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Metaphor, Religious Language, and Religious Experience

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Abstract

Is it possible to talk about God without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? The article begins by reviewing how, in attempting to answer this question, traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. After arguing that recently developed theories of metaphor seem better able to shed light on the nature of religious language, it considers the claim that huge areas of our language and, consequently, of our experience are shaped by metaphors. Finally, it considers some of the more significant implications of this claim for our understanding of both religious language and religious experience.

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Notes

  1. Rather than exploring the ways in which different conceptions of God might influence thought about religious language, I presuppose a particular view of God—that view which is dominant within Semitic monotheism—and consider religious language as it is employed within the context of belief in that God.

  2. It is common to distinguish between, what we might call, “general religious language,” on the one hand, and, on the other hand, a specialized category of religious language called “theological language.” General religious language includes the language used in religious texts (parables, stories, myths, and so on), and the language employed by believers in prayer and worship, etc. Such language tends to be replete with images and metaphors, and is sometimes referred to as “first-order” language. Theological language, by contrast, tends to contain a high proportion of abstract concepts, that is, concepts that are far removed from our direct experience. Thus, it is sometimes referred to as “second-order” language. In what follows, we shall be concerned principally with general religious language.

  3. For example, compare the word “passion” employed in the phrase “the passion of Christ” to its usage in the phrase “the passion of Henry for Annaïs.” Notice that even if “passion” has two quite different meanings (or more), it is nevertheless one word.

  4. The shared vocabulary of “religious” and “secular” language can, however, be camouflaged by the fact that the former is peppered by antiquated terms and expressions that have long since passed out of everyday parlance.

  5. It would, of course, be a further matter to stipulate exactly what constitutes “a religious context.” Indeed, to attempt to do so would require us to address the topic of how religion is to be defined. Nevertheless, perhaps we can suggest that a “religious context” typically includes references to such things as scripture, prayer, worship, religious experiences, and so on. See Harrison, Victoria S., “The Pragmatics of Defining Religion in a Multi-cultural World,” The International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 59 (2006): 133–152.

  6. Luther, Martin, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Works of Martin Luther (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1982), volume 2, p. 189. A thorough account of Luther’s approach to religious language would have to consider the impact of his Christological and Pneumatological views upon his hermeneutical theory.

  7. McCutcheon, Russell T., Critics not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), p. 51.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Within the Christian tradition, Pseudo-Dionysius, author of The Divine Names and Mystical Theology, is a key early exponent of the via negativa. The German mystic Meister Eckhart (1260–1327) was another well-known proponent of this theory of religious language. This apophatic approach is also represented in Asian religious thought, particularly with reference to nirguna Brahman (Brahman without qualities).

  10. Maimonides, Moses, The Guide for the Perplexed, translated by M. Friedlander (London: 1936), p. 86.

  11. Maimonides did, however, allow that a partial conception of God can be arrived at through considering God’s manifestations in the world; although it may be the case that not everyone is able to achieve knowledge of God this way. Ehud Ben-Or interprets Maimonides as claiming that God’s manifestations in the world could only be recognized as such by the virtuous. If this is right, then Maimonides believes that the conception a person might form of God is limited by that person’s character. See Ben-Or, Ehud, Worship of the Heart: A Study of Maimonides’ Philosophy of Religion (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995).

  12. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae, translated by H. McCabe (London and New York: Blackfriars edition, 1964), volume 3, 1a, 13, 5. My italics.

  13. See Soskice, Janet M., Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 15.

  14. The substitution theory of metaphor is often attributed to Aristotle (e.g., by Max Black). However, Soskice has challenged this common reading of Aristotle. See ibid., pp. 8–14.

  15. See Richards, I. A., The Philosophy of Rhetoric (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936).

  16. See the essays in Johnson, Mark (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981).

  17. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, op. cit., p. 55.

  18. Ibid., p. 93. My italics.

  19. Black, Max, “Metaphor” in Johnson (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives on Metaphor, op. cit., p. 75.

  20. Ibid., p. 77.

  21. Soskice was not the first to explore the metaphorical dimensions of religious language. Sallie McFague had already done so in Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982). Soskice criticizes McFague, however, for employing an insufficiently sophisticated view of metaphor.

  22. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, op. cit., p. 66.

  23. See, for example, ibid., p. 89.

  24. Ibid., p. 95.

  25. Ibid., p. 109.

  26. Sallie McFague also uses “God the Father” as an example of a model within religious language, which she regards as a dominant metaphor that has established itself as a model through its staying power. “As a model,” she writes, “it not only retains characteristics of metaphor but also reaches toward qualities of conceptual thought. It suggests a comprehensive, ordering structure with impressive interpretative potential. As a rich model with many associated common-places as well as a host of supporting metaphors, an entire theology can be worked out from this model. Thus, if God is understood on the model of ‘father,’ human beings are understood as ‘children,’ sin is rebellion against the ‘father,’ redemption is sacrifice by the ‘elder son’ on behalf of the ‘brothers and sisters’ for the guilt against the ‘father’ and so on.” McFague, Metaphorical Theology, op. cit., p. 23. Ironically, as McFague points out, it is the very comprehensiveness of successful models that leads people to take them too literally.

  27. Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, op. cit., p. 112.

  28. Ibid., p. 133.

  29. Ibid., p. 140.

  30. See ibid., pp. 139f.

  31. Hans Urs von Balthasar argues extensively in favor of the type of position advanced by Soskice. He claims that the experience of the saints should be used as a primary resource within Christian theology. On this aspect of von Balthasar’s thought, see Harrison, Victoria S., The Apologetic Value of Human Holiness: Von Balthasar’s Christocentric Philosophical Anthropology, Studies in Philosophy and Religion, volume 21 (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2000).

  32. Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980).

  33. Ibid., p. 3. Also see Turner, M., Death is the Mother of Beauty: Mind, Metaphor, Criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), for an example of the research generated by Lakoff and Johnson’s ground-breaking approach.

  34. Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, op. cit., p. 3.

  35. Ibid., p. 4.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid., p. 145.

  38. See ibid., p. 49.

  39. Ibid., p. 146.

  40. See ibid., pp. 157f.

  41. Michel Foucault has also written extensively about the close ties between language and power.

  42. Here Lakoff and Johnson are indebted to Michael Reddy. See Reddy, M., “The Conduit Metaphor: A Case of Frame Conflict in our Language about Language” in Ortony, A. (ed.), Metaphor and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 164–201.

  43. See Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, op. cit., Chapter 3.

  44. Ibid., p. 10.

  45. Ibid., p. 11.

  46. For one illustration of such screening, see McFague, Metaphorical Theology, op. cit., p. x.

  47. See, for example, Plaskow, Judith, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990), Jantzen, Grace M., Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), and Mernissi, Fatima, Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

  48. I have not examined structuralist or poststructuralist understandings of religious language. Whereas these theoretical approaches enjoyed considerable influence on European intellectual life in the midtwentieth century, they did not focus attention on the particular questions raised by religious language that are the concern of this paper.

  49. I am indebted to Alan Carter for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

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Harrison, V.S. Metaphor, Religious Language, and Religious Experience. SOPHIA 46, 127–145 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-007-0018-3

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