Language limitations

Sir, as the Rev Dr Bob Mayo wrote: “There are limitations in any use of language to talk about God”. And, as an undergraduate preparing for confirmation in the Church of England more than 40 years ago, one of the first lessons I was taught was that all our language about God must be analogical, since the created cannot fully comprehend the Creator.

So, the author known as the “pseudo-Dionysius” declared it to be as true to say that God does not exist as that he does, since his existence is utterly different from ours. For this reason many Christians will agree with Professor Yolanda Pierce of Princeton when she says, as paraphrased by Rev Dr Rohintan Mody (21 August) that “human words and metaphors are incomplete and can never do justice to describing the majesty of who God is.”

It is this that undercuts Dr Mody’s argument against using feminine language about God.

Even the language Our Lord used about his Father is analogical, even when granting us the privilege of calling him Father. The Bible gives us many names and titles for God, and stories about him that enable us to give him more. If these facilitate our relationship with him then that is to the good.

Whether or not this means that the Church’s liturgical language should be changed is, of course, an entirely separate matter.

Colin Durham,

Sturminster Newton