fferent senses when used for talking about God from the senses they have when used for talking about mundane things, or do they have the same senses? To put the question in technical language: Are the words used equivocally or univocally with their mundane senses? If the former, how could we understand what the new, religious senses are? If the latter, how could God be the inexpressible mysterious other which he is supposed to be, if he can be described by the same words having the same senses as can mundane things? The answer given by Aquinas is that religion often uses words in somewhat the same and somewhat different senses from their mundane senses, i.e. in analogical senses. We learn the meanings of the relevant words from their application to mundane things - e.g. learn the meaning of 'wise' from seeing it applied to wise men, such as Socrates - and then, when they are applied to God, suppose them to be attributing to him the nearest thing to the mundane property which could belong to the cause of all things. This answer presupposes that at least some words, e.g. 'cause', are used univocally in religious and mundane discourse.
             A very different answer, in the form of a doctrine often called 'Wittgensteinian fideism', has seemed to be implicit in the writings of some modern philosophers. Wittgenstein pointed out that there are very different ways of using language, very different 'language-games', e.g. the language of theoretical physics, of ancient history, of medical ethics, etc. Those who have applied his writings to the philosophy of religion have then seemed to claim that the religious language-game may be understood on its own. Religion has its own criteria for sentences of creeds being true or false, and its own criteria for when and where worship and prayer are appropriate.
             In effect this is the claim that words are used in religion in senses equivocal with their normal senses, which we come to understand only by becomi...