Professor Brian Davies
In our last post Professor Davies was discussing verification and falsification as it pertained to God. After disposing of a few arguments he asked, well, if we are to speak of God, HOW do we speak of God. He continues on:
‘I love you’, says the lady. ‘Do you really mean that?’, asks her boy friend. ‘No’, the lady replies. The boy friend is speechless, and not without reason. The lady seems to be saying nothing significant. What she gives with one hand she takes back with the other.
Some people have felt that those who believe in God are rather like the lady just referred to, and, in their view, this means that belief in God raises an insurmountable problem for anyone who supposes that one can reasonably be asked to look at any defense of the view that there actually is a God.
This problem derives from two facts. The first is that God is typically spoken of as if He could be compared with various things with which we are already familiar. The second is that God is typically said to be very different from anything that comes within the range of our experience. On the one hand, God is said to be, for example, good or wise. On the other, He is said to be unique in a very strong sense and our talk of Him, so it is said, fails to do Him justice. God is good, but not in the way that anything else is. God is wise, but not in the way that Solomon was wise.
Here, then, is the problem. If one says that God is very different from anything else, can one really talk significantly about Him at all? How can one say that God is good or wise but not in the sense that ordinary good and wise things are? Is there not a real dilemma here for those who believe in God? Are they not caught between the stools of meaninglessness and misrepresentation?
Negation And Analogy
Defenders of belief in God have not been unaware of the force of such questions and they have consequently tried to say how one can talk significantly about God without also misrepresenting Him. In particular they have frequently appealed to the importance of negation and analogy.
The appeal to negation is easy to understand and is best thought of as an attempt to prevent people from misrepresenting God. It emphasizes the unknowability of God and argues that though one can talk significantly about God one can only do so by saying what God is not. A notable advocate of negation is Maimonides (1135-1204), who writes as follows:
There is no necessity at all for you to use positive attributes of God with the view of magnifying Him in your thoughts … I will give you … some illustrations, in order that you may better understand the propriety of forming as many negative attributes as possible, and the impropriety of ascribing to God any positive attributes. A person may know for certain that a `ship’ is in existence, but he may not know to what object that name is applied, whether to a substance or to an accident; a second person then learns that a ship is not an accident; a third, that it is not a mineral; a fourth, that it is not a plant growing in the earth; a fifth, that it is not a body whose parts are joined together by nature; a sixth, that it is not a flat object like boards or doors; a seventh, that it is not a sphere; an eighth, that it is not pointed; a ninth, that it is not round shaped; nor equilateral; a tenth, that it is not solid. It is clear that this tenth person has almost arrived at the correct notion of a `ship’ by the foregoing negative attributes…. In the same manner you will come nearer to the knowledge and comprehension of God by the negative attributes… I do not merely declare that he who affirms attributes of God has not sufficient knowledge concerning the Creator … but I say that he unconsciously loses his belief in God.’
So much, then, for the notion of talking about God by means of negation. Historically speaking, however, it is analogy that has most interested those who agree that even a unique God can be spoken about significantly. In this connection it is even possible to speak about `the theory of analogy’. In order to say what that is, it will help if I go back to the problem with which we started and introduce some new terminology.
It seems that words applied to God cannot bear exactly the same senses when they are applied to God and to creatures. But must there not be something similar said when, for example, it is said both that some man is good and that God is good? To put it another way, can one only apply a word to God and to other things either univocally or equivocally? To apply a word univocally to two things is to say that they are exactly the same in some respect, that the word means the same in both its applications. Thus I might say that Paris and Rome are both cities, and here I would be using the word `city’ univocally. To apply words equivocally, however, is to use the same words in completely different senses. We would be using the word `bat’ equivocally if we used it to refer both to the little furry mammals and to the things used by cricketers.
Now according to the theory of analogy, there is a third way of applying the same word to different things, and this fact is important when we are thinking about the way in which one may talk about God. The idea is that one can use words analogically. The analogical use of words is supposed to lie somewhere between the univocal and the equivocal.
We can see the theory of analogy classically applied to God in the work until Thomas Aquinas (1224/5 – 1274) who explicitly raises the question, `Are words used univocally or equivocally of God and creatures?’ His answer runs as follows.
The same term cannot be applied to God and creatures univocally. When, for example, we call creatures ‘wise’ we are saying that they possess a certain attribute. And when we say this we have to allow that the attribute in question is distinct from other attributes and even from the fact of there being anything to possess it. In the case of God, however, we cannot distinguish his attributes from each other; nor can we distinguish them from his very existence (in Aquinas’s language, from his esse). So we have to agree that when an attribute is ascribed to God, when it is said, for example, ‘God is wise’, what the attribute word ‘signifies in God is not confined to the meaning of our word but goes beyond it. Hence it is clear that the word “wise” is not used in the same sense of God and man, and the same is true of all other words, so they cannot be used univocally of God and creatures.
On the other hand, words applied to God cannot always be used equivocally. As Aquinas puts it, if we always used words equivocally when talking about God, ‘we could never argue from statements about creatures to statements about God.’
Aquinas thus concludes that ‘words are used of God and creatures in an analogical way.’ Here Aquinas distinguishes two kinds of analogical language. On the one hand, we can apply a word, W, to two things, A and B, because of some relationship in which A and B stand to some other thing to which we can also apply W. Thus we can call a diet and a complexion ‘healthy’, and we can call a man ‘healthy’. The diet is healthy because it causes a man to be healthy; the complexion is healthy because it is a symptom of health. We can also apply the same word to two things because they have some relation to each other. Thus we can call a diet and a man ‘healthy’ because the diet causes the man to be healthy. In the case of God, Aquinas concludes, terms are applied analogically because of some relation between God and creatures. And the relation which Aquinas has in mind is causal. Perfections that creatures have can be said to exist in God in that He is the cause of creatures.
In this way some words are used neither univocally nor purely equivocally of God and creatures, but analogically, for we cannot speak of God at all except in the language we use of creatures, and so whatever is said both of God and creatures is said in virtue of the order that creatures have to God as to their source and cause in which all perfections of things pre-exist transcendently.
Negation, Analogy And God
What, then, shall we say of all this? Does the appeal to negation and analogy serve to allay the doubt that reasons for belief in God are just not worth looking at? Given the way that people talk of God, is the question of His existence a real non-starter? Are writers like Maimonides and Aquinas simply wasting our time?
In fairness to Maimonides and to those who agree with him it ought at least to be said that talking of God by means of negation has some justification once one reflects on the way in which God has been understood within the Judaeo-Christian tradition. God has regularly been thought of as the Creator, as the source of all things. As Aquinas puts it, `The word “God” signifies the divine nature: it is used to mean something that is above all that is, and that is the source of all things and is distinct from them all. This is how those that use it mean it to be used.’
To talk of God can readily be regarded as to talk about whatever it is that all particular beings depend on in so far as they exist, in so far as they are there rather than not there, in so far, indeed, as there is anywhere for them to be. And this point, which is certainly obscure, also seems important. For once we agree that God is the source of all things, it seems plausible to conclude that he cannot himself be a thing and that saying that God is not this and not that is the only alternative open to us if we are not to talk out-and-out nonsense about God. We cannot literally mean that the Creator is a this or a that.
But the position that one can talk significantly about God only by means of negations is still difficult to defend. Here there are at least two points to note:
The first concerns the claim that it is possible to approach some understanding of God simply by saying what God is not. Maimonides evidently thinks that this claim is true; but the reverse is the case. For only saying what something is not gives no indication of what it actually is, and if one can only say what God is not, one cannot understand Him at all. Suppose I say that there is something in my room, and suppose I reject every suggestion you make as to what is actually there. In that case, you will get no idea at all about what is in my room. Going back to the quotation from Maimonides above, it is simply unreasonable to say that someone who has all the negations mentioned in it `has almost arrived at the correct notion of a “ship”. He could equally well be thinking of a wardrobe.
The second point is that people who talk about God do not normally want to talk about Him only in negations. They usually want to say that some things are definitely true of him. It has been suggested that one can understand talk of God in such a way that it should always be construed as talk of something else. In this way it has been urged that what look like positive statements about God are really nothing of the kind. But this suggestion does not seem to square with a great deal that is said about God. When, for example, people who believe in God say that he is good, they normally mean that God really is good and not that something is true of some being other than God.
If a rigid reliance on negation is not without its drawbacks, the theory of analogy is more promising. For there is a lot to be said for the view that the same word can be applied to different things neither univocally nor equivocally. This point can be illustrated by quoting a useful passage at the beginning of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.
Consider for example the proceedings that we call ‘games’. I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic Games, and so on. What is common to them all? — Don’t say: ‘There must be something common, or they would not be called “games” ‘ — but look and see whether there is anything common to them all. — For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look! — Look for example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. — Are they all ‘amusing’? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience…. And we can go through the Horny, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear.
What Wittgenstein brings out very clearly is that at least one word can significantly be used in different but related senses. And, following the clue offered by his example, we can quickly come to see that many words can significantly be used in this way. Take, for instance, ‘good’. You can have good food and good books, not to mention good people, good wine, and a good night’s sleep. Or again, there is Aquinas’s illustration, the word ‘healthy’. As Aquinas says, a man can be healthy, and so can a complexion or a diet. In saying that a man, a complexion, and a diet are healthy one is not saying that they are exactly alike in some respect. But nor is one saying that they are different as mammalian bats are different from wooden ones.
It seems wrong, then, to hold that the same words must always bear exactly the same meaning or be used on some occasions in ways that are non-significant and therefore that nobody can talk significantly about God since words applied to him do not mean exactly what they do when applied to other things. To put it another way, the problem raised at the beginning of this chapter is not obviously insurmountable; just because people do not apply words to God and to creatures either univocally or equivocally it does not follow that they cannot talk about God in any significant way. That is what the theory of analogy is basically saying, and in this it is surely right.
But we are still left with a difficulty. Even if we grant that the univocal/ equivocal distinction can be supplemented, we can still ask why particular words are used in talking about God and whether they are capable of being used significantly. We may accept that the word `game’ can be used to describe things which do not have a common feature, but we would also agree that not just anything can be called a game. Rescuing a drowning child is not a game; nor is performing a surgical operation. So there is still a general problem for talk about God. Some reason must be given for choosing the terms which are actually applied to God. This point is nicely put by Patrick Sherry who suggests that:
It is not just a matter of saying that there must be some grounds for ascribing perfections to God. We must also insist that if we ascribe the same terms to God and creatures, then there must be a connection between the relevant criteria of evidence and truth. Thus the grounds for ascribing terms like `love’, `father’, `exist’ and `life’ must bear some relationship to the grounds used for our normal everyday application of these terms. Similarly, even if `God created the world’ expresses a unique relationship, its truth conditions must bear some resemblance to our familiar uses of terms like `make’ or `depends on’ (which is not to say that we must expect to be able to verify the doctrine of Creation empirically here and now).
So the terms used in talking about God must be justified in some way if they are not to appear arbitrary and empty of meaning. But the question is, can they be? Aquinas, for example, thought that they can. He held that one can come to a knowledge of God and one can significantly apply to God words which apply to creatures because there is some positive reason for doing so. But is Aquinas right in adopting this position? Could anybody be right in adopting it?
At this stage in the discussion it is difficult to say, for we have not yet touched on any particular reasons for believing in God and affirming anything of him. For the moment, however, this does not matter. In this chapter we have been asking whether reasons for belief in God are even worth looking at in view of some things that are said of him. For all we have seen so far, the answer is Yes.
Even from what we have seen already, it should be clear enough that people who believe in God seem committed to thinking of Him as something decidedly out of the ordinary. Some would say that he is essentially mysterious. But does this mean that he could not exist? And does it mean that there could never be reasons for belief in God?
Affirmative answers have been offered to both these questions. It has been suggested that if God is really mysterious, then we cannot understand exactly what is being said when he is talked about, in which case it is nonsense to affirm his existence. It has also been said that if God is really mysterious, then it is pointless to try and find reasons for holding that he exists.
But these views are not very plausible. One does not have to know exactly what a word means in order to have some understanding of it or in order to use it significantly. I may not know what a volcano is exactly, but I can still talk sensibly about volcanoes. And I can reasonably say that Jones has malaria without being clear as to what exactly I am saying. In other words, I can wield words significantly without being able to define them. As Peter Geach puts it, `I certainly could not define either “oak-tree” or “elephant”; but this does not destroy my right to assert that no oak-tree is an elephant. This point does nothing to show that there is a God, but it does suggest that in order to speak meaningfully about God it is not necessary that one should understand exactly the import of one’s statements about him. It may not be possible to define God; one may not be able fully to comprehend him. But this does not mean that one cannot significantly talk about him; nor does it prevent one from asking whether he is there in the first place.
