Religious language (via negativa & via positiva)

RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE (via positiva & negativa)

A01

Rel lang issues are issues of whether the ordinary lang of the everyday physical world can be used to convey ideas or make truth claims about God, the after life or other spiritual issues. 

Can be used to: make truth claims, evoke feelings of worship, express emotion, solemnise occasions, pray. -so important. 

The via negativa (apophatic way):

Assumes that our human langauge and understanding are incapable of describing the qualities of God. 

In order to say things that are literally true of God, it is important to use only negative terms. 

Might include things like ‘invisible’, ’corporeal’ and ‘timeless’

Bc using positive terms of God makes God seem too small, as if God is like a human father or judge and as if God has only human wisdom or strength. 

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite lives in the 6^th century and was influential in developing the via negativa, arguing that people need to go beyond the need for understanding and enter a ‘cloud of unknowing’

Moses Maimonides lived in the 12^th century and gave the example of describing a ship by explaining what it is not, to illustrate how knowledge of God could be communicated. 

The via negativa can prosecute statements that are literally true rather than requiring interpretation 

Statements made using the via negative can be meaningful across different times and cultures. 

Speaking in paradox to convey that God is beyond us 7 our understanding. (Transcendent)

Even though it is harder and will be more vague, your knowledge you gain cannot be wrong. Wheras if we say god is/try to claim things, we can be wrong. 

Before you try to know what God is, you have to understand what God is not, relearn expectations. He is not understandable, for example. 

Gets you closer to knowing what God is through knowing what he is not, than the person who speaks in what is, and knows nothing really because their knowledge could be wrong. Must be bc God is beyond us and our understanding. 

Exodus: ‘I am what I am’ -God is indescribable and unknowable. 

The via positiva (cataohatic way):

Two ways in which religious believers might use positive terms to communicate about God. 

Assumes we can know and understand God by eg studying creation and revelation through religious experience. 

Analogy:

A comparison made between one thing and another in an effort to aid understanding. 

Analogical langauge contrasts with univocal langauge (where words are used in exactly the same way) and equivocal langauge (where words have completely different meanings)

Aquinas:

Aquinas argues that whenever we speak of God we use analogy, whether we mean to or not. Aquinas thought that recognising we are using analogy helps to avoid the problem of making God too small. 

divides analogy into two kinds: analogy of attribution and analogy of proportionality:

Analogy of attribution: there is a casual relationship between the two things described. When we speak of God as loving we need to remember that God is…