Talking of God: much thinking about the nature of God rests on our ideas about the adequacy of language and its ability to describe reality. Words have meaning because they apply to things we experience. But this is not the only source of meaning. Scientific language and language about God have some surprising similarities

"Nothing is more free than the imagination of man; and though it cannot exceed that original stock of ideas furnished by the internal and external senses, it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating, and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction and vision." David Hume

The limits of language

There has always been a sense in which, although words have given flight to our understanding and have enabled us to master our world, they also constrain us. Language is our means not only of describing reality but of interpreting it. It may be fair to say that human beings would wish language to be a neutral form of communication, but experience suggests that it is anything but. Nevertheless, it is our only substantial means of communication and thus it is left to philosophers to draw attention to the influence that language may be having on the meaning we seek to convey. Some philosophers have seen this as the only true role of philosophy.

In his 1936 work Language, Truth and Logic AJ Ayer argued that philosophy should no longer be seen as a metaphysical concern, nor as an attempt to provide speculative truths about the nature of ultimate reality. Instead, he saw it as an activity of defining and clarifying the logical relationships between empirical propositions. If this is the role of philosophy, then studying the philosophy of religion would seem to be redundant. Not much can be discovered about God through the senses, through touch, taste, smell, hearing or sight. It follows that without meaningful propositions, the job of clarifying the logical relationships between them would not take long. But not all philosophers share Ayer's view on the role of philosophy or on the nature of language.

Can I mean what I say about God?

While philosophers of religion love words, it is their business to analyse what those words mean and it is particularly difficult to do this when they refer to God. Words represent concepts. Traditionally the bond between the word and its concept was held to be solid and static. Just as Kanzi the bonobo makes a specific noise every time a banana is in sight and this is grounds for the noise meaning banana, human words are held to mean particular things in a definite way. It is easy to establish what the meaning of a word is when the object it refers to is in plain view, but much more difficult when it represents an abstract concept that cannot be experienced but only defined in terms of other words. The philosopher GE Moore (1873-1958) put his finger on this difficulty. How can we express what a concept such as "goodness" is without simply listing examples of things we believe to be good? Even concepts such as "yellow" are difficult to define. If we just list apparently yellow things we still cannot be sure that the definition is accurate – what if I am colourblind? Nevertheless, at least with yellowness, my meaning refers to a sense experience which most people share.

Establishing meaning in language

Empiricist philosophers accept that sense experience is the best source of knowledge and the point of reference when we try to establish meaning in language. For logical positivists such as Moritz Schlick (1882-1936) or AJ Ayer meaning can either be analytic, in other words one word can be shown to mean the same as another and a statement can be demonstrated to be a tautology (for example "unmarried men are bachelors" or 2+2=4). Or meaning can be synthetic and refer to a sense-experience (for example "the ball appears to be red"). Analytic statements do not extend the sum of human knowledge and synthetic statements can only relate to a limited range of conversational topics. Nevertheless empiricists are satisfied to reject all other statements as meaningless, or simply expressions of approval or disapproval, including all discussion of morality, beauty and, of course, religion.

Yet despite the fact that statements of value or faith cannot be verified in this life (and the fact that doubters suggest that for many people values and beliefs are not falsifiable either) it is clear that talk about right, wrong, beauty, metaphysical truth and God is very meaningful to most people. That is not to say that philosophers who make it their life's work to explore truth about morality, aesthetics, metaphysics and theology do not accept the difficulty of communicating about things which cannot be experienced directly.

Describing God

How can the human mind, let alone limited words, grasp the concept of God? In front of the burning bush Moses was told "I am what I am". Can any one of us go further in trying to describe the creator and sustainer of the universe? Jewish thinkers, taking their cue from Exodus, have resisted defining or describing God beyond what he reveals about Himself through the scriptures. The great medieval Jewish scholar of Cordoba, Moses Maimonaides (1135-1204), argued that nothing positive can be ascribed to God but we can, as philosophers, use logic to say what God clearly is not. This approach is known as the via negativa or "apophatic way" and had been adopted for centuries before Maimonaides in an attempt to avoid the anthropomorphism and over-literalism that using positive language about God can encourage. In the Christian West, a similar via negativa was being trodden by theologians such as Gilbert of Poitiers and Alan of Lille in the twelfth century. Commenting on the writings of St Augustine and Boethius they concluded that is God is wholly simple, he is totally other and using any positive terms to describe his nature or attributes would be folly.

Aristotle: knowledge based on experience

Maimonaides and his contemporary, the Muslim scholar Ibn Rushd, worked to explore the implications of the writings of Aristotle, which had been preserved in Arabic translation in the libraries of the East when they were destroyed and lost to the West at the collapse of Roman civilisation. Aristotle taught that knowledge is based on experience, concepts result from the "filing" of experiences and language refers to these concepts. Words are simply auditory signs, in language each sound signifies a specific concept, and all people who have the same experiences end up with the same concepts.

When applied to the question of meaning in religious language, Aristotle's philosophy could lead to two different conclusions. Either we can say and know little about God because most of us have no direct experience of Him with which to develop our concept; as Aristotle taught that knowledge is based on experience, concepts result from the "filing" of experiences and language refers to these concepts. Some words refer just to one "file" or concept and are univocal – their meaning is clear, cannot be used in different senses or confused. Other words refer to a number of different files or concepts – their meaning is thus obscure and can easily be confused.

Take for example the word "bat". It could refer to a cricket bat or a small flying mammal. The same word has completely different meanings in different contexts, nothing is shared. The term is equivocal. Other words still are used in analogical sense; they may be used in different contexts but some meaning is shared.

Analogy and ambiguity

The idea that some terms are used analogically had its roots in Aristotle, but was discussed extensively by Arabic philosophers in the heyday of Islamic philosophy (including Al Farabi (870-950), Ibn Sina (980-1037, sometimes called Avicenna) and Al Ghazali (1058-1111) and by Christian thinkers such as Aquinas' tutor, Alexander of Hales, in the early thirteenth century. Originally, the term "analogical" was related to the term "ambiguous", stressing the uncertainty over the degree of meaning that could be shared by the same word used in different senses. St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), a Dominican, was brought up in a philosophical world that was obsessed by logic and grammar. As all aspiring academics at the University of Paris did, Aquinas commented on Aristotle's Categories, one of the two works of Aristotle available in Latin prior to the early twelfth century. Aquinas developed the idea that terms applied to God are analogical, but tried to explain exactly what the proportion and nature of shared meaning would be when a term is applied to God and to an earthly thing. Using Aristotle's distinctions, he did not believe that terms applied to God are equivocal (essentially meaningless) but he did not believe that they should be seen univocally either, words applied to God cannot mean exactly the same as if they were applied to things in the world of experience. For Aquinas, God created the world and therefore it must tell us something about Him, but God is other, different from the world of time and space and potentiality that He caused to be.

Aquinas' Doctrine of Analogy

Language tends to imply a worldly framework. If I say that Peter acts then we can imagine what that might mean – but how can God act in the same way? God is beyond time and space, he doesn't have a body, so what can God's action really mean? For Aquinas, language can only be used analogically of God (from analogia, the Greek for proportion). Saying Mary is good and God is good shares some meaning, a proportion of the meaning, but not all the meaning. Aquinas uses a truly medieval example to explain. A good bull has a sleek coat, big muscles and a strong interest in cows; a good God would scarcely have these attributes! Nevertheless a good bull also produces good things (healthy urine and manure, high-quality semen and prize-winning calves) and does what good bulls are supposed to do, conforms to the ideal. In this we can see the proportion of meaning that could be shared between a good bull and a good God. God could also produce good things and fully fulfil his divine nature, not falling short in any respect. God being good in that he produces good things is known as analogy of attribution; God being God in that he perfectly fulfils His nature is known as analogy of proportion. Altogether, this is known as Aquinas' Doctrine of Analogy.

Summary

In summary, some scholars see that language can be used literally or univocally of God. These include St Anselm and Duns Scotus for examples. Other scholars see that language can never be used to describe God. Words are bound to space and time and God is beyond both; words applied to things and to God would share no meaning and would be equivocal (like bat as in cricket and bat as in flying rodent). These include Maimonaides. Aquinas takes a middle way, arguing that a proportion of meaning is shared through his doctrine of analogy.

Scotus – one meaning, differing degrees

John Duns Scotus (1265-1308) came from Scotland before studying at Oxford, Cambridge and Paris. He was a Franciscan and so balanced his philosophical genius and scholarly positions with a sincere belief that Christianity was about ministering to the poor and taking the Gospel message literally. Scotus applied his mind to defending the possibility of using language univocally, so that saying "God is good" or "Jesus is the Word of God" can be understood unequivocally. Like St Anselm (1033-1109) he held that "[t]he difference between God and creatures, at least with regard to God's possession of the pure perfections, is ultimately one of degree" Whereas earthly things are limited by their physical existence, God is infinite and has no limitations. When we say God is good, the concept of goodness is the same as when we say "Peter is good", but to a much greater degree.

Aquinas compared to Scotus

This contrasts with the thinking of Aquinas. Aquinas suggests that God is wholly simple and thus other, not a thing. Language is tied to things with earthly limits and only a proportion of the meaning can be shared between a word applied to God and the same word applied to a thing. While Scotus' concept of God as infinite is similar to Aquinas wholly simple God on one level, on another it is very different. As Professor Thomas Williams of the University of South Florida writes, "For Scotus infinity is not only what's ontologically central about God, it's the key component of our best available concept of God and a guarantor of the success of theological language. That is, our best ontology, far from fighting with our theological semantics, both supports and is supported by our theological semantics." In other words, if we believe that we can define and understand God at all, then this guarantees that the reason and language with which we define Him is a reliable means of defining and understanding Him. Denying the univocity of language would, for Scotus, deny the possibility of meaningful philosophy and religion.

The causer

Scotus, like Aquinas, assumed an Aristotelian worldview. All things are caused and (at least for the Christian philosopher) this suggests that all things must have either been kept in being or initially have been brought into being by an "uncaused causer", which is what we call God. If God is the original cause of all things then it is reasonable to expect that the cause and the effect share characteristics. Just as you share characteristics with your parents and someone could understand something about them by knowing you, and just as your Technology project might reveal something about you, creation might reasonably reveal something about God. Further, for Scotus, the concept of "being" (Latin ens) cannot be seen to be analogical. For something to exist must mean the same in any situation and in this at least we can have direct understanding of what God is, being itself. Where Scotus and Aquinas were influenced by Aristotelian philosophy, René Descartes (1596-1650) had a more Platonic view of concepts or ideas.

Plato's reality

Plato understood reality in metaphysical terms, the physical world of time, space and sense-experience being just a limited shadow of an unlimited noumenal reality beyond, which we can access through reason. For Plato reason is unique to human beings and language is the medium of reason. Human beings can grasp concepts without having to create them out of senseexperiences. Knowledge can be a priori, before experience. Words represent concepts in an absolute, static way. Plato suggested that language is innate and influenced most western philosophers in seeing that human beings are naturally distinct from other animals being given the "gift" of language and rational communication and comprehension, a unique way of grasping objective truth.

The uniqueness of humans

Plato influenced the dominant school of philosophy in Europe up to the eighteenth century, which developed thereafter into what we will call philosophical idealism; Descartes is famous for writing, "cogito ergo sum", "I think therefore I am". Human beings are characterised by the ability to think, and for thinking to occur, language is necessary. Animals, on the other hand, have no language, cannot think and are nothing but well-constructed, complex machines. In the Meditations (1637) he wrote: "For it is a very remarkable thing that there are no men, not even the insane, so dull and stupid that they cannot put words together in a manner to convey their thoughts. On the contrary, there is no other animal however perfect and fortunately situated it may be that can do the same. And this is not because they lack the organs, for we see that magpies and parrots can pronounce words as well as we can, and nevertheless cannot speak as we do, that is, in showing that they think what they are saying. On the other hand, even those men born deaf and dumb, lacking the organs which others make use of in speaking, and at least as badly off as the animals in this respect, usually invent for themselves some signs by which they make themselves understood. And this proves not merely animals have less reason than men but that they have none at all, for we see that very little is needed to talk."

In a 1646 letter to the Marquess of Newcastle, Descartes wrote "none of our external actions can show anyone who examines them that our body is not just a self-moving machine but contains a soul with thoughts, with the exception of words, or other signs that are relevant to particular topics without expressing any passion. I say words or other signs, because deaf-mutes use signs as we use spoken words; and I say that these signs must be relevant, to exclude the speech of parrots, without excluding the speech of madmen, which is relevant to particular topics even though it does not follow reason. I add also that these words or signs must not express any passion, to rule out not only cries of joy or sadness and the like, but also whatever can be taught by training to animals."

Meaning as subjective

Descartes' idealism was rejected by John Locke and the empiricists at the time of the Enlightenment, again working on the basis of Aristotle (De Anima, Book III, Chapter 4). Their approach came to replace that which descended from Plato and developed into what we might call "philosophical realism". David Hume (1711-76) took the empiricist approach to language forward, acknowledging that the meaning of terms is subjective and dependent on personal human experience, rather than being potentially objective. "It is experience only, which gives authority to human testimony; and it is the same experience, which assures us of the laws of Nature." He used the example of red light, noting that we see objects as red, but we know (as a result of scientific enquiry) that they just have a surface that is disposed to reflect light at a frequency which our eyes interpret as red. Ultimately all human understanding is based on sense-experience, and that is not as solid as it may appear. This approach to language had become mainstream by the end of the nineteenth century. Yet today it is being challenged in some quarters.

Chomsky's ‘nativist' theory

Noam Chomsky (1928-present) is the most famous opponent of empiricist theories of language acquisition. He proposes instead a "generative" or "nativist" theory which cites evidence that human beings do not learn language in the way that animals do; they seem to be predisposed to acquire language even when they are not given much encouragement or stimulation to do so. Generative theory seems to suggest that human brains are "hardwired" for language, enabling children to understand verbal communication and engage in it quickly. This insight might be seen to relate to Plato's philosophy on one level. This approach is not universally accepted. Today, many writers propose theories which tread a middle line between the empiricist and nativist approaches, suggesting that language is acquired through a combination of natural predispositions and personal experiences, nature and nurture.

Wittgenstein and miscommunication

The theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951 have had an enormous influence on modern theories of language and, more broadly, on theories of truth, knowledge and reality. He came from a family of wealthy secular Viennese Jews. He was not considered intelligent as a boy and was sent to technical school – where a class-mate was Adolf Hitler. When he left school Wittgenstein travelled to Manchester to study aeronautical engineering, but "found philosophy" and philosophy found him just before World War I, when he walked into the rooms of GE Moore at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. The college soon took him on to the staff, though he hadn't even got a degree.

Although an awkward and silent man, Wittgenstein was obsessed by communication. Could words have a static relationship with concepts? Could meaning be definite? Wittgenstein went back to Austria at the outbreak of war in 1914 and enlisted as a private soldier, serving on a river battleship on the Eastern Front. He served alongside men from all corners of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, men with very different educations, experiences and cultures from his own. He found that although they could all talk, in German, they could not communicate effectively. Words carried different meanings for different people, depending on their "form of life". Wittgenstein later used the analogy of a game to explain this. The meaning of words and phrases depends on all the people communicating knowing the "rules of the game" - if some people play by different rules or are ignorant of the rules then miscommunications will ensue. This is known as Wittgenstein's theory of "language games".

Language and meaning

Back in Cambridge after the war, Wittgenstein lectured a generation of philosophy students (including Elizabeth Anscombe and Norman Malcolm) and encouraged them to question the nature of the link between language and meaning and to consider the implications of objective truth being beyond the reach of our subjective tongues. The idea that what is true or what is meant by a statement in one "form of life" might be different from what is true or meant by a statement in another began to be accepted. Think about it; if a New York Gangster says that something is "wicked" he might mean something different from the Revd Peabody, when he says something is "wicked". You might mean something different when you call someone "gay" to your grandmother, than when she uses the term. It would be wrong to say that anybody in these examples is mistaken in their use of words, but the meaning of those words clearly depends on the cultural context in which they are used.

In the 1980s sticky packing tape was marketed in Australia under the brand name Durex. When Australians visiting Britain went to the stationers asking for Durex to seal a parcel they were not intending to cause a lot of laughter, but the different connotations of "Durex" in the UK made sure that a lot of laughter ensued. Words, even in the same language, do not seem to have a static relationship with the things or situations that they refer to. The relationships seem to be "culturally relative". The question is; if language and meaning is culturally relative and language is the only medium for describing and communicating about truth, is truth culturally relative? Can there be an absolute truth beyond all the linguistic confusion?

Relativist language and religious language

Some philosophers took Wittgenstein's work to mean that there is no absolute truth. What is true for one person may not be true for another; truth is just relative. This is known as "anti-realism", and in philosophy of religion is associated with the thought of DZ Phillips (1934-2006) for example. Phillips proposes that it is perfectly proper to say that "God exists" or "The Lord is my shepherd" within a religious form of life. These statements are true for religious people. It is equally true to say that ‘God does not exist' within an atheistic community however; that is true for atheists. The anti-realist approach does make sense of much religious language. religious writers tend to use signs, symbols and metaphors which require the reader to have an appropriate cultural background or to have learned the particular usage of terms in order for them to make any sense.

The Cambridge philosopher RB Braithwaite suggested that it is best to see religious language as non-cognitive. He argued that religious statements are really moral statements, they express an attitude and so have an emotive meaning, they are designed to shape people's feelings and behaviour and are meaningful in having such results. The place of story in religion is particularly important for Braithwaite. He sees a story not as something to believe in rationally, but something that conveys a moral or message which we can apply to real life.

Philosophers such as Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and have argued that religious language is symbolic, statements are not designed to be taken literally, but through being immersed in an appropriate culture and form of religious language we come to understand the spiritual meaning which these symbolic words point towards, spiritual meanings which cannot be more clearly explained. He wrote: "Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith." And "Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate." William Alston has been particularly critical of those who see religious language as symbolic, saying that this approach diverts attention from analysing what is really meant by religious claims and from truly engaging with faith. Others have criticised any idea that religious language is non-cognitive, these include John Wisdom (1904-93) and Ian Ramsey (1915-72).

Ramsey: depicting religion

Ramsey was professor of the philosophy of religion at Oxford and then the bishop of Durham. He tried to bring together the philosophical tradition of empiricism, verificationism and falsificationism with the reality of faith and with developments in psychology and sociology on the back of Wittgenstein. He argued, contra Ayer and Flew, that religious language was indeed based in experience but that these experiences are "logically odd" and thus difficult for the individual to describe using literal, prosaic language – so we tend to add a qualifier to show that the term we are using is not intended to be taken at face value. For example when referring to God we might say omnipotent rather than potent or powerful, omniscient rather than just knowing, omnibelevolent rather than just good. The "omni" or "all" or "timelessly" or "divinely" is a qualifier which characterises religious language from other language. Further, he suggested that religious language is also symbolic, but not, he argued, more so than language in science. In both science and religion we set up a model to help us to understand something which is difficult. We use coloured pingpong balls and cocktail sticks to explain the structure of molecules, talk about light and sound being "waves" and atoms having "hooks" to explain their valences. Ramsey claims that in religion we rarely talk in positive terms and that the main function of religious terms is to evoke an understanding in others, based on shared experience, rather than to set out meaning in a precise way.

Crombie: evocative language

Ian Crombie (1917-2010), a former fellow in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford, suggested that the necessarily mysterious nature of the object of religious language meant that it could only ever be evocative, never precise in its meaning or reference. He explored the use of deliberate category mistakes and obviously inadequate terminology by religious writers, seeing that this could be a device to communicate about the nature of God by demonstrating the inadequacy of language and human reason. It is worth noting that Wittgenstein's work may not lead to the anti-realist conclusion. It may be that there is a truth beyond what we experience and what we can talk about. Although philosophers may feel that there is little point in admitting the existence of something we cannot know and analyse, perhaps doing so is important, challenging the notion originally expressed by Protagoras that "man is the measure of all things" and leaving room for imagination, faith, God.

Today many philosophers of religion see themselves as critical realists as opposed to being idealists, realists or anti-realists. On the one hand critical realism holds that it is possible to acquire knowledge about the external world as it really is, independently of the human mind or subjectivity. On the other hand it rejects the realist view that the external world is simply as it is perceived. Recognising that the mind shapes what it perceives, it holds that one can only acquire knowledge of the external world by critical reflection on the process perception and its place in the world. This means that all language and knowledge, including scientific claims, must be seen as potentially coloured by our particular human perspective. This could be seen as a return to Kantian epistemology.

Critical realism

The philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan proposed applying critical realism to theology and the philosophy of religion and his thinking has influenced a generation of others, including Tom Wright (the former bishop of Durham and now Professor of New Testament at St Andrews University) and James Dunn as biblical scholars. An interesting exercise in applying critical realism to theology is the historical novel "The Shadow of the Galilean" by Gerd Theissen, which tries to explore the role of the observer in creating and interpreting religious stories. Tom Wright wrote: "I propose a form of critical realism. This is a way of describing the process of "knowing" that acknowledges the reality of the thing known, as something other than the knower (hence "realism"), while fully acknowledging that the only access we have to this reality lies along the spiralling path of appropriate dialogue or conversation between the knower and the thing known (hence "critical").

Critical realism was first applied to the discourse between science and religion in 1966 by Ian Barbour, and since has been adopted by Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghorne and more recently by Alister McGrath, now of King's College London and the most vocal opponent of Richard Dawkins. It has become a particularly dominant epistemology (theory of knowledge) for those writing about Science and religion, perhaps because of advances in Scientific knowledge. Quantum science suggested that traditional logic may not represent the way things really are. Quarks can be in two places at once, can exist and not exist simultaneously and are changed by being viewed. This indicates that reality is not as simple as it may once have seemed. Using a critical realist epistemology to underpin her theory of language Sallie McFague developed what she called metaphorical theology, drawing on the work of Barbour and Ricoeur. Using this approach she has developed new metaphors for God as Mother, Lover, and Friend, and the world as the body of God which challenge traditional theology's patriarchal assumptions.

Metaphor in religious and scientific language

In 1985 Janet Martin Soskice published a thorough study of metaphor in religious and scientific language, arguing that the latter can be meaningful because the former is widespread and accepted to be meaningful in that context. Her work arose as a result of Critical Realist enquiries into science and religion. She asks "What, therefore is truth? A mobile army or metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms: in short a sum of human relations which became poetically and rhetorically intensified, metamorphosed, adorned, and after long-usage seems to a nation fixed, canonic and binding: truths are illusions or which one has forgotten they are illusions; worn out metaphors which have become powerless to affect the senses; coins which have their obverse effaced and now are no longer of account as coins but merely as metal." Soskice draws a parallel between Science and theology, arguing that both are based on realism. In Science realism is social and contextual; theoretical terms are seen as representing reality without claiming to be absolutely true." Similarly, in theology there is a distinction between referring to God and attempting to define God. In both Science and theology language is being used to represent reality in the knowledge that it may be inadequate, confusing and could be improved upon.

Critical realism encouraged writers in science and theology to reflect on the process of their own thinking and writing and see that they could not be neutral observers, to accept that although both science and theology are about the pursuit of truth, that this can be elusive. In this they were inspired by the theories of Thomas Kuhn, first put forward in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Georg Hegel (1770-1831) suggested that history could be understood in terms of people following one theory (thesis), others reacting and rebelling against it with another contradictory theory (antithesis) and, over time a new "middle way" (synthesis) emerging. The synthesis in turn becomes the theory against which a new generation rebels and so on. Kuhn applied Hegel's theory and the concept of zeitgeist (spirit of the times) which was developed by Herder and other followers of Hegel to explain the development of science. For Kuhn science is conducted within a paradigm, a model of the world which makes it almost impossible for scientists to accept results and theories which challenge its tenets.

The challenge of developing new paradigms

However, from time to time, a scientific revolution occurs when the accepted paradigm is replaced by a new paradigm, and progress then ensues. Dr. John Snow was a lone voice in suggesting that cholera was borne in dirty water. The detailed evidence he collected, documenting the relationship between certain wells and infection outbreaks was ignored because all leading scientists were convinced that most illnesses were spread by "miasma", dirty smelly air. It took a crisis and a complete change in thinking for Snow to be hailed as a genius and hero – sometime after his death. In science more than any other area, consensus holds power. This is because science purports to uncover "truth" and often claims to possess truth – and there can only be one truth. Whereas an economist might accept several different theories, holding each to shed light on the truth and none to be the absolute truth, in science there is more pressure to accept one theory in its totality and to reject all opposition. Ironic this, it may be said for a discipline that has been said to operate according to the falsification principle.

Küng and paradigm analysis

In 1988, Hans Küng applied paradigm analysis to the history of theology and compared the results to the history of science. In contrast to the way paradigms are successively replaced in science, giving it an irreversible history, in theology contrasting paradigms, such as Thomism, Reformation theology, modernity, may well coexist. Küng's analysis of how theology develops suggested that none of the various theological paradigms may claim to possess the truth, that members of one or other school of thought should become aware of their position, reflecting on the process of theological development and becoming more critical about truth-claims that are made. This suggestion was not welcome in some quarters.