Religious Language and John Hick

According to Hick’s the problem of religious language stems from the contexts in which words are digested in both spoken and written form. Because of the very nature of God, both the spoken and written word can lead to much confusion if we are to take the words literally . Due to the secularity of the words used to describe and speak of religion we have a hard time applying them theologically. Problems begin arising when words are adapted from their secular usage. Our basic understanding of language doesn’t necessarily apply to religion and we see this clearly throughout Hick’s article. For example one might say “ Our God is a loving God”. As Hicks states God has no logical existence or bodily presence in which to express love. Love as we understand it is acted upon. It begins with being felt on the inside deep within our very being is acted upon externally through the use of our bodies and our minds. Whether we are holding someone in our arms, kissing the forehead of a loved one, making love or self sacrificing to show our love, love is experienced through the human experience. God however, as we know him/her, is not human, has no arms in which to hold someone, no lips in which to kiss someone and no “passions” as Hick would say. Hick’s further explored historical concepts through the work of Tomas Aquinas, Paul Tillich and the Doctrine of the Incarnation and Ludwig Wittgenstien.
Tomas Aquinas speaks of the Doctrine of analogical prediction. In his work he notes that when a word such as “ good” is applied to a created being and to God alike , the meaning is not used univocally and does not bear the same meaning. Nor is such a term being used equivocally is nature where as the term would denote having different or unrelated meanings. Tomas Aquinas argues that the term is being used analogically. The term is being used to show the resemblances of any given