Chap. 11: Religious Language
CHAP. 11: RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
THE BIBLE REVEALS THE INFINITE GOD, but it is written in finite human language. How can limited human notions adequately describe the unlimited divine nature? For Aquinas all knowledge begins in sense experience. But no sense image taken from the world of our experience can describe the God who transcends the world. The problem, in brief, is this: How can human language, limited as it is by its dependence on our experience, possibly describe a God who is unlimited in his very nature?
The Alternatives
Basically there are only three alternatives to the question of religious language. First, what our language expresses truly about God is univocal, that is, entirely the same as the way he is. Second, religious language is equivocal, that is to say, entirely different from the way God is. Third, religious language is analogical or similar to the way God is. Aquinas opts for the third position for a number of reasons.
Univocal Predication of God Is Impossible
For Aquinas it is impossible that our judgments about God could be made univocally.1 For "since God infinitely exceeds the power of our intellect, any form we conceive cannot completely represent the divine essence, but merely has in some measure an imitation of it."2 We can have univocal concepts, but they must be applied to God in an analogical way.
Aquinas refers to analogous judgments (predications), not to analogous concepts.3 That is, we can define our terms in the same manner when we use them of God and creatures. But we must never apply them to God in the same way we apply them to creatures. As Armand Maurer notes, "St. Thomas' doctrine of analogy is above all a doctrine of judgment of analogy, and not of the analogy of concept."4 For God is infinite and creatures are finite. Hence, whatever is said of God must be applied to him infinitely, while whatever is said of humankind is applied only finitely. For example, both God and humankind can be called good. But good applies to humankind only finitely, since at best humankind is only finitely good. But God is infinitely good. Thus, the same term "good" (with the same definition) must be applied to God in a different way than it is applied to humankind. As Aquinas observes, "all perfections exist in creatures dividedly and . . . in God unitedly."5 In short, creatures can have the same characteristic as God but not in the same way that he has it. What is signified is the same, but the mode of signification is different.
This is true of anything we say of God. The term "being" is rightly predicated of both God and creatures. Yet God is Being infinitely and necessarily, while creatures have being only finitely and contingently. Hence, it is impossible that "being" should be applied in the same way to such entirely different kinds of being.
Equivocal Predication Leads to Skepticism
Perhaps our terms have an entirely different (i.e., equivocal) meaning when used of God. This argument, too, is unacceptable to Aquinas, since God has revealed himself both in nature (Rom. 1:19-20) and in Scripture. We do know many things of God; the question is how we know them.
To claim that all our statements about God have an entirely different meaning when applied to him is to admit total skepticism. This point was made emphatically by Duns Scotus,6 and there is no reason why Aquinas could not accept it. For Aquinas is stressing the analogy of judgment, not the analogy of concepts: "It is not, therefore, in the manner of pure equivocation that something is predicated of God and other things. If nothing was said of God and creatures except in a purely equivocal way, no reasoning proceeding from creatures to God would take place. But the contrary is evident from all those who have spoken about God."7
Further, if we know nothing about God, then we could not even make the claim that we can know nothing about him. For it is self-defeating to claim that we know that we cannot know anything about God. It is equally self-destructive to affirm that we cannot affirm anything about God.
Analogy Is the Only Adequate Answer
If our judgments about God are neither totally the same nor totally different, then they must be similar (analogous). Analogous religious language, then, is the only way to preserve true knowledge of God. Univocal God-talk is impossible and equivocal God-talk is unacceptable and self-defeating. Only analogy avoids the pitfalls of each and provides a genuine understanding of God:
This name God . . . is taken neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically. This is apparent from this reason—univocal names have absolutely the same meaning, while equivocal names have absolutely diverse meanings; whereas analogical, a name taken in one signification must be placed in the definition of the same name taken in other significations.8
The Basis of Analogy in Religious Language
Analogy preserves a true knowledge of God because it is rooted in the very nature of God's self-expressions. Of course, God can only express himself to his creatures in terms other than himself. Thus, by its very nature such expression or manifestation of God will be limited, whereas God himself is unlimited. Nonetheless, an expression about God must express God. Hence, analogy flows from the very nature of the process of God's self-revelation.
Analogy Is Based in Causality
Aquinas bases the similarity between Creator and creature in the causal relation between them. Since God is Pure Existence and since he causes all other existence, there must be a similarity between him as the Efficient Cause and his effects. For a cause communicates itself to the effect, being causes being. The Cause of being must be a Being. For it cannot give what it does not have; it cannot produce reality it does not possess. Therefore, even though the Cause is Infinite Being and the effect is finite being, nevertheless, the being of the effect is similar to the Being that caused it. Analogy is based in efficient causality. For "we can name God only from creatures. Hence, whatever is said of God and creatures is said according as there is some relation of the creature to God as to its principal cause, wherein all the perfections pre-exist excellently."9
The Use of Analogy
The need for analogy is apparent not only in God's general revelation in nature; it is also essential to God's special revelation in Scripture. The Bible declares true knowledge of God. But this knowledge is contained in a book composed of human words and sentences based in finite human experience. But here again we are faced with the same problem: How can finite human concepts convey an Infinite God? Aquinas's answer is: analogically. God is neither identical to nor totally different from our expressions about him. Rather, he is similar to them.
ANALOGICAL LANGUAGE IN SPECIAL REVELATION
The Bible is emphatic about two things in this connection. First, God is beyond our thoughts and concepts, even the best of them (Rom. 11:33). Second, human language is adequate to express the essence of God.
God is infinite and our concepts are finite; no finite concept can capture the infinite. It is also clear from Scripture that God goes beyond the limited ability of human concepts to convey his ineffable essence. Paul says, "now we see as in a mirror dimly" (1 Cor. 13:12). John says that "no one has seen God at any time" (John 1:18).
But if God is both adequately expressed in and yet infinitely more than human language—even inspired language—can express, then at best the language of Scripture is only analogous. That is, no term taken from human experience—and that is where they all come from—can do any more than tell us what God is like. None of them can express comprehensively what God really is. Religious language at best can make valid predications about God's essence. But it can never express his essence.
ANALOGOUS LANGUAGE IN NATURAL THEOLOGY
There are two basic reasons that statements made about God on the basis of general revelation are analogous. Both emerge from the demonstration of God's existence (see Chap. 9). First, the arguments for God's existence are arguments from effect to the Efficient Cause of their being." Since the effects get their actuality from God (Pure Actuality), they must be similar to him. For Act communicates act; Actuality produces actualities.11
Second, Pure Act cannot create another Pure Act. Pure Act is uncreated, and it is impossible to create an Uncreated Being. But if Uncreated Act cannot create another Pure Actuality, then it must create an actuality with potentiality.12 Thus, all created beings must be composed of actuality and potentiality. They have actuality because they actually exist, and they have potentiality because they have the potential not to exist. Anything that comes into existence can pass out of existence. But if all created beings have a potential that limits their existence, then they are limited kinds of existence and their Uncreated Cause is an unlimited kind of existence. Thus, there must be a difference between creatures and their Creator. They have limitations (potency) and he does not. It follows, then, that making statements about God based on what he has revealed of himself in his creatures must always be done with a significant proviso—God is not like his creatures in their potentialities but only in their actuality. Such an argument proceeds by way of negation (via negativa). All adequate God-talk must have this negative dimension to it. This dimension becomes apparent in the proofs for God's existence.
First, it is demonstrated that he is a Cause. This is the positive element of similarity in the analogy between God and creatures. Whatever actuality there is (not potentiality) is actually like the Actuality that gave it to them.
Second, God is an Uncaused Cause (the negative element in the analogy). Uncaused means not caused; it is a negative term. The same is true of the other attributes of God that emerge from the argument for his existence. For "no creature being finite, can be adequate to the first agent which is infinite."13 God is the Infinite Cause of all finite existence. But infinite means not finite. It, too, is a negation. God is the eternal, that is, not terminal or non-temporal Cause. Some of the negations are not immediately obvious from the etymology of the term, but they are negative nonetheless. God is the Simple Source of all complex being. But simple here really means noncomplex. The same is true of the attribute of necessity. We know creatures are contingent, but by necessary we simply mean that God is not contingent. We have no positive concepts in our experience that can express the transcendent dimension of God's unlimited metaphysical characteristics. Therefore, the analogy with which we speak of God will always contain an element of negation. The creature is like God because Act communicates act, but it is unlike God because it has a limiting potentiality and God does not; he is Pure Actuality.
Two Kinds of Analogy: Extrinsic and Intrinsic Analogy
There is no real similarity between two parties in an extrinsic analogy. An extrinsic analogy is one where only one thing possesses the characteristic; the other is called that characteristic by its relation to it. There are two kinds of extrinsic analogy.
Extrinsic Analogy Based on Efficient Causality
In this kind of analogy a given characteristic is attributed to the cause only because it produces this characteristic in the effect, not because the cause really possesses that characteristic. For example, food is called "healthy" because it causes health in the body, not because it is healthy in and of itself.
It is clear that this analogy does not provide any real basis for knowledge of God. It simply tells us what the cause can produce, not what characteristic it actually possesses. In this kind of analogy, God would simply be called good because he produces good things, but not because he actually is good in himself. Therefore, analogy based on extrinsic attribution would leave us in a state of agnosticism about God.
Extrinsic Analogy Based on Similarity of Relations
This analogy is sometimes called the analogy of improper proportionality, because there is only an analogy in the relationship, not a real similarity between the two things being compared. Let us look at the following analogy: a smile is to a face what flowers are to a meadow. Notice that in such an analogy there is no similarity between the things being compared. A smile is not really like flowers. A smile is simply related to a face the way flowers are related to a meadow. Thus, there is merely a relationship between the two relationships, but there is no relationship between the two things being compared. Similarly, Infinite Good is related to an Infinite Being the way finite good is related to a finite being. It tells us nothing about the relationship (similarity) between Infinite Good and finite good. This is not the kind of analogy Aquinas uses to establish the similarity of Creator and creature.
Intrinsic Analogy
In an intrinsic analogy both things possess the same characteristic, each in accordance with its own being. There are two kinds of intrinsic analogy: the analogy of proper proportionality and the analogy of intrinsic attribution.
The Analogy of Proper Proportionality
In this analogy there is a proper relationship between the attribute each thing possesses and their own respective natures. Applied to God, this analogy would declare that: Infinite Good is to a infinite being what finite good is to a finite being. While this analogy does not explain a direct relationship between the attribute in both parties, it does inform us about the way an attribute in God is related to his essence and, by comparison, the way a similar attribute in a creature is related to its essence. But the analogy tells us nothing directly about the similarity between God and creation. Rather, it informs us more about the difference between an Infinite Being and a finite being.
The Analogy of Intrinsic Attribution
The second kind of intrinsic analogy is where both parties possess the same attribute and the similarity is based on the causal connection between them. For example, hot water causes an egg in it to be hot. The cause communicates itself to the effect. A mind communicates its intelligence to a book. The book, then, is the intelligible effect of the intelligent cause.
This is the kind of analogy on which Aquinas bases the similarity of Creator and creatures.14 What God creates must be like him because he communicates his likeness to the effects. Being communicates being. Pure Actuality creates other actualities. This analogy of intrinsic attribution, where both the cause and the effect have the same attribute, is the basis for making true statements about God. These statements correspond to the way God really is because these characteristics are derived from him and are communicated by him to his effects. In short, the similarity between Creator and creatures is derived from the characteristics the Creator gives to his creatures.
Of course, creatures do not possess the same characteristics (say, goodness) in the same way God does. An Infinite Being possesses goodness in an infinite way, while a finite being possesses goodness in a finite way. Nevertheless, they both possess goodness, because a Good Being can only communicate goodness. Whatever falls short of God's goodness is due to the finite and fallible mode of the creature's existence; it is not due to the infinite goodness of its Cause (see Chap. 10). But the degree to which a creature has any goodness, it is good because it is like its Creator who is Goodness himself.
The Analogy between God and Creatures
All meaningfully descriptive talk about God, then, is based on the analogy of intrinsic attribution. Creatures are like the Creator because of the causal relationship between them: "Some likeness must be found between them [i.e., between effects and their cause], since it belongs to the nature of action that an agent produces its like, since each thing acts according as it is in act."15 There are several important features of this relationship that need to be spelled out.
It Is a Causal Relationship. First, the relationship between God and the world is causal, not non-causal. For in names given to both God and creatures "we note in the community of such names the order of cause and effect."16 Hence, "whatever is said of God and creatures is said according as there is some relation of the creature to God as to its principal cause."17 Causality is a relation of dependency, not dualism. The creature possesses the characteristic only because it got it from the Creator. The Cause of being shared being with the being it brought into being. Act communicates some of its actuality to another. Apart from this causal relation of dependency there would be no common, shared attribute between the Creator and creatures.
The Relation Is Intrinsic, Not Extrinsic. The causal relation between God and creature is real, not merely stipulative. That is, the similarity is based on the fact that both cause and effect have the same characteristic, the latter getting it from the former. God is not called good, for example, simply because he made good things but because he is good. This would be an extrinsic causal relation, like hot air making clay hard. The air is not hard; it simply made the effect hard. The same hot air makes other things, like wax, soft. Both become hot because heat communicates heat. But whether one effect becomes hard or soft will depend on the condition of the thing receiving the causality. So heat producing hardness is an extrinsic causal relation. But heat producing heat is an intrinsic causal relation. It is this latter kind of causal relation that exists between God and creation.
All of creation is like God insofar as it is actual, but unlike God insofar as its limiting condition (potentiality) determines how the actuality is received. For example, the same cause (a sculptor) cannot produce the same effect in pudding and stone. Pudding simply does not have the same potential that stone does to take on a stable and lasting form. In other words, there is a real difference in the potential, even though the same actual form is imposed on both. In like manner, the similarity between God and a creature will depend on the limited potential of that creature to receive actuality from God. Thus, creatures differ from God in their potentiality, but are like (although not identical to) God in their actuality.
The Relation Is Essential, Not Accidental. The causal relation between God and the world is per se, not per accidens. That is to say, it is an essential relation, not an accidental one. God is the Cause of the being of the world, not merely its becoming.
An accidental causal relation is one where there is only nonessential relation between the cause and the effect. For instance, musicians give birth to non-musicians. There is no essential relation between being in the class of non-musicians and being in the class of musicians. While musicians give birth to non-musicians, humans give birth to humans. This is an essential causal relation. The essential characteristics of humanness are possessed by both the cause and the effect. This is the kind of causal relation that exists between God and his creatures.
The Cause Is an Efficient Cause, Not an Instrumental One. An efficient cause is a cause by which something comes to be. An instrumental cause is that through which something comes to be. A student is the efficient cause of an exam; the pencil the student writes the exam with is only the instrumental cause. Therefore, the exam will resemble the student's thoughts, but the pencil will not. A house resembles the plan in the builder's mind, but the tools used to construct the house do not. Hence, there is no necessary connection between an instrumental cause and its effect, only between the efficient cause and its effect.
The Cause Is the Efficient, Not the Material Cause. The efficient cause is that by which the effect comes about, whereas the material cause is that out of which the effect is produced. For example, when the sun causes hotness in the clay heat is the efficient cause of heat. But the hardness it causes is due to the material conditions of the clay. Material causes are receptive to efficient causality in different ways.
Furthermore, just because God created Adam's body out of matter (its material cause) does not mean that God must be material. Efficient causes do not need to resemble their effects any more than the minds of the Wright brothers needed to have wings and a fuselage. An airplane is made of matter, a mind is not. The visible words on this page resemble my mind (their efficient cause), but my mind is not made of paper and type. Likewise, the invisible God (Efficient Cause) is not like the visible world (material cause), nor is the material world like the immaterial God (John 4:24).
Objections to Analogy Considered
A number of objections have been raised to Aquinas's view of analogy.18 Many of them were answered by Aquinas himself. Others must be inferred from what he said. The following is a list of the more important objections and a response from a Thomistic point of view.19 Others are treated in more detail elsewhere.20
Why select only some qualities from the world to apply to God? The reason is simple. Only those characteristics are selected that flow from God's efficient, essential, principal, and intrinsic causality. For only these characteristics do not necessarily denote what is finite. And only these kinds of characteristics may be appropriately applied to an Unlimited Being. In short, things are like God in their actuality, but not in their potentiality, since God has no potentiality. He is Pure Act.
Words divorced from their finite condition are devoid of meaning. This criticism overlooks the distinction between a concept and its predication. The univocal concept of a given word remains the same; only the way in which words are predicated changes. For example, the meaning of the words "goodness," "being," and "beauty" is not emptied when applied to God; the words are merely extended without limits. That is, the characteristic indicated by an analogous predication is not negated; instead, it is released from any limiting mode of signification and is applied essentially to God. Since the perfection denoted by some terms does not necessarily imply any limitations, there is no reason why perfection cannot be predicated of an Unlimited Being. In Aquinas's terms, that which is signified is the same; only the mode of signification is different.
Analogy rests on the questionable premise of causality as its basis. It is true that Aquinas bases analogy in the similarity that must exist between an efficient cause and its effect. This is true because Being communicates only being. The Cause of existence cannot produce perfection that it does not "possess." If God causes goodness, then he must be good. If he causes existence, then he must exist. Otherwise the absurd consequence ensues that God gives what he does not have to give.
An analogous predication of God fails to identify the univocal element. This objection would hold for non-univocal concepts, but it is not true of univocal concepts that have analogical predications. It is certainly true that we need to have a univocal understanding of what is being predicated. But this does not mean that this concept must be predicated in a univocal way. For a finite being does not have qualities in an infinite way. The only way to avoid equivocation when predicating the same perfection of both finite being and Infinite Being is to predicate it differently (i.e., analogously), according to the mode of being that each is.
The real relationship between Creator and creatures is not univocally expressible. Again, this objection fails to distinguish between the thing signified and the mode of signification. Being is univocally conceived but analogically predicated of God and finite beings. The concept of being or existence is understood to mean the same thing, namely, being is "that which is or exists." God exists and a person exists; this they have in common. But God exists infinitely and independently, whereas a person exists only finitely and dependently; in this they are different. In short, that they both exist is univocally conceived; how they each exist is analogically predicated. For God exists necessarily while people exist only contingently.
According to Wittgenstein, the distinctions among univocal, equivocal, and analogical expressions are obsolete. Expressions receive meaning from their use in the context of language games. Each language game is autonomous insofar as there are no universal criteria for meaning. Words that carry over from game to game or words with similar meanings bear family resemblances, but we can never isolate a core meaning they must share. Thus Wittgenstein believes that the division of language into univocal, analogical, and equivocal breaks down before this dynamic understanding based on usage.
Two things can be noted in response. First, unless there is an essential, as opposed to a purely conventional, meaning to language, then all meaning (and truth) is relative. But it is self-defeating to claim that no meaning is objective. Furthermore, if there were no objective meaning, then anything could mean anything to anyone, even the opposite of what was meant. This would result in linguistic (and social) chaos.
Second, the distinctions among univocal, equivocal, and analogical expressions are not arbitrary. In fact, they are logically exhaustive; there are no other alternatives. For either a term is understood (or even applied) in entirely the same way (i.e., univocally), in an entirely different way (equivocally), or in a similar way (analogically). Wittgenstein does not offer any alternatives. Rather, as applied to objective reality, his view reduces to equivocal God-talk. For although he accepts meaningful God-talk, insofar as it is based in meaningful religious experience, nonetheless, it is not really talk about God. It is really talk about religious experience. God remains part of the mystical and inexpressible, at least as far as descriptive language is concerned.21
A general theory of analogy does not work. As long as analogy is tied to the metaphysics of intrinsic causality, it works. In fact, as has been shown, analogy seems to be the only adequate answer to the problem of religious language. All negative God-talk implies some positive knowledge of God. But positive affirmations of God are possible only if there are some univocally understood concepts that can be applied to both creatures and Creator (as Scotus argued). On the other hand, since God is infinitely perfect and creatures are only finitely perfect, no perfection found in the finite world can be applied univocally to both God and creatures. But to apply them equivocally would leave us in skepticism. Hence, whatever perfection is found in creation that can be applied to God without limits is predicated analogically. The perfection is understood univocally (in the same manner), but it is predicated analogously (in a similar manner), because to affirm it univocally in a finite way of an Infinite Being would not truly be descriptive of the way he is. And to affirm it equivocally in an infinite way would not be descriptive of him at all. Hence, a univocal concept drawn from the finite world can be predicated of God only analogically.
The meaningfulness of religious language has been a persistent philosophical problem. Does it merely evoke an experience about God, but tell us nothing about who this "God" is? Aquinas's response is to note first of all the three alternatives: our talk about God is either univocal, equivocal, or analogical. Then, he analyzes the alternatives. It cannot, he shows, be equivocal, since we do know something about God. Indeed, it is self-defeating to claim that we cannot make any meaningful statements about God. For that very statement implies that we know what the word "God" means. By the same token, God-talk cannot be univocal, since we cannot predicate an attribute of an Infinite Being in the same way that we do of a finite being. God is "good," for example, in an unlimited way, while creatures are "good" in a limited way. Both are good, but not in the same way. But if God-talk is neither univocal nor equivocal, then it must be analogical. This analogy of similarity is based in the Creator-creature relations. As Cause of being, God is Being. He cannot give what he does not have to give. Being produces being; Act actualizes other actualities. Since God cannot produce another Necessary Being like himself, he must produce a contingent being. But contingent beings, unlike a Necessary Being, have the potentiality to not be. Hence, while God is Pure Actuality, everything else is a combination of actuality and the limiting potentiality not to be.
Thus, when we predicate things of God taken from creation, we cannot predicate any of their limitations to him, only the actuality they received from him. In this sense, creatures are both like and unlike God, and herein is the analogy. If we forget Aquinas's contribution here, then we are left with either skepticism or dogmatism. That is, either we know nothing about God, or else we assume that we know things in the same infinite way that he knows them.