1. Analogy Today’s lesson will be successful if you can: Explore how language analogy can help people to express an understanding about God.

2. Describe a Blizzard to an African visitor Describe a school to a Martian Describe the world wide web to Shakespeare

3. Analogy  Describing something that is unfamiliar by making a comparison to something that we already know

4. God is…..  Good  A rock  A good shepherd  Father  What are the problems of applying these terms to God? Complete worksheet 1.5

5.  Analogy of attribution  Bakers and Bread (Brian Davies) If we say the bread is good and the baker is good, there is a relationship between the statements. They bread is the product of hithe baker and his goodness or skill  Bulls and Urine  Properties such as wisdom, move and goodness are reflections of the properties of the creator God. When we see these attributes in others, we are able to make analogies with the attributes of God. It seems that no word can be used literally of God (Aquinas).

6. Aquinas  Analogy of proportion  Who is a good Artist, Footballer or Philosopher?  Are you as good as Van Gogh, Rooney or Aquinas?  When we use words to describe God, we are describing an infinite being. When we describe each other we are describing finite beings. John Hick (1922-) uses Baron Von Hugel’s example of the term faithfulness. We can use it to describe a dog, a human or God. When we assert this about God, it makes our faithfulness seem tiny by comparison.

7. Debate:  ‘Analogy is not much good use when it comes to describing something nobody has ever seen’.  Split into two groups and prepare strengths and weaknesses Key words: equivocal, univocal, anthropomorphism, analogy