Models, Muddles, and Metaphors of the Transcendent

Abstract

Metaphors and models are indispensable in both science and religion, but they play different roles in the two fields. This paper makes two arguments. First, I want to emphasize the importance and universal scope of the concept of metaphor. Second, I argue that the relationship between models and metaphors as defined in this study is the reverse in religious discourse from what it is in science. In science metaphors are first of all heuristic; they indicate the possibility of developing models. Secondarily they serve as shorthand, popularization, or labels. Once satisfactory models have been developed, scientific metaphors are either discarded or become subservient to them. Religion, however, is always metaphorical. Unlike science, theological models are not checked by their objects, but they are models based on metaphors. What significance is accorded to these metaphors depends on whether one believes in a transcendent reality that can only be talked about in metaphors.