page_title: Problem of religious language
section_title: Via negativa
hierarchical_section_title: Problem of religious language / Classical understanding of religious language / Via negativa
caption_attribution_description: The purported portrait of w:Maimonides from which all modern portraits are derived. It first appeared in volume 2 of Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrarum …in quibus veterum Hebraeorum mores, leges, instituta, ritus sacri, et civiles illustrantur… (Thesaurus of sacred antiquities in which are illustrated the customs, laws, institutions, sacred and civil rites of the ancient Hebrews…) a 34-volume Latin anthology on Judaism by Blasio Ugolini (b. ca. 1700), published in Venice by the house of Giovanni Giacomo Hertz from 1744 to 1769.
context_page_description: The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe God, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories of religious language either attempt to demonstrate that such language is meaningless, or attempt to show how religious language can still be meaningful.
  Traditionally, religious language has been explained as via negativa, analogy, symbolism, or myth, each of which describes a way of talking about God in human terms. The via negativa is a way of referring to God according to what God is not; analogy uses human qualities as standards against which to compare divine qualities; symbolism is used non-literally to describe otherwise ineffable experiences; and a mythological interpretation of religion attempts to reveal fundamental truths behind religious stories. Alternative explanations of religious language cast it as having political, performative, or imperative functions.
context_section_description: Jewish philosopher Maimonides believed that God can only be ascribed negative attributes, a view based on two fundamental Jewish beliefs: that the existence of God must be accepted, and that it is forbidden to describe God. Maimonides believed that God is simple and so cannot be ascribed any essential attributes. He therefore argued that statements about God must be taken negatively, for example, "God lives" should be taken as "God does not lack vitality". Maimonides did not believe that God holds all of his attributes perfectly and without impairment; rather, he proposed that God lies outside of any human measures. To say that God is powerful, for example, would mean that God's power is beyond worldly power, and incomparable to any other power. In doing so, Maimonides attempted to illustrate God's indescribable nature and draw attention to the linguistic limits of describing God.
caption: 18th-century depiction of Maimonides, who developed the via negativa
exif: {}