Religious Language Flashcards
Who came up with the ‘via negativa’ and what is it?
Pseudo- Dzonysius- the only way to speak about God is to say what he is not
What is a challenge to the via negativa
Brian Davies- gives no clue to what something is, saying God is NOT a wombat does not show what God is
According to Ayer, why are two reasons to make a sentence meaningful?
1) it is a tautology2) it can be hypothetically proved true or false
What is Hicks challenge to Ayers Verification Principle?
The Eschatological Principle- proved true when we die
Who came up with the falsification principle?
Anthony Flew
What does Hare describe as a religious belief?
A BLIK, which is a non rational belief that can never be falsified
What is Mitchell’s objection to Hare
Religious belief are grounded in belief, accepts problems but doesn’t discredit belief (example of resistance leader)
What does Paul Tillich say religious language is
“The language of faith is the language of symbols”
Can language be private?
No :P
What does DZ Phillips say ‘god is love’ means
Not a description, but a rule for how word God is to be used
What does UNIVOCALLY mean
Language implied with same meaning
What doe EQUIVOCALLY mean
Language applied with different meanings
Who argued that you can only talk about God through analogy
Aquinas
Explain the ANALOGY OF ATTRIBUTION(AQUINAS)
- Term such as ‘healthy’ or ‘sickness’ applied to ‘look’ arent referring to healthy or ill, means health or sickness causes the look- Example of URINE (Animal is healthy (BULL)- the animals urine is healthy) - a) God is good & b) Anne is good (God is good because Anne is good, and God created Anne)
Explain the ANALOGY OF PROPORTION(AQUINAS)
- a) God has life. b) Jenny has life. c)Carrot has life. (Not the same in proportion- JOHN HICK - Humans created in IMAGE of God- LESSER PROPORTION - We must EXTEND UPWARDS when talking about God
