Religious language 1

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  • Created by: 11rsims
  • Created on: 28-05-18 17:25
Can human language be attributed to God?
•Some argue human language can only be attributed to the world and the things within it so cannot describe things outside the world such as God , God is transcendent and ineffable so it makes sense to think human language can not describe God
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what is the Agnostic view?
od is unknowable so cannot be spoken about God, God is not available to testing, none of your language can communicate God, so there is no point discussing God
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what is the modern theists view?
•Muslims have 99 names for Allah such as “merciful”, Hindu God Krishna is known as “all-mighty” and Jewish people refer to God as “Father” they also try to communicate supernatural beliefs such as afterlife and the soul
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what is the use of religious language?
Truth claims which asserts what and what is not the case, Expression is the use of language which expresses feelings, Performative which is the language we use to perform something, Prescriptive encourages people to act in a certain way
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does the statement "god exists have any meaning?
•The statement “God exists” and “God loves humans” lack any clear sense as they are cognitively meaningless as they are not based directly on facts
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what did CS Evans believe?
•”It’s not that we lack evidence that God exists, but that we do not even know what it means to say that God exists”
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what does Peter Donovon believe?
•religion has a positive effect on people allowing them to have humanitarian feelings and to control them
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why is it bad to talk of God in positive words?
To speak of God in positive ways causes problems as he is ineffable so talking about him in positive terms leads to inadequacy, If we say God is very different from anything else can we talk about him meaningfully?
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why is Negtion good?
•We can find out more by saying what God is not (God is not human) this avoids us anthropomorphising him
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what is negation?
best thought of as an attempt to stop people from misinterpreting God it emphasises the unknowability of God by saying we can only talk significantly of him by saying what he is not (God is neither human nor divine)
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what does Moses Maimondies believe?
”There is no necessity for you to use positive attributes of God with the view of magnifying him in your thoughts”, he uses an example of describing a ship “It is not a body whose parts are joint together by nature...it is not mineral"
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what does Moses Maimondes example of the ship show?
•tries to show that any attempts to describe God by likening him to anything is misguided as he is unlike anything we know. By ruling out what God is not we can discover who he is.
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what does Peter cole believe?
”by denying all descriptions of God, you get insight and experience of God rather than belief and scepticism”
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what does Gregory of Nyssa believe?
“mysticism of darkness” which is ascent from darkness to light then back to darkness. We begin in the dark then become enlightened through the bible, but then we enter outer darkness where we enter the apophatic way of God's ineffable reality.
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what does Meister Eckhart believe?
true enlightenment about God happens when we have left all huan language behind, this happens deep within the soul through an ineffable RE, language about God hinders true knowledge of God as it blocks him out of our lives
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what is the cloud of unknowing?
true knowledge requires a person to forget everything they think they know about God from the cataphatic way. We have to enter a cloud of forgetting where all images of God no longer mislead us
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what is via positiva?
•Uses positive language to describe qualities and nature of God (God is the father, the son and the holy spirit & God is loving, wise, powerful and just)
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how can God be known?
•God can be understood by the human mind and words are useful tools of communicating an understanding about God, God revealed himself to humans through the language of scripture, God can also be understood by looking at creation
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what did Ignatius of Loyola believe?
encouraged Christians to develop imaginative contemplation in prayer where they would visualise themselves in moments in the bible to try and get a closeness with Jesus and God to realise that “God is in all things”
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what did St Francis believe?
God can be known through creation, and he spent most of his time contemplating the beauty of the natural world and thought ll created things pointed towards the wonder of God
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what did Aquinas reject?
Rejected univocal language as it suggests humans goodness is same as Gods and rejected equivocal language as this meant that humans and gods goodness are two different things
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what did Aquinas believe was the middle way?
There is a middle way in language allowing people to speak meaningfully about God and this is through analogy-we use analogy when talking about God as he is perfect so words have different meanings
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what is Analogy of proportion?
when we say a dog is loyal we mean something different to when we say a human is loyal as a dog is loyal in dog terms but a human is loyal in human terms, we can make links between these meanings through analogy. same with God's power
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what is analogy of attributuion?
This applies when a term originally used for one thing is applied to a second because it is caused by the first (a sickly look comes from the product of someone who is sick), He uses an analogy of a bull to explain this
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what is the problems of analogy?
it is based on the theory that there is a God which could be rejected, it picks and chooses the qualities,the link between the known and unknown is built through imaginary blocks, it is subjective
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what are the pros of analogy?
analogy is important to those in a language game s it would help them reach a higher level of understanding, it allows for a more personal relationship with God, in making universal claims about God this theory is not incoherent
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what is Ramseys models and qualifiers?
If we say God is good the word good is the model, When we apply this word to God it is the model for understanding God's goodness. If we want to understand God's goodness we have to adapt the model to qualify it so we know it is not legit God
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what did Tillich believe about Religious language?
Religious language is symbolic and religious symbols communicate the most significant beliefs of humans
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what is a sign and a symbol?
Signs-point to statement and have no additional affect (a sign may point people to a town centre)it doesn't fill you with emotions, Symbols-they take part in the power and meaning of what they symbolise, they have more of an effect on people (cross)
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what does RL act as?
A symbol
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what is the four main functions of analogy?
1.point to something beyond themselves, 2.they participate in that which they point to, 3.open up levels of reality otherwise closed off to us, 4.opens up your soul to the real world
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what are symbols independent of?
Symbols are independent of empirical criticism “You cannot kill a symbol by criticism in terms of scientific and historical research” so God can only be expressed in symbols
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what is RL according to Tillich?
RL is a symbolic way of pointing towards an ultimate reality as language used in a literal way conveys a false impression of God
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Card 2

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what is the Agnostic view?

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od is unknowable so cannot be spoken about God, God is not available to testing, none of your language can communicate God, so there is no point discussing God

Card 3

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what is the modern theists view?

Back

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Card 4

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what is the use of religious language?

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Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

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does the statement "god exists have any meaning?

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