earticle

영어

This article is about the theories of metaphor and the application to the religious language, especially Christian divine epithet, God the Father. Through the study on metaphors, we could recognize that many religious metaphors could be fossilized and further idolized due to the stereotypical and repeated usages without reflection on the contexts. Thus it is important to discern what the metaphor's properties are and how they disclose the intended meanings in the sentences and contexts. Most religious expressions including metaphors are a kind of projection of human experiences with the absolute beings. As we see God through the incarnated Jesus Christ, through human's expressions we can imagine and understand who God is and what the God has worked for us. However, we cannot say that religious metaphors can perfectly convey the character or nature of the divine beings because human language reflects the living experiences. That's why all the religious metaphors as human's language should be re-examined whether they are appropriately revealing the divine beings and their natures based on the contemporary theological understandings. This article suggests the necessity of the renewals of fossilized or idolized religious metaphors for the living metaphors.