Symbol and Analogy 2
- Created by: Awesomelyevil
- Created on: 12-12-16 19:23
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- Symbol and Analogy
- Symbols in Christianity
- 1. The Cross – the means of execution developed by the Romans from an idea by the Persians. A simple two-piece device, usually in wood.
- For Christians it communicates the power of the act of atonement undertaken by God in Jesus Christ. Through the Cross, Humanity is redeemed.
- 2. The Bread and Wine – the basic foodstuffs of the ancient world. Bread and Wine are taken and given significance by the Priest and Congregation.
- Bread and Wine represents the Body and Blood of Christ, Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross, and the feeding of God’s people.
- Religious Writers have employed symbolism to point beyond human experience towards the unknowability of God.
- There is a clear distinction between a religious “sign” – for example the wearing of a cross as a badge of Christianity – and a religious “symbol” – the significance of the cross itself.
- 1. The Cross – the means of execution developed by the Romans from an idea by the Persians. A simple two-piece device, usually in wood.
- Paul Tillich
- Argues that God is what concerns us “ultimately”. His idea of God was not as a physical reality, bound up in the physical world.
- “God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him.”
- Tillich believed that God is “Being Itself”, our Ultimate Concern. Religious belief is the state of being ultimately concerned.
- Therefore any language beyond the statement that “God is Being-Itself” is symbolic. Tillich explains this most clearly in Systematic Theology:
- when you say something about God in concrete terms, you are using physical, contingent language. Yet what you are saying about God is likely to be non-physical and non-contingent. The language you use, and the concrete terms that you employ, points beyond the concrete concepts to a transcendent reality.
- Therefore any language beyond the statement that “God is Being-Itself” is symbolic. Tillich explains this most clearly in Systematic Theology:
- Definition of a symbol relies on the concept of participation. He argues that symbolic language participates somehow in the object that it refers to.
- The symbol opens up layers of meaning that would otherwise remain obscure. Music and art work best at this level. Not only does a powerful piece of music represent the events or ideas that the composer tries to portray, it can invoke deeper feelings
- However, John Hick argues that Tillich never properly explains how this idea of “Participation” works.
- Takes two examples from Tillich’s work to illustrate his objections.
- Consider the statement “God is good” – Tillich would argue that this is “Symbolic”.
- How does the symbol of God being Good participate in “Being itself”? Does it participate in the same way as the concept of a flag participating in the “power and dignity” of a nation?
- Consider the statement “God is good” – Tillich would argue that this is “Symbolic”.
- Takes two examples from Tillich’s work to illustrate his objections.
- However, John Hick argues that Tillich never properly explains how this idea of “Participation” works.
- The symbol opens up layers of meaning that would otherwise remain obscure. Music and art work best at this level. Not only does a powerful piece of music represent the events or ideas that the composer tries to portray, it can invoke deeper feelings
- Post modernism
- Mel Thompson also suggests a possible argument against the use of symbolic language. The Postmodern movement has been a reaction against the “Modern View”.
- Modernism was influenced by the Existential movement. The imagery of literature and art was the product of an attempt to express the self and its interaction with the world.
- Where an image (whether a picture or a piece of symbolic language) is used, it reflects something in the “real” world.
- Modernism was influenced by the Existential movement. The imagery of literature and art was the product of an attempt to express the self and its interaction with the world.
- The Postmodernists (such as Lyotard or Baudrillard) argued that the modes of human expression are merely reflections of other images.
- There in no fixed reference or authenticity of human expression. An individual piece of Human expression (such as a novel or a picture) is merely a reshuffling of previous expressions.
- As such, this represents a denial of the possibility of any meaning at all behind “so called” symbolic language. The words and concepts themselves are the reality, not the concepts and ideas that lie behind them.
- Mel Thompson also suggests a possible argument against the use of symbolic language. The Postmodern movement has been a reaction against the “Modern View”.
- Symbols in Christianity
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