Phil HL - Religious Language - Via Negativa

Phil HL - Religious Language - Via Negativa

1. 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.

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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