Philo Religious Language

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Thomas Aquinas
Doctrine of Analogy

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It is possible to say anything meaningful about God in human language.
It is a theory about how ordinary predicates (i.e. good) apply to God.
Aquinas steers a middle course btw saying that such predicates have univocal meanings (exactly the same meaning) and that they have equivocal meaning (i.e. completely different meaning when applied to creatures.)
The angelic doctrine middle course was given to explain how ordinary terms have analogical meaning.

Analogy: relational  healthy  dog (state), medicine (cause of state), urine (sign of state)
-the thing signified: the state is referred to in each
-the way of signification
-foundation/primary
-cause of
-sign of

Study Questions
1. How do we apply predicates to God and creatures? God and creatures do not receive predicates such as wise in the same manner. Nothing can be predicated of a creature and of God univocally. We can say them analogously. The predicate wise is of attribute to God but it is relational to creatures. God is wise and this is not intended to signify something distinct from him whereas creatures are wise but it is not part of their essence.
2. In applying predicates to creatures and to God, the problems of univocal and equivocal are seen. (see above). We need a middle ground in order to have a relationship linguistically between the two. He chooses to do this through analogies.

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Anthony Flew

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argues that religious statements, like scientific and other factually meaningful statements, must be empirically falsifiable in order to be cognitively meaningful. He argues that since believers refuse to specify falsification conditions for their claims, those claims must be rejected not as false but as cognitively meaningless.
-argues that religious believers want to make assertions that they never have to defend against empirical evidence.
-i.e. the invisible gardener.

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Basil Mitchell

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agrees that religious claims are not straightforwardly falsifiable but argues that we must take into account the role of trust and commitment in keeping us from counting various circumstances as conclusively falsifying a belief.
-debates how much you can deny, detract from until you no longer believe in an assertion.
-i.e. the stranger who says he will help the resistance but does things that are both for and against the people he says he will help.
-the partisan can conclude that the stranger is not on our side, or maintain that he is but has reasons for withholding help.

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Paul Tillich

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Develops the view that religious language cannot be understood literally but must be understood symbolically
-levels of reality besides that which can be known empirically
-religious symbols “open up” a level of divinity to us
-God is “Being Itself”
-symbols are not signs
The difference btw symbol and sign is the participation in the symbolized reality which characterizes the symbols, and the nonparticipation in the “pointed-to” reality which characterizes a sign

What are the 2 levels of religious symbols: the transcendent level which goes beyond what we encounter. Then there is the immanent level which we find within the encounter with reality
We cannot literally apply love or experienced qualities we have ourselves because this leads to infinite amount of absurdities

Study Questions
1. A function for a symbol is namely a representative function. Another function of a symbol would be opening up a level of reality for which nonsymbolic speaking is inadequate
2. Religious language applies to God symbolically not literally as mentioned above. When Tillich thinks of the transcendent on the immanent level of appearances of the divine in space and time he is referring to the incarnations of the divine. The divine always incarnate in different forms.
3. According to him it is absurd to think Jesus as God literally but it is profound if we think of it symbolically.

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Regensberg Address

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• Argument against religious coercion/compulsion
o Coercion is contrary to God’s nature; cannot be true God has commanded it
• God is reasonable and logical (logos)—although we don’t fully comprehend, God’s unlikeness is greater than likeness to us
o There is danger in attributing our own characteristics to God (beyond human sphere) BUT also a danger of thinking we have nothing to say about God’s nature
o Participate in logos through reason as our highest faculty (what makes us human)
o God is reason itself but complete infinite fulfillment of what we have a small echo of
• Kant: reason can’t prove demonstratively that God exists, faith can
• Sparked controversy over quote from emperor (p.2) about the Koran; principle behind it-- as a rational being, we are able to recognize universal rules of morality and can be critical of other religious claims
o Uses this to show not new as part of debate
• Error of thinking that we don’t have to make our morality accountable to God and vice versa
o Difficulty in reconciling two principles in Koran: holy war and faith
• Abraham and Isaac episode
o The nature of religious belief and God’s command
o The three major religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all claim Abraham as a father
o Was this right to be demanded of in the first place? How can it be credited to Abraham as righteous which in all other contexts is immoral?
• *God is not held accountable to what we prescribe as right or wrong or what He has prescribed to us beforehand
o Revelation is a free gift from God, makes a definitive difference in life
 How can we impose limitations by our own predetermined rules?
 How is it capable of taking us to a higher standard if we filter through our own rules?
• Religious Freedom
o Why shouldn’t one demand worship of the on true God?
o Faith must be genuine and has to be chosen; in order to be properly religious must be free (exercise of free will and intellect)
 (Utilitarian) only have show of faith but not true faith

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William Alston

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Speaking Literally of God
• Overview: Alston explores question of whether we can speak literally of God and whether we can form subject-predicate sentences that can be asserted truly of God conceived as an incorporeal being; finds there is no obstacle in concept of God’s incorporeality to applying P-predicates to God
Literal Predication and Theology
• Truth claim: talk about God using subject-predicate statements in which subject refers to God
o Can terms be literally predicated of God?
• According to contemporary Protestant theologians, an article of faith that is impossible
o A question as to whether such truth claims can succeed
• Predicates that tell us something are “intrinsic predicates”
o Those against literal theological talk deny intrinsic predicates can be literally true of God (including relational predicates—“made the heavens and the earth”)
• Against Tillich’s argument, sees as radically insufficient to support denial of intrinsic predcates being literally true of God
• Predicates
o P-predicates: personalistic; apply to a being only if that being is a personal agent
What does it mean to speak literally?
• Distinction between language and speech
o Language has internal and external parts, serve as means of communication
o Speech is the use of language in communication
• “literal” stands for certain way of using words, phrases, a mode of speech
o Predicates correlate term with complex property
o Sentence with the cliam that the property signified by predicate term is possessed by the subject or holds between subject if predicate is relational
• Can only attach certain meaning to predicate term if I have concept of property signified by term when used with that meaning
o Language contains terms that stand for intrinsic properties of God iff we can form concepts of intrinsic properties of God; we can speak literally of God if we can form concepts of intrinsic divine properties
• P-predicates, God can be spoken of as literally having knowledge and intentions only if terms are literally true of God in same sense as literally true of human beings
o Attach meaning to these terms by learning what it is for human beings
o But it does not follow that terms can be literally applied to God only in senses which are true of human beings
• Depends on what God is like and on content of predicates
Mental Predicates and God
• P-predicates divided into: mental (M-predicates) and action predicates (A-predicates)
o M-predicates: cognitions, feelings, emotions; internal psychological states, events
o A-predicates: what an agent does in a broad sense
• God creates by “willing” action to mental predicate, but some knowledge of property in human sphere
• Have to go between A and M predicates to have something definite in applying literally to God
o God’s actions may be basic actions which He could exercise direct voluntary control over every change in the world which he influences by his activity, God can also choose to influence situations indirectly

Front 7

univocal meanings

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exactly the same meaning
Aquinas

Front 8

equivocal meaning

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completely different meaning when applied to creatures
Aquinas

Front 9

what should we do to rectify between univocal and equivocal

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analogical meaning

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in order to be cognitively meaningful, religious statements must be

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empirically falsiable
i.e. invisible gardener
Flew

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the stranger helps both our side and their side... what does this mean

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it means that the partisan admits that many things may and do count against his belief but it is better than admitting nothing against his belief.
Mitchell

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believes that religious language cannot be understood literally

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they can be understood symbolically
Tillich

Front 13

who talks about the difference btw symbols and signs

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Tillich

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what are the 2 levels of religious symbols?

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transcendent and immanent

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According to Tillich, God is

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"Being Itself"

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who talks about predicates?

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Alston

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what can p-predicates be divided into

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M and A predicates
Alston

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in order to have something definite in applying literally to God you have to go

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between A and M
Alston