4. Religious Language - Is meaningful talk about God possible?
“It is only possible to talk about Religion meaningfully through analogy and symbol?”
“How can we speak of God using terms derived from our ordinary language?”
“Are the terms used to describe God to be taken in the same sense as in their other uses?
For instance, what does ‘love’ mean in terms of God, if it differs from human love?
- 4 types of love: Eros (romantic), Philos (friendship), Storge (familial), Agape
(unconditional)
- Does God love us univocally (literally true)? Or equivocally (obscure meaning)? Or
is human language applied to God wholly useless?
- Univocal use of a term involves a convergence of the modus significandi (the mode
of signification) and res significata (the thing signified); e.g., the grass is green - the
house is green - "greenness" predicated in two different things in the same sense.
- Equivocal: divergence of the modus significandi and the res significata; e.g., John is
boiling - the water is boiling. Here what is signified by "boiling" in the two sentences
is different as is the mode in which it is true of each subject.
- Analogical use of a term involves a convergence of the modus significandi and a
convergence of the res significata; i.e., God is good - John is good. Here the same
thing - "goodness" - holds true of two subjects, though the manner in which it is true
of each is different. Equally, faithfulness. "The dog is faithful to his master" / "the
man is faithful to his wife". Faithfulness in each case is exemplified in different ways
- faithfulness will be exhibited in different ways depending on agent of faithfulness
If God is transcendent (ineffable), language must be equivocal and cannot be comprehended
through human language (however, if God is beyond description, meaning is again lost)
- Central contention of Aquinas’ doctrine of analogia is that the meanings of perfection
terms as applied to God and to creatures are neither purely “univocal” (i.e., identical
in meaning), nor purely “equivocal” (completely distinct in meaning), but
“analogical” (distinct, but related in meaning).
Equivocal view of religious language similar to “via negativa” (way of negation) - God can
only defined negatively i.e. by what God is not; consequence of the via negationis is that talk
about God is not univocal
The Way of Eminence (via eminentiae): there is a knowledge of God derived from
predicating the creature's perfections of God in the most perfection and supreme fashion.
, Aquinas and analogy
since God created the universe, there must be a link between human attributes or predicates
(loving, powerful, etc.) and God’s (all-loving, all-powerful): the attributes are being used as
analogies
- Analogy of Attribution (Predicative Analogy)
“The baker is good” ; “The baker’s bread is good” - same quality attributed to different
things: “good” in terms of bread suggests meaning for baker’s “good”
If we know what constitutes “good” in the case of human beings, we can understand
something of what “good” means in relation to the creator of human beings, God.
(however the latter have no title to the common analogous name save through attribution to
the prime analogate.)
- Analogy of Proportion
“I know that a dog can love, though the love is inferior to supreme human love”
Allows for “downwards” analogy despite incomplete knowledge of canine love - equally,
logically allows for “upwards analogy”
- Analogates receive the common name only by extrinsic reference or denomination
This kind of analogical predication, is in effect when the selfsame word is said of different
things according to a notion that is univocally the same as regards the primary analogate but
proportionally varied in respect to the relations wherein the other analogates stand to it.
Is analogy valuable for describing God?
- Allows for respectful acknowledgment of God's - Analogy of attribution can equally be used to
transcendence while attempting to prove God is bad
understand/express aspects of the divine nature. - Counters with Augustine’s view of evil
- Preserves difference between God & Creations
- Language used to describe God must be part
- Provides bridge between human experience and
something beyond our direct comprehension. univocal part cognitive: must be univocal
- Acknowledges no single analogy can capture the commonality between human & divine goodness,
entirety of God's nature - multiple analogies can as equivocity in both scenarios, may render the
be used to approach aspects of the divine, possession of shared traits meaningless
fostering diverse theological discourse. - Relies on acceptance of God as creator (made “in
- Sheer conceptual equivocity is avoided by the the image and likeness of God”)
fact that various meanings all have some mutual - Predication of certain attributes to God
connotation through being referred to through presupposes foundation of knowledge in God’s
the single entity of the commonly-named nature (Aquinas argues Creator is source of
predicate. perfections of creatures; which can be known
through reason.)
- Analogies bear no resemblance to original
common analogous names save through their
attribution to the prime analogate.
- Condemned by Barth as ‘the invention of
Antichrist’ in assuming a ‘bond of being’
