brummer’s objection is successful because analogies are only meaningful if we know both things being analogised. For example, the analogy that ‘electricity behaves like water’ is meaningful because we know what both electricity and water are and the qualities they share (flow, current and power), and do not share (danger, state of matter). The problem is, in the case of God, we clearly do not have the required knowledge for any analogy with God to be meaningful nor for us to know their accuracy.
• Paul Tillich thought that most religious language had symbolic meaning rather than literal.

  Literal meaning is when words refer to objects or things. Such words are like signs. They are arbitrary symbols that we have created to refer to things. Religious language cannot have literal meaning as it cannot refer to God, since God is beyond our understanding.