Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Phil HL - Religious Language - Via
Negativa
- people should only talk about God in negative terms
- This doesn't mean to criticize God or speak badly of Him
- God is not evil
- (because we can't comprehend the goodness of his good)
- God is not human
- (God is transcendent, therefore doesn't have a body)
- God is only described in terms of what he is not.
- Via Negativa is very influential in Christianity
- religious experiences - used to describe the unexplainable events
- Via Negativa emphasises the otherness & transcendence of God
- Valued in the Eastern Orthodox Church
- As the Apophatic way
- Where did Via Negativa come from?
- Psuedo-Dionysius
- We don't know what it means to say God is Good
- God is 'beyond assertion'
- God is 'beyond denial'
- Plotinus (2nd century CE)
- Plato: the Form of the Good = highest form
- Plotinus believed this form is linked with God
- Maimonides (Jewish, 12th century)
- humans can know God exists but nothing else about God (as he is not like humans)
- 'I am who I am'- in Jewish scriptures God is beyond description
- Problems
- Brian Davies
- Describing something in terms of what it is not doesn't tell us what it actually is
- religious people don't use Via Negativa
- It fails to confirm any attributes we normally associate with God
- Strengths
- avoids anthropomorphic statements about God as these limit God
- anthropomorphic: to assign human qualities
- recognises that God is ineffable
- ineffable: incapable of describing/expressing
- Can give a profound sense of the transcendence