Via Negativa, Symbol & Analogy: AQA A grade notes

AQA
Philosophy

Intro:

Talking meaningfully about something seems to require understanding it at least to some degree.
The problem of religious language is that most Christians agree that God is totally beyond our understanding.
In that case, how can Christians meaningfully talk about God?
The three theories in this topic each attempt to explain how it’s possible to meaningfully talk about God, despite God being beyond our understanding.
This topic is really about different views on the nature of the relationship between God and humans, and what follows from that about what we could know and say about God.
Via negativa claims the relationship is asymmetrical, so language must negate in order to purify.
Analogy claims the relationship includes participation/imago dei, so analogical language can refer imperfectly but accurately.
Symbol claims the relationship is existential/affective, so language functions to connect and transform.

AO1: Via Negativa (apophatic)

The Via Negativa argues we must give up trying to say what God is.
We can only meaningfully say what God is not.
Negative language shows that God is beyond all human concepts.
For example, saying God is not darkness does not mean God is light.
It means God is beyond the whole light/dark distinction.
Pseudo-Dionysius explains this through imagery.
He compares it to Moses ascending Mount Sinai to encounter God.
This represents moving beyond ordinary understanding.
The cloud symbolises the limits of human knowledge and perception.
To approach God, we must let go of our concepts and enter the “cloud of unknowing”.
Via Negativa helps us do this by rejecting attempts to define God.
It breaks our tendency to grasp at knowledge that cannot apply to God.
Dionysius says this leads to an “inactivity of all knowledge” and a deeper union with God.
We come to “know beyond the mind by knowing nothing”.
This is not knowledge in the usual sense, but a kind of unity with God.
So, apophatic language is meaningful because it transforms and prepares the soul for this union.

AO1: Strength & weakness of Via Negativa AO2 summary

Strength: Via negativa avoids anthropomorphism by using negation to eliminate false conceptions and progressively refine understanding of God.
Weakness: Negative language fails to generate meaningful knowledge of God, since negation cannot identify what God is without knowing all possible alternatives.
Weakness: Via negativa rejects conceptual knowledge of God, making it difficult to explain how it provides genuine cognitive understanding.
Strength: Apophatic approaches can offer a form of mystical awareness, where stripping away concepts leads to a non-representational knowledge of God.
Weakness: Via negativa appears inconsistent with biblical language, which frequently describes God using positive attributes such as love and spirit.
Strength: Apophatic theology can reinterpret biblical language which seems positive as referring to God’s effects in the world rather than God’s essence, preserving divine transcendence.

AO2: Maimonides vs Brian Davies

Maimonides argues via negativa is superior to analogy.
He illustrates this with two people being told what a ship is.
One hears positive analogies, but likeness cannot capture a thing’s true nature and risks being misleading.
The other hears negative descriptions, ruling out what a ship is not.
These negations remove false ideas and move closer to understanding.
Maimonides concludes that accurate statements about God work as negations.
We can come nearer to knowledge of God by eliminating what God is not.

Counter

Brian Davies argues negative language only works if all possible options are known.
For ordinary things, ruling out alternatives can lead to the correct answer.
But with God, we do not know the range of possibilities.
So, removing predicates does not increase understanding.
Aquinas instead uses analogy, arguing human qualities reflect God in a limited way.
This allows some indirect knowledge of God, rather than relying only on negation.

Evaluation

However, Pseudo-Dionysius’ version avoids this problem.
He rejects the idea that God can be known through concepts at all.
Negative language instead strips away misleading ideas about God.
What remains is a direct but non-conceptual awareness of the divine.
This can be understood as mystical knowledge rather than intellectual understanding.
So, Davies’ criticism only works if knowledge must be conceptual.
If knowledge of God can be non-conceptual, via negativa can still succeed.

AO2: Via Negativa vs the bible & Aquina

The Bible appears inconsistent with via negativa.
It describes God positively, such as “God is love” or “God is spirit,” and even gives personal attributes like being “jealous.”
This suggests religious language affirms what God is, rather than only denying what God is not.

Counter

Pseudo-Dionysius argues these statements do not describe God’s essence.
They describe God as the cause of qualities we experience, like love or life.
Humans possess these qualities because they derive from God.
However, since God transcends human categories, each positive claim must be “unsaid.”
So, scripture can still be interpreted apophatically.

Evaluation

However, this defence actually supports analogy.
If humans possess qualities like love because they come from God, this implies some real connection between God and human qualities.
That connection involves a limited likeness, even if God transcends it.
Once this is accepted, language about God cannot be purely negative or equivocal.
Aquinas’ analogical approach better captures this.
It explains how language can be meaningful while still recognising God’s transcendence.
Via negativa alone strips religious language of too much content, whereas analogy preserves both meaning and transcendence.

AO1: Aquinas’ theory of analogy (cataphatic)

Aquinas identifies a problem for positive religious language.
Univocal language fails because humans are not the same as God, so words cannot have exactly the same meaning.
Equivocal language fails because it gives words completely different meanings when applied to God, making them meaningless to us.
Aquinas proposes analogy as a middle way.
We are not identical to God, but nor are we totally different.
We are like God, so our qualities are analogous to God’s.
Analogical language takes something understood (human qualities) and uses it to speak about something less understood (God).
We understand human qualities such as goodness and love, and can use them as analogies for God’s qualities.
Genesis supports this by claiming humans are created in God’s image and likeness.
Analogy of attribution means we can infer qualities in a source from its effects.
For example, just as healthy urine indicates a healthy body, human goodness reflects God as its source.
Analogy of proportion means that qualities exist in proportion to a being’s nature.
Humans have goodness in a limited way, whereas God has goodness in an infinite and perfect way.
So, God’s qualities are like ours but proportionally greater.
This allows meaningful language about God while still respecting divine transcendence.

AO1: Strength & weakness of Analogy AO2 summary

Strength: Biblical language supports the via positiva by describing God with positive attributes such as love, spirit, and jealousy.
Weakness: The reliance on participation implies some formal similarity between God and humans, which risks undermining divine transcendence.
Weakness: Analogy is criticised for failing to explain how God possesses qualities, since human concepts cannot capture infinite divine attributes.
Strength: Analogy grounded in participation affirms that the same perfections exist in God in an infinite mode, giving meaningful content to religious language.
Strength: Analogy provides a balanced approach by allowing limited knowledge of God through reason while recognising human cognitive limitations.
Weakness: Reliance on human reason risks error and idolatry, as finite minds may distort the nature of an infinite God.

AO2: Brummer’s critique of analogy

Brummer argues analogy fails to express meaningful positive language about God.
He claims proportion does not work, since God’s infinite nature places divine qualities beyond our understanding.
Attribution tries to fix this by saying God is the source of qualities like love.
However, Brummer argues this only shows where qualities come from, not how God possesses them.
Analogies only work when we understand both sides, but we cannot know God in that way.

Counter

Aquinas argues analogy is grounded in a real metaphysical relation, not surface similarity.
Human qualities are limited participations in God’s unlimited perfection.
So when we speak of love, the same perfection exists in both God and humans.
Human love is a limited form of divine love.
This allows us to speak meaningfully about God without claiming full understanding.

Evaluation

Brummer underestimates how analogy secures genuine meaning.
If human qualities come from God, then talking about our qualities really is talking about God’s qualities, it’s just that God has those qualities infinitely.
E.g., If love in humans means ‘willing the good’, Aquinas says God possesses this perfection infinitely.
Aquinas’ account allows us to say something positive, even if imperfectly.
For example, if love means willing the good, then God possesses this perfectly.
So analogy does more than via negativa, which removes content entirely.
It preserves meaning while recognising God’s transcendence, making it the stronger approach.

AO2: Barth vs Aquinas on natural theology

Aquinas justifies natural theology through the idea that human reason reflects the imago dei.
Humans retain moral responsibility, which depends on reason.
If we can be held responsible for sin, our reason must still function.
So, we retain something of God’s image.
Aquinas concludes that reason can know God’s existence, moral law, and attributes through analogy.

Counter

Barth criticises this as overconfidence in human reason.
Sin may not destroy reason, but it makes it unreliable.
Finite human minds cannot grasp an infinite God.
Using reason risks forming false ideas of God and committing idolatry.
Barth links this danger to history, arguing misuse of reason contributed to ideologies like Nazism.
He concludes we should rely on revelation in scripture instead.

Evaluation

Barth rightly highlights the dangers of relying on reason, but his solution goes too far.
Rejecting reason entirely creates its own risks, such as blind faith and superstition.
Humans cannot avoid error, so the issue is how to use reason carefully, not abandon it.
Aquinas offers a more balanced approach.
He limits what reason can achieve, arguing it only shows a basic first cause, not the full Christian God.
He also restricts knowledge of God’s nature to analogy.
This shows humility about reason’s limits while still using it responsibly.
So Aquinas provides a more convincing middle ground than Barth’s rejection of natural theology.

AO1: Religious language as symbolic

Tillich claims that religious language is symbolic rather than literal, so it does not try to describe what God is.
Instead, symbolic language connects a person’s mind to something beyond itself.
Religious language connects a believer’s mind to God in a similar way to a religious experience.
So, when someone hears “God be with you”, they feel connected to God, which is how the language is meaningful.
It is not a literal description of God, but an emotional or spiritual connection.
For example, a Christian looking at a crucifix may feel connected to God because it symbolises Jesus’ sacrifice.
Tillich argues religious language works in the same way.
The words are not meant to describe God, but to create a sense of closeness and participation.
Tillich’s theory of participation claims symbols both point beyond themselves and participate in what they represent.
They create a bridge between the human mind and a higher dimension of reality.
God is described as the “ground of being”, and religion expresses our “ultimate concern”.
As an existentialist, Tillich sees religion as rooted in human experience, especially its deepest concerns about meaning and existence.
So, religious language is meaningful because it connects us to the mystery of existence, even if we cannot understand or describe God directly.

AO1: Strength & weakness of Symbol AO2 summary

Weakness: Symbolic theories fail to account for the cognitive content of religious language, which includes factual claims about salvation, God, and the afterlife.
Strength: Tillich’s existentialism convincingly prioritises spiritual experience, capturing what is most important in religion for many believers.
Weakness: Tillich’s claim that symbols participate in reality is criticised as incoherent, since it makes unclear ontological claims without explanation.
Strength: Randall’s functional version of symbol explains how symbols shape behaviour, community, and moral life without requiring controversial metaphysical claims.
Strength: Symbolic language effectively captures the emotional depth and intensity of religious expression, which involves awe, devotion, and transformation.
Weakness: Reducing religious language to symbolic or non-cognitive functions undermines its truth-claims and weakens its coherence and long-term stability.

AO2: How successfully symbols capture religious meaning

Alston criticises Tillich for ignoring the factual element of religious language.
Religion involves objective claims about salvation and the afterlife.
Doctrines like heaven and hell are treated as truth claims, not just symbols.
Hick makes a similar point, noting that philosophical language about God is not symbolic.
Christians generally treat religious statements as beliefs that can be true or false.
So, Tillich fails to account for this cognitive dimension of religious language.

Counter

However, symbols capture the spiritual depth of religious language.
Tillich’s existentialism prioritises lived experience over abstract doctrine.
For many believers, the emotional and spiritual response is central.
For example, a Christian viewing a crucifix may feel a deep connection to God.
This shows religious language functions to evoke meaning, not just describe facts.
Tillich’s theory captures this important experiential aspect.

Evaluation

However, Tillich’s account is one-sided.
While he rightly restores the importance of spiritual experience, he neglects the role of belief.
For many Christians, doctrines like heaven, hell, and salvation are central and treated as factual.
These beliefs shape and direct religious experience, rather than being separate from it.
Spiritual feelings are not empty but are about something, namely God’s actions and promises.
So, reducing religious language to symbols strips away this cognitive content.
A more convincing view must include both experience and belief.
Therefore, Tillich’s theory fails to fully capture religious meaning.

AO2: Issues around the subjectivity of symbols and ‘participation’

Tillich claims symbols are beyond the cognitive/non-cognitive distinction, yet also says they participate in reality.
This implies an ontological claim about how symbols relate to God.
Hick argues this is incoherent, since ontological claims must be cognitive.
Tillich refuses to explain participation because God is beyond literal description.
So Hick concludes the idea is vague and unclear.
It is not obvious how symbols participate in reality, especially if everything already participates in God.

Counter

Randall avoids this problem by rejecting participation altogether.
He argues symbols do not connect us to a transcendent reality.
Instead, they function within human culture by shaping emotions, moral behaviour, and social identity.
By treating symbols as non-cognitive, Randall avoids the need for metaphysical explanation.
Religious language can still be meaningful as a cultural practice.

Evaluation

However, this solution comes at too high a cost.
By removing any reference to reality beyond human culture, Randall collapses religion into anti-realism.
Religious claims are no longer truth-apt, which conflicts with how most believers understand their faith.
It also makes religious meaning unstable, since symbols can shift with cultural change.
There is then no clear way to distinguish genuine development from distortion.
This weakens religion’s explanatory power, especially regarding commitment, sacrifice, and conversion.
Tillich at least attempts to preserve truth through participation, even if imperfectly.
So while Hick is right that participation is unclear, Randall’s alternative fails more seriously by abandoning truth altogether.