Analogy useful Its raining cats and dogs Analogy

Analogy: useful? ‘It's raining cats and dogs’

Analogy

Learning outcomes • To be able to explain why analogies are important in the topic of religious language. • To be able to evaluate the ideas of Aquinas on analogies.

Aquinas: Why Analogy? A famous analogy is William Paley’s watchmaker analogy (we studied this last year). He explains the teleology (purpose) of the universe by comparing its design to an intricate mechanism. So, he argued, God is a bit like a watchmaker. For Aquinas, such comparisons were needed for all talk of God. • Thomas Aquinas was concerned by the problem of explaining God in human language; God is supposedly perfect and infinite, so he might defy description. • Aquinas stated that we could not speak of God ‘univocally’ (with our language being applied to him with the same meaning), but nor could we speak of him ‘equivocally’ (with our language being applied with a different meaning). This left Aquinas needing to find a way of using language as an indirect description of God. • For this he turned to ‘analogy’. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something by comparison with an example more familiar to us.

UNIVOCAL LANGUAGE EQUIVOCAL LANGUAGE Language meaning exactly the same thing in all situations. Language meaning different things in different situations. Black cat, black hat, black mat: for all these, ‘black’ means the same thing. The term ‘bat’ could also be seen as an equivocal term. You could be talking about a ‘cricket bat’ or a ‘flying bat’ (the animal). Problem: If we say ‘that lesson was good’ then ‘good’ means something different from saying ‘God is good’, since God is perfect and infinite. So, Aquinas argues, we cannot speak of God univocally. Problem: If we say that ‘God is good’ means something completely different from any other ‘good’ then God would be unintelligible (we couldn’t understand him). So, Aquinas argues, we cannot speak of God equivocally.

Aquinas thought that analogy would be a good compromise, because it would avoid the difficulties of univocal and equivocal language. To make an analogy (a comparison), we would be saying that God is not just like us, but nor is he nothing like us and our world. By finding appropriate analogical language, Aquinas thought we could say broadly what God is like. This would give us partial but justifiable knowledge of God. To understand this theory, though, we must realise that it works within theism. In other words, Aquinas assumes that God exists; his theory is only helpful if we take that for granted.

The cataphatic way or via positiva Read through the article on Aquinas’ views on talking about God… Answer this question in your notes: Does Aquinas follow the via negativa or the via postivia? Stretch yourself: Have you explained the term via eminentiae? Top Philosopher: What are, the modern philosopher, Mark Vernon’s views on the via negativa?

Think, Pair, Share A: Univocal language B: Equivocal language A: Analogy B: What does Aquinas say about religious language?

In depth: Aquinas and Analogy Search around the room to complete the worksheet! What else does he say? Stretch yourself: Research Aquinas’ 4 th way… Top Philosopher: What does are the modern philosopher Mark Vernon’s views on the via negativa?

Analogy: In your words 1) 2) 3) 4) What is analogy of attribution? What is Analogy of Proportionality? What is the difference between the two? Explain two criticisms of Aquinas’ view. Stretch yourself: Write a response to Aquinas’ ideas from point of view of Anthony Flew. Top philosopher task: What synoptic links could you make with Aquinas’ ideas?

Fourth Way - The Argument From Degrees And Perfection St. Thomas formulated this Way from a very interesting observation about the qualities of things. For example one may say that of two marble sculptures one is more beautiful than the other. So for these two objects, one has a greater degree of beauty than the next. This is referred to as degrees or gradation of a quality. From this fact Aquinas concluded that for any given quality (e. g. goodness, beauty, knowledge) there must be a perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured. These perfections are contained in God.

Keywords! How many can you think of? You must remember to explain the meanings.

Ramsey, models and qualifiers A twentieth-century version What does Ramsey mean of the idea of speaking of by the terms models and God analogically comes from qualifiers? the philosopher Ian Ramsey, Write an explanation for who explained his ideas in his book Religious Language. he means in your notes… He tried to explain the way in which religious language e. g. could usefully describe God Models: by using the terms ‘models’ Qualifiers: and ‘qualifiers’.