Language

• Apophatic way


  The via negativa - the argument that theological language is best approached by negation
• Cataphatic way


  The via positiva - the understanding of religious language in terms of analogy, with reference to Aquinas's analogy of attribution and analogy of proper proportion
• Symbol


  The understanding of the language of religious expression in terms of symbol, with reference to Tillich's view of theological language as almost entirely symbolic
• Language is about communication and is not unique to humans
• Without language, we would not be able to interact with others
• Sometimes language can be very straightforward, other times it can be 'private' where words have meaning only to the user
• When it comes to religious language, there are major problems concerning meaning
• David Hume: 'When we run over libraries ... What havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.'
• Hume's point is that when we encounter a form of communication that appears to make statements about the way things are but has no grounding in experience, and it cannot be checked by our experience, then it is meaningless
• For Hume, the language of religion is meaningless
• The main problem for religious language is that there is little language that is reserved exclusively for God, so religious believers use ordinary language to try to explain divine concepts
• Another problem is that some religious terms used to describe God and his character and actions are very obscure
• Via Negativa (The Apophatic Way)


  Denying that we can say anything about God at all, only what God is not
• Negative theology has its roots in the philosophy of Plato, and was developed by Middle Platonist and neo-Platonist philosophers
• Apophatic theology is found especially in Eastern Christian thought, with elements appearing in the work of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Proclus, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyassa, and Evagrius Ponticus
• The beginnings of Apophatic theology in Christianity can be traced back to the Bible, with examples in the Old and New Testaments of significant figures experiencing God directly rather than through rational arguments
• These biblical examples emphasise God's ineffability, showing that God is unknowable by humans except by spiritual readiness to listen for God's voice
• The difficulty with attempting to describe God's transcendence is that, by definition, anything that is transcendent cannot be described adequately in human language without diminution of its meaning
• Pseudo-Dionysius (Dionysius the Areopagite)


  Made a distinction between 'cataphatic' (via positiva) and 'apophatic' theology (via negativa)
• Pseudo-Dionysius suggested that if we talk about God being Good, we then have to say God is not Good, because we do not really know what it means to say that God is Good
• Pseudo-Dionysius stated that God is 'beyond assertion' and 'beyond denial' - meaning that whatever you say about God ultimately does not tell us about God, and you cannot say absolutely what God is not
• Pseudo-Dionysius believed that humans could only speak meaningfully about God apophatically because to attempt to speak of God in any other way would lead to misconceptions and inadequate understanding of God's nature
• Pseudo-Dionysius demonstrates his neo-Platonic background, as Plato and his neo-Platonic interpreters believed in dualism, in which there was a division between the physical realm of the body and the spiritual realm
• Pseudo-Dionysius: 'Humans could only speak meaningfully about God apophatically because to attempt to speak of God in any other way would lead to misconceptions and inadequate understanding of God's nature'
• Anthropocentric ideas


  Ideas of what God is like that are centered on human beings
• Darkness of Unknowing


  When the human mind 'renounces all the apprehension of the understand and is wrapped in that which is wholly intangible and invisible ... united ... to Him that is wholly unknowable'
• Pseudo-Dionysius demonstrates his neo-Platonic background
• Plato and his neo-Platonic interpreters

  • Believed in dualism, in which there was a division between the physical realm of the body and the spiritual realm of the soul
  • Believed the physical body was an obstruction to the soul's wish for real understanding of God, who was beyond 'mere' human knowledge and rational thought
  • Believed only the soul could have any real understanding of God
• Apophatic theology


  Seeking for God through achieving the mystical union of the human soul with God
• The via negativa was strongest in the Eastern Church, but it was found also in Western Christianity, notably in the work of John Scotus Eriugena
• John Scotus Eriugena: ''We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything [i.e. 'not any created thing']. Literally God is not, because He transcends being.''
• Maimonides


  Considered one of the major thinkers in Jewish thought, particularly remembered for his work 'Guide for the Perplexed'
• Maimonides warns continually of the dangers of anthropomorphising God
• Maimonides observes that, because of who we are, we make comparisons with God
• Maimonides: ''Because man's distinction lies in having something which no other earthly creature possesses, intellectual perception ... This perception has been compares – though only apparently, not as a matter of truth – to the Divine perception, which requires no bodily organ. For this reason – because of the Divine Intellect which man has been given – he is said to be in the image and likeness of the Almighty. But we should not have the idea that the Supreme Being is corporeal, having a material body.''
• St Thomas Aquinas had a profound knowledge of Maimonides work, but saw via negativa as a prelude to understanding God being much better known for his use of analogy as a means of talking about God
• St Thomas Aquinas: ''The most we can know of God during our present life is that He transcends everything that we can conceive of Him.''
• St Thomas Aquinas: ''We cannot grasp what God is, but only what He is not and how other things are related to Him.''
• St Thomas Aquinas: ''This is the ultimate in human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know Him.''
• Ipsum Esse Subsistens


  Being In and of Itself