Take me to analogy school part 2, 3, and 4! This is really helpful content for thinking about how we speak of God.
I like what you wrote about language being embedded in a social-cultural matrix.” The analogy works with your embodied experience and lived history......It depends on community and time and tradition and culture and context.”
David Bentley Hart in his book ‘That All Shall Be Saved’ (pp 53-61), has an excellent discussion of the difference between the transcendent goodness of God and the goodness of his creatures (presumably including cats). He says that God is not a moral agent bound by some external to him standard of goodness but is goodness itself, he is The good and cannot act in any way contrary to that nature.
I think some use Isaiah 55 to try to explain what looks to us like God behaving badly, his ways are not our ways, but the context clearly states that his mercy (goodness even) is higher than the heavens above ours.
I enjoy Church Blogmatics but I'm not purrsuaded by your argument against univocity. I don't think we can categorically reject it. Consider this similar pair of sentences:
"This lemon is sour" and "This undiluted citric acid is sour." I don't think "sour" is being used analogically. If "sour" is not being used univocally, do we ever use language univocally? How is this case different from your example using "good"?
Also, did you name your cat Dwight because he is moody?
Bwahh-hah! Thanks for the Dwight joke and thanks for engaging!
I do think your two sentences relate analogically, perhaps via what Thomas would call an analogy of proportion. I'll argue more for the meaning-making of analogy on Thursday and would be curious what you make of the argument there. And both lemons and undiluted citric acid are things in this world, and God is not one of the things in this world...
And, you're right, it's possible we never quite use language univocally and that this is part of the beauty of language.
Thank you, great post! Analogy is much more than a simple tool for comparison. It’s like a shovel that digs up the soil as we begin to plant a garden, then, it becomes a rake that breaks it up and smooths it out. Then, perhaps, we’re opened the soil up to provide the optimum nutrients, without excess chemicals to make the soil better than it is, or kill weeds and then some. God’s goodness at work in many ways!
Yes. And perhaps this is one interesting way that catly goodness is an analogy to divine goodness, as cats, unlike humans, can’t be other than what they are. Inhuman is a thing. Infeline is not. 🐈⬛
“Purrspicacity” got me, I may never recover 😂
thanks for noticing, as I rather enjoyed it myself. :)
Take me to analogy school part 2, 3, and 4! This is really helpful content for thinking about how we speak of God.
I like what you wrote about language being embedded in a social-cultural matrix.” The analogy works with your embodied experience and lived history......It depends on community and time and tradition and culture and context.”
Thanks Graeme!
I am eager to read parts 2 - 4! Thank you for this discussion!
thanks for reading!
David Bentley Hart in his book ‘That All Shall Be Saved’ (pp 53-61), has an excellent discussion of the difference between the transcendent goodness of God and the goodness of his creatures (presumably including cats). He says that God is not a moral agent bound by some external to him standard of goodness but is goodness itself, he is The good and cannot act in any way contrary to that nature.
I think some use Isaiah 55 to try to explain what looks to us like God behaving badly, his ways are not our ways, but the context clearly states that his mercy (goodness even) is higher than the heavens above ours.
Loved this. Laughed. Shared.
I enjoy Church Blogmatics but I'm not purrsuaded by your argument against univocity. I don't think we can categorically reject it. Consider this similar pair of sentences:
"This lemon is sour" and "This undiluted citric acid is sour." I don't think "sour" is being used analogically. If "sour" is not being used univocally, do we ever use language univocally? How is this case different from your example using "good"?
Also, did you name your cat Dwight because he is moody?
Bwahh-hah! Thanks for the Dwight joke and thanks for engaging!
I do think your two sentences relate analogically, perhaps via what Thomas would call an analogy of proportion. I'll argue more for the meaning-making of analogy on Thursday and would be curious what you make of the argument there. And both lemons and undiluted citric acid are things in this world, and God is not one of the things in this world...
And, you're right, it's possible we never quite use language univocally and that this is part of the beauty of language.
Thank you, great post! Analogy is much more than a simple tool for comparison. It’s like a shovel that digs up the soil as we begin to plant a garden, then, it becomes a rake that breaks it up and smooths it out. Then, perhaps, we’re opened the soil up to provide the optimum nutrients, without excess chemicals to make the soil better than it is, or kill weeds and then some. God’s goodness at work in many ways!
Yes. And perhaps this is one interesting way that catly goodness is an analogy to divine goodness, as cats, unlike humans, can’t be other than what they are. Inhuman is a thing. Infeline is not. 🐈⬛