On The Contrary:
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. The adding of synonym to synonym is frivolous, as if one were to say clothing and garment. Therefore, if these names were synonyms, it would be frivolous to say that God is good, God is wise – and that is false.
2. Moreover, whoever denies one synonym of a thing, denies the rest. But there were those who denied his power but not his knowledge or goodness. Therefore, these names are not synonyms.
3. Moreover, this is clear from the Commentator on Metaphysics 11 when he says that these names as said of God are not synonyms.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that all who understand are agreed that these names are not synonyms. This would be easy to maintain on the view of those for whom these names do not signify the divine substance, but only certain added essential intentions or modes of acting on effects or even negations of creatures.
But supposing that these names signify the divine substance, as has been shown above, then the question is seen to involve a great difficulty, because then one and the same simple thing, the divine substance, is signified by all these names.
But it should be noted that the signification of a name does not refer immediately to the thing, but through the mediation of understanding, for speech is the sign of passions of the soul and these concepts of intellect are likenesses of things, as is evident from the Philosopher at the beginning of On Interpretation.
Names can be prevented from being synonyms either on the side of the things signified or on the side of the notions understood through the names, for the signifying of which the names are instituted. Of the names said of God, synonymy cannot be prevented by the diversity of the things signified, given what has been established, but only by the notions of the names which follow the conception of the things understood.
Thus the Commentator on Metaphysics 11 says that there is multiplicity in God only because of a difference in understanding, not in being, which we say is one thing conceived in many ways. For the different concepts in our intellect cannot be such that nothing answers to them in reality, for our intellect attributes to God the things of which they are the concepts. Hence if there were nothing in God either as to himself or as to his effects that would answer to these concepts, the intellect would be false in attributing them, as would all propositions signifying such attributes, which is absurd.
There are some notions to which nothing in the thing understood answers, but the intellect does not attribute the things of which these are the concepts to things as they are in themselves, but only as they are understood; this is clear in the case of genus and species, and of other intellectual intentions, for there is nothing in the things outside the mind whose likeness the notion of genus or species might be. Yet the intellect is not false because it does not attribute the things of which these are the notions, namely genus and species, to things as they exist outside the intellect but only as they exist in the intellect. Insofar as the intellect reflects on itself, it understands things existing outside the mind and it also understands them to be understood. Thus, just as there is some conception or notion to which the thing outside the mind answers, so there is a conception or notion to which the thing understood answers as understood. For example, to the notion or concept of man a thing outside the mind answers, but to the notion or concept of genus or species only the thing as understood answers.
It is not possible that the meanings of the names said of God be like that, because then the intellect would attribute them to God not as he is in himself but as he is understood, which is patently false, for then the sense of ‘God is good’ would be that God is so understood, and not that this is what he is.
Therefore, some say that to the different notions of these names different connoted things answer, which are the different effects of God. They mean that when God is said to be good, his essence along with some connoted effect is signified, such that the sense would be that God is and causes goodness, so that the diversity of these notions would be caused by the diversity of effects.
But this does not seem appropriate, because, since the effect proceeds from the cause according to similitude, the cause must be understood to be such before the effects. God is not called wise because he causes wisdom, but because he is wise and therefore causes wisdom. Hence Augustine says that because God is, we are, and insofar as we are, we are good.
It would further follow from this that names of this kind would be said of creatures first rather than of the creator, as health is said of the healthy before it is said of medicine. If when we say that God is good, nothing other than that God is the cause of goodness were understood, by the same token it would follow that all names of divine effects can be predicated of him, as we might say that God is heaven because he causes the heaven.
Again, if this were said of actual causality, it is evidently false, because on that basis we could not say that God was from all eternity good or wise or any such thing since he was not from all eternity a cause in act.
And if it be understood of virtual causality – as if he were called good because he has the power of diffusing goodness – then we will have to say that the term ‘good’ signifies that power. But the power is a supereminent likeness of its effect, as is the power of any equivocal cause, so it would follow that the intellect conceiving goodness would be made like that which is in God and that which God is. Thus something in God answers to the notion and conception of goodness and that God exists.
Therefore it should be said that there is something in God answering to all these many and diverse notions of which all these conceptions of intellect are likenesses. It is clear that there can be only one specific likeness of a form which has the same notion as it, but there can be many imperfect likenesses which fail in perfectly representing the form. Since then, as is clear from the foregoing, the conceptions of perfections found in creatures are imperfect likenesses and not of the same notion as the divine essence, nothing prevents the one essence from answering to all these conceptions, as imperfectly represented by them. Thus all notions are indeed in our intellect as in a subject, but they are in God as in the verifying root of these conceptions. The conceptions that the intellect has of a thing would not be true unless that thing answered to them by way of similitude.
The cause of the diversity or multiplicity of names is from the side of our intellect, which cannot come to see the essence of God as it is, but sees it through many deficient likenesses which come about in creatures as in a glass. If it should see the essence itself, it would not need many names nor would it need many concepts. Because of this, the Word of God, which is a perfect conception of him, is only one. Thus it is said in Zacharias 14.9, ‘In that day there shall be one Lord, and his name shall be one.’ That is, when the very essence of God is seen and knowledge of God is not gathered from creatures.
Ad 1. It should be said, therefore, that although these names signify one thing, they do so via many notions, as has been argued, and because of these they are not synonyms.
Ad 2. It should be said that Damascene means that in God all things are one as to the thing, except for the personal properties which constitute the real distinction of persons, but this does not exclude that what is said of God should differ in notion.
Ad 3. The response is obvious: because just as goodness and wisdom are the same thing as the divine essence, so with respect to one another, but the notions of the name differ, as has been said.
Ad 4. It should be said that it is already clear from the foregoing that God is in every way one, yet these many conceptions or notions are not false, because to all of them one and the same thing answers which is imperfectly represented by them. They would be false if nothing answered to them.
Ad 5. It should be said that there is unity through and through on the side of God; multiplicity is from the side of creatures. Just as when God understands creatures there is one intelligible form with respect to his essence and many with respect to different creatures, so our intellect rising to God from the multiplicity of creatures has many species relating to one God.
Ad 6. It should be said that these notions are not founded in the divine essence as in a subject but as in the cause of truth, or as represented by all, which does not derogate from his simplicity.
Ad 7. It should be said that paternity and filiation are opposed to one another and therefore require a real distinction of supposits, but not goodness and wisdom.
Article 7: Are such names said of God and creatures univocally or equivocally?
The answer seems to be, univocally.
1. The measure and the measured share the same notion, but the divine goodness is the measure of the goodness in the creature, and his wisdom of all wisdom. Therefore, they are said univocally of God and creature.
2. Moreover, things are similar when they share a form, but the creature can be made similar to God, as is evident in Genesis 1.26: ‘We will make man in our image and likeness.’ Therefore there is some sharing of form between creature and God, but all things that communicate in form can have something predicated of them univocally. Therefore, something can be predicated univocally of God and creature.
3. Moreover, the greater and less do not cause specific diversity. But when the creature is called good and God is called good they seem to differ in that God is better than any creature. Therefore the goodness of God and of creature are not specifically diverse, and good is predicated univocally of God and creature.
4. Moreover, things in different genera cannot be compared, as the Philosopher proves, for the velocity of alteration and the velocity of local motion are not comparable. But between God and creature some comparison is made, for God is called the highest good and the creature is good. Therefore, God and creature are of one genus and something can be predicated univocally of them.
5. Moreover, a thing is only known through the species of one notion, for the whiteness that is in the wall would not be known through the species in the eye unless there were one notion of both. But God through his goodness knows all beings, and so too with the other attributes. Therefore, the goodness of God and creature are of one notion, and good is predicated univocally of God and creature.
6. Moreover, the house which is in the mind of the artisan and the house which is in matter are of one notion, but all creatures proceed from God as artefacts from artisan. Therefore the goodness which is in God is of one notion with the goodness that is in the creature, and thus the same conclusion as before.
7. Moreover, every equivocal agent is reduced to some univocal agent. Therefore, the first cause that God is must be univocal. But something can be predicated univocally of the univocal cause and its proper effect. Therefore, something can be predicated univocally of God and creature.
ON THE CONTRARY:
1. The Philosopher says that nothing but a name is common to the eternal and temporal. But God is eternal and creatures are temporal. Therefore, there can be nothing common to God and creatures but a name. Thus names are predicated purely equivocally of God and creatures.
2. Moreover, since genus is the first part of a definition, to take away the genus is to remove the notion signified by the name; hence if a name is imposed to signify that which inheres in another, it will be an equivocal one. But wisdom said of the creature is in the genus of quality. Therefore, since wisdom said of God is not a quality, as has been shown, it seems that this name ‘wisdom’ is equivocally predicated of God and creatures.
3. Moreover, where there is no similarity, there cannot be anything commonly predicated, except equivocally. But there is no similarity between God and creature, for we read in Isaiah 40.18, ‘To whom then have you likened God?’ Therefore, it seems that nothing can be predicated univocally of God and creatures.
4. But it will be said that although God cannot be called similar to the creature, the creature can be called similar to God. On the contrary, we read in Psalm 82.2, ‘God, who will be like unto thee?’ as if to say, no one.
5. Moreover, nothing in the order of accident can be similar to substance; but wisdom in the creature is an accident whereas in God it is substance. Therefore, man cannot be likened to the divine wisdom through his wisdom.
6. Moreover, since in the creature to be is one thing and form or nature another, through form or nature nothing is made like that which is existence; but these names predicated of creatures signify some nature or form. But God is his existence. Therefore, the creature cannot be like God because these things are said of the creature, and thus the same as before.
7. Moreover, God differs from the creature more than number differs from whiteness. But it would be stupid to say that number is like whiteness, or vice versa. Therefore it is stupid to say that the creature is like God, and thus the same as before.
8. Moreover, when things are similar to one another, they agree in some one thing, and things which agree in one are transmutable among themselves. But God is in every way untransmutable. Therefore, there cannot be any similarity between God and creature.
RESPONSE:
It should be said that it is impossible for something to be predicated univocally of God and creature; this is clear because every effect of a univocal cause is equal to the power of the agent. But no creature, since it is finite, can be equal to the power of the first agent, who is infinite. Hence it is impossible that the creature should receive the likeness of God univocally.
Again, it is clear that, although the notion of the form existing in the cause and in the effect is one, yet the different mode of existing impedes univocal predication, for although the notion of the house which is in matter and the house which is in the mind of the artisan are the same – because the one is the reason for the other – still house is not predicated univocally of both because the species of the house in matter has material existence but it has immaterial existence in the mind of the artisan. Granting therefore, what is impossible, that goodness were of the same notion in God and creature, still good would not be predicated univocally of God since what in God exists immaterially and simply exists in the creature materially and multiplied. Moreover, being is not said univocally of substance and accident because substance is being as having existence of itself, and accident that for which to exist is to exist in something. From which it is clear that a diverse relation to existence impedes the univocal predication of being. God is related to existence differently than any creature, for he is his own existence, something that is true of no creature. Hence in no way can the creature be said univocally of God; and consequently none of the other predicates either, among which is First Being. When there is diversity in the first, diversity must be found in others; hence nothing is univocally predicated of substance and accident.
Some have said otherwise, however, holding that nothing is predicated analogically of God and creature, but purely equivocally. And Rabbi Moses was of this opinion, as is clear from what he says.
But this opinion cannot be true. In pure equivocals, which the Philosopher calls chance equivocals, nothing is said of one with reference to the other. But all the things said of God and creatures are said of God according to some relation to creatures, or vice versa, as is clear from all the opinions on the exposition of divine names. Hence it is impossible that it should be pure equivocation.
Again, all our knowledge of God is taken from creatures, so that if there were agreement in name alone, we would know nothing of God save some empty words with nothing to underwrite them.
It would also follow that all the demonstrations concerning God advanced by the philosophers would be sophistical. For example, if it were said that whatever is in potency is reduced to act by a being in act, and from this it were concluded that God is being in act, since all things are brought into existence by him, there would be a fallacy of equivocation. And so with all the others. Moreover, it is necessary that the effect be in some way like the cause; so nothing is predicated purely equivocally of effect and cause, but rather is predicated as healthy is predicated of medicine and animal.
On the other hand it must be said that nothing is predicated of God and creature univocally and that the things predicated commonly are not predicated purely equivocally, but analogically. There are two modes of this kind of predication, one in which something is predicated of two things with respect to a third, as being of quality and quantity with respect to substance, another in which something is predicated of two things because of the relation of one to the other, as being is said of substance and quantity.
In the first kind of predication there must be something prior to the two to which both have a relation, as substance with respect to quantity and quality, but not in the second, where it is necessary that one be prior to the other. Therefore, since nothing is prior to God but he is prior to creature, the second mode of analogy belongs to divine predication and not the first.
Ad 1. It should be said the argument proceeds from the measure which can be coequal to or commensurate with the measured; but God is not such a measure, since he infinitely exceeds everything measured by him.
Ad 2. It should be said that the likeness of creature to God falls short of the likeness of univocals in two things. First, because it is not participation in one form, as two things are hot by participating in one heat, for what is said of God and creature is predicated of God essentially and of creature by participation, such that this likeness of creature to God is understood as that of the heated to heat and not of one heated thing to another. Second, because the form participated in by the creature falls short of the notion of what God is, just as the heat of fire falls short of the notion of solar power, through which heat comes into being.
Ad 3. It should be said that the more and less can be considered and thus predicated in three ways. In one way, according to the quantity alone of the participated, as snow is said to be whiter than the wall because whiteness is more perfectly in snow than in the wall, yet of the same notion; so this difference of more and less does not cause diversity in species. In a second way, insofar as one is said by participation and the other through essence, as we say that goodness is better than the good. In a third way, insofar as it belongs in a more eminent way to one thing than to another, as heat to the sun rather than to fire. These two modes impede unity of species and univocal predication, and in this way something is predicated more and less of God and creature, as is evident from what has been said.
Ad 4. It should be said that when God is called the better or the highest good he is not compared to creatures as participating in a nature of the same genus with creatures, as species of the same genus do, but God is the principle of the genus.
Ad 5. It should be said that to the degree that an intelligible species is more eminently in something, to that degree there is more perfect knowledge of it; like the species of stone in the intellect rather than in the sense. Hence God can know things perfectly by his essence insofar as his essence is the supereminent, and not the equal, likeness of things.
Ad 6. It should be said that there is a twofold likeness between creature and God. One is of the creature to the divine intellect, and thus the form understood by God is of one notion with the thing understood, although it does not have the same mode of existing, because the form as understood is in the intellect alone, but the form of the creature is also in the thing. In another way insofar as the divine essence is a superexcellent likeness of all things and not of the same notion. From this kind of likeness but not the first, such terms as ‘good’ come to be commonly predicated of God and creatures. When God is called good the meaning is not that he understands the goodness of creatures, which is already clear from what has been said. Nor is house said univocally of the house which is in the mind of the artisan and the house in matter.
7. It should be said that the equivocal agent must be prior to the univocal agent because the univocal agent does not exercise causality over the whole species, otherwise he would be cause of itself, but only over an individual of the species. But the equivocal agent exercises causality over the whole species, so the first agent must be an equivocal cause.
As for the arguments advanced on the contrary:
Ad 1. It should be said that the Philosopher speaks of a natural and not a logical community. Things which have different modes of existing do not communicate in anything according to existence as considered by the natural philosopher, but they can communicate in some intention which the logician considers. Moreover, for the natural philosopher the elementary and celestial bodies are not of the same genus, whereas for the logician they are. Nevertheless the Philosopher does not mean to exclude analogical community, but only univocal, for he wishes to show that corruptible and incorruptible do not share a genus.
Ad 2. It should be said that although diversity of genus removes univocation it does not take away analogy, which is evident from the fact that healthy, as said of urine, is in the genus of sign, but as said of medicine it is in the genus of cause.
Ad 3. It should be said that there is no way in which God can be said to be similar to the creature, but only vice versa, because as Dionysius says we do not find in cause and effect a convertible similarity, but only co-ordinates, for a man is not said to be like his image, but vice versa, since the form on which similarity is based is in man before it is in his image. Therefore, we do not say God is like creatures, but vice versa.
Ad 4. It should be said that the statement, ‘No creature is like God,’ should be understood, as Dionysius explains in the same chapter, to mean that the effects have little of their cause and are incomparably inadequate to it. Which is not to be understood with respect to the quantity participated, but in the other two ways, as was said above.
Ad 5. It should be said that on the basis of an accident a thing cannot be similar to substance by the similarity that is based on a form of the same notion, but this does not preclude the similarity of effect and cause. For the first substance must be the cause of all accidents.
The same should be said in response to 6.
Ad 7. It should be said that whiteness is not in the genus of number nor is it the principle of the genus, and therefore there is no similarity to be expected of one to the other. God, however, is the principle of every genus and therefore all things are in some way like him.
Ad 8. It should be said that the argument is based on what communicates in genus or in matter, which is not the condition of God to creatures.
Article 8: Is there any relation between God and creature?
It seems there is not.
1. For relatives are simultaneous, according to the Philosopher, but the creature cannot be simultaneous with God, for God is in every way prior to the creature. Therefore, there can be no relation between creature and God.
2. Moreover, things between which a relation obtains must also be comparable to one another. But between God and creature there is no comparison, for things which are not of the same genus are not comparable, such as number and line. Therefore, there is no relation between God and creature.
3. Moreover, in whatever genus one relative is found, the other must also be found. But God is not in the same genus with the creature. Therefore, they cannot be said to be relative to one another.
4. Moreover, the creature cannot be opposite to the creator because a thing is not the cause of its opposite. But relatives are opposed to one another. Therefore, there can be no relation between creature and God.
5. Moreover, anything of which something new begins to be said can in some way be said to have come to be. Therefore it follows that if something is said of God relative to creature, God in some way came to be. Which is impossible, since he is immutable.
6. Moreover, whatever is predicated of something is predicated either as such or accidentally. But what implies a relation to creature is not predicated of God per se, because such predicates are predicated necessarily and always, and not accidentally. Therefore, in no way can such relatives be predicated of God.