Monday, January 24, 2005

De/scribing God

We can only [fair dinkum, #1] talk about God and God-things in metaphor (e.g. Father) and similie (e.g. "the kingdom of God is like..."), allegory and parable* - which often [fair dinkum, #2] results in the use of idioms that themselves need explaining. But we are barking up the wrong tree [fair dinkum, #3] to try to define and describe God in dogmatic formulas.

We need new ways of talking of God. Or perhaps more accurately, we need old ways of talking of God.

*This does not mean that such things are not real, or true, of course - any more so than anything else we describe by metaphor and similie is not real or true. Metaphor is used where other forms of language are inadequate to the task. (Interestingly, it is also used where the empirical collection of data by the physical senses does not work - as deaf as a door-post; as blind as a bat...)

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