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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Expressions used in religious contexts have often seemed odd and paradoxical to philosophers. Statements have appeared in Christian discourse to the effect that God is not a person and yet is a person, that he is a servant and a king, that he is nothingness and being itself. These statements appear unintelligible either because their terms are self-contradictory or because they are mutually exclusive.
page 144 note 1 See my paper, ‘Some Aspects of Ian Ramsey's Empiricism’, International journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. iii, No. 1, Spring 1972, pp. 2–17.Google Scholar
page 144 note 2 Religious Language (London: S.C.M. Press, 1957), p. 65.Google Scholar
page 144 note 3 Quoted in Mehta, Ved, The New Theologian (New York, Harper and Row, 1965), p. 119.Google Scholar
page 145 note 1 Religious Language, pp. 53, 61, 73; Religion and Science: Conflict and Synthesis (London: S.P.C.K., 1964), p. 23Google Scholar; Models and Mystery (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp. 15–16, 57–9Google Scholar; ‘Letter to the Editor’, Theology, Vol. LXVIII, No. 536 (February 1965), p. 109Google Scholar; Christian Discourse: Some Logical Explorations (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 5, 66–67, 88–89Google Scholar; ‘Models and Mystery: a reply’, Theoria to Theory, vol. I (April 1967), pp. 264–5.Google Scholar
page 145 note 2 Black, Max, Models and Metaphors (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), p. 222.Google Scholar
page 145 note 3 Christian Discourse, pp. 71, 74; ‘Talking about God: Models, Ancient and Modern’, Myth and Symbol, ed. Dillistone, F. W. (London: S.P.C.K., 1966), p. 95.Google Scholar
page 145 note 4 Religious Language, p. 62.
page 145 note 5 Models and Mystery, pp. 60–1.
page 146 note 1 Models and Mystery pp. 51–3.
page 146 note 2 Black, , op. cit., pp. 24–47.Google Scholar
page 146 note 3 Religious Language, p. 66.
page 146 note 4 ibid. p. 65.
page 147 note 1 Religious Language, pp. 57–8
page 148 note 1 Ramsey implicitly identifies wisdom with knowledge. Wisdom, however, can appear in the absence of knowledge. It involves not only reflection about things, but also sound judgment about a way of life that is not arrived at solely by argumentation. The terms have different, albeit related, meanings.
page 148 note 2 ‘Empiricism and Religion’, The Christian Scholar, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, June 1956, p. 161Google Scholar; ‘Contemporary Philosophy and the Christian Faith’, Religious Studies, vol. I (1965), p. 61.Google Scholar
page 148 note 3 Models and Mystery, p. 30.
page 149 note 1 On Being Sure in Religion (London: The Athlone Press, 1963), p. 62.Google Scholar
page 149 note 2 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, translated by Anscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), section 40.Google Scholar
page 149 note 3 Quine, W. O., Word and Object (Cambridge: Technology Press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960), p. 109.Google Scholar
page 149 note 4 Geach, Peter, God and the Soul (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969), p. 81.Google Scholar
page 151 note 1 ‘History and the Gospels: Some Philosophical Reflections’, Studia Evangelica, vol. VIII, Pt. II, Sect. VI (1961), pp. 212–14Google Scholar; Models and Mystery, pp. 38–40.
page 151 note 2 Religion and Science, p. 69.
page 151 note 3 ‘Talking about God’, p. 90.
page 151 note 4 ‘On the Possibility and Purpose of a Metaphysical Theology’, Prospect for Metaphysics, ed. Ramsey, I. T. (London: George and Unwin, Ltd., 1961), p. 176.Google Scholar
page 152 note 1 These groupings include some qualified models discussed in Ramsey's work that are not mentioned specifically elsewhere in this article.
page 152 note 2 Ramsey discusses the possibility of using ‘Evil’ as a model in Religious Language, pp. 80–88. He suggests that the term may be so used if it is suitably qualified, for example, by a narrative that does not function on the descriptive level. He does not explain why the model, ‘Evil’, requires the very special qualification that he gives it.
page 153 note 1 Beardsley, Monroe, Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism (New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1958), p. 142.Google Scholar
page 154 note 1 Black, , op. cit., pp. 222–3.Google Scholar
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