Abstract
Analogy, symbolism and analogia fidei are three methods whereby Aquinas, Tillich and Barth respectively seek to provide a tool capable of giving an adequate interpretation of the God-creature relation and a justification for theological language. Analogy, symbolism and analogia fidei are different answers to the same problem. The problem is the meaning of words applied to God and to creatures. If our words mean exactly the same thing when applied to God and to creatures, then God’s transcendence is eliminated: God ceases to be God in order to be a creature or vice versa. On the other hand, if our words bear an altogether different meaning when applied to God, then God’s immanence is obscured: man is no longer in a position to know God.
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References
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (New York: Dover), p. 115.
Reprinted in Philosophy and Psycho-Analysis (Oxford 1953), pp. 149–168.
Ibid. p. 156.
Ibid. p. 154. I am indebted to Professor M. J. Charlesworth for the summary of Wisdom’s, Smart’s, Hare’s and Crombie’s articles. See M. J. Charlesworth, “Linguistic Analysis and God,” International Philosophical Quarterly 1961, pp. 144–163.
Ed. A. Flew and A. MacIntyre (London: S.C.M. Press, 1955).
Ibid. p. 39.
M. J. Charlesworth, “Linguistic Analysis and God,” in International Philosophical Quarterly 1961, p. 149. See also the following pages where Charlesworth makes a very pointed critique of Smart’s argument. Cfr. Charlesworth, Philosophy and Linguistic Analysis (Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univ., 1959), pp. 134–135 for the critique of Ayer on this same point.
M. J. Charlesworth, “Linguistic Analysis and God,” in International Philosophical Quarterly 1961, p. 100.
Even more manifest is the danger of behaviourism in R.B. Braithwaite’s theory. See especially An Empiricist’s View of the Nature of Religious Belief (Cambridge University, 1955).
I. T. Ramsey, Religious Language: an Empirical Placing of Theological Phrases (London: S.C.M. Press, 1957);
I. M. Crombie. “The Possibility of Theological Statements,” in Faith and Logic, ed. by Mitchell (London 1957)
B. G. Mitchell, Faith and Logic; M. Forster, “Contemporary British Philosophy and Christian Belie,” in Cross Currents 1960, pp. 375–385.
Faith and Logic, ed. B. Mitchell (London 1957).
Ibid. p. 32.
Ibid. p. 55.
This is a view shared by Anglican theologians in general. 6 Ibid. p. 57.
Ibid.
M.J. Charlesworth, Linguistic Analysis and God, in “International Philosophical Quarterly” 1961, pp. 163–164.
The article has first appeared in The Christian Scholar (Fall 1960) and was, then, reprinted by Cross Currents 1960, pp. 375–385.
Cross Currents 1960, p. 383.
Ibid. p. 383.
Ibid. p. 384.
Ibid. p. 385.
Ibid. p. 385.
The reason for the restriction of our analysis to theological language is that this has been so far the scope of our study, since in the previous chapters we have been concerned with the meaning of theological language in Catholic and Protestant theology.
M. J. Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity, transl. G. Vollert, (London-St. Louis: Herder, 1947), pp. 752–753.
Elsewhere we have put the same thing this way: “Le parole adoperate per significare i concetti teologici sono le parole ordinarie, le quali, però, una volta che la trasfigurazione analogica è stata compiuta, vengono ad acquistare un significato nuovo. Tuttavia dato che esse continuano a ritenere anche quello vecchio, l’uomo versa nel constante pericolo di lasciarle ricadere in esso. Quando questo awiene, le parole teologiche diventano vuote, senza senso. Fino a quando però il vecchio senso (e l’uomo vecchio) non ha il soprawento, esse conservano un significato, che, pure essendo misterioso (perchè la fede non dissipa tutti i veli del mistero), ha certamente valore teoretico non solamente emotivo (Positivismo logico, analisi linguistica e teologia, in Divus Thomas, 1961, p. 306).
“Hoc enim est ultimum ad quod pertingere possumus circa cognitionem divinam in hac vita, quod Deus est supra omne id quod a nobis cogitari potest.” (Aquinas, In Divinis Nominibus I, Lect. 3, no 83.
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Mondin, B. (1963). The Meaning of Theological Language. In: The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6574-9_8
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