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Religious Language

Tillich's Symbols, Analogy and the Via Negativa

  • 3 things to know
  • Component 1

Overview

Recall questions on Tillich's distinction between signs and symbols and God as the ground of being, Aquinas's analogies of attribution and proportion, and how the Via Negativa preserves divine transcendence.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Define analogy as Aquinas uses it in religious language.

Key term

What is the Via Negativa (apophatic theology)?

Process

Explain Aquinas's two analogies and the point of the via negativa.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What does Tillich mean by saying religious language is symbolic?

    Model answer

    Religious words point beyond themselves to a deeper spiritual reality in which they participate.

  2. 2

    How does Tillich distinguish signs from symbols?

    Model answer

    Signs are arbitrary pointers, whereas symbols participate in the reality they represent and open up levels of reality otherwise closed to us.

  3. 3

    What is Tillich's concept of God as the 'ground of being'?

    Model answer

    God is ultimate reality, and religious symbols participate in the power of this ultimate reality they point to.

  4. 4

    Define analogy as Aquinas uses it in religious language.

    Model answer

    A way of speaking about God using terms that are neither univocal (same meaning) nor equivocal (completely different meaning) but analogically related.

  5. 5

    Explain Aquinas's analogy of attribution.

    Model answer

    Qualities in creatures derive from and point to those qualities in God as their source.

  6. 6

    Explain Aquinas's analogy of proportion.

    Model answer

    God possesses qualities in proportion to his nature as infinite being, while creatures possess them in proportion to their finite nature.

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AExclusivism holds salvation is available only to Christians.
BInclusivism holds salvation is available through Christ to non-Christians.
CPluralism holds salvation is available through multiple religious paths.

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