What is the via negativa?

The negative way is the approach, associated with Pseudo-Dionysius and Maimonides, of describing God only by denying limiting attributes, holding that we can say what God is not but not positively what God is.

Why not just speak of God literally?

Many hold that because God is transcendent and not a member of any creaturely kind, applying ordinary predicates literally risks reducing God to a large creature; analogy and metaphor are proposed to preserve meaning while respecting divine transcendence, though defenders of literal predication contest this.

Analogy and Religious Predication

Definition

The semantics of God-talk: the inquiry into whether terms predicated of God are univocal, equivocal, analogical, metaphorical, or symbolic, and how such predication secures genuine reference and truth.

Scope

This topic covers the principal accounts of how terms apply to God: the negative way that denies literal predication, Aquinas's doctrine of analogy with its distinctions of attribution and proportionality, the defense of literal predication, and metaphorical and symbolic theories of God-talk. It does not cover the verificationist challenge to meaningfulness, treated separately.

Core questions

Can any predicate apply to God in the same sense it applies to creatures?
Does analogical predication avoid both anthropomorphism and emptiness?
Are religious utterances literal, metaphorical, or symbolic?
Can metaphor make genuinely cognitive claims about God?

Key theories

Analogy of proportionality and attribution: Aquinas holds that perfections like goodness are predicated of God and creatures analogically: the term has related but not identical senses, grounded in the causal dependence of creaturely perfections on God, avoiding both univocity and sheer equivocation.
Critical realist account of metaphor: Soskice argues that metaphor in religious language is not merely decorative but can make genuine, reality-depicting claims about God, allowing believers to refer to and say true things about a reality that exceeds literal description.

History

Negative theology in Pseudo-Dionysius and Maimonides stressed what God is not. Aquinas systematized the doctrine of analogy in the thirteenth century as a middle path. Tillich later treated religious language as symbolic, and in the late twentieth century Soskice and Alston defended, respectively, the cognitive force of metaphor and the possibility of literal predication of God.

Debates

Whether predicates apply to God literally: Alston argues that suitably analyzed functional predicates can apply to God literally, against the analogical and symbolic traditions; defenders of analogy reply that literal predication risks anthropomorphism given divine transcendence.
Whether metaphor can state truths about God: Soskice argues that metaphor is irreducibly cognitive and can refer to God; critics worry that without paraphrase into literal terms, metaphorical God-talk cannot be assessed for truth.

Key figures

Pseudo-Dionysius
Moses Maimonides
Thomas Aquinas
Paul Tillich
Janet Martin Soskice
William Alston

Seminal works

aquinas1265
alston1989
soskice1985

Frequently asked questions

What is the via negativa?: The negative way is the approach, associated with Pseudo-Dionysius and Maimonides, of describing God only by denying limiting attributes, holding that we can say what God is not but not positively what God is.
Why not just speak of God literally?: Many hold that because God is transcendent and not a member of any creaturely kind, applying ordinary predicates literally risks reducing God to a large creature; analogy and metaphor are proposed to preserve meaning while respecting divine transcendence, though defenders of literal predication contest this.