Analogy

Today’s lesson will be successful if you can:

Explore how language analogy can help people to express an understanding about God.

Describe a Blizzard to an African visitor

Describe a school to a Martian

Describe the world wide web to Shakespeare

Analogy

Describing something that is unfamiliar by making a comparison to something that we already know

God is…..Good

A rock

A good shepherd

Father

What are the problems of applying these terms to God?

Complete worksheet 1.5

Analogy of attribution Bakers and Bread (Brian Davies) If we say the bread is

good and the baker is good, there is a relationship between the statements. They bread is the product of hithe baker and his goodness or skill

Bulls and Urine

Properties such as wisdom, move and goodness are reflections of the properties of the creator God. When we see these attributes in others, we are able to make analogies with the attributes of God.

It seems that no word can be used literally of God (Aquinas).

AquinasAnalogy of proportion

Who is a good Artist, Footballer or Philosopher? Are you as good as Van Gogh, Rooney or Aquinas?

When we use words to describe God, we are describing an infinite being. When we describe each other we are describing finite beings. John Hick (1922-) uses Baron Von Hugel’s example of the term faithfulness. We can use it to describe a dog, a human or God. When we assert this about God, it makes our faithfulness seem tiny by comparison.

Debate: ‘Analogy is not much good use when it comes to

describing something nobody has ever seen’.

Split into two groups and prepare strengths and weaknesses

Key words: equivocal, univocal, anthropomorphism, analogy