Religious Language
Mind map including the Via Negativa, Analogy, Symbol and Myth
- Created by: JMitch
- Created on: 31-05-13 10:56
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- Understanding Religious Language
- Via Negativa
- Means you only talk of God negatively
- Started with neo-platonic Plontinous (3rd C) who linked form of the Good to God - argued that God is separate from this world therefore separate from Language
- Pseudo-Dionysus (5th C) argued God is 'beyond assertion' - Saying 'God is good' limits God to human goodness
- Moses Maimonides (12th C Jew) argued that the only positive statement you could make of God was that he Exists
- All others are negatives because otherwise they would be anthropocentric or disrespectful
- Speaking indirectly of God because he is greater and beyond Human understanding
- E.g. God is not Human - God is not mortal - God is not subject to life or death - They link on one to another
- Adequately describes the transcendence of God
- Supports mystical claims of ineffability
- BUT - doesn't tell us anything of what God is, only what he isn't
- Subject to Flew's 'Death by a thousand qualifications criticism
- Analogy
- Proposed by Aquinas who said: 'It seems that no word can be used literally of God'
- Speaking of God in human terms can have meaning as a comparison or an analogy
- Terms that we understand such as goodness, love, power and wisdom can analogously give an understanding of God
- Analolgy of Proportion
- Have different sorts of love - family, spouse, friends, school
- When applied to God, love is the greatest - Human qualities in relation to God are in greater proportions
- Analogy or Attribution
- Qualities ascribed to each other are reflections of the qualities of God
- E.g. If the Bread is good, we can say that the Baker has all the qualities to be a good baker
- This is the same with God - we ascribed goodness as a qualitiy to each other - therefore the creator must be good - have all the qualities of a good creator
- Scotus (13th C) argued that analogy is too vague - cannot depict God's actions by Analogy
- Hick supports the fact it keeps the mystery of God alive, but it does assume similarities between humans and God
- Swinburne argues 'God is good' is univocal - can be used literally but is to a greater degree
- Symbol
- 'Pattern or object which points to an invisible, metaphysical reality and participates in it' (Schubert)
- E.g. a cross would be a symbol pointing to Jesus death but by having a deeper meaning that it was sacrificial
- Paul Tillilch
- Our main concern is the 'ground of being' or the 'ultimate reality'
- Argued that all religious language is symbolic
- It points to a focus (of the ground of being) and participates in it - it gives us further understanding of the ultimate reality
- But how can something participate in something else?
- Symbols are like music capturing moods and communicating meaning
- Example of symbolic language could be 'God loves me' - points to focus of Ground of being and participates in it - giving you comfort etc.
- But - this is a vague concept - what is a symbolic 'good'?
- Myth
- Ideas are expressed through myth can give cognitive knowledge of God
- Story which is not just a True/False description but conveys truths or values of a society or a culture
- Conveys truths about God as creator and the human place in creation
- Rudolf Bultmann
- 'Use of images to express the other worldly in terms of this world'
- Tried to demythologise the Bible
- But - what are the meanings of Jesus' miracles if they are mythical?
- Via Negativa
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