Abstract
Terrence Tilley writes:
To understand something, however minimal, of the God to whom we speak, we must understand, however minimally, the God of whom we speak. I do not know how to avoid this move from second- to third-person talk of God (emphases in original) ...
Certainly we must speak of God. We do that when we say God created the world and so on. Tilley holds that this language needs elucidation in a theory of analogy. Is there something unsatisfactory about our ordinary words for God? One reason to think so is that we say God loves us and hears our prayers, but then deny he has a body with which to embrace us, or ears to hear our prayers with. Perhaps God is a bodiless self with love-feelings and auditory sensations, but Tilley rejects this. He reaches for analogy theory as interpreted by Ian Ramsey.
To understand something, however minimal, of the God to whom we speak, we must understand, however minimally, the God of whom we speak. I do not know how to avoid this move from second- to third-person talk of God (emphases in original) ...
Certainly we must speak of God. We do that when we say God created the world and so on. Tilley holds that this language needs elucidation in a theory of analogy. Is there something unsatisfactory about our ordinary words for God? One reason to think so is that we say God loves us and hears our prayers, but then deny he has a body with which to embrace us, or ears to hear our prayers with. Perhaps God is a bodiless self with love-feelings and auditory sensations, but Tilley rejects this. He reaches for analogy theory as interpreted by Ian Ramsey.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | The Problem of Evil |
| Subtitle of host publication | Eight Views in Dialogue |
| Editors | N N Trakakis |
| Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Pages | 223-225 |
| Number of pages | 3 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780198821625 |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Keywords
- Good
- Evil
- God