4C: Analogy

Question 1

What three types of language does Aquinas reject in support of analogical language?

Answer 1

1. Via Negativa
2. Univocal language
3. Equivocal language

Question 2

What is Via Negativa?

Answer 2

• In the middle ages religious language was traditionally ‘Via Negativa’: suggests that people can only talk about God in negative terms
• Eg God is not human, God cannot die, God is not evil etc.

Question 3

Why does Aquinas reject via negativa?

Answer 3

• Because it does not say anything directly about God.
• He suggested that religious language should mean something concrete when applied to God.

Question 4

What is univocal language?

Answer 4

• when language is used precisely
• Eg the word used only has one meaning regardless of its
  context

Question 5

Why does Aquinas reject univocal language?

Answer 5

• because God is greater than humanity
• Therefore, we cannot possibly use the same word in the same way to describe humans and then God

Question 6

What is equivocal language?

Answer 6

When language is used imprecisely: eg the same term has a completely different meaning according to context

Question 7

Why does Aquinas reject equivocal language?

Answer 7

because no one would know the context you are using the word and therefore tell us nothing precise about God.

Question 8

What is Aquinas’ religious language theory based on?

Answer 8

• The second of his five ways: everything must have a cause
• Like everything else, human language is ultimately caused by God: includes the concepts of words in language
• Human language is ultimately caused by God and is a reflection of him

Question 9

What is Aquinas’ religious language theory based on?

Answer 9

• The second of his five ways: everything must have a cause
• Like everything else, human language is ultimately caused by God: includes the concepts of words in language
• Human language is ultimately caused by God and is a reflection of him

Question 10

How does Aquinas explain the doctrine of analogy?

Answer 10

• Believers want to be able to express their belief that God is unique and cannot satisfactorily be compared with anything that we know in this world.
• According to Aquinas what we need to do is talk of God analogical: it is the best way to express Gods uniqueness
• If we were talking about “the love of God” we could make reference to human notions of love.
• Therefore, we draw an analogy between ‘God’s loves for humanity’ and a ‘mothers love for her child’.
• This gives some understanding of the notion of God’s love, it is similar to the human concept of love, but also different because God’s love is greater than the human concept of love.

Question 11

What is the analogy of attribution?

Answer 11

• Each attribute humanity has must ultimately have been caused by God (Aquinas does draw the distinction between positive and negative attributions, suggesting God is only responsible for the positive attributions and the negative ones are the result of human sin)
• it is possible to draw meaningful analogies between God and humanity because human attributes ultimately come from God and therefore they must be a reflection of Him.
  • The analogy ‘human love is similar to God’s love’ is fair because the attribute of love between God and humanity is related

Question 12

What is the analogy of proportion?

Answer 12

• beings have attributes in proportion to the kind of reality that being possesses.
• For example, an apple has life in proportion to an apple. When I say an apple is good, I clearly don’t mean the apple is morally good because this is outside the proportion of an apple: it has no intellectual capacity to choose to be good or bad.
• Human goodness is at a higher level than the apples, it is in proportion to been human.
• humans can think and reflect so then the human concept of goodness is greater than that of the apple.
• However, like the apple, human goodness is limited by the limitation of human ability
• God’s goodness is in proportion to His goodness, which is on a higher level again.
• In terms of his doctrine of analogy what Aquinas is saying is that when we use religious language to say, for example, ‘God is good’, what we mean is that God’s goodness is similar to human goodness but different because God’s goodness is on a higher level

Question 13

What 3 parts is Ian Ramsey’s theory based on?

Answer 13

Disclosures, models, qualifiers

Question 14

What did Ramsey mean by disclosures?

Answer 14

• like a ‘lightbulb’ moment
• people sometimes feel deep moments in God’s presence i.e. religious experience
• However, people struggled to express the disclosure in normal everyday language
• Ramsey suggested that such disclosures could be expressed analogically.

Question 15

What did Ramsey mean by models?

Answer 15

• believed that normal everyday words could partly express our understanding of God from disclosures.
• For example, if our disclosure/religious experience reveals something of God’s goodness, we could model it on the human understanding of goodness.

Question 16

What did Ramsey mean by qualifiers?

Answer 16

• he accepts that the theory on models has limits: the human understanding of goodness doesn’t fully communicate the depth and complexity of God’s goodness
• argued our model requires adaptation with ‘qualifiers’: We recognise that God cannot be literally “good”, in the human sense of the concepts usage; thus, we need to qualify the statement that “God is good” by adding a qualifier such as “infinitely”
• In this way, we can develop a greater insight into the nature of God’s goodness
• Ramsey is arguing that words like ‘good’, ‘kind’ and ‘caring’ cannot be used univocally or equivocally, so we have to qualify the model with words like ‘infinitely’ or ‘eternally’.
• By qualifying our terms, we can successfully use analogies to express God.

Question 17

Challenge of non cognitive

Answer 17

• Both Aquinas and Ramsey presuppose that God exists: a big assumption to make before starting a theory
  -Because there is no empirical proof God exists, then any theory that presupposes God existence must also have no empirical evidence to support it
• Therefore, analogical theories on religious language are non-cognitive so must be meaningful

Question 18

Who put forward the non-cognitive challenge?

Answer 18

Vienna Circle

Question 19

Challenge of Hume’s theories

Answer 19

• Hume argued human based analogies cannot demonstrate anything about non-human attributes.
• For example, his theories were used to illustrate that an analogy cannot be drawn between a watch and the universe. The watch and the universe are just too different to draw any similarities between the two.
• If God is all-loving, for example (a statement Hume would also challenge) then how can any similarities be drawn between God’s infinite love and human’s finite love.
• They are, Hume would argue, completely different and therefore any similarities drawn would be meaningless.

Question 20

Challenge of the problem of evil

Answer 20

• Aquinas’ theory, particularly the ‘analogy of attribution’ raises the issue of the problem of evil
• If God is the cause of human attributes, such as goodness, logically He must also be the cause of all other human attributes, such as evil.
• Therefore, this theory could suggest God is responsible for evil, thus contradicting Augustine’s Theodicy.

Question 21

What is anthropomorphism?

Answer 21

the idea that human qualities are often given to non-human things

Question 22

How does Ramsey’s theory overcome anthropomorphism?

Answer 22

By adding qualifiers to any human qualities we give God

Question 23

What does Hick say about analogical language?

Answer 23

It gives the believer the perfect balance in understanding the nature of God: enables them to understand something of His nature yet preserves the mysterious element