R.C. Sproul

I mean, she prayed metaphorically using the analogies that were taught there in Scripture.

Now when we say that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, we are not to infer from that that God is a cowboy.

Yet the metaphor is meaningful.

because it tells us something about His riches.

It tells us something about His greatness, something that we can understand by way of analogy, by way in which certain points are similar between God and man.

Now, Augustine gave this warning to theologians of his day.

What you affirm of God is

univocally, or what you affirm of Him in one sense, you have to deny Him in the univocal sense.

What you affirm of Him analogically, you must deny univocally, because always remember that at the best we can ever get when we're talking about a transcendent, eternal, infinite being

is language that describes Him in ways in which He is like, but no metaphor, no analogy can ever contain or grasp Him in its fullness.

Now that's no reason to jump into a sea of skepticism or cynicism, because in a very real sense, the only way you and I ever talk

and make sense to each other is by some kind of analogy because every word that is in your language, in your vocabulary, has your own understanding of it conditioned by the way in which you've heard it.

and the experience you've had with it from your particular perspective in your life.

I don't know how old you were when you first heard the word cat, and I don't know what comes into your mind when you hear the word cat.

We might try some experiments right now here in this class, and if I said to you, Bill, what do you think of when you think of a cat, what do you think of?

A nice pet.

What color?

Gray.

Okay.

Domestic short hair.