5. Talking about God (SCG 1,28–36)
Talking about God (SCG 1,28–36)
I HAVE STRESSED that in SCG 1,14–27 Aquinas lays emphasis on God being different from what is not God and that he makes much of what he calls “the way of remotion.” For Aquinas, we should pay special attention to noting what God is not since we do not know what God is. Yet those who believe in God frequently seem to want to speak about God in ways that are positive and informative. They say, for example, that God is perfect and good. So what would Aquinas think of us positively ascribing certain attributes to God, of us asserting that, say, “___ is perfect” or “___ is good” can meaningfully be tacked on to the word “God” so as to result in true propositions?
From what we find in SCG 1,14–27, you might suppose that Aquinas would disapprove of us doing this. But he does not, as we can see from SCG 1,36, in which he asserts: “Although God is absolutely simple, it is not futile for our intellect to form enunciations concerning God in his simplicity by means of composition and division.”1 We “compose and divide,” thinks Aquinas, when we pick out a subject and either affirm or deny something of it, as when we say “John is musical” or “John is not musical.” So Aquinas believes that we can make true statements by using expressions of the form “God is X” or “God is not X.” He thinks that, as well as being able truly to deny that God is such and such, we can make positive assertions concerning what God is. What, however, is his rationale for thinking this? In SCG 1,28–36 he explains what he takes it to be. In this chapter, therefore, I try to indicate what it amounts to in general terms. Then I turn to some details.