Metaphor, Religious Language, and Religious Experience

Abstract

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. 1 Metaphor, Religious Language and Religious ExperienceIs it possible to talk about God 1 without either misrepresentation or failing to assert anything of significance? In an attempt to answer this question, I begin by reviewing how traditional theories of religious language have failed to sidestep both potential pitfalls adequately. I then turn to recent developments in the theory of metaphor-developments that seem better able to explain how speakers are capable of referring to God successfully without having to misrepresent the divine.Before proceeding, however, some clarification of the term 'religious language' is required. 'Religious language', as employed by religious scholars in the everyday sense, refers to the written and spoken language typically used by religious believers when they talk about their religious beliefs and their religious experiences. The term also covers the language used in sacred texts and in worship and prayer. 2 Use of the term 'religious language' might suggest that there is a special 'religious' component of natural languages, which is easily distinguishable from the normal, secular component of these languages. This, however, is clearly not the case. For when believers employ 'religious language', they do not use completely different words to those uttered by their non-religious contemporaries. 3 While certain words may be uttered by believers with greater frequency than by atheists, nonetheless, the words that feature in 'religious language' are the same words that are used in 'non-religious language'. 4 Even a word as quintessentially religious as 'God' appears in the language of many non-religious people in the context of a variety of commonly used curses.Moreover, if one were to open a page of the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity or Islam most of the words on that page would seem to bear the same mundane meaning as they do in ordinary, 'secular' discourse. In short, it would seem that the religiosity of language cannot lie in the actual words used but in something else. I suggest that that the 'something else' consists principally, although not exclusively, in two factors: first, the 'religious' purpose some language serves, and, secondly, the overtly 'religious' context of some linguistic uses.The term 'religious language', as used here, then, should be regarded as shorthand for 'la...

Faith, Belief, and the Compatibility of Religion and Science

“…As many have argued, the experiences relevant to religious faith seem to defy ordinary descriptive categories and to invite, instead, metaphorical and other nonliteral attempts to describe them (Harrison ; McGrath , 105–08). This is due partly to the nature of religious objects, but also (more importantly for present purposes) to religious experience being transformative —changing one's life in terms of what is deemed possible and important, and making it difficult to communicate to those who have not been so transformed.…”

From Matter to Spirit: Metaphors of Enlightenment in Bhagavad-gītā

“…Bhagavad-gītā remains a crucial scripture for modern Hindus (Davis, 2015) and a text analysis can enlighten people to some extent about the beliefs of 15% of humanity. Harrison (2007) finds conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) extremely useful to decipher religious texts. The analysis of Bhagavad-gītā is grounded in CMT, which Lakoff & Johnson (1999, 2003 established.…”

“…Johnson (1999, 2003) argue for the inverse because metaphors can conceive philosophical concepts and are fundamental to cognition. Since language reveals cognition (Harrison, 2007), CMT performs a linguistic analysis to decipher metaphors.…”

Classical and revisionary theism on the divine as personal: a rapprochement?

“…Thus, while the notion of divine personhood 'is so rich that it has been developed as the most fundamental and characteristic conceptual model in theistic god-talk' (5), like all theological metaphors, 12 There are, of course, alternative interpretations of metaphor. For example, Victoria Harrison (2007) argues that, following the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980), metaphor should be seen as reality-constituting, and therefore as reality-transforming -i.e., as changing the way in which we experience the world. Soskice rejects this example of what she terms 'the metaphor-as-myth thesis ' (1985, 81-82), while Dan R. Stiver draws out the similarities between Lakoff and Johnson' position on the one hand, and that of Soskice on the other (1996, 120, 126). what it asserts 'is always accompanied by the whisper "and it is not."…”