Religious language: meaning and interpretation

Religion

Religious Language

What are the strengths and weaknesses of understanding religious language analogically?

Religious language can be quite analogical, and because of that, it can prove difficult to understand at times. Using an analogy in religious terms can give a strong sense of understanding if the analogy itself is understood, but it can create misunderstanding if the analogy is no longer applicable to our modern society. For example, in the Bible, Noah survived a flood of forty days and forty nights. Today, we assume the analogy of that fable is the same period as we know today -- in other words, a 24-hour day. However, we may misunderstand the length of a day in Biblical times, or in God's terms. The term could mean something extremely different, and so, Noah's age and the length of the storm might not be quite as incredible as they seem, or they could be even more incredible.

As authors Vardy and Arliss note in their book, "The Thinker's Guide to God," language itself is inadequate for describing something as grand and immutable as God. Language is simply not grand enough to describe a deity such as this, and this is the great weakness of language in general, and using analogies in particular. They may be understandable to us, but they do not convey the true meaning or greatness of the deity himself. Language and communication can mean different things to different people. Even the same word, spoken with a different inflection, can mean something different from one person to the next. This is one of the great weaknesses of language, and one of the reasons the language of the Bible can be so difficult. It has often been translated, and each translator could have changed the meaning or the inflection of words to change the meaning. One of the great strengths of the Bible is its' powerful and moving language, but that could also prove to be one of its' greatest weaknesses if the language is misunderstood or misconstrued.