Two significant contributions to recent discussions of religious language are offered by Janet Soskice and William P. Alston. In Metaphor and Religious Language (1985) Soskice offers as a working definition "metaphor is that figure of speech whereby we speak about one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another" (p.15). The minimum unit in which a metaphor is established is semantic. A satisfactory theory of metaphors "should regard metaphors neither as a simple substitution for literal speech nor as strictly emotive. Metaphors should be treated as fully cognitive and capable of saying that which may be said in no other way. It should explain how metaphor gives us "two ideas for one," yet do so without lapsing into a comparison theory" (p.44). Noncognitive accounts of metaphor are rejected because "we cannot conceive of emotive 'import' apart from a cognitive content which elicits...