Friday, July 21, 2006

Univocity vs. Analogy vs. Equivocity


If the title of this entry didn't stop you from reading further, especially in the middle of a hot summer, you must be a real theologian. Here's the issue: when the Bible attributes certain characteristics to God, how are to we to understand the relationship between those attributes and God himself? Or, how does Biblical language work? More simply, if the Bible says that God "changed his mind" or is "fuming in anger" or "feels betrayed", we have three main interpretive options. "Univocity" means that such words when applied to God mean the same thing ("one voice") that they do when applied to us. Lately some controversial evangelical theologicans have taken the univocal approach in order to say that when God "changed his mind" (in a few places in Scripture) that he did so in the same way and for the same reasons that we change our mind: new data that we hadn't forseen comes into view, and so, we adjust ourselves. So, God changed his mind about destroying Israel in the desert because Moses helped him see reality in a new way. You can see the problems that univocity gets you into! But many fundamentalists use the univocity view to justify extremely literalistic readings that discount metaphor, allegory, etc. On the other extreme, equivocity is the route of hyper-skepticism and postmodernity, which often suggets that God is so ultra-transcendant and unknowable that the Biblical language itself can't tell us anything very reliable about God. Human language for God, including scriptural language, is a form of our reaching up and trying to explain our religious feelings and experiences. Of course, this view would deny that Biblical claims about God are themselves revealed by God.
The best way out of the dead-ends of univocity and equivocity is analogy. To say that God felt "betrayed" in an analogical sense means that our experience of being betrayed is both similar and somehow different than God's experience. In common with God, we would experience betrayal when someone who promised us love ended up witholding it from us. Different, however, is that God is never dominated or overwhelmed by his feelings, he is never taken off guard by a betraying act, he somehow also uses the other's betrayal for a better end he had in mind, amongst other diferences that we can't even name because we don't fully understand God given our finitude. The analogical view says that the differences in language usage between how a word applies to God and how it applies to us does not cancel the communicative, revelatory value of such a word: when God says "I felt betrayed" he is communicating something real about himself, and enough for us to know him deeper by him tellling us so. God gives us biblical descriptions of himself to deepen our love and worship of him, but not as a way of building a univocal and exhaustively metaphysical model of his nature. As the Reformers said, we never know God fully as he is in himself. So, did God change his mind that day with Moses in the desert? Yes and no. He halted one plan and embarked on another (like we might do), but he foreknew this reversal and was teaching Moses something about intercession (unlike what we could do). Respecting the principle of analogy helps us avoid a lot of bizarre theological claims that we might be able to "prooftext," but that really misuse the text (usually in the direction of univocity).
If you made it this far, I think you've earned your beach read. In fact, I'm off to the pool myself...

3 comments:

beckalippy said...

Hey Brian,
Sweet blog! I love the fact that it is like a theology lesson on a blog.
I will be visiting slo in a few weeks, and I wanted to amke sure you are preaching on August 5th... please tell me yes!!! i haven't head you preach for a year!
I have to jet off right after church to head up to the Bay Area for my high school reunion, but maybe before church or on saturday, , your pretty wife would be up for coffee???

TimV said...

I rather thought it a very clear, well written and superbly argued post, thanks
Tim

Adam Howell said...

Brian,
I don't know if you'll get this, but I am writing a paper on Aquinas' view and use of anaology, and your post was very helpful in giving me an introductory grasp of these words. Thanks a bunch, and keep following hard after the Lord.

AJH