Avoiding Cultural and Temporal Biases in Divine Analogies
Divine analogies, while essential for human comprehension of spiritual truths, carry the inherent risk of cultural and temporal biases. The challenge lies in articulating the divine in terms accessible to human experience without diminishing God's transcendence or importing anachronistic understandings.
Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, addresses the necessity of using metaphors in Holy Scripture. one tradition argues that it is fitting for sacred writ to convey divine and spiritual truths through comparisons with material things because human beings naturally grasp intellectual truths through sensible objects, as all human knowledge originates from the senses [2]. This approach acknowledges the limitations of human understanding and the need for God to communicate in a way that aligns with human cognitive capacity [2]. However, this very necessity introduces the potential for human cultural and temporal frameworks to shape the understanding of these analogies.
The early Church Fathers also grappled with the limitations of human language and thought in describing God. Clement of Alexandria, for instance, rejected the use of images in the likeness of holy things, a stance that contrasts with later practices in some traditions [6]. This highlights an early awareness of how material representations, even those intended to be reverent, could become problematic. Augustine, in City of God, discusses the need to discard "fabulous theology" and its interpretations, which invent "unworthy things concerning" God [8]. He also notes that while all things have their being from God, nothing in creation can truly be compared to God in substance or unchangeableness [9]. This underscores the vast qualitative difference between the Creator and creation, making any analogy inherently imperfect.
The danger of temporal bias is evident in how later generations might misinterpret or overemphasize aspects of divine analogies that were culturally specific to their original context. For example, Athanasius's writings, while profound, reflect the "evidential methods of his own day," which might appear as "large credulity" by modern standards [5]. This does not diminish the theological truth he conveyed but illustrates how the form of expression is tied to its historical moment.
Theological systems often seek to clarify the relationship between revealed truths, acknowledging that human speculation must remain within the bounds of what is revealed. Charles Hodge, in his Systematic Theology, emphasizes that the object of theological speculation is not to "pry into the operation of the divine mind" but to ascertain the relationship between revealed truths concerning redemption [3]. This cautionary note applies equally to divine analogies, reminding interpreters that these are aids to understanding, not exhaustive descriptions of God's nature. Hodge also notes the extensive and complex nature of eschatological topics, which have generated vast libraries of interpretation, further illustrating the human tendency to elaborate on divine revelation through various lenses [4].
Encounters with divine holiness are inherently dangerous, as seen in biblical accounts like Genesis 32:30 and Deuteronomy 5:4-5 [1]. This inherent danger suggests that human attempts to fully grasp or represent God will always fall short and can even be perilous if not approached with humility and reverence. The use of "rude and common words and phrases" to speak of divine matters, as described by Gregory Thaumaturgus, further illustrates the inadequacy of human language to fully capture the divine [7].
Sources
- Jude (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Jude 6:22: 6:22 Encounters with divine holiness are inherently dangerous (cp. Gen 32:30; Deut 5:4-5).”
- theology (Catholic (Scholastic)) “Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part (Prima Pars), The Nature and Extent of Sacred Doctrine, Art. 9: Article: Whether Holy Scripture should use metaphors? I answer that, It is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things. For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense. Hence in Holy Writ, spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things. This is wha”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, section 61: leave others in their sin. This view, as it seems, agrees with the representations of the Scriptures, and avoids the difficulties connected with the strict supralapsarian doctrine. It is to be borne in mind that the object of these speculations is not to pry into the operation of the divine mind, but simply to ascertain and exhibit the relation in which the several truths revealed in Scripture concerning the plan of redemption bear to each other.”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 84: § 1. Preliminary Remarks. This is a very comprehensive and very difficult subject. It is intimately allied with all the other great doctrines which fall under the head of eschatology. It has excited so much interest in all ages of the Church, that the books written upon it would of themselves make a library. The subject cannot be adequately discussed without taking a survey of all the prophetic teachings of the Scriptures both of the Old Testament and of the New. This task cannot be satisfactorily accomplished by any one who has not made ”
- CCEL (Patristic) “Athanasius of Alexandria, Select Works and Letters, section 210: one or two kindred matters which offer points of contact with phenomena that have been recently the subject of careful research, notes will be found below giving modern references. On the whole, one could wish that Athanasius, who is in so many ways surprisingly in touch with the modern mind ( supra , introd. to de Incar and Prolegg. ch. iv. §2 d and §3), had not written a biography revealing such large credulity. But we must measure this credulity of his not by the evidential methods of our own day, but by those of his own. If w”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 2: Hermas, Tatian, Theophilus, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria — ELUCIDATIONS. (part 3): Decalogue. Whatever we may think of this distinction, his argument destroys the fallacy of the Trent Catechism, which pleads the Levitical symbols in favour of images in "the likeness of holy things," and which virtually abrogates the second commandment. Images of God the Father (crowned with the Papal tiara) are everywhere to be seen in the Latin churches, and countless images of all heavenly things are everywhere worshipped under the fallacy which Clement rejects. Pascal exposes the distinctio”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 6: Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius, Julius Africanus, Methodius, Arnobius — ARGUMENT II.--HE ESSAYS TO SPEAK OF THE WELL-NIGH DIVINE ENDOWMENTS OF ORIGEN IN HIS PRESENCE, INTO WHOSE HANDS HE AVOWS HIMSELF TO HAVE BEEN LED IN A WAY BEYOND ALL HIS EXPECTATION. (part 1): But we, like any of the poor, unfurnished with these varied specifics[1]--whether as never having been possessed of them, or, it may be, as having lost them--are under the necessity of using, as it were, only charcoal and tiles, that is to say, those rude and common words and phrases; and by means of these, to the best of”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 2: Augustine — City of God, Christian Doctrine — CHAP. 8.--CONCERNING THE INTERPRETATIONS, CONSISTING OF NATURAL EXPLANATIONS, WHICH THE PAGAN TEACHERS ATTEMPT TO SHOW FOR THEIR GODS. (part 2): the fabulous theology, and is censured, cast off, rejected, 117 together with all such interpretations belonging to it. And not only by the natural theology, which is that of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology, concerning which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain to cities and peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation, because it has invented unworthy things concerni”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 6: Augustine — Homilies on the Gospels — ETC. AGAINST THE ARIANS. (part 8): the Creator hath, it may be, no resemblance of itself among the creatures ? For as far as He surpasseth the things which are here, in that He is there, so far doth He surpass the things which are born here, in that He was born there. All things here have their being from God; and yet what is to he compared with God ? So all things which are born here, are born by His agency. And so perhaps there is no resemblance of His Nativity found, as there is none found whether of His Substance, Unchangeableness, Divinit”