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Literal and Figurative Language of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

John H. Whittaker
John H. Whittaker
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
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Extract

One of the most peculiar features of the belief in God is the accompanying claim that God is an indescribable mystery, an object of faith but never an object of knowledge. In certain contexts – in worship, for example – this claim undoubtedly serves a useful purpose; and so I do not want to dismiss the idea altogether. But when pious remarks about the ineffable nature of God are taken out of context and turned into philosophy, the result is usually an epistemological muddle. The trouble, of course, is that those who insist on God's mysteriousness still manage to say all sorts of things about him; he is an incorporeal spirit, he created the world, he loves his creatures, and so on. To assert these things is to presume some understanding of God, but no understanding is possible if God is completely incomprehensible. So if that is how it is, if the object of religious belief is utterly incomprehensible, then it makes no sense to say – or believe – anything about God.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 1981 , pp. 39 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

page 39 note 1 See for example, Coburn, Robert, ‘The Hiddenness of God and Some Barmecidal God Surrogates’, journal of Philosophy, LVII (October/November 1960), 689–711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 47 note 1 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1950), ch. II, pp. 5–7Google Scholar, and passim.

page 52 note 1 Plato, , Phaedo, 108E ff.Google Scholar

page 53 note 1 Phaedo, 114D (I am following Hugh Tredennick's) translation in The Last Days of Socrates (Baltimore; Penguin Books, 1954), p. 178.Google Scholar