Bocheński on divine ineffability

Roger Pouivet

pp. 43-51

in: Dariusz Łukasiewicz, Ryszard Mordarski (eds), Józef Maria Bocheński, Studies in East European Thought 65, 2013.

Abstract

Section 11 of Józef Bocheński's The Logic of religion (1965), is devoted to the question of divine ineffability: Is it possible to speak of God? Bocheński shows that even if the assertion of God's ineffability is not contradictory, it can be contested. Bocheński seems to think ineffabilism is based primarily on a confusion, viz., on the claim that faith is dependent on an extraordinary experience, and it is this extraordinary experience which is supposed to be ineffable. The ineffabilist is unable to say who he is addressing in his prayers and praises so long as he maintains that nothing can be said of Him to whom they are addressed. Any meaningful language is minimally referential, whether the ineffabilist likes it or not. This could be the basis for a critique of Jean-Luc Marion's account of apophatism. This criticism shows the fecundity of Bocheński's account of ineffability.

Cited authors

Marion Jean-Luc

Bocheński Joseph