(Originally written February 9, 2007 in Book 7)
Philosophy of Religion
John Hick
Ch. 6 Problems of Religious Language
The Peculiarity of Religious Language
There are two main issues with religious language:
1) How descriptive terms are used in the context of God
2) What are religious factual assertions functions?
The Doctrine of Analogy (Aquinas)
Thomas Aquinas developed the doctrine of "analogical predication". Aquinas said when we use terms for God that can be used for other things we do not use the term univocally or equivocally, but analogically. The doctrine of analogical predication is to be used as a framework for understanding limited statements about God's nature.
We understand what it means to say, 'he is a good man' and the statement, 'God is good', is analogous to this, but God's goodness is superior to man's and not fully comprehendible.
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