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The Nature of Religious Language… M. Mousavi Karimi and H. Tehrani Haeri / (57
For examples, the word “love” By appealing to functionalist
in “God loves humans” and concepts, which are unconcerned
“Abraham loves Sara” has as to the intrinsic nature of
identical meaning. the structure of the psyche in
The main contemporary which they inhere, Alston
advocate of this view is claims that the same functional
William Alston. He argues concept of knowledge, of
that it is impossible to avoid purpose and the like can be
“all creaturely terms [e.g., applied in the same sense to
psychological and agential Gad and humans. (Ibid)
terms, like “know”, “love”, According to this thesis
“forgive”] in thinking and known as “partial univocity”,
speaking of God.” (Alston, “by constructing tendency-
1985: 221) versions of the law-like
Of course, Alston does not generalizations imbedded in
defend complete univocality; the functional concepts”
nor does he reject the (Ibid: 229) one can attribute
otherness of God. However, common functional psychological
he argues that the radical states to both God and humans.
otherness of God is not
because of lacking common B. Religious language is
abstract features with creatures, equivocal.
rather it is due to the different In this case, words are
ways those features are used to mean different things
realized in the divine being. in different contexts. So, the
(Ibid: 222) same terms applied to God
and creatures have different
senses. For example, “good” in
