Religious language

Question 1

What is the apophatic way?

Answer 1

(via negativa) - the only way to talk about God is to say what he is not

Question 2

What is the cataphatic way?

Answer 2

(via positiva) - uses positive language to describe the qualities and nature of God

Question 3

Which scholar is associated with via negativa/apophatic way?

What do they argue?

Answer 3

• Pseudo-Dionyisus argued that since God is completely beyond our understanding, we cannot possibly talk about what God is. God is ‘beyond every assertion’, beyond language. He cannot be described is positive terms i.e by saying what God ‘is’. God can only be described negatively or ‘via negativa’ – by saying what God is ‘not’. This approach is also called the apophatic way.
• He believed that this perserved the mystery of God

Question 4

What caused believers to adopt the apophatic way?

Answer 4

• The via negativa had its roots in neo-platonism of the second century. Movements using neo-platonism included Gnosticism, which claimed that all physical material was evil and only the spiritual was good and accessible only to a few who had secret knowledge.
• religious thinkers adopted these ideas emphasising that God was beyond finite human capability to understand. Talking about God in human terms was disrespectful because it brought God down to a human level (anthropomorphism) and so the apophatic way was used to describe god in terms of what he was not.

Question 5

Moses maimonides

Answer 5

• advised following the apophatic way, but he wanted to be able to say something about God.
• He claimed that God and humans were so different that words used about God would be equivocal.
• However, we cannot know exactly what words mean when talking about God because God is transcendent and beyond human comprehension.
• So, he advocated talking about God by negation, saying what God is not.

Question 6

What does equivocal mean?

Answer 6

A word has different meanings in different contexts. For example, a cricketer hit the ball with a ‘bat’ and a ‘bat’ is a nocturnal mammal - ‘bat’ has a different meaning in each sentence

Question 7

What does univocal mean?

Answer 7

A word is used in the same way in different contexts. For example, ‘black’ car and ‘black’ hair - ‘black’ is used in the same way

Question 8

Gregory of Nyssa

Answer 8

A fourth century mystic, described the spiritual life as a ‘mysticism of darkness’. there comes a point at which a believer enters an outer darkness an into the apophatic way of God’s ineffable, transcendent reality. At this point, there are no words to describe the understanding of God; it is completely beyond words and images.

Question 9

Moses Maimonides

Claimed that if you were to describe a ship only by saying what it is not, within ten steps you would arrive at what a ship is. In the same way, talking about God using the negative, gets you closer to understanding God
- Who criticises this view and how?
- How can you counter this ?

Answer 9

• B. Davies criticises Maimonides, arguing that you could just as easily end up with a wardrobe instead of a ship. The example shows how ineffective the via negativa is. We are no nearer an understanding of God if we say ony what God is not.
• B. Davies’ wardrobe-vs-ship analogy treats the via negativa as if it were a tool for identifying a physical object — like playing a guessing game by process of elimination. This seriously misrepresents the theological context. The via negativa is not attempting to describe an object among other objects, but rather to speak about a reality that is categorically beyond the physical and conceptual limits of human experience.

Question 10

second counter of B. Davies

Answer 10

To compare God to a ship or wardrobe is to reduce the divine to the level of finite beings, which is precisely what the via negativa seeks to avoid. God, in classical theism, is not a thing — God is Being itself (ipsum esse subsistens, in Aquinas’ terms), the necessary foundation of all that exists. Therefore, God cannot be described in the same way we describe contingent, physical objects.

Question 11

Third counter of B. Davies

Answer 11

Davies’ analogy fails because it assumes that clarity about God requires the same kind of description that works for created things. But trying to describe God in the same terms we use for wardrobes or ships inevitably leads to distortion. The via negativa respects the infinite qualitative difference between God and creation, and so its refusal to affirm attributes directly is not a failure, but a mark of philosophical precision and theological reverence

Question 12

Aquinas A01

Answer 12

• Partly agrees with apophatic thought - that God is mysterious and beyond human understanding - but argues that theists want to talk about God positively (cataphatic)
• Aquinas argues that when Christians talk about God as good or love, they mean something similar to and more than the human versions of goodness and love. Aquinas uses two types of analogy to find a middle way between equivocal and univocal language.

Question 13

Aquinas’ first analogy

Answer 13

Analogy of attribution:
- For example, using medievel medicine, if a bulls urine is healthy, then health is attributed to the bull also.
- B. Davies uses the analoy of the bread and the baker. While the bread is not good in the same sense as the baker (the baker is not light cursty and well baked), the goodness of the bread is attributed to the skill of he baker. In the same way, we can attribute goodness to God because we see something like ‘goodness’ in his creations.