PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

23/3/2021

Lecture 8

Religious Language

WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE SHOULD WE USE WHEN WE TALK ABOUT GOD?

• David Hume (d. 1776): Can we use ordinary language to describe God?
o In his work “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion”, he questions whether
we can actually use ordinary language to describe something so extraordinary
and so mysterious as God.
§ We have an idea of what ‘AlRaheem’ is. So, when we describe
someone as being ‘Raheem’ we know what it means in humans, but in
God is something different.
• Maimonides (d. 1204): Can only describe God with negative attributes.
o He was a Jewish philosopher.
o In his “Guide for The Perplexed”, he said that we can only describe God with
negative attributes → Because God is beyond anything we can imagine.
o Negative attribute is saying what God is not.
§ Because we do not know what God is, we describe him in terms of
what He is not.
§ For example, you can’t say that “God is knowing”, (because you don’t
know what ‘knowing’ is when it’s applied to God) so you would say
“God is not not knowing”.
• You wouldn’t say that “God is powerful”, because you don’t
know what ‘powerful’ is when it’s applied to God, so you say,
“God is not not powerful”.
o You use negative attributes because using ordinary words is misleading.
§ Even when you say, “God exist”, you’re conflating God’s existing with
our existing.
• So, you don’t say this. You can only say that “God does not not
exist”.

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PHIL 185 – Philosophy of Religion Online Notes

o Maimonides gives the example of a wall.

§ For example, if you say “a wall does not see” is this statement
accurate? What about saying, “a wall does see”?
• Neither statements are accurate.
§ A wall does not see, but it is also not blind. It is just that these words
don’t apply to a wall.
§ In the same way, words generally do not apply to God, because He is
totally beyond our understanding.
• Gersonides: We can use positive attributes to describe God.
o Gersonides’s disagree with Maimonides by saying “we can use positive
attributes to describe God”.
§ Positive attributes → saying what God is.
o In his work ‘Wars of The Lord’, he said that we can use words straight
forwardly when we are describing God, but whilst maintaining that they refer
to God’s essence primarily and only to human secondarily.
§ Whenever we say something (knowing, seeing, hearing, existing,
living…etc.), the first thing we are describing is God, and the way we
apply it to us is only secondary. And that our knowing and our
living…etc. is derived by God (aminate from God).
• For example, the perfect version of ‘karama’ belongs to God,
and when you’re being ‘kareem’, it’s in a secondary and a
lower level to God.
o Any terms that we mention, the main meaning of that is the way it’s applied to
God, and when we apply it to everything else, we are only applying it in a
secondary way because it’s getting that quality from God.
§ So, Gersonides is saying of course the knowledge of God is beyond
our knowledge. But because we see the knowledge that we have, we
can get an idea of what the knowledge of God is like (even though His
knowledge is way greater than ours).
o Gorsonides is saying that God can be known to a much higher degree than
Maimonides.
§ Maimonides is simply denying that we can know God in any
meaningful way.

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