Topic Test -Questions and Answers

1.  What is the basic debate surrounding religious language?

What can be said about God?

2. Esoteric terms for divine figures

Hinduism: "God of all knowledge"

Judaism: "King of the Universe"

Islam: "The Light"

3. What is a truth-claim?

A statement which puts forward if something is or is not the case, e.g. There is no God

4. What are some religious uses of language?

Supporting divine beliefs- 'God exists'

Performatively- 'let us worship'

Invoking religious feeling- Nembutsu

5. What does univocal mean?

Using the same word in a single way

6. What does equivocal mean?

Using the same word in multiple ways

7. What does analogical mean?

Using the same word, in a similar sense

8. What are analytic statements?

True by definition

9. What are synthetic statements?

True only when backed up by evidence

10. What are mathematical statements?

Concerning purely abstract terms and concepts

11. How does Aquinas approach analogy?

Ordinary Language limits and reduces God, so therefore should take religious language as analogical, not literal

12. Aquinas' analogy of proportionality

Aquinas postulates that there is a proportionate relationship between all things

A plant has life in a different sense to God having life

Colin Brown: "Divine truth has to be refracted and expressed in terms of human words and finite images"

Peter Vardy: "Aquinas therefore gets true language about God, but at the cost of the meaning of that language being beyond our understanding"

13. How did Blackstone respond to Aquinas' use of analogy?

Cannot be unsure when discussing God, so need univocal language to have meaning

14. How did Evans respond to Aquinas' use of analogy?

Ambiguity is alright provided we can worship God, as seen in Otto's Mysterium Tremendum

15. Evaluating thomist use of analogy

Strengths: Conveys knowledge of God, avoids reducing him to human level, helps to explain difficult concepts

Weaknesses: Swinburne argues that we don't need analogy, fails verification principle, makes assertions about God, based on presupposition, does not deal with problem of evil

16. What is the via negativa?

God is beyond human conception, so can only be described by what God isnt, using apophatic language

Fails the falsification principle & does this rely upon presupposition?

17. Sources of the via negativa?

Maimonides: Jewish medieval theologian, attributes can only be understood through what they are not

Dionysius: "God is beyond assertion"

Meister Eckhart: "God is everything and nothing"

Peter Cole: "by denying all descriptions of God, you get insight and experience"

18. What does Dionysius say about God?

"not soul nor mind, not greatness nor smallness, not equality nor inequality"

19. How does Daviens critique the via negativa?

Provides no actual information

Wombat analogy: Could just as easily be describing a wombat

20. Strengths of the via negativa

William James: Recognises God's transcendence of human language

More accurate than positive language

Can infer God's qualities

21. Weaknesses of the via negativa

God is not completely beyond human understanding- see the incarnation

To say 'God is not something' depends on understanding of positive language

22. How does Ian Ramsey use language?

Models and qualifiers

Models are the human, or ordinary usage of terms such as 'loving' or 'wise'

Qualifiers can be used to ensure divine supremacy, such as 'all-loving' or 'infinitely wise'

23. What is the realist approach to religious language?

Statement must correspond with something observable (correspondence theory)

E.g. Grass is green

24. What is the anti-realist approach to religious language?

Statements true if they fit with other accepted statements

25. What are symbols?

Subjective concepts which convey ideas and emotions, more than just factual information

Important as can go beyond the restraints of language

Schubert: a "pattern or object which points to an invisible, metaphysical reality and participates in it"

E.G. the cross

26. How does Tillich describe religious symbols?

"the purpose... is not to describe God but to evoke a sense of his presence"

"unlock... elements of the soul"

Flag analogy

All religious language enters an "internal reality"

27. How did Tillich view the importance of symbols in religious discourse?

"symbols express what the believer feels about what that symbol conveys... signs are to do with facts but symbols transcend"

"symbols are therefore subtle modes of communication that belong to high-level discourse... beyond the factual and objective"

-View described by William Lane Craig as "mystic anti-realism"

-Dealing with metafactual concepts

28. How is the religious use of symbols critiqued?

Paul Edwards: symbols afactual and so meaningless

Based in human conception, cannot convey divine ideas

29. What did R Williams say about religious symbols?

"religious language requires a symbolic foundation"

30. What are some advantages of symbols in Religious language?

-Instrumentally useful in inspiring thoughts of God

-Wittgenstein: "don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use"

-Tillich's "theory of participation"

-Does not need to assert a single conception of God

-Tillich: God is "Beyond essence and existence"

-Easily communicates complex ideas

31. What are some disadvantages of symbols in Religious Language?

-Not inherently informative, only meaningful because of presuppositions

-P Edwards: "it doesn't convey any facts"

-Leaves God wholly subjective

-Allows statements such as Tillich's "to argue God exists is to deny him"

Challenge Questions - Take it Further!

FOR THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS, SCROLL DOWN TO THE END.

1. the following was NOT an advocate of the via negativa?

a. Meister Eckhart

b. Pseudo-Dionysius

c. Duns Scotus

d. Moses Maimonides

2. TRUE or FALSE? For supporters of the via negativa, neither positive or negative statements can tell us what God (or Ultimate Reality) is actually like?

3. TRUE or FALSE? Pseudo-Dionysius argued that if someone was given a sufficient amount of negative information about an object (e.g. a ship), they would eventually still be able to figure out what was being described (e.g. that it is not round or flat). Similarly, one could get closer to knowledge of God through a consideration of what He is not.

4. Which of the following is NOT a possible criticism of the via negativa approach to attaining an understanding of God?

a. The via negativa does not sit well with traditions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, whose sacred texts contain many positive statements about God e.g. every surah or chapter of the Qur’an except one begins with the declaration that Allah is compassionate and merciful.

b. The method of the via negativa risks disrespecting God by anthropomorphising Him.

c. It is by no means certain that a person who knows nothing about ships would ever gain a sufficient understanding of what a ship is through this approach and therefore even more unlikely that an understanding of God could be obtained through it.

5. TRUE or FALSE? A strength of the via negativa is that it may assist contemplative practice that aims to produce an experience of a God who is ultimately ineffable.

6. The word ‘bat’ can mean two very different things, a cricket bat or a flying mammal. If we do not know which is being referred to in a sentence, then the use of language in that sentence can be said to be….

a. equivocal

b. analogical

c. univocal

7. If we do know the way in which the word ‘bat’ is being used in the sentence, that use can be be said to be….

a. equivocal

b. analogical

c. univocal.

8. When applied to religious language, the view that it conveys truth but not literal truth about God would mean that this language is….

a. equivocal

b. analogical

c. univocal

9. TRUE or FALSE? In the syllogism ‘All humans are mortal, Socrates is human, therefore Socrates is mortal’ , the word ‘human’ is being used univocally as the middle term.

10. TRUE or FALSE? Aquinas identified two types of analogy – analogies of attribution, according to which, for example, we love according to our different capacities to do so, with God’s love being omnibenevolent in this respect,  and analogies of proportion, where, for instance, from the health of the bull’s urine we infer that the bull is healthy.

11. Which of the following is NOT a possible criticism of the view that religious language about God should be regarded as analogical?

a. The idea of analogy fails to preserve the mystery of God and lapses into anthropomorphism.

b. The idea of analogy is too vague and still leaves us in a position where we are unable to understand God and His actions.

c. The idea of analogy fails because God is essentially ineffable or unknown, and we therefore cannot judge whether a particular analogy is appropriate when it is used in relation to God if this is the case.

12. TRUE or FALSE? For Paul Tillich, religious language is almost entirely symbolic in character.

13. TRUE or FALSE? For Tillich, signs in particular participate in the reality towards which they point. When it comes to ultimate reality, they can therefore successfully convey a powerful sense of what that reality is.

14. TRUE or FALSE? Tillich’s view of religious language is that it is non-cognitive and anti-realist.

15. Which of the following is not a possible criticism of Tillich’s view that religious language is symbolic?

a. His theology is unclear. On the one hand he insists that ‘being-itself’ is the only non-symbolic statement that can be made about God, whilst on the other, he has written that ‘Everything we say about God is symbolic.’

b. As Tillich is a non-cognitivist, this means that symbolic religious language about God can never finally be properly understood because the symbols are incapable of being properly decoded into something that has a literal meaning.

c. Additionally, it matters to religious believers that their God really is all-loving or all-knowing not that the love and knowledge He possesses is in some sense symbolic

d. Some theological terms seem to be used very specifically rather than symbolically e.g. the Qur’an’s repeated insistence that Allah is ‘compassionate’ and ‘merciful’, and that He is ‘all-knowing’.

ANSWERS

1. c – Duns Scotus was a supporter of the univocal view of religious language.

2. True

3. False – that was Moses Maimonides

4. b- if language cannot adequately convey what an inherently ineffable God is like, then it is in no danger of anthropomorphising (reducing Him to human terms of reference) and therefore disrespecting Him.

5. True

6. a

7. c

8. b

9. True

10. False – Aquinas identified two types of analogy : analogies of attribution (where from the health of the bull’s urine we infer that the bull is healthy, though the health of each is quite unlike the other) and analogies of proportion: we love proportionate to our nature, God loves proportionate to His. So the supporting examples provided in the question need reversing. Note that in the case of analogies of attribution, the ‘wisdom’, ‘love’ and ‘goodness’ that we see in others are reflections of the properties of their creator God.

11. a – because this approach still preserves something of the mystery of God and avoids anthropomorphism by maintaining his transcendent nature.

12. False – ‘being-itself’, otherwise and sometimes referred to as the ‘ground of being’ are non-symbolic, cognitive statements about God, though see criticism ‘a’ in question 15.

13. False – for Tillich a sign is simply something which indicates something else e.g. a road sign reminds us which town is ahead, whereas a symbol is an object or action which not only indicates something  but also communicates a much greater understanding of the thing than can be put into words. Or as Tillich puts it ‘a symbol unlocks something within our soul and expresses something about the ultimate’. In other words, it allows us to experience other levels of reality that are normally off limits to us. A symbol therefore points towards and participates in that to which it points. For example, a country’s flag not only represents the nation that it stands for but is also an active participant in conveying the country’s ‘power and dignity’ (think of how this works in a World Cup year when many people fly the flag to express their patriotic spirit and confidence in the power and dignity of their national football team).

14. False – JH Randall takes this view.

15. b- Tillich is a cognitivist (see the answer to 12 above).