Speaking of God in Thomas Aquin - Anastasia Wendlinder

Speaking of God in
Thomas Aquinas and

Meister Eckhart
Medieval masters Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart considered problems

inherent to speaking of God, exploring how religious language might compromise
God’s transcendence or God’s immanence ultimately hindering believers in
their journey of faith seeking understanding. Going beyond ordinary readings of
Aquinas and building a foundation for further insights into the works of both
theologians, this book draws out the implications of the thought of Eckhart
and Aquinas for contemporary issues, including ecumenical and inter-religious
dialogue, liturgy and prayer, and religious inclusivity. Reading Aquinas and
Eckhart in light of each other reveals the profound depth and orthodoxy of both
of these scholars and provides a novel approach to many theological and practical
religious issues.
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Speaking of God in
Thomas Aquinas and
Meister Eckhart
Beyond Analogy
Anastasia Wendlinder
Gonzaga University, USA
© Anastasia Wendlinder 2014
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system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Anastasia Wendlinder has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Wendlinder, Anastasia Christine.
Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart : beyond analogy / by
Anastasia Wendlinder.
pages cm.—(Ashgate new critical thinking in religion, theology, and biblical studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-6916-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-1-4094-6917-9 (ebook)—
ISBN 978-1-4094-6918-6 (epub) 1. God (Christianity)—History of doctrines—Middle
Ages, 600-1500. 2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274. 3. Eckhart, Meister, -1327.
I. Title.
BT98.W46 2014
231—dc23
2013045826
ISBN 9781409469162 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409469179 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781409469186 (ebk – ePUB)
IV
Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

at the Dorset Press, Dorchester, DT1 1HD
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
1 Introduction: The Problems and Possibilities of Speaking

About God 1
A. Current Scholarly Research on Eckhart and Aquinas 8
B. Articulating the “Distinction” Between Creator and
Creatures 14
C. Summary: Speaking about God and Knowing God 22
2 Study as Contemplation: The Mutual Contexts of Aquinas

and Eckhart 27
A. Origin and Mission of the Dominican Order 28
B. The Development of Dominican Education 33
C. Aquinas’ Influence on the Dominican Life 44
D. Meister Eckhart 56
E. Summary 62
3 Thomas Aquinas: A Pedagogy for Speaking About God 65

A. Speech about God and Christian Forms of Life 65
B. The Scriptural Narrative of the Summa 67
C. The Method and Arrangement of the Summa 69
D. Question 1: Scripture as the Primary Source for Theology 71
4 Thomas Aquinas: From “Proof” to Analogy 101

A. Question 2: The Necessity of Demonstrating God 103
B. Questions 3 through 11: The Manner of the Creator’s
Existence 123
C. Questions 12 and 13: Articulating Divine
Incomprehensibility 141
5 Meister Eckhart: From Analogy to Silence 153

A. Analogy in Action 157
B. Doctrine as Analogy 168
C. Analogy as Silence 187
vi Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart
6 Conclusion: Living Without a Why and the Christian Forms

of Life 191
A. The Lessons of Aquinas and Eckhart 191
B. Christian Forms of Life as Analogical 193
C. The Way of Analogy and the Future of Christian Forms
of Life 203
Bibliography 205
Index 211
Preface
Undoubtedly, Thomas Aquinas—as thankfully reinterpreted through great minds

such as Rahner, Congar, de Lubac, Chenu and many others—had a dramatic effect
on my spiritual and religious formation as I grew up in the immediate aftermath of
Vatican II,1 even though I had no inkling of this; it was not until I was off to college
at 18 that I remember even hearing Aquinas’ name, and that only because I attended
the Roman Catholic church closest to my secular college campus; the parish was
called St. Thomas Aquinas. This was a spirited, Vatican II-centered parish serving
those Roman Catholic students attending the University of Colorado at Boulder
and a number of families and community members who just wanted to be there.
Yet it was not Aquinas who directed my unrelenting theological inquiry during
those young adult years, at least not explicitly, but other theologians, mystics,
and spiritual guides, namely the charismatic and controversial Jesuit from India
Anthony de Mello, initially through his meditation exercises in Sadhana, A Way to
God: Christian Exercises in Eastern Form,2 and several years later (as a master’s
student) through his final reflections in The Way to Love,3 and Thomas Merton,
whose book Zen and the Birds of Appetite,4 was assigned reading in a junior
undergraduate sociology of religion course. This book was my first introduction to
Meister Eckhart, with whom I fell in love upon reading a passage Merton quotes
from Eckhart’s sermon on the Beatitudes: “since true poverty of spirit requires
that man [sic] shall be emptied of god and all his [sic] works so that if God wants
to act in the soul he himself must be the place in which he acts.”5 Although it is
impossible for me to fully communicate why, this passage is perhaps what led me
to moving from the disciplines of psychology and sociology as an undergraduate,
1
For a very informative and short read of the controversy over the use of Thomas
Aquinas at the Council, see the essay by Joseph Komonchak entitled “Thomism and the
Second Vatican Council,” in Continuity and Plurality in Catholic Theology: Essays in
Honor of Gerald A. McCool, S.J., ed. Anthony J. Cernera (Fairfield, CT: Sacred Heart
University Press, 1998), 53-73.
2
Anthony de Mello, Sadhana, A Way to God: Christian Exercises in Eastern Form
(New York: Doubleday Dell, 1984).
3
The full title is The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello
(New York: Doubleday, 1992).
4
Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968).
5
Ibid., 9. Merton is quoting from Eckhart’s Sermon, “Blessed are the Poor.” Note that
both “God” and “god” are used—“God” is used to express God as existing in God-self and
“god” used to express any conception of God, which of course is the point of the passage.
viii Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart
to theology as a graduate student, through my doctoral work on the relationship

between Eckhart and Aquinas, and still grounds me today as a teacher, scholar, and
believer—what gives me my reason for being, so to speak.
It is important to explain that it was in no way a negation or denigration of
my own sense of self-hood that drew me to this passage, nor is it now. Quite
the opposite, these words touch in me the deepest and most profound sense of
myself—that which is in communion with, and which identifies with my own
Divine Source and End, God beyond god. It is where I find my truest self: in
and with God; my Center; my Silence. The emptying of self, of god and of all
“god’s works” is for me a constant reminder of the necessity of moving beyond all
personal fears, all conceptions of god which are inevitably false and misguided,
and beyond all of my own hidden agendas for which I would like to call God’s
agendas, so that I might become what I am truly called to be. No small task, and
an unending one at that!
Enter Aquinas, whose lessons assisted me in organizing and developing
facility in articulating my unbridled theological self-reflection. This grace came to
me through my dear mentor, Fr. David Burrell, C.S.C., who I first came to know
from his doctoral course “Metaphysics of Creation” at Notre Dame. David, a
former student of Lonergan, is a theological giant in his own right, with significant
contributions not only in Aquinas, but also in comparative theology and Islamic
philosophy.6 In this intensive doctoral seminar, under David’s tutelage we worked
our way through Aquinas’ Prima pars in the Summa theologiae, and during the
second half of the semester, led by David’s colleague and friend from the Romance
Languages department, Christian Moevs, we worked through Dante’s metaphysics.
Christian, in addition to being a first-rate Italian teacher and renowned Dante
scholar, possesses a unique and profound spirituality as a devout Roman Catholic,
and simultaneously, is a follower of Hindu guru Sri Sathya Sai Baba—although in
him these two diverse religious sensibilities find a deep communion that flowed
through every word and gesture he made.7 Our study of Dante, interspersed at
times with Hindu wisdom, became a strangely beautiful commentary on Aquinas’
first thirteen questions.
During the same semester, I was blessed to participate in Catherine Mowry
LaCugna’s doctoral seminar on the Trinity, only one year before her passing. One
of Catherine’s pedagogical methods, which I have adopted in my own teaching,
particularly with graduate students, was to assign at the beginning of the semester
a specific theologian to each student who was to research, write on, and take on the
task of teaching the class. Here the students became teachers as well as scholars.
See David’s impressive biographical information, at http://www3.nd.edu/~dburrell/

6
(accessed July 31, 2013).

7
To get a sense of Christian’s unique spirituality, read this deeply personal and engaging
interview found in the Sathya Sai Newsletter [USA], 34, No. 1 (2010): 3. The newsletter
may be found online at http://us.sathyasai.org/ssn/2010/JanFeb2010_Dec19b-FINAL.pdf
(accessed July 31, 2013).
Preface ix
To my great surprise and delight, I was assigned Meister Eckhart’s theology on the
Trinity and, even though my turn to facilitate was not until later in the semester,
I wasted no time plunging back into his enigmatic mind!
It seemed that in some providential way, I had come full circle; however,
between the two courses an interesting, unconscious and unintended convergence
began to happen, and at the end of the semester I stepped hesitatingly into
David Burrell’s office and asked him if he would be my director, to which he
emphatically said, “of course.” When asked what my interest was, I declared I
wanted to focus on Eckhart’s metaphysics of creation, to which he smiled and
replied—I’m paraphrasing now—“Ah yes, Aquinas and Eckhart, that sounds like a
splendid dissertation!” My mind immediately stated to itself, “wait, what? I didn’t
say anything about Aquinas.” But I acquiesced and pleasantly nodded my approval
of his modification. And so, the journey commenced, and the bond I feel for my
teacher and mentor lasts to this day. When, a few years later, it was time to focus on
actually writing, I was again blessed by an exceptional community of scholars as
my dissertation committee, co-directed by David Burrell and Joseph Wawrykow
and rounded out with Mary Catherine Hilkert, O.P., Lawrence Cunningham and
Christian Moevs.
This book, Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart: Beyond
Analogy, is what has been brought to birth from that conception. Originally
entitled, “Beyond Analogy: Articulating the Transcendence and Immanence
of God According to Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart,” I have made only
moderate revisions. Having set it aside for some time while focusing on my
vocation as teacher, first at the University of Notre Dame and then at Gonzaga, the
Jesuit university where I now reside, my initial intention was for more revision;
however, as I took it up again, I realized that it spoke to me as strongly as it did
while I was writing it, and still provides the freshness and relevance on its own
that it did when it was originally conceived and developed. Having said this, I
did give it a good cleaning up where needed, and in the final chapter, I added
some further reflections on how Aquinas and Eckhart together may be applied to
contemporary religious forms of life, based on other scholarship I have published
in the meantime and that I am currently working on, particularly in the area of
ecumenical and inter-faith dialog, and in the area of inculturated worship. I hope
this book is read in the spirit in which it is offered—written by a student of Aquinas
and Eckhart, imperfectly yet diligently struggling to put words to the inexpressible
experience of the Creator who is everywhere always present in all things, while
in no way being limited by this intimacy. I look forward to the well-meaning and
thoughtful responses of my readers—positive and critical—to help me move my
own reflections and scholarship to ever deepening levels.
I am modestly proud of the work that has been accomplished in this book,
and in fact, I am pleasantly astonished to realize my work on Aquinas and
Eckhart has thoroughly permeated my scholarship in other theological areas, my
personal spirituality, and my pedagogy, even though it now sounds very Ignatian
(of course—St. Ignatius must have been greatly influenced by Aquinas during
x Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart
his own formation at Paris and elsewhere, a thought to be pursued in the future).
Having said this, I am profoundly grateful and humbled by the wealth of wisdom,
guidance, and care of so many without whom I could not have taken even the first
step forward let alone come to this place: my deepest thanks, first and foremost,
to Sean, who was my companion in this journey for twenty years, and who is still
my dear and beloved friend, and to David Burrell and Joseph Wawrykow, for
their directorship, mentorship—and friendship—as well as to my wise committee
members already mentioned. To all those un-named, my many excellent teachers,
colleagues, and, of course, my students from whom I learn an unfathomable
amount each year, my enormous appreciation. And finally, to Aquinas and Eckhart,
and to all of those scholars of theirs who have provided such a rich and fertile soil
for me to till, gratias vobis ago. I only hope that I have done justice to all of your
creative labor.
Acknowledgments
The author and publisher are grateful for permission to reprint the following
material:
Excerpts from Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises,

and Defense, translation and introduction by Edmund Colledge, OSA and Bernard
McGinn, Copyright © 1981 by The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle in
the State of New York. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahway, NJ. Reprinted by
permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.
Excerpts from Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, edited by Bernard McGinn,
Copyright © 1986 by Bernard McGinn. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahway,
NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc. www.paulistpress.com.
Excerpts from Preller, Victor, Divine Science and the Science of God: A
Reformulation of Thomas Aquinas, Copyright © 1967 by Wipf & Stock Publishers.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. www.press.princeton.edu.
Excerpts from Mulchahey, M. Michèle, “First the Bow is Bent in Study”:

Dominican Education Before 1350. Copyright © 1998. Toronto, Ontario, Canada:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. http://www.pims.ca/.
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Chapter 1
Introduction: The Problems and Possibilities
of Speaking About God
Grant me, Lord, to know and understand what I ought first to do, whether call upon
thee, or praise thee? And which ought to be first, to know thee, or to call upon thee?
But who can rightly call upon thee, that is yet ignorant of thee? … Or art thou rather
first called upon, that thou mayest so come to be known? But how then shall they
call on him, in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe without
a preacher? And again, they shall praise the Lord that seek after him: for, they that
seek shall find; and finding they shall praise him. Thee will I seek, O Lord, calling
upon thee; and I will call upon thee, believing in thee: for thou hast been declared
unto us. My faith, O Lord, calls upon thee, which thou hast given me, which thou
hast inspired into me; even by the humanity of thy Son, and by the ministry of
thy preacher.
St. Augustine, Confessions1
In this well-known reflection from the Confessions, Saint Augustine penetrates to

the core of Christian discourse, and ultimately to the heart of the Christian journey
itself: “faith seeking understanding.” He ponders the inherent relationship between
knowing God and speaking to and about God. Which comes first, knowing God
or calling upon God? And, what is the significance of speaking of God to others
who seek to know God? For Augustine, the relationship is interdependent, because
the believer, whose faith has been divinely inspired by preaching and concrete
examples of Christian life, seeks to know God further, and is moved to praise
the God who comes to be known. The journey is spiral; the process is unending.
To know God is to desire to know God more deeply.
Beginning with Augustine is only a slight, but important, detour to better
understanding Thomas Aquinas’ and Meister Eckhart’s shared concern for
articulating, as accurately as possible, a Creator God who is at once uniquely
distinct yet intimately present to creatures. In his reflection on the nature of God,
Augustine lays bare the fundamental questions and interrelations with which the
two medieval Dominican masters would later struggle, and these issues lie at the
center of their work: the relationship between speaking about God and speaking
to God, the relationship between knowing God and speaking about God, and,
most significantly, the relationship between the speaker and God—between the
human creature and its Creator. Rooted in Augustine’s contemplation, Aquinas
1
Augustine, Confessions, I.I., trans. William Watts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1912 reprint, 1995), 3.
2 Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart
and Eckhart together exemplify the profound breadth and depth of religious
language-use as it relates to the Christian faith journey.
In his opening reflection Augustine implies that speaking “about” God and
speaking “to” God are intimately connected. The Christian comes to have faith
in God, initially at least, through the humanity of Christ and the ministry of
preachers—means deriving their innermost inspiration from God. Hearing God
spoken of provokes me to call upon God; conversely, speaking to God compels me
to contemplate God and to articulate that reflection in spoken or in written word,
whether in the form of prayer, sermon, or even theological treatise. This insight
should not be undervalued: it is the ceaseless interplay between speaking “about”
God and speaking “to” God that propels the believer forward on her journey
of faith.
While the distinction between speaking to God and speaking about God might
seem more implicit in his opening passage, Augustine begins his Confessions by
explicitly pondering whether, and if so, how, speaking to (and by implication,
about) God leads to knowing God. He inquires, “which ought to be first, to know
thee, or to call upon thee? But who can rightly call upon thee, that is yet ignorant
of thee? … Or art thou rather first called upon, that thou mayest so come to be
known?”2 He answers his own question in the same paragraph, even though at first
glance it may appear circular: his search for God begins with faith in God, which
compels him to call out to God. “Thee will I seek, O Lord, calling upon thee; and
I will call upon thee, believing in thee.” And so it seems that faith seeks faith. But
it is God who has given him the faith in which to seek. Does this not imply that
someone first must have some knowledge about God before seeking God?
Augustine’s primary intent, though, is not to acquire knowledge about God,
but to know God. This qualification highlights the contrast—as well as the
relation—between speaking about God and speaking to God. Someone speaks to
another; it is a personal address. Someone can know many things about another,
but we can truly profess to know another only through personal encounter.
It follows that knowing something or someone personally is a type of knowledge
that cannot be completely or even adequately put into words, because such a
relationship is expressed non-verbally as well as vocally, and in fact, the deepest
facets of an intimate relationship are primarily unvoiceable. The insufficiency of
vocal expression is especially true with regard to our articulations of God, since in
our encounters with God, God does not converse with us as do other persons—a
reality that suggests an apparently unbridgeable chasm between this kind of
knowing and speaking about it.
On the other hand, whether someone speaks about God or to God is determined
not only by what kind of “knowledge” is being considered, but why. What is the
purpose of speaking about God? Is it to inform or to convince? And when we
speak to God, is it to implore or to praise? Augustine suggests these questions
are intrinsically interconnected in the faith process: the preacher’s vocation is to
Ibid.
2
Introduction 3
convert; the converted believer now continues her journey towards God in personal
conversation with God and with her own questioning and contemplation—a
journey that takes place together with other believers and in the deep silence of
her own heart.
Finally, Augustine’s reflection gives rise to the question of the relationship
between the speaker and the one upon whom the speaker calls or to whom she
gives praise. Again, the answer is proposed by Augustine himself: The Person
invoked is the Creator of the one who seeks. As Augustine expresses it, “this man,
this part of what thou hast created, is desirous to praise thee; thou so provokest
him, that he even delighteth to praise thee. For thou hast created us for thyself, and
our heart cannot be quieted till it may find repose in thee.”3
Augustine’s image of the restless heart speaks of a most profound union
between the Creator and the human creature. It says something not only about
who we are to God, but who God is to us. We are created for God; God is the one
in whom we have our end. Once recognized, this intimacy affects us so deeply,
we are unable to keep quiet, no matter how inadequate our speech. Speaking to
and about God is as necessary to our life as is our very breath. Indeed, the praise
issuing forth is not only directed towards the One addressed, but to anyone who
is within the range of hearing it. Even private prayer issues forth in theological
reflection, the process of rendering explicit our unconscious conceptions of God.
Speaking to God is, inevitably, speaking about God as well.
This recognition and proclamation of who God is compels the believer to
seek further knowledge of humanity’s Creator and End. The believer now must
ask, “What is therefore my God?,”4 an inquiry moving from immediate personal
“knowledge” of God5 to questions of knowledge about God. This type of knowledge
calls for a distinct type of expression. We soon learn from Augustine that it is not
enough to speak of God as “most excellent,” “most mighty,” “most merciful and
most just.”6 We must, in the same breath, also speak of God as “immutable, yet
changing all things,” and “never new, and never old.”7
Augustine seems to be pressing us into deeper contemplation, as this second
type of articulation requires us to push against the limits of our imagination.
While we might imagine something as the “most” of its kind, because there are
other things like it with which we can compare, we are unable to comprehend
something in which two seemingly contradictory qualities exist simultaneously:
immutable and changing; never new or old. In order to grasp such a thing, we
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid., 9 (emphasis mine).
5
When saying “knowing God” is awkward, “knowledge of God” is substituted;
however, the distinction between “knowing” and “knowledge about” is still implied, as is
the contention we cannot know anything about what God is, despite compulsory attempts
to do so.
6
Augustine, Confessions, 9.
7
Ibid.
should have some other similar thing with which to compare it; however,
Christians, and other monotheistic believers, proclaim there is no other God but
this One Creator. The Creator about whom we seek to know is at once intimately
present to us, yet completely distinct from us—in fact, distinct from anything in
our creaturely experience.
Augustine’s answer to this quandary is to articulate God in the only way he can:
autobiographically. He does not propose to speak about God in his Confessions
through logical propositions, but through narrative. For Augustine, speaking about
God means speaking about his own encounter with and journey towards God. The
two are inseparable.
Reflection on how to understand and articulate the relationship between
the Creator and creature in light of the Christian journey of faith continued to
occupy the minds of theologians after Augustine—and it still does today. But in
no period of history was this reflection more creative, and enduring, than in the
Middle Ages—in no small measure (at least in the West) due to Augustine. As the
following chapter explains, the Order of Preachers established in the Middle Ages
was specifically modeled on Augustine’s contemplative character; its friars were
well-versed in his meditations.
Among these Dominicans, Thomas Aquinas has come to epitomize the medieval
Dominicans, especially with his many well-known theological treatises. In his
Summa theologiae, Aquinas introduces the subject of God—treating specifically
in the first part of this work what we can know about God.8 He determines we
cannot know what God is, only what God is not. Over the span of the next eleven
questions, he proceeds from this assertion to the ways in which we describe God,
or, how we speak about God. The culmination of this development is Question 13,
which asserts the most proper way of describing God, if there is one, is by analogy,
a concept he takes great pains to qualify for the unique case of the relationship
between creatures and their Creator.
If we consider not only his academic training, but also the discipline of his
religious life as a Dominican friar, we discover within Aquinas an underlying
narrative echoing Augustine’s opening reflection on the problems inherent to
articulating God. From this perspective, Aquinas’ analysis in these questions
amounts to much more than a speculative treatise on the doctrine of God; it
is an exercise designed to increase his reader’s flexibility in extending limited
human speech about God, without compromising either God’s transcendence
or immanence, as students work their way through the text. More importantly,
this linguistic exercise is not supposed to be an end in itself, because the
ultimate purpose of theology is salvific: the goal of sacra doctrina is to attain
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I.3 (hereafter STh). The Fathers of the English
8
Dominican Province (Texas: Thomas More, 1981) translation will be used throughout this
book, as well as consultation with the English translation and original Latin provided by
Blackfriars (New York and London: Blackfriars in conjunction with McGraw-Hill, Eyre &
Spottiswoode, 1964).
Introduction 5
the knowledge necessary for salvation.9 So we begin to glimpse a subtle

alliance between speaking about God and knowing God. Learning how to speak
about God is integral to the faith journey—on the part of both the speaker and
the listener.
For Aquinas, the common point of origin for this connection is Scripture.
On the one hand, Scripture contains God’s Revelation, from which all theological
principles are derived; on the other hand, it contains the deepest expressions
of personal encounter with God: prayer, which is human speech addressed to
God—that is, addressed to our Creator whose distinct presence remains ever
an incomprehensible mystery, beyond adequate description. Yet Scripture is the
primary discourse mediating both knowledge about God (if perhaps only by
negation) and knowing God. Thus, Scripture offers the exemplar of analogical
language that animates the reader’s lifelong journey of faith.
On the surface, however, Aquinas’ Summa can easily appear too pedantic to
move his readers from speaking about God to knowing God, because it is structured
as a textbook with highly academic language, despite his assertion in the first
question of the primary place of Scripture—filled with poetical language—as
a source for theology. But if Aquinas’ treatise seems too theoretical, we should
draw upon another medieval Dominican, Meister Eckhart, for more “practical”
examples of how the extraordinary flexibility inherent to human language-use
about God may be used to draw us closer to God. Meister Eckhart had the benefit of
Aquinas’ lessons in the Summa; moreover, imbued with the active-contemplative
character of the Dominican life captured by this instruction as well as a brilliant
gift for rhetoric, Eckhart spent his life putting it to use, outside of the classroom
as well as in it.
Long neglected, Eckhart has become popular in the last few decades
on contemporary bookshelves of spirituality, particularly for his German
sermons, originally written for the women and men of the medieval Beguine
communities under his spiritual direction. In these sermons, Eckhart calls for
abegescheiden—detachment from all creaturely concerns, and from all creaturely
conceptions of God.10 On speaking about God, Eckhart reiterates detachment
from any conception of God: “whatever words we use, they are telling lies, and
9
STh, I.1.
Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, trans. and ed. Bernard
10
McGinn, Frank Tobin, and Elvira Borgstadt (New York: Paulist Press, 1986), 399, “Middle
High German Glossary.” A profound example of detachment is Eckhart’s German Sermon
on the Beatitudes:
If it be the case that man is free of all created things and of God and of himself, and
if it also be that God may find place in him in which to work, then I say that … he
is not poor with the most intimate poverty. … When man clings to place, he clings
to distinction. Therefore I pray to God that he may make me free of “God,” for my
real being is above God if we take “God” to be the beginning of created things.
it [the power of the spirit] is far above them. It is free of all names, it is bare of
all forms, wholly empty and free, as God in himself is empty and free.”11 In his
Latin Sermon on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Eckhart asserts: “In summary,
note that everything that is said or written about the Holy Trinity is in no way
really so or true. … Second, [it follows] that since God is inexpressible in and
of his nature, what we say he is, surely is not in him.” He employs a variety
of rhetorical devises in his discourse to facilitate his audience’s conceptual
detachment: paradox, negation, juxtaposition, dialectic, chiasmus, and other
“poetic effects.”12
In addition, he creatively incorporates Neoplatonic principles into his vernacular
in order to take his Christian audience out of their conventional modes of thinking
about God, for example, ûzbruch, or in the Latin, emanatio—the emanation or
flowing out of all things from the Divine Source13—which he uses to explicate
the Christian doctrine of the Triune God’s creative action, reflected in the human
soul. He employs emanation language to highlight the unique distinction between
creatures and their Creator: on the one hand, because all things emanate from the
Source they bear a likeness to it; on the other hand, this Source is distinct precisely
by virtue of its singular existence. By describing the relationship in these terms,
which he articulates with a strategic set of rhetorical twists and turns, Eckhart
effectively introduces a variety of linguistic frameworks whereby his readers and
listeners will become more and more detached from any particular concept of God
that may hinder their journey towards knowing God. Because—as Eckhart often
reminds us—if we could capture God with one conception, then truly “God would
not be God.”
The idea that God would not be God if God could be defined by any conception
is articulated in a variety of ways throughout Eckhart. For example, in his sermon
on Ephesians 4:23, he writes:
But if you want to be without sin and perfect, you should not chatter about
God. And do not try to understand God, for God is beyond all understanding.
One authority says: “If I had a God whom I could understand, I should never
11
German Sermon on Luke 10:38. Unless otherwise specified, quoted texts from
Eckhart are taken from translations in the Classics of Western Spirituality series by Paulist
Press: McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt (Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, 1986) and
Colledge and McGinn (Meister Eckhart: Essential Sermons, 1981). These volumes are
particularly helpful because they include High Medieval Latin and German glossaries as
well as extensive indices.
12
See, for example, Tobin’s discussion in Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 158-82. See also Cyprian Smith,
The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life as Taught by Meister Eckhart (New York: Paulist
Press, 1987).
13
McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher, 403 (glossary).
Introduction 7
consider him God.” If you can understand anything about him, it in no way
belongs to him.
and
[I]f you love God as he is God, as he is spirit, as he is person and as he is

image—all this must go! … You should love him as he is a nonGod, a nonspirit,
a nonperson, a nonimage.
In his Counsels on Discernment, he advises:
A man ought not to have a God who is just a product of his thought, nor should
he be satisfied with that, because if the thought vanished, God too would vanish.
But one ought to have a God who is present, a God who is far above the notions
of men and of all created things.
Eckhart also demonstrates his linguistic ingenuity in his Latin sermons and
scriptural exegeses, although his creativity is perhaps less obvious than in his
German works. To aid his students and more scholastic audiences in transcending
conventional conceptions of God, Eckhart, like Aquinas, adopts and modifies a
highly philosophical vocabulary that appears to be Aristotelian in character: esse,
essentia, potentia, actio, and so on. Rather than resting with descriptions of God in
terms of emanation to help his audience overcome their conceptual rigidity, Eckhart
also often describes God as Intelligere14 and the process of human transcendence as
“detached intellection.”15 He identifies God’s Existence with God’s Knowledge in
such a way that, the closer his audience comes to detached intellection about God,
the closer they may come to know God.16 The goal of this process is to become so
identified with God that there is no longer any separation between the existence of
the two “subjects,” the human knower and the Divine Knower (the human creature
and its Creator)—in fact there are no longer any subjects to know about.17
14
Ibid., 395 (Latin Glossary).
15
See Carl Franklin Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1977) on “Divine Knowledge” as a central theme in Eckhart’s work.
16
Eckhart often combines “detached intellection” with emanation imagery. For
example, in his commentary on Exodus, Eckhart speaks of “bringing every intellect into
captivity in service of Christ” (essentially, detached intellection), but in the next verse, he
combines descriptions of God’s existence with emanation: “the repetition … ‘I am who
am’ … indicates a reflexive turning back of his existence into itself … a ‘boiling’ or giving
birth to itself” (McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher, 43-6).
17
However, Eckhart remains consistent in maintaining that, while there is no
separation between them, the distinction between Creator and creature nevertheless
remains. This process of identification is neither initiated nor moved by the human creature,
but by and through God, who created us for this determination.
While his approach may sometimes appear very different from that of his
vernacular works, his purpose is the same: transcending ordinary language-use
in order to speak about God, and so leading others to knowing God. Eckhart
proves himself adept in his dual vocation as Preacher and Teacher, for he has the
remarkable ability to transform his rhetoric to accommodate his diverse audiences.
In both roles, as teacher of future preachers and as himself preacher extraordinaire,
Eckhart offers a living reply to Augustine’s quandary: “But who can rightly call
upon thee, that is yet ignorant of thee? … and how shall they believe without
a preacher?”18
A. Current Scholarly Research on Eckhart and Aquinas
Unfortunately, Eckhart was condemned by the Church for his enigmatic use of
language, an injustice which has yet to be reversed.19 Ironically, while nothing
could have been further from his intent, Eckhart was accused of “leading simpler
minds astray in matters of faith and morals.”20 Eckhart died before he was able
to explain himself, and his writings have rested in virtual obscurity for several
centuries. However, renewed interest in the writings of medieval mystics has
prompted scholarly research into Eckhart’s work.
In fact, much has been written about the ingenious and complex manner in
which Meister Eckhart employs language in speaking about the relationship
between creatures and their Creator. In this regard, many scholars have attempted
to compare Eckhart to his well-known predecessor, Thomas Aquinas. This has
generated a fair amount of controversy about whether, and to what extent, Eckhart
follows or departs from Aquinas, but the general tendency is to highlight the
differences between them.
Disagreements over Eckhart’s adherence to Aquinas as well as the tendency
to contrast them often stem from the various points of departure scholars take
when considering the two medieval masters’ works. One approach compares their
so-called metaphysics, focusing on what each has to say about the nature and
existence of God. Taken from this perspective, contrasts between Eckhart and
Aquinas seem apparent. Another approach examines Eckhart and Aquinas at the
linguistic or rhetorical level—that is, how they each use language to achieve a
desired effect in their respective audiences. This examination requires us to consider
many factors in a given text before drawing any “metaphysical” conclusions,
such as: For whom is each writer writing, and for what purpose? What literary
and linguistic forms are employed in each composition? While inevitably, many
Augustine, Confessions, I.1.

18
A helpful timeline of Eckhart’s condemnation and efforts to get it rescinded can

19
be found on the Eckhart Society’s website, http://www.eckhartsociety.org/eckhart/eckhart-

man (accessed June 24, 2013).
20
Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 8.
Introduction 9
different interpretations arise between scholars, this perspective makes room for
the suggestion that differences between two texts or authors may exist mostly at
a surface level. In fact, on closer reading superficial differences give way to an
underlying complementarity between the texts or authors under consideration.
The following discussion provides a brief survey, by no means exhaustive, of
major trends in current scholarship on the relationship of Eckhart and Aquinas.
The purpose of this survey is twofold: first, to acknowledge the many contributions
of contemporary scholars in this area, and second, to reveal the need to explore
Eckhart and Aquinas from a slightly different angle, one of reading Eckhart in light
of Aquinas, with the intention of uncovering the profound creativity generated
by their inherent connection regarding religious language-use. This vantage point
has not been adequately exploited, because while there has been much scholarly
reflection on Aquinas’ understanding of analogy as well as on Eckhart’s creative
use of rhetoric, the underlying assumption that there exists a deeper intrinsic unity
between the two has for the most part been underappreciated. However, research
established by scholars of Eckhart and of Aquinas has indeed produced a fertile
(if confusing) ground for exploring how these two medieval Dominican masters
facilitate our own religious language-use.
There is little consensus among scholars about the extent to which Eckhart
actually departs from Aquinas in speaking about God or in describing the
Creator–creature relationship. Often, when one scholar asserts something of one
or the other masters, another scholar asserts just the opposite! However, the major
contrast appears to be in determining Eckhart as a Neoplatonist and Aquinas as
an Aristotelian. This contrast breaks down to include further differences, such
as respective notions on divine causality, priority and distinction/indistinction of
divine perfections, and the independence (or not) of the creature’s existence apart
from its Creator.
Frank Tobin, for example, citing Eckhart’s commentary on the book of
Genesis (“God naturally possesses all forms and the forms of all”), argues for
Eckhart’s Neoplatonism in stressing God as formal cause, in contrast to Aquinas’
Aristotelian tendency to speak of God as efficient cause.21 On the other hand,
Carl Franklin Kelley, who downplays Eckhart’s Neoplatonism, points out passages
in Eckhart where essence by itself can never be a formal cause. According to
Kelley, Eckhart does not place essence prior to existence as a Neoplatonist would.22
In terms of divine perfections, Alain de Libera and J.A. Aertsen contrast Eckhart,
who writes of the essential indistinctness of divine perfections (for example, in
his commentary on Gospel of John), with Aquinas, who discusses distinctions
between divine perfections apart from our imperfect way of knowing.23
21
Ibid., 57.
22
Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge, 53.
23
See J.A. Aertsen, “Ontology and Henology in Medieval Philosophy,” in
On Proclus and his Influence in Medieval Philosophy, ed. E.P. Bos and P.A. Meijer (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1992), 135 and Alain de Libera, Le problème de l’être chez Maîter Eckhart:
More to the heart of the matter, however, is an apparent difference detected

by de Libera, Tobin, and others in the status of the creature in relation to its
Creator: Eckhart asserts that apart from its Creator a creature has no being at all,
while Aquinas seems to allow for some independent existence in the creature,
although the creature’s existence still must be sustained by its Source.24 On the
other hand, further complicating matters, Eckhart denies existence to God (when
it is attributed to creatures) and, sometimes even in the same passage, goes on to
deny it of creatures; for example, the creature’s existence is in reality God’s own
existence.25 This contrast, like most others, inevitably then turns to the differences
between Eckhart and Aquinas in their respective methods of predication, modes
of speaking (for example, the way of negation versus the way of eminence),26
and ultimately, differences in their ways of employing analogy to describe the
Creator–creature relationship.
Eckhart’s often bewildering play on language generates the most interesting and
creative controversy. Differences of opinion arise among scholars not only about
Eckhart’s understanding of analogy and predication, as well as his understanding of
and intentional departure from Aquinas, but also about Aquinas’ understanding of
these uses. For example, many assume Aquinas adheres more strictly to the analogy
of proportion between Creator and creature while Eckhart rejects the analogy of
proportion in favor of the analogy of attribution (although some concede that
Aquinas also uses the analogy of attribution).27 David Burrell, however, asserts that
Aquinas does not adhere strictly to one type of analogy, but rather develops analogy
more as a skill in using language to investigate what lies beyond our conceptual
grasp.28 This is a perspective that will be further developed in this book.
logique et métaphysique de l’analogie (Lausanne: Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de

Philosophie, 1980), 30-31.
24
de Libera, Le problème de l’être chez Maîter Eckhart, 19 and Tobin, Meister
Eckhart, 58.
25
Eckhart often uses “nothing” dialectically to articulate both Creator’s and creatures’
existence. See, for example, German Sermon, 71 on Acts 9:8: “When he got up from the
ground, with eyes open he saw nothing, and the nothing was God.” And a few lines later,
“when he saw God, he viewed all things as nothing.” Paradoxically, both God and creatures
are referred to as “nothing” within the very same paragraph.
26
See, for example, Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 71.
27
Two main types of analogy are spoken of in reference to Aquinas. The analogy
of attribution, when the analogous property exists properly only in the “prime analogate”
(Creator) and secondarily—and extrinsically—in the other (creature), and the analogy of
proportion, when the analogous property is common to both, but each possesses the property
in a way that corresponds to their respective nature (Hampus Lyttkens, The Analogy Between
God and the World (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksells, 1952)). Attribution appears to fall
into equivocal language-use while proportion appears to fall into univocal language-use,
inadvertently contributing to the debate about Eckhart’s adherence to Aquinas.
28
David Burrell is referred to in McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and
Preacher, 26; although McGinn does not provide a citation undoubtedly he is referring
Introduction 11
Still others believe Eckhart in fact misunderstood Aquinas and, rather,

creatively modifies or synthesizes more than one type of analogy. These
apparent syntheses have been given various names, such as analogy of extrinsic
attribution,29 analogy of formal opposition or reverse analogy,30 dialectical
analogy, self‑reversing analogy,31 or inverse analogy.32 Descriptions of analogies
such as “extrinsic attribution,” “formal opposition,” and “reverse analogy”
appear at first glance to highlight the distinction of the Creator from creatures,
or a more equivocal understanding of the relation.33 On the other hand,
according to Burkhard Mojsisch, Eckhart generally accepts Aquinas’ analogy
of attribution (with qualification), but while Aquinas speaks of participation,
Eckhart speaks of identification of the Divine Ground with humankind, which
seems to highlight a more univocal understanding of the relation between Creator
and creatures.34 For Mojsisch, the innovation Eckhart brings to the analogy of
attribution between Creator and creature is to distinguish the creature insofar as
it is inseparable from the identity of the Creator, that is, where its existence and
perfections cannot be measured, and the creature as it emerges from its Source,
through ûzbruch, or emanation. Outside of the Creator (the prime analogate), the
creature’s existence is only borrowed; it is purely nothing in itself. This seems
to fit into the category of univocity because, insofar as the Creator and creature
are “inseparable,” the creature’s individuality cannot be measured. Émilie Zum
Brunn attempts to counterbalance the tendency to overemphasize either an
equivocal or univocal reading by noting that in Eckhart there are actually two
accounts of the Creator–creature relationship, depending on two states of the
creature: 1) servitude, existence only borrowed from the Creator; 2) liberated and
to Burrell’s Excercises in Religious Understanding (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1974), 126-9 and 132-3.
29
For example, de Libera, Le problème de l’être chez Maîter Eckhart, 6.
30
Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 32-3.
31
Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 33 and Kelley, Meister Eckhart on
Divine Knowledge, 31, 168-72.
32
Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge, 168-72. According to Kelley,
Eckhart presupposes but qualifies the analogy of attribution, asserting the analogy reveals
discontinuity between Creator and creature rather than similarity—in other words, the
analogy is “inverted” from its normal role. However, this inversion also points to unity
between Creator and creature. Kelley explains that in Eckhart, the identity between the soul
and the Divine ground stems wholly from “uncreated grace” and not from any “ontological”
fact or natural act.
33
Such scholars are, for the most part, careful to stay away from actually placing
Eckhart’s analogy in the category of “equivocal” language. However, God’s transcendence
is discussed prior to any notion of the creature’s indistinction from the Creator.
34
See Burkhard Mojsisch, Meister Eckhart: Analogie, Univozitat und Einheit
(Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983), 52 and 117.
inherited, insofar as the creature’s being is in the being of the Son.35 Zum Brunn’s
description, which in a sense explicates Mojsisch’s, fits into “dialectical analogy.”
In addition to interpreting Eckhart’s analogy as some kind of synthesis,
de Libera, along with McGinn, sees Eckhart moving through different and
increasingly deeper levels of language-use: predication, analogy, dialectic.36 They
stress that these modes of speaking are complementary and mutually dependent
on each other. De Libera’s insight into the inherent connection between analogy
and dialectic follows upon the work of Vladimir Lossky, who focuses on Eckhart’s
particular use of dialectic describing a dynamic relationship between creature and
Creator: in one “moment” of creation, when the creature is created from nothing,
the creature’s existence is purely equivocal to, or distinct from, the Creator; in
another “moment,” indistinct with regard to the Divine Cause’s knowledge and
production, the creature shares an univocal relationship with the Creator.37
According to Lossky, Eckhart departs from Aquinas’ understanding of analogy as
a “middle-way” between the equivocal and the univocal. Rather, Eckhart perceives
analogy as a dynamic movement, or rather, a dynamic unity, between the two modes
of speaking: “The univocal and equivocal relation must be rejected or taken together
when speaking of an analogical Cause, creator of all things.”38 By “[t]he univocal
and equivocal … taken together,” Lossky is referring to pairs of seemingly contrary
terms consistently showing up in Eckhart’s writings when he refers to the creature
in relation to its Cause: distinction and indistinction, dissimilarity and resemblance,
exteriority and interiority, separation and unification, and so on.39 This explanation
of analogy, like others,40 sees “analogical causality” as a kind of metaphysical
category that is, for Eckhart, best described dialectically. The unstated—but very
significant—implication of Lossky’s interpretation of Eckhart is that, since the
Émilie Zum Brunn and Alain de Libera, Maître Eckhart: metaphysique de Verbe
35
and théologie négative (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), 90.

36
See, for example, de Libera, Le problème de l’être chez Maîter Eckhart, 1 and
McGinn’s discussion on Eckhart’s use of language in comparison to Aquinas in the
introduction to Essential Sermons.
37
Vladimir Lossky, Théologie négative et connaissance de Dieu chez maître Eckhart,
Études de Philosophie Médiévale (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1960). See, for
example: “Il y a un moment d’équivocité dans la causalité analogique de Maître Eckhart
dans la mesure où l’être créé ex nihilo, considéré dans sa distinction, ‘en tant que créature’,
est un ‘pur néant’ et n’a rien de commun avec sa Cause transcendante. Quant au moment
d’univocité, il apparaît surtout dans l’immanence de la créature au principe premier de sa
connaissance et de sa production” (287).
38
Ibid., 287: “L’univocité et l’équivocité doivent être rejetées our admises ensemble
lorsqu’il s’agit d’une Cause analogique, créatrice de toutes choses.”
39
Ibid.
40
For example, Zum Brunn and de Libera, Maître Eckhart: metaphysique de Verbe
and théologie negative, 90, and Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge, 31, describe
Eckhart’s analogy as “dialectical analogy.” McGinn also implies Eckhart’s analogy is
dialectical in The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man From Whom God Hid
Nothing (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 96.
Introduction 13
connection between the creature and its Creator is essentially dynamic, not static, it
cannot be articulated by a static concept of analogy. The recognition that dialectical
language-use is itself somewhat “analogical”41 moves the concept of analogy from
a static definition, such as we understand by “analogy of proportion” or “analogy of
attribution,” to a dynamic description much more difficult to grasp, something that
does not fit into any well-defined linguistic typology.
A more dynamic interpretation of Eckhart’s use of analogy in turn must affect
how Eckhart is viewed with respect to Aquinas. In fact, McGinn cautions us to
avoid overly simplified contrasts between the two.42 While he also tends to draw
out differences between Eckhart and Aquinas, McGinn concedes that if Burrell is
correct in asserting Aquinas’ understanding of analogy is more about developing
a sense of attentiveness to the subtle play of language than about defining, for
example, an intrinsic and/or proportional relation between Creator and creature—as
some scholars credit Aquinas—then Eckhart is a master of the art of analogy.43
Supposing there is an “art of analogy” requires distinguishing between
analogy as a simple rhetorical or linguistic device—that is, a comparison of two
things (for example, Creator and creature) by extension of one thing to another,44
whether it is by proportion, attribution, or even causality—and analogy as a type
of language-use that is context dependent, and that leads the reader from speaking
about God towards the type of knowing—encounter—which ultimately evades
proper articulation. Analogical language-use, therefore, is an integral part of the
journey of faith seeking understanding. But understanding resulting from this type
41
Although perhaps Lossky himself would not explicitly assert this. He appears to
vacillate between identifying Eckhart’s dialectical language-use with analogy and merely
associating the two.
42
McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher, 26-7. See also McGinn,
Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 96, where he discusses Eckhart’s possible use of
Aquinas on analogy:
[F]rom time to time, Eckhart appeals to Aquinas’ language of analogy and thus
seems to want to preserve something of the Thomistic via eminentiae. This may
seem like mere confusion, but I would argue that Eckhart is drawing on both
Maimonides and Aquinas as resources for the creation of his own dialectical
God-language.
43
McGinn, Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 96.
44
Janet Martin Soskice distinguishes analogy from other types of comparison,
specifically metaphor: “Analogy as a linguistic device deals with language that has been
stretched to fit new applications, yet fits the new situation without generating for the native
speaker any imaginative strain.” Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1985), 64. That is, analogy extends the meaning of a word beyond its ordinary
use, “a matter of teaching an old word new tricks” (borrowing from Newson Goodman).
Metaphor, on the other hand, is a form of language-use “whereby we speak about one thing
in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another.” Ibid., 15. I will have more to say on
this distinction later.
of language-use must not be viewed as positive knowledge about God allowing us

to define God, or our relationship with our Creator. Instead, this “knowing,” if it
can even be called that, only propels the believer deeper into the incomprehensible
mystery we call God. Speaking about God, like speaking to God, only feeds our
desire to know the unknowable God.
B. Articulating the “Distinction” Between Creator and Creatures
Often scholars speak of analogy between Creator and creature as if “analogy” is

a sophisticated way of defining this unique relationship—in other words, that
analogy somehow captures the way in which one is connected to the other. But
how can we avoid being misled into thinking our articulations about God as Creator
adequately describe a state of affairs that, in reality, is impossible to grasp due to
God’s incomprehensibility? If God is incomprehensible, then anything said about
the Creator–creature relationship leaves out more than it tells. No image or likeness
(even that of Creator) can penetrate the mystery of God’s being, and any likeness
drawn between Creator and creature implies an even greater distinction between
them. So the Creator–creature relationship is one where the Creator must be said to
be uniquely distinct from creatures. In fact, as Robert Sokolowski points out, since
there is only one Creator, all of our religious discourse hangs upon this particular
distinction—at least with regard to the Abrahamic faiths, and for our specific purpose,
the Christian faith.45 Conventional definitions of “analogy” are not only inadequate
for the task of articulating the Creator–creature relationship, but misleading, because
what we want to do when speaking about God as Creator is to draw attention to the
distinctness of the relationship rather than to its likeness to any other.
But if we cannot use customary definitions of analogy, then how can we explain
the biblical assertion of God as the immediate and intimately present Creator?
How can we speak of ourselves as created in the image of God? A purely negative
understanding of speech about God does not satisfy our religious practices or our
faith statements, as Aquinas himself points out.46 Our religious language must
play the role of defending the profoundly positive assertion of God the Creator
in the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures. While insufficient on its own, analogy holds
the most promise for developing a Creator–creature language, because it does not
have to resort to either purely negative or purely positive understandings. Even
in everyday use, we realize an analogy drawn between two things is not a perfect
correspondence. We are keenly aware (or should be) of the incredible flexibility of
language—and of language-users. We do not use words or comparisons in isolation;
we draw upon contexts and experiences surrounding those words in order to derive
a fuller meaning. So instead of relying on customary definitions of analogy when
45
See Sokolwski’s, The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian Faith
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1995).
46
STh, I.13.2.
Introduction 15
attempting to articulate God as Creator, we should focus on analogical language-use,

which takes into consideration the flexibility of human language, as well as the
potential of the language-user to draw nearer to its ultimate Source.
Analogical language-use attempts to communicate a distinction between Creator
and creatures that, paradoxically, reveals the Creator’s immediacy to creatures and
guides the speaker—and the hearer—closer to God. In order to see the connection
between this unique Creator–creature distinction and developing appropriate (albeit
improper) speech about God, we must begin with the presumption that God is not
part of the world, so Creator and creature cannot be compared and contrasted as are
two created things; therefore speech about the Creator must be directed by a non-
contrastive understanding of religious language. What “non-contrastive” language-
use means is the attempt to prevent comparisons and contrasts between Creator
and creatures leading us to think about God as another being in the world.47 The
following discussion examines this presumption and the implications it has for our
understanding and analogous uses of language. In the end, not only does our notion of
analogy have to be highly qualified when applied to the Creator–creature relationship,
it actually calls for a different “universe of discourse” that moves beyond our normal
mode of describing relationships within the world. Aquinas and Eckhart strive to help
us develop such a universe of discourse through their own works.
1. God is Not Part of the World
Sokolowski asserts one basic and inviolable characteristic of Christianity: God

must not be understood as the “best part of the world”48—in other words, God is
distinct from all that is created:
Christian theology is differentiated from pagan religious and philosophical

reflection primarily by the introduction of a new distinction, the distinction
between the world understood as possibly not having existed and God understood
as possibly being all that there is, with no diminution of goodness or greatness.49
Sokolowski uses the “pagan” gods as examples, who were seen as “natural
necessities,” having control over various aspects of worldly affairs: nature, politics,
and in essence, human fate.50 They were integral parts of the world, and, apart from
47
The term “non-contrastive” is borrowed from Kathryn Tanner, and will be
explained in the following section. See God and Creation in Christian Theology (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1988).
48
Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, xi.
49
Ibid., 23. However, the question arises whether the contrast between so-called
pagan gods and the Christian God is as clear cut as Sokolowski indicates, an issue beyond
the scope of this book and left for future reflection.
50
See, for example, descriptions from Frederick Turner, “Apollo,” in The Olympians:
Ancient Deities as Archetypes, ed. Joanne Stroud (New York: Continuum, 1996), 50
the world, they had no meaning or identity. Christianity, however, perceives a

different relation of God to the world—a contingent world freely created by one
God whose identity is independent of it. This makes the distinction between God
and the world (Creator and creatures) unlike any distinction within the world:
[I]n the Christian distinction God is understood as “being” God entirely apart
from any relation of otherness, not the world or to the whole. God could and
would be God even if there were no world. … No distinction made within the
horizon of the world is like this.51
Ultimately, because there is no other example within the world to use as a

comparison or contrast, “the Christian God … is not a ‘kind’ of being at all.”52
Sokolowski’s explanation of the difference between ancient pagan religions
and Christianity hinges on the relation of the divine to the non-divine. The pagan
gods were a part of the world—the greatest types of beings in the world, granted,
but part of the world nonetheless. This implies the divine must be understood over
and against all that is non-divine.53 To have control over the fate of nature and the
lives of mortals is, in effect, to be a god. The transcendence of the Creator God
of the Hebrew-Christian Scriptures, however, is of an altogether different sort.
Because God is not a being at all in the sense to which we are accustomed and not
a part of the created world, there is no opposition or competition between creatures
and their Creator, as for example, the conflict between the Greek hero Hercules
and the goddess Juno. Therefore, the distinction of the Creator from creation is not
one over-and-against the world. This is a radically different conception from the
distinction made between things within the world itself.
When we describe something within the world, we necessarily do so by
comparing it to things that are like it and contrasting it from other things that are
different from it. We also identify things by their position in the created order.54
But God’s existence does not depend on the existence, or the creation, of anything
and Donald Richardson, Great Zeus and all His Children: Greek Mythology for Adults
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984), 1 and 77. See also Guilia Sissa and Marcel
Detienne, The Daily Life of the Greek Gods, trans. Janet Lloyd (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2000), 167.
51
Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 32-3.
52
Ibid., 35-6.
53
The Greek gods, for example, are especially characterized by manipulation of the
world and human affairs, even to the extent of mating and reproducing with mortals. See,
for example, Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 92. Mating between immortal and
mortal inevitably blurs the divine and non-divine, as well as the possibility of comparing
and contrasting the two.
54
According to Tanner in God and Creation in Christian Theology:
Finite beings within the world are specifically identified in virtue of the particular
qualities which characterize them and by which they differ from other beings. God,
Introduction 17
else, and God’s identity does not depend on (or can it be found in) comparison to
anything else in existence. Therefore, that which distinguishes God from everything
else is an absolutely unique distinction. Sokolowski provides a glimpse of the
implications this particular “distinction” has on understanding the relationship
of creatures to their Creator, and the problems that arise when we attempt to
articulate it. Whenever we say anything about God as Christians, we must consider
whether we are collapsing God into the created order. If we do not recognize that
our speech about God, of necessity drawn from creation, cannot adequately reflect
what God is, then we risk treating God as though God were another being in the
universe. We will then view our relationship to God as one over against ourselves,
with all the distortions such unconscious presumptions entail.
Furthermore, even the concept of “analogy” when used of the Creator–creature
relationship risks falling into this same error, unless analogy is employed to
maintain a sense of God’s unique distinction from the world rather than to define
“what God is.”55 The emphasis of analogy when used of Creator and creature
should be on moving the believer closer to its ultimate end rather than proving
God’s existence or defining God’s nature—and such a move depends on a Creator
God who is both transcendent and immanent to creation.
2. Analogical Language-Use is Non-Contrastive
Scholars who refer to Eckhart’s use of analogy as “reverse” or “inverse” analogy56

or “analogy of formal opposition”57 point out this special role that analogy plays
when referring to Creator and creatures: to reveal the Creator’s unique distinction.
They recognize analogy does not operate in the same manner when articulating
the Creator–creature relationship as it does when describing the relationship
between created things. When used of the Creator–creature relationship, analogy
serves more to unveil differences than to call attention to likeness. What readers
of Eckhart (and those of Aquinas also) may not recognize, however, is just how
unique the distinction being articulated is: God is not merely distinct by virtue
of divine transcendence, but by transcendence-in-immanence: God as Creator is
more present to the creature than any two created beings could possibly be, yet
as transcendent, is beyond those relations of identity or opposition, and is therefore

not to be characterized in terms of particular natures in contrast to others. (57)
55
According to Victor Preller, “For us to know what God is in terms of the analogically
significant conceptual system by means of which we refer to reality would be for God to
be a kind of thing, a being essentially conditioned by his relationship to contingent beings,
and, indeed, a contingent being in his own right.” Divine Science and the Science of God
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 90-91. In other words, analogy, just as any
other mode of speaking, may make God out to be another being in the universe.
56
For example, Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 33 and Kelley, Meister
Eckhart on Divine Knowledge, 31, 168-72.
57
For example, Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 33.
as such God is uniquely distinct. So when considering scholars who present

Eckhart’s analogy as a synthesis it is crucial to look for elements of both the
transcendence and the immanence of God in their explanations. Often, scholars
tend to emphasize passages in Eckhart referring either to God’s transcendence or
to God’s immanence.58 But in order to truly capture Eckhart’s intent, each passage
must be read in the context of the entire text, and perhaps even in the context of his
writings as a whole, for Eckhart is careful (but not obviously so) to preserve both
God’s transcendence and God’s immanence.
As Eckhart exemplifies, attempting to describe something like “transcendence-
in-immanence” is a difficult task given the limitations of human language. One
problem with using the term “distinction” when referring to God’s uniqueness
as one of transcendence-in-immanence is that our normal understanding of
distinction is of contrast between two things, or where one is seen over and against
the other. Inevitably this suggests an equivocal understanding of the relationship.
Kathryn Tanner’s use of the term “non-contrastive” rather than “distinction”
when referring to God’s uniqueness may help us avoid the danger of slipping into
misunderstanding attributes used of Creator and creatures as altogether equivocal
(or univocal, for that matter). She distinguishes non-contrastive language from
contrastive language, which she describes as language-use where God is implicitly
or explicitly compared/contrasted to things in the created realm, and she warns
us: “whatever you say about God and world, do not simply identify or oppose
their attributes.”59 The underlying danger of understanding God’s attributes
contrastively is thinking whatever we say about the relationship of creature to
Creator implies either an opposition to or an identity with God, or, in other terms,
a struggle between God’s will and our own.60 We then fall into the error that
Sokolowski attributes to the pagan religions: God as the best or biggest thing in
the world. Rather, according to Tanner, we must
emphasize … a radical transcendence of God that is non-contrastive: God

transcends the world as a whole in a manner that cannot properly be talked
about in terms of a simple opposition within the same universe of discourse.
58
This is not to say, however, that Eckhart scholars are unaware of both elements
in Eckhart’s work, or that their explanations do not include both transcendence and
immanence; it is more a matter of emphasis than neglect.
59
Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, 28.
60
The relation between God’s will and the human creature’s free will is a central
theological problem. Tanner observes: “freedom and contingency as attributes of the
creatures … might suggest a conflict with the theological formality of a creature’s complete
determination by God’s creative agency” (ibid., 90). She asserts this need not be the case, if
the rule for talking about created efficacy is directed by a non-contrastive use of language.
See Tanner’s ch. 3: “God and the Efficacy of Creatures.”
Introduction 19
Direct contrasts are appropriate for distinguishing beings within the world; if
God transcends the world, God must transcend that sort of characterization, too.61
The previous section asserted that, because of the underlying presumption of

God’s incomprehensibility, we must be careful to preserve a notion of “analogy”
as a particular use of language over a notion of “analogy” as a comparison that
reveals similarities. Confusing the two risks obscuring God’s unique distinction
from the world—in effect, making God into another being in the world, thereby
compromising God’s incomprehensibility and leading us to believe we can define
the relationship between the Creator God and creatures. Tanner’s explication
provides the direction that must be taken in order to correct our linguistic practices
when speaking of the divine: we must form a different “universe of discourse.”
This universe differs from our ordinary manner of speaking in that it attempts to
avoid the tendency to discern or categorize the relationship of the “divine” and the
“non-divine” in terms of comparisons and contrasts. Instead, this new universe of
discourse employs a non-contrastive grasp of language, where we understand the
divine as distinct from the non-divine, but not separate from it.
Tanner further underscores the peril of relying on our ordinary contrastive
understandings when applied to the divine. Language asserting or even implying
an opposition or contrast of God with the world restricts God as the Creator,
limiting God’s incomprehensibility by diminishing God’s radical immanence
to creatures:
A contrastive definition is not radical enough to allow a direct creative

involvement of God with the world in its entirety. … A God who genuinely
transcends the world must not be characterized, therefore, by a direct contrast
with it. A contrastive definition will show its failure to follow through
consistently on divine transcendence by inevitably bringing God down to the
level of the non-divine to which it is opposed.62
Tanner’s use of the word “transcendence” here simultaneously implies God’s

immanence. The God of Hebrew-Christian Scriptures creates each being
immediately and continually sustains that creature throughout its existence.
As Aquinas reminds us, the Creator God is more present to the creature than the
creature is to itself.63 However, a Creator viewed in opposition to its creature
61
Ibid., 42.
62
Ibid., 45-6.
63
For Aquinas, “God’s transcendence does not spell that he is an absentee from the
world, the remote and uncaring deity of some Aristotelians, for, as already indicated, the
first origin and last end is causally closer to secondary causes and effects than they are
among themselves: ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’ And a new presence is
added when God dwells in us by his grace and is the immediate object of our knowing and
loving.” Thomas Gilby, STh, Blackfriars translation, Appendix 12, 215.
cannot also be immanently present to it without compromising some divine

transcendence—since being present to the creature would also imply being to
some degree separated from it, for example as any two beings in the world must be
due to the restrictions of their own physical boundaries. However, non-contrastive
language allows us to articulate God’s distinction in such a way that God is
immanently present: “if divinity is not characterized by contrast with any sort of
being, it may be the immediate source of being of every sort.”64 In other words, if
God is not another being in the world, God can still be present to it, in its entirety,
without limitation of time or space.
Essentially, a non-contrastive understanding preserves the distinction of the
Creator, who is at once completely transcendent but intimately present to all that is
created. By “non-contrastive,” Tanner is saying we understand that this distinction
is not like any other distinction in the world (although we do not understand in
what manner this is so), and at the same time, that the distinction is not one which
is purely equivocal with regard to created things. A contrastive understanding, on
the other hand, either suggests that God is in direct opposition to the world, or
that God is a being within the world who can be contrasted and compared with
it as we contrast and compare things with each other. Inevitably, a contrastive
understanding forces either univocal or equivocal perceptions of this unique
Creator–creature relationship.
Eckhart was during his time accused of blurring the distinction between
Creator and creature, because many who read him did so from the presumption
of contrastive language. A particular misunderstanding of his condemners, for
example, was Eckhart’s description of the “birth of the Word in the soul” and
language appearing to identify the one who has reached detachment with the
Son of God himself.65 From a contrastive standpoint, orthodoxy demands that no
one can be called a son of God without explicitly qualifying that this status is by
adoption, while Jesus’ sonship is, from eternity, natural, because the divine and
the non-divine must be kept in separate categories.66 A contrastive understanding
opposes the eternity of the Word (belonging to the “divine” category) to the
temporality of the human creature (“non-divine” category), and consequently
compares and contrasts eternity with time, much in the same way that we compare
long to short, or contrast apples and oranges. We cannot be natural sons of God,
then, because we cannot share in the nature of God, which is eternal.
For Eckhart, this distinction between “natural” and “adopted” sonship is not
profound enough to capture the union between the human creature and its Creator.
Eckhart must be operating with a non-contrastive perception of the Son of God
as well as of the human person’s union with God: eternity is not the opposite of
Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, 45-6.

64
See Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 16-17, for description of the
65
condemnation with regard to Eckhart’s teaching on the identity of Christ with the just man.
66
However, as will be asserted later, it is this very point that contributes to the
misunderstandings over the true nature of Jesus Christ over which the early Church struggled.
Introduction 21
time, and God’s nature is not the opposite of the creatures’, for this opposition
is what really blurs God’s true distinction—transcendence-in-immanence—and it
blurs, too, the real significance of God as Creator, who draws creation back to its
origin in a union beyond any that can be compared in the world. Non-contrastively
speaking, eternity is the “center,” origin, and ground of time, and God is the
“Center,” Creator, and ground of the creature.67 The doctrine of the Trinity plays
a similar role for Eckhart, that of protecting a non-contrastive understanding of
the Creator’s unique distinction from creatures. This point will be elaborated on
in Chapter 5.
Aquinas, too, must be read from a non-contrastive perspective, and, in fact,
Aquinas attempts to form within his reader the skills to be able to use language
non-contrastively. In this sense, he has also been much misunderstood. For
example, in the third question of his Summa he asserts we cannot know what
God is, only what God is not. But then, astoundingly, he goes on to explicate
the perfections and attributes of God: Simpleness, Goodness, Limitlessness,
and so on.68 Therefore, it is easy for scholars to conclude by this accounting that
either Aquinas is not altogether serious when he states we cannot know what God
is, or, that the attributes of God must be understood equivocally with regard to
creatures. However, both conclusions presume a contrastive understanding: those
who do not think Aquinas is serious when he declares we cannot know what
God is may understand the perfections of God to be comparable to our human
perfections (that is, we contain a proportion of God’s perfections); and those who
see a purely negative reading of God’s perfections may perceive only an extrinsic
relation between our perfections and God’s.
A similar problem arises when considering God as Primary Cause, that is, God
the Creator. Some scholars, such as George Klubertanz, call attention to this divine
characteristic and label Aquinas’ analogy a “causal analogy.”69 One problem with
using the category of causality to describe the Creator–creature relationship is that
the “causality” attributed to God must be carefully and extensively qualified in
order to preserve the Creator’s unique distinction from creation. God’s creative
activity is not exactly like the creature’s creative activity, because we do not create
ex nihilo. We can distinguish how creating something out of nothing is different
67
If eternity is an immeasurably long time (proportionally), we cannot naturally share
in God’s eternity due to our mortality. If eternity—having no beginning or end—is the
opposite of time, measured precisely by beginning and end (for example, birth and death),
we cannot for the same reason naturally share in God’s eternity. Both definitions, while
maintaining God’s transcendence, leave out God’s immanence—God’s continual presence
in and sustenance of time. We expect “grace” to fills this theological gap. But the contrastive
definitions above create the impression that grace comes externally, and can be measured,
instead of thoroughly permeating and transforming from within. The implications of a
non-contrastive understanding of grace will be explored later in this book.
68
STh, I.3-11 (Questions 3-11).
69
George Klubertanz, St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy: A Textual Analysis and
Systematic Synthesis (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1960).
than our own way of creating. God creates immediately and directly—needing no
material with which to create, no instruments, and not limited by the constraints
of time. In addition to these qualifications, we still have to contend with the issue
of opposition. If God does not create in a manner comparable to creatures, then
God must create over and against creatures, inevitably limiting a creature’s own
power to create. Therefore, God’s creative power is relegated to the category of
the divine, and the creature’s to the non-divine. “Causal analogy” risks the same
misconception as “analogy of proportionality” and “analogy of attribution” unless
God is first and foremost understood to be outside of the world of comparison and
contrast, and second, that terms such as “cause,” “create,” and “make” inevitably
retain some metaphorical or “poetical” sense.70
A non-contrastive reading of Aquinas must presume a comparison of God’s
perfection or causality to our own is far from Aquinas’ intent. This non-contrastive
presumption is based upon God’s unique distinction, one where our perfections
are neither opposed to nor proportioned with God’s perfections, but where
God’s perfections both completely transcend and wholly permeate our own. The
question is, how can this be articulated? Aquinas’ discussions of God’s nature and
attributes must not intend to introduce us directly to God, but to serve as examples
of how to extend our language beyond what we can grasp, thereby respecting
God’s mysterious “otherness.” Each question following the third reinforces
and exercises this skill of extension, and when we reach his Question 13 where
Aquinas proposes we must talk about Creator and creatures neither univocally nor
equivocally but analogically, we discover that we have been doing so all along!
Only from this perspective will we understand that Aquinas does not adopt the
analogy of “proportion” or “attribution,” but goes beyond our ordinary definitions
of analogy altogether. A non-contrastive understanding of Aquinas allows us to see
how he moves us into analogical language-use, a dynamic notion of analogy set up
specifically for the unique case of speaking about God the Creator. In turning to
Eckhart, then, it becomes clear he not only absorbs Aquinas’ lesson, but creatively
exercises it in his own work.
C. Summary: Speaking about God and Knowing God
This introduction has attempted, first, to bring to light the underlying issues—and
obstacles—inherent to undertaking a study of religious discourse, and second, to
70
See Preller, Divine Science and the Science of God, 19-21. According to Preller,
attempts to describe the relationship between God and the world in terms of causal analogy
(which he puts under the “so-called ‘analogy of proper proportionality’”) do not necessarily
protect God’s distinction from the world, and fall into the same misinterpretation as did
Cajetan. “Causal analogy” does not solve the problem those who employ it intend to
solve—it does not “capture” or adequately describe the Creator–creature relationship,
because it falls into a comparison or contrast of “creation” terms.
Introduction 23
provide a strategy for articulating the Creator–creature relationship in the most

appropriate manner possible, using Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart as our
guides. In order to overcome the tendency to collapse the incomprehensible God
into another being in the created world, we must be careful to recognize that the
language that we use always falls short of the reality we are attempting to articulate.
This turns out to be a more difficult task than it first appears, for we have
an innate and resistant tendency to apply ordinary understandings of the terms
we use to God, inevitably causing us either to contrast or to identify God with
the world. However, as Aquinas and Eckhart show us, it is indeed possible to
extend our ordinary language-use to the Divine without losing a sense of either
the Creator’s transcendence from or immanence to creatures.71 Such an extension
requires distinguishing our ordinary definitions of analogy from a broader, more
dynamic, notion of analogy as an ever-increasing skill in language-use. This skill
must always be directed by a non-contrastive grasp of language, as well as the
realization that the reality we are attempting to articulate is incomprehensible;
therefore, when we speak about God we are saying more than we can possibly
understand by the words we use.
The realization of the unbridgeable gap between saying something about
God and adequately understanding it begs the question, if we cannot come to
know anything about God by speaking about God, then why do we engage in
it? Augustine himself answers this protest in his own contemplation: to engage
in the journey to know God. “Thee will I seek, O Lord, calling upon thee; and I
will call upon thee, believing in thee: for thou hast been declared unto us.” It is
speech about God, hearing about God from others and witnessing the Godly life,
which fuels the search for God. And the personal encounter, knowing God, is the
final goal of the human creature’s search: “For thou hast created us for thyself, and
our heart cannot be quieted till it may find repose in thee.” Our salvation lies in
knowing God. Knowing God means resting in God. There is no longer a subject
engaged in a search for another subject. There are no longer any subjects, but
communion. It is to this ultimate end that theology itself is geared.
In his first question, Aquinas brings up the connection between theology
(sacra doctrina),72 which has Scripture as its primary source, and its ultimate end
of salvation, described as the “beatific vision”—metaphorically speaking, seeing
God face to face. Theology, then, has a goal more profound than “describing”
divinity, which must remain ineffable. Since the main source of theology is the
Word of God, theology must be engaged in a specifically linguistic task in order
to bring us to some intelligible grasp of that Divine Word, despite the human
limitations of expressing that which is incomprehensible.
71
And, for Aquinas, practicing Christians do it all the time, without being aware of
what they are doing.
72
As distinguished from the theology that is part of philosophy (metaphysics),
discussed by Aquinas in STh, I.1.1.
As Tanner puts it, “theological statements are not conveying information

about God so much as they are suggesting how to talk in circumstances where we
do not pretend to understand fully what we are saying.”73 The practical purpose
of such statements is to help build “a distinctive Christian practice of discourse
and, by extension, forms of life congruent with it.”74 So theology, speech about
God, leads Christians to align their faith statements with their religious practices
(and vice versa). Since we have an inherent tendency to think contrastively, all of
our religious activities tend towards overemphasizing either God’s aseity or the
human creature’s autonomy; in either case the result is to view God’s freedom
and will in opposition to our own. It is the ever-vigilant task of the theologian to
compensate for this proclivity:
[T]heological discourse may suggest revisions of Christian linguistic

practice. … First, Christians may exhibit a tendency to mis-speak: they may
make statements whose well-formed character or Christian authenticity is a
matter for dispute. Second, they may deploy well-formed Christian statements
inappropriately. Third, they may be unsure how to speak, how to continue the
practice of Christian discourse, in strange or novel circumstances. Fourth, they
may make Christian statements whose well-formed character is undisputed and
yet fail to understand how those statements are compatible with one another.
In all four cases, Christian discourse begins to sputter; theological reflection
becomes necessary as a result.75
Perhaps no theologian throughout history has attempted to train his readers on

ways to avoid falling into these linguistic traps better than Aquinas, and Eckhart
followed suit not only in the classroom, but especially on the pulpit. It is the
task of this book to show how Aquinas moves us beyond conventional views of
“analogy” when articulating the creature’s relation to its Creator, and how Eckhart
then employs this dynamic analogical usage to detach us from any conception of
God that may hinder us in developing the “Christian forms of life” that will lead
us closer to God.
However, explaining how these two medieval theologians are able to move us
from “speaking about God” to “knowing God” is tricky indeed. The first step must
be to discover the context that Eckhart shares with Aquinas—one emphasizing
not only their common academic background, but their common religious life
as well. The next chapter explores this twofold context, which in turn reveals a
deep-seated connection between the two masters that goes well beyond perceived
differences. This framework suggests that where Eckhart departs from Aquinas it
may be understood more as a creative use of what he inherited from Aquinas than
a novel strategy.
73
Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, 12.
74
Ibid.
75
Ibid., 15-17.
Introduction 25
In light of this contextual backdrop, Aquinas must be reinterpreted from the

perspective of how he instructs Eckhart and other readers of his “textbook” in
their two-pronged religious vocation as future teachers and preachers. Aquinas’
Prima pars is the primary text for this exploration, beginning with the nature of
theology and its sources (Question 1), and continuing through the ways in which we
describe God analogically (Question 13). This examination of Aquinas is directed
by a non-contrastive understanding of religious language and a presumption
that whatever Aquinas says about the nature and attributes of God, he intends to
preserve the unique distinction of the Creator: transcendence-in-immanence.
Following the investigation of Aquinas’ pedagogical treatise, Eckhart’s
practical (though eclectic and highly creative) writings, following through with
the same non-contrastive directive, are addressed. Selected texts from Eckhart,
which include both academic works (Scriptural exegesis) and sermons (Latin and
German), reveal that whatever contrasts exist between Eckhart and Aquinas, and
whatever inconsistencies arise between and within Eckhart’s own texts, concern
for preserving the unique distinction of the Creator from creatures is paramount.
In both Aquinas and Eckhart, this essential distinction is expressed by moving
beyond conventional descriptions of analogy to more dynamic uses of analogical
language—an extension of ordinary language to that which is incomprehensible,
a detachment from all conventional and creaturely conceptions of the Creator,
and ultimately, a movement (imperceptible, perhaps) towards knowing the
unknowable God.
Finally, while there is little hope of exhausting the wealth of insight bequeathed
to us by these two extraordinary theologians, we certainly must reflect upon
how the interpretation suggested by this book relates to contemporary Christian
discourse, and to the religious life and spirituality it reflects. For, as Tanner puts
it, “theological speculation is called forth by Christian practice and returns to
it,”76 accenting the profound unity between the theoretical and pragmatic tasks
of the theologian. In this sense, Aquinas and Eckhart are perfect complements
to each other: what Aquinas develops pedagogically, Eckhart puts into practice
rhetorically. The common link between them is their mutual concern for linguistic
acuity in speech about God which must, at all costs, protect the Creator’s unique
distinction from creation. Their example provides us no less today than in their own
time with a directive from which the central doctrines of Christianity—expressed
especially by Trinitarian and Christological statements—can be re-articulated in
order to inform all aspects of the contemporary Christian life: liturgy, devotion,
contemplation, moral discernment, social action, and finally, but no less importantly,
ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. Only by continually exercising the ability
to extend our limited creaturely language beyond its own grasp can we respond
appropriately to God’s invitation to deeply engage in the journey of faith seeking
understanding. Through this response, we echo—as did Aquinas and Eckhart
76
Ibid., 13.
before us—Augustine’s profound confession to this wholly transcendent yet ever

intimate Creator:
Thee will I seek, O Lord, calling upon thee; and I will call upon thee, believing
in thee …. My faith, O Lord, calls upon thee, which thou hast given me, which
thou hast inspired into me; even by the humanity of thy Son, and by the ministry
of thy preacher.77
Augustine, Confessions, I.1.

77
Chapter 2
Study as Contemplation: The Mutual
Contexts of Aquinas and Eckhart
Reading Eckhart in light of Aquinas requires considering the mutual contexts

out of which their respective works arose. Aquinas, often read as a scholastic—a
master of theology in the medieval university—was first and foremost a Dominican
friar. Eckhart, too, was a university master, although his sermons to religious
communities under his care awarded him the most recognition. In reality, Aquinas
and Eckhart share two important contexts: the medieval university and their
religious life. Upon closer inspection these two backgrounds are interdependent
and cannot be studied in isolation because the spirituality in which they were
formed permeated every aspect of their professional and personal life. Developing
a convincing study of Aquinas and Eckhart requires careful consideration of this
complex background: the mission of their religious order, the spiritual and academic
formation of the friars, the relationship between the order and the university, and
finally, the respective biographies of Aquinas and Eckhart themselves.
Meister Eckhart joined the Dominicans approximately two years after the death
of Thomas Aquinas. Although Eckhart and Aquinas never met, several of Aquinas’
works were in circulation and profoundly impacting every aspect of Dominican
life by the time Eckhart received his education and began his professional and
academic career. Given the impact Aquinas had on his order, it is fair to say it
would have been impossible for Eckhart to have been either unfamiliar with or
unaffected by the work of Thomas Aquinas. It only makes sense to read Eckhart in
light of Aquinas’ influence on the whole of his Dominican life, not just in terms of
the written works that they produced.
This particular shared context, their religious order, determined the roles
each of them was to play in life as well as how they were formed for those roles.
Although Eckhart and especially Aquinas are well known as masters of theology,
the university took a subordinate role in their overall life as Dominican friars.
Each spent a certain amount of time teaching students at all levels of theological
training, not solely advanced students of theology. And, while the conventual
classroom was modeled on the university system, it departed from the university
in significant ways. Additionally, each participated in the administrative life of
the order; each performed his required role as a Dominican preacher, and most
importantly, each was devoted to a life of prayer and contemplation.
Their life of prayer and contemplation determined the Dominican masters’
approach to the study of theology, and the order’s mission, imparting knowledge
necessary for salvation through preaching, is core to both Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s
work. However, each carried out this mission very differently: Eckhart expressed,
in perhaps a more “practical” way, through his commentaries and preaching,
what Aquinas expressed pedagogically in Part I of his Summa—the process of
learning how to speak about God. To be sure, this distinction between pedagogy
and practice is somewhat artificial. However, using this distinction to think about
Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s respective approaches will ultimately reveal the profound
connection between them that is otherwise obscured.
This chapter explores the necessary interconnection of study and contemplation
providing the foundation for speaking about God in the Christian journey of faith.
Beginning with the origin and mission of the Dominicans—carried out through
their innovative system of education combined with spiritual formation—we
then move to the role the university played in the order and in the lives of our
two masters. Against this backdrop it becomes clear that, despite his highly
scholastic and philosophical jargon, Aquinas attempts to capture the unique
Dominican pedagogy in his Summa, and Eckhart’s work is inevitably directed by
his predecessor.
A. Origin and Mission of the Dominican Order
M. Michèle Mulchahey’s phenomenal work “First the Bow is Bent in Study”:

Dominican Education Before 13501 traces the Dominican order from its
establishment in 1215 through the mid-fourteenth century, about twenty years
after the death of Meister Eckhart. The focus of her book is the development of
Dominican education, emphasizing that education was always to be at the service
of the order’s central mission, the salvation of souls. This insight turns out to be
extremely important for understanding Aquinas and Eckhart.
The original purpose of the order, however, at least in the eyes of the papacy,
was combating heresy, in particular the Albigensian heresy.2 In the papal bull of
March 1208 initiating the Albigensian Crusade, instructions for “combating heresy,
strengthening the Catholic faith, eliminating vice, and implanting virtue through
increased preaching activity”3 are set forth. With this, Dominic was commissioned
to form an order of preachers who would preach doctrine, something only bishops
and legatines had been allowed to do previously. Earlier preachers who had
been given papal approval for preaching were forbidden to teach doctrine and
instead limited to moral exhortation. However, Dominic and his priests were to be
“orthodox and theologically-informed evangelists.”4
1
M. Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study”: Dominican Education
Before 1350 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998).
2
For more on the Albigensian heresy, or Catharism, see Michael Costen, The Cathars
and the Albigensian Crusade (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 52-114.
3
Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 7.
4
Ibid., 8.
Study as Contemplation 29
This theologically-informed preaching went far beyond the specific

circumstance which inspired the papal bull of 1208. Mulcahey cites Humbert of
Romans, who, writing in the 1270s,
realized that already the historical perception was that the Dominican order
had been created only with a view to defending the faith against heresy in
the Albigenis; such, in fact, is presented as being the case in the Legenda of
St. Dominic. But while it is true enough, explains Humbert, that a desire to
defend the faith had first moved Dominic to consider forming a new order, when
that order was officially established by the Church’s authority, its intention was
enlarged to encompass preaching in general.5
For Dominic, the ultimate purpose of preaching, while including combating

heresy, was the salvation of souls:
Thus the Dominican order, writes Humbert, really has two ends, preaching
and the salvation of souls; and although the one end, namely, praedicatio, is
more properly speaking the particular purpose of the order, this end is clearly
subordinated to the order’s more general and universal end, the salus animarum.6
Furthermore, Dominic discerned this end could be achieved better through “learned
preaching” than simply through moral exhortation. Therefore, the study of theology
must play a central role in the formation of his friars. But study, like preaching
itself, was a means to the ultimate goal of salvation and not an end in itself.
According to Mulchahey, prior to Dominic’s new order, none of the
orders in existence were entirely suited to the special needs of a preaching
ministry—especially a “learned” preaching ministry as Dominic envisioned.7
Dominic naturally turned to the Rule he had lived under for nearly twenty
years: the Rule of St. Augustine. Because the Rule of St. Augustine is primarily
a life of contemplation, Dominic’s choice, “may not be an obvious one for a
group of men who were proposing to define themselves as a new community of
skilled preachers.”8 But Dominic perceived that the Rule was vague enough to
accommodate certain modifications and clarifications directed towards education
and preaching activity. Indeed, in his own life under the Rule Dominic found no
incompatibility between preaching and contemplation. Mulchahey refers again to
Humbert, explaining Dominic’s choice of Augustine as his model:
5
Ibid., 3‑4. Humbert’s treatise on the formation of preachers may be found in Part
III of Simon Tugwell, ed., Early Dominicans: Selected Writings, Classics of Western
Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982).
6
Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 4-5.
7
Ibid., 12.
8
Ibid.
preachers must be learned; Augustine, being wonderfully learned himself,

serves as a good example to the disciples of his Rule who would be preachers.
[Humbert also observes] that Augustinian canons are not bound to a single
cloister as are monks. They are free to practice the active life, as preachers must,
and they may have the cure of souls in their own parishes.9
According to Mulchahey, Dominic interpreted the active life of the Rule as the life
of the preacher, and the contemplative life as study—while retaining the notion of
austerity and poverty characterizing the Augustinian Rule. Austerity and poverty
became the “preconditions for preaching by example.”10 These characteristics,
especially contemplation, certainly must have played a major role in the Dominican
formation of both Aquinas and Eckhart, and, as will be shown later, are manifest
throughout their works.
1. Dominican Education
When Dominic adopted “learned preaching” and “study” as means to his order’s
ultimate end, he turned towards the university as a model. Accordingly, the
destination he chose for his first preachers were centers of learning, university
towns, where they could study, preach, and find converts to their order who were
already literate.11 Since some of the most renowned masters of theology could be
found at the University of Paris, Dominic enrolled his disciples as well as himself
in the theology course in Toulouse offered by a Paris-trained master of theology.
The friars of the newly-formed Dominican order were sent to study with such
masters to enable them to excel as preachers and teachers of Christian doctrine.
However, since study was a means to an ultimate end rather than an end in
itself, the friars’ education at the university was an initial step in Dominic’s vision
of establishing their own conventual schools where the friars would be primarily
educated as preachers (and confessors) by the Dominicans themselves. The chapter
of 1220 stipulated that every convent must be set up with a teacher, making every
convent also a school. As the order became firmly established, only those friars
who possessed the intellect and talent for teaching and higher learning were sent
to the university for their education, with the practical goal of serving the order’s
need for adequate formation of their friars into learned preachers.
Besides theology being a means to an end rather than its own end, the Dominicans
departed from university education in another way: early friars were forbidden
to study the liberal arts. According to a redaction of the Dominican constitution
of 1220, this included: “the books of the pagans and of the philosophers, although
they may examine them briefly. They may not pursue the secular sciences, nor
even the arts which they call liberal, but both young friars and the others shall read
9
Ibid., 14.
10
Ibid., 19.
11
Ibid., 26.
only theological books.”12 This proscription excluded the ars grammatica, because
new entrants were expected to know Latin grammar in order to learn the Divine
Office and study the classic literature of spiritual formation.
In the medieval university, education in the arts was a prerequisite to all higher
disciplines, including theology. Although many Dominicans argued that the study
of the arts, including natural philosophy, would be advantageous to studying
theology, it would not be until the 1260s that Dominican schools designed to
teach such subjects were created, and these schools were not mandatory for all
the provinces until after the turn of the century.13 Before this time, outside of
theology, only logic and grammar were officially taught in the conventual schools
or pursued at the university.14
Of course, many early converts to the order were from the university itself,
and they were already well schooled in the liberal arts as well as in the writings
of the pagans and philosophers—including Aristotle. This fact contributed, albeit
slowly, to a change in direction towards integrating liberal arts into the Dominican
curriculum. Almost from the beginning of the order, the question of the relationship
of theology to the other sciences arose out of the clash between the Dominican
ban, on the one hand, and the background of some of its most literate converts,
on the other. For instance, Roland of Cremona, already master of arts and regent
master in the medical faculty at Bologna when he joined the Dominicans, wrote on
the working relationship between theology and the other disciplines: “Theology
is perfect in itself, but with respect to us it is said to be imperfect or in need of
grammar, logic, and the other sciences, because it is taught to us and we teach it
and promulgate it through their mediation.”15 For Roland, the sciences each make
their own contribution to a better understanding of theology and of Scripture.
The reaction of Roland—as well as that of others similarly educated—to the
order’s repudiation of the other sciences is echoed in Question 1 of Aquinas’ Summa,
Articles 1-8 on the relation of sacred doctrine to the human sciences. And this makes
sense—Jean-Pierre Torrell places the writing of the Summa’s Prima pars in the
mid-to-late 1260s, around the time natural philosophy was just beginning to be
adopted into the Dominican curriculum.16 Later, this chapter considers Aquinas’
intention for writing the Summa—the Prima pars in particular—and its impact on
the Dominican order. Important to note here is that the question of the place of
the “human sciences” did not originate with Aquinas, but was a question already
12
Ibid., 56.
13
Ibid., 59.
14
For more on the medieval study of logic and grammar, see Jan Pinborg, Medieval
Semantics: Selected Studies on Medieval Logic and Grammar, ed. Sten Ebbesen (London:
Variorum Reprints, 1984).
15
16
Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. I: The Person and His Work,
trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996).
See Chronology, 327.
debated among his predecessors and his contemporaries. Aquinas treats this issue in
the context of the order’s mission, a point that relates to the purpose of his writing
the Summa.
2. The Formation of Novices
According to Mulchahey, by 1236 the order’s acceptance of the University of

Paris’ theology syllabus was reflected in the Dominican Constitutions, and
students who were sent to St-Jacques, the conventual school associated with
the university, carried with them copies of the standard Parisian textbooks—the
Bible, Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and Historia scholastica, a guide to biblical
history presumably written by Peter Comestor.17 However, with concern over the
increasing intrusion of secular science into scriptural exegesis, the order’s teachers
were cautioned to use only accepted interpretations of the Bible in their lectures;
“they were not to introduce any reading of the literal sense of the Psalms of the
Prophets which could not be considered authoritative, as confirmed by reference
to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.”18
While the order accepted the university syllabus—with the qualification
above—it departed from the university curriculum in a way that set it uniquely
apart from the university: in the spirit of Augustine, novices must approach all
their studies from the perspective of faith. For example, in a popular handbook
for teachers on instructing novices, De instructione puerorum, William of Tournai
quotes Augustine on “faith as the beginning of all knowledge and the good root of
the soul,” noting that Augustine himself advises faith be the first thing preached
to the neophyte.19 In one chapter of De instructione puerorum, William discusses
various ways someone can come to know what ought to believed, specifically,
“through direct revelation, through Scripture, through the teaching of others, and
through one’s own reasoning.”20 At the end of the book, three chapters are devoted
to the scientia to which the novices are to be introduced—sacred doctrine. In words
echoing the Dominican purpose of study, William writes that novices should be
taught “that science which to a higher degree and better leads one to salvation.”21
This theme will be reiterated by Aquinas in Question 1 of the Summa.
Accordingly, with this teacher’s manual and others like it focusing on the place
of the life of faith before study, the first step in the novices’ conventual education
was to begin memorizing the Psalter. As integral to the novices’ appropriation of
the faith from which they must approach their education, this was to be pursued
with great diligence. Novices started with the cursus and the psalms for compline
and the other hours, and then moved on to things sung more frequently, such as
17
18
Ibid., 67.
19
Ibid., 90.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., 91.
the common for the apostles. At the same time, novices also learned the order of
service for the Divine Office and the behavior demanded of them in choir.22
As already pointed out, the main purpose of the novices’ education was not for the
pursuit of an academic career, but for their vocation as a learned preacher. Many of the
requirements, such as the memorization of the Psalter, slowed the pace of academic
advancement and discouraged those who entered the order only as a means of obtaining
an education.23 Furthermore, most novices would never be given the opportunity for
the higher education leading to the university; this was reserved for those students
deemed especially intellectually gifted (such as Aquinas and Eckhart) and those
suitable to become teachers. Nevertheless, intellectual formation—or, as in the case
of those who had already been formed by university education, reformation—was an
integral and major portion of the Dominican novitiate, and in fact, this intellectual
endeavor was a lifelong undertaking for the Dominican friar.
Various works were recommended to assist the young brothers in their spiritual
and intellectual formation. Such readings formed the novice in approaching their
intellectual studies from the standpoint of faith. Mulchahey lists several works
we can assume both Aquinas and Eckhart would have been familiar with and
impressed by from the beginning of their own formation as Dominican friars, such
as Hugh of St-Victor’s Didascalicon, used as an introduction to “the enterprise
of study and the priorities of the Christian student”;24 Hugh of Fouilloy’s
De claustro animae, an allegorical treatment of the soul’s journey under religion;
St. Anselm’s Orationes and Meditationes;25 and most importantly, the Confessions
of St. Augustine, “that personal saga of the rational mind seeking faith and object
lesson for the Dominican,” together with the entire Augustinian corpus.26
Thus, the essence of the Dominican formation of friars was the life of faith
and contemplation which guided the life of study—with the active goal of learned
preaching necessary for the salvation of souls. Everything written by Aquinas and
Eckhart must be read in light of this ultimate objective.
B. The Development of Dominican Education
When thinking about Aquinas and Eckhart as teachers, the image that comes
naturally to mind is their role as masters of theology in the great universities of
Paris and Cologne. This is especially true when considering Aquinas’ Summa
theologiae, which reads so philosophically, and less so when reading Eckhart’s
22
Ibid., 101-2.
23
Conventual schools were open to young men not joining the Dominican
order—however, their education was one of the order’s main ways to recruit novices.
See Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 85-6.
24
Ibid., 109-10.
25
For other works listed by Mulchahey, see “First the Bow is Bent in Study.”
26
Ibid.
sermons, although Eckhart’s Latin commentaries read quite pedantically, even

if they do not seem to be as highly organized and intentional as Aquinas. It is
important, however, to understand that the writings of Aquinas and Eckhart develop
out of a formation for educating from the bottom up, and they were involved in
a whole nexus of Dominican education, including their teaching duties. Taking
Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s work out of this context obscures the very purpose for
which those works were written.
In addition to religious and spiritual formation of friars, the Dominicans
developed their own curriculum of studies because, as the order grew, it became
impossible—as well as impractical—to send all the friars to Paris to study with
the community of St.-Jacques. Most friars did not need the level of advanced
theological training offered in the university to become preachers and confessors.
The convent’s schola was adequate to provide the education of most novices.
However, the order was in need of qualified teachers for its convents, as well
as advanced education for friars showing exceptional intellectual talents, and
it eventually became clear the order needed more advanced schools. Thus, in
time the order went on to develop a four-tiered system of studies with their own
unique approach: the schola, the studium, the studia provincialia, and finally, the
studia generalia.
The first tier would, of course, be the convent’s schola, where the friars
received the basic education necessary to carry out their mission as “learned”
preachers. And, according to Mulchahey, “it is here that some of the most famous
Dominican manuals and summae were meant to be used, texts written with the
convent schola and not the university in mind.”27 This particular issue will be
taken up again when the intent and use of Aquinas’ Summa theologiae is discussed
later in this chapter.
The second tier, the studium, modeled on the community of St-Jacques in
Paris, was a place of serious theological study where more intellectually gifted
students would be sent from all over Europe. In 1248, the Dominicans began to
develop four further studia, located at Montpelier, Bologna, Cologne, and Oxford,
functioning similarly to St-Jacques.
Soon after this, the order began experimenting with its own studia
curriculum, in order to stay abreast of current developments in the university,
especially with regard to Arabic philosophy and the Aristotelian corpus which
was being recovered. This led to the introduction of a third level of Dominican
education, the studia provincialia, where those most talented students could
receive intermediate training prerequisite to the study of advanced theology at
the university.28
In 1259, the Dominican general chapter ordered every province to establish
at least one arts school, a studium artium modeled on the schools in Provence
and Spain, where all the communities in each province could send their most
Ibid., 131.
27
Ibid.
28
gifted students for further study.29 As discussed earlier, the Dominican order had
from early on, in accordance with the Church, banned the pursuit of liberal arts,
including “pagan” philosophy. While the establishment of the studium artium
appears to have been a relaxation of the Dominican ban, the Dominicans did
not teach “the arts” as it was understood in the universities. Natural philosophy,
including Aristotle, was not a part of the Dominican curriculum. Rather, the
Dominican studia artium were schools of logic.30
Of course, it must always be kept in mind that, unofficially at least, the
Dominicans could not keep their friars completely from the influence of the
university arts outside of logic, because many of the friars came into the order
with a background in the liberal arts. Later, the Dominican’s program of study
inevitably made the transition from schools of logic to include natural sciences.
However, the study of logic and grammar was inherent within the very foundation
of the order itself. For instance, Roland of Cremona, the first Dominican to
become master of theology at Paris, believed that in accord with St. Augustine, the
teaching of theology was mediated especially by grammar and logic which were
the tools of speech and thought. We can see how this argument may be particularly
relevant for the friar in the Order of Preachers, for if he is not schooled in logic and
grammar, “he can be deceived by fallacious arguments.”31 It was only later that
schools of philosophy which went beyond logic and grammar, studia naturarum,
were to take root in the Dominican education system.32
Finally, the Order developed a fourth tier of education, the studia generalia,
analogous to university education. In fact, as the Dominican order became well
established, the program of study in theology at the university was often chaired
by talented Dominicans. The studium generale provided friars with the best and
most advanced theological training available through the order. Theology was the
sole discipline of the school, setting it apart from the university, which extended to
the other disciplines. According to Mulchahey, “the [theology] curriculum offered
within a Dominican studium generale … was its true reason for being, and from
which all its other qualities flowed.”33 The friars selected to attend the studium
generale were considered the best qualified to be trained as conventual teachers
and, eventually, provincial teachers within the order. This was the main purpose of
the Dominican studium generale.34
29
Ibid., 221-2.
30
Ibid., 223-6.
31
Ibid., 228.
32
For more on the Dominican notion of the place of philosophy in the Dominican
curriculum, see Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 232-3.
33
Ibid., 378.
34
Ibid., 384.
1. The Structure of Conventual Education
Conventual theological education was basically modeled on the University of

Paris, with significant difference in emphasis, as discussed above. This is a natural
consequence, Mulchahey points out, of Dominic’s own original inclination towards
contemporary university masters and their pedagogy—initially in Toulouse where
Dominic enrolled his first followers and himself to study under Paris-trained
Alexander Staensby, then at the University of Paris itself, where masters John of
St Albans and John of St Giles guided the St-Jacques community.35
Dominican conventual education was already well developed in terms of its
pedagogical techniques and syllabus by the middle of the thirteenth century. The
practices of lectio, repetitio, and disputatio provided the structure for scholastic
education, and this format of teaching in the Dominican schools was taken for
granted from the beginning. The friars’ theological education consisted of two
daily lectures, one on the Bible, one on Lombard’s Sentences. Additionally, a daily
repetition was held for both lectures. A disputation, and repetitio generalis in which
everything covered in the week’s course work was reviewed, was held weekly.
The Dominican addition to this format was, of course, preaching. The lectures,
repetitions, disputations, and all that accompanied these exercises led the friar to
become a skilled preacher. The friar continued attending lectures and disputations
throughout his life, and when he was sufficiently formed, he began his specific
education in preaching.36 Added to this vocation, the friar was also trained as a
confessor, for his vocation was a wholly practical, pastoral one, with the goal of
salvation always in mind.
The purpose of the schola lectures was to give the friars—mostly those who
were just beginning their theological education or those who were to spend most
of their lives as preachers and confessors—the tools a priest would need: basic
familiarity with Scripture along with the fundamental arguments of Christian
theology. The Bible was read cursorily, since lectures on the deeper implications
of Scripture were usually beyond the scope of the schola instructor. This reading
was first and foremost a reading of the historical sense, “in order to understand the
narrative structure of the text as well as its literal meaning.”37
But the historical sense was “only a basic exegetical foundation” for the friar.38
As a preacher, it was the sensus moralis, the moral sense, that was at the heart of
his profession. The sensus moralis was the lesson for Christian behavior which
existed beneath the veil of literal meaning. While the first lecture of the day,
on the Bible, expounded the literal sense of the Bible, the second lecture, on
the Sentences of Lombard, expounded “right doctrine” needed to develop the
sensus moralis:
35
Ibid., 134.
36
Ibid., 133.
37
Ibid., 139.
38
Ibid., 140.
For a theologian or preacher to make the interpretive transition from the sensus
historicus to the sensus spirituales, whether allegorical, moral, or anagogical,
he needed, said Hugh of St-Victor, “right doctrine” in the second daily lecture
offered in the schola, the lecture on the Lombard’s Sentences. Here, with the
Lombard’s help, they made first contact with the theological science essential
to preaching and to its peculiar exegetical needs, and were given the tools with
which to delve into the sensus moralis and to begin making the connections
between Scripture, doctrine, and tropology.39
Alexander of Hales, a Franciscan teaching at the university from 1223 to 1227,

was the first to use the Sentences as a basic textbook. Originally, the Sentences was
probably simply divided into books and chapters, and Alexander may have further
divided it into distinctions, chapters, and articles.40 Lombard wrote the Sentences
intending to create a new teaching style, which incorporated in a single volume
different opinions of the Church Fathers on all the topics that theology considers.41
The Sentences is divided into four books, according to an order Lombard thought
was “simultaneously historical and logical”: beginning with the Trinity, it
proceeds to God as Creator and creation, the Incarnation and redemption, and
finally, the sacraments.42
Lombard’s Sentences remained the primary textbook in the thirteenth and into
the fourteenth century in the order’s higher tiers of study. However, in the early
part of the fourteenth century, the order officially introduced Aquinas’ works into
its lectures. As discussed later in this chapter, instructors were to use, alongside
the Sentences, passages from Aquinas, particularly from the Scriptum super libros
Sententiarum, Aquinas’ commentary on Lombard’s Sentences, and from his more
mature Summa theologiae, a work Aquinas intended to replace the Sentences as
the classroom textbook.
The disputation was designed to refine the friars’ skills by putting into practice
what they had heard in lecture.43 It was considered another form of teaching,
“active pedagogy where one proceeded by objections and responses on a given
theme.”44 Lecture, primarily a commentary on a text either from the Bible or from
the Sentences, did not always allow for adequate discussion of problems or issues
39
Ibid., 140-41.
40
See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 40.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., 43.
43
See also Anthony Kenny and Jan Pinborg, “Medieval Philosophical Literature,” in
The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy I: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle
to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600, ed. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony
Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 16-29, where
Jan Pinborg discusses the link between lectures and disputations as well as the origins of
the disputation.
44
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 59.
that arose beyond the commentary at hand. The disputation probably first arose
in the form of the question, or quaestio, and began a process that would detach
itself more and more from the text.45 While perhaps not a direct descendent from
the early Greek philosophers like Plato, the quaestio was in essence an exercise
in the dialectical method.46 Torrell points out that in the disputation, while one
pedagogical element—the text—gradually disappears, another very important one
appears: discussion.
However, Torrell also discusses the quaestio as a literary genre—the most
“beautiful specimen,” according to Torrell is Aquinas’ Summa theologiae, “which
is entirely composed according to this scheme.”47 The Summa, although
designed from the outset as a manual to be read by students, is divided not

into chapters but into questions and articles, and each article has the form of
a miniature disputation, with three or more arguments against the position
to be adopted, a brief citation of an authority in favour of the preferred view
(sed contra), a central section (respondeo) corresponding to the Master’s
determination, and finally a set of answers to the objections.48
If disputations were not enough exercise to firmly implant material from lectures
into the minds of the friars, the schola provided a third formal exercise: repetition
or review. Repetitiones were essentially tutorials in which an assistant to the
teaching master reviewed the material presented by the master in his lectures:
“reiterating, emphasizing the important points, answering further questions the
students might have.”49
a) The making of the preacher

In addition to the well-established scholastic teaching method of lecture,
disputation, and repetition adopted by the Dominicans, the schola included one
more exercise in their curriculum: preaching. Learned preaching, of course, was
the very goal of the conventual education; the friars “not only needed to know the
difference between heterodox and orthodox theology, they needed to know how
to preach it.”50 In other words, the schola’s purpose was practical: to teach future
preachers how “to think on their feet theologically.”51
In fact, there was “no opposition between the scientific teaching of theology
and its pastoral application” in the medieval mind; indeed, “the first was seen as
Ibid., 60.
45
For the possible origin of the disputatio, see the discussion in Kenny and Pinborg,
46
“Medieval Philosophical Literature,” 16-17.

47
48
Kenny and Pinborg, “Medieval Philosophical Literature,” 26.
49
50
Ibid., 184.
51
Ibid.
the normal preparation for the second.”52 Torrell quotes from Peter Cantor: “It is
after the lectio of Scripture and after the examination of doubtful points thanks to
the disputatio, and not before, that we must preach.”53
The primary method of teaching friars how to preach, simply, was by imitation
and practice. The master of students decided who would preach private sermons,
but he could also choose a beginning preacher from his community to preach any
of the daily sermons he discerned the student could handle. The student preachers
would thus work up from lesser preaching assignments to more important ones.
The conventual prior in union with a board of advisers decided when a friar was
ready to preach outside the convent, based upon the progress and exhibition of the
friar’s abilities within the convent.
The conventual library contained not only model sermon collections, but
other texts beginning and experienced preachers alike could use in constructing
their own sermons. These collections included “lists of moral distinctiones and
interpretationes which condensed and cross-referenced the tropes of scriptural
exegesis [as well as] legends of the saints and other related narrative materials
such as collections of exempla which could be mined for illustrations.”54 With the
help of such aids, beginner preachers could build up a substantial knowledge of
popular sermon styles and begin to develop their own particular styles. We can
suppose that Meister Eckhart, for example, referred quite often to such collections
at the beginning of his vocation as preacher, and that, due to his success as a
preacher, he was also a great influence on young preachers in training.
Mulchahey sums up the process of training in which the Dominican novice
engaged for life as learned preacher:
What stood at the core of every friar’s formation as a Preacher, then, was the
oft-repeated cycle of study, hearing the Word of God propounded, and practice
in preaching to one’s community. Through a combination of exposure to the
spoken sermon, study of the written sermon and its elements, and actual practice
in preparing and delivering short sermons of his own, the Dominican brother
received the best practical education possible in the ars praedicandi before ever
preaching publicly.55
Along with the role as preacher, the Dominican friar was also to be a confessor,
an important step in fulfilling the Dominican goal of saving souls. Essentially, the
novice was also trained as a parish priest. To perform this function, friars must
have a firm grasp of the sacramental theology of penance along with an instinct for
the issues within moral theology arising in the course of any particular confession.
52
53
Ibid.
54
Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 191. For more on specific preaching
aids and manuals, consult chapter 6.
55
Ibid., 193.
As with preaching, friars had access to a multitude of manuals and collections

to assist them with their role as confessor. The process or content of the friar’s
role as confessor will not be discussed here, except to point out that from the
late thirteenth century, these manuals began increasingly to cite the theology of
Aquinas—for example, on virtue and vice, grace, penance, and moral behavior—as
an authority, especially from his Summa’s secunda secundae.56
b) The rise of Aristotle in the Dominican order

Although the focus of this chapter is on the unique approach of the Dominicans to
theology from the perspective of the contemplative life of faith, perhaps something
should be said about the rise of Aristotle within their educational system, since
“The Philosopher” seems to play such a conspicuous role in Aquinas’ theology as
well as that of many who succeeded him.57 Knowing something about Aristotle’s
role within the Dominican order as well as within its educational system is very
helpful in better reading both Aquinas and Eckhart—and by better, here, this means
a reading that does not overly emphasize a philosophical approach to their works.
Regarding Aristotle—as with the basic structure of the Dominican curriculum
itself—the Dominicans took their lead from the university. However, again, the
Dominicans hesitated in wholly adopting the university’s system.
By 1255 Aristotle was well established at both Paris and Oxford, and from the
middle of the thirteenth century, to teach philosophy at the university was to teach
Aristotle.58 Furthermore, despite the order’s ban on the teaching of Aristotle’s
natural philosophy, from early on many Dominicans were already exposed to
Aristotle in their university studies and lobbied to integrate Aristotle into the
Dominican curriculum of studies.
Thus, following upon the trend set by the university, Aristotle began to gain
influence within the order. For example, William of Moerbeke, a Dominican
reported to be a friend of Aquinas, translated into Latin and revised virtually all the
Aristotelian corpus from around 1260 through 1280, and these translations—except
for the translations of the logical works—became the most popular.59 Moerbeke’s
version even replaced several translations made from the Arabic, previously used
only when Greek-Latin translations were unavailable.60 Because translations of
56
For more discussion on this topic, see Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in
Study,” 193-4, 216-17.
57
However, the question of Aquinas’ Aristotelianism is complicated, as will be
shown later. See Mark Jordan, The Alleged Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas, The Etienne
Gilson series, 15 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1992).
58
See Bernard Dodd, “Aristoteles latinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later
Medieval Philosophy, ed. Kretzmann, Kenny, and Pinborg, 45-79.
59
Ibid., 49.
60
For more on the Latin translations of the Arab philosophers in the thirteenth century,
see Dodd, “Aristoteles latinus,” 52, 62-3. Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache points out that these
philosophers—or the translators themselves—tended to interpret Aristotelian thought
in the Neoplatonist sense, which also had the consequence of attribution of works like
Aristotle from Greek-Latin were very literal, word order was preserved as much
as possible. “Hence the ideal was to present to the reader Aristotle’s actual words,
put together in just the way Aristotle had put them together, with minimum
‘interference’ from the translator.” However, since many features of Greek
grammar simply cannot be put into Latin, the ideal of perfect literalness could not
be achieved. Arabic-Latin translations were also made as literal as possible, but
even more imperfect than Greek-Latin translations, Arabic translations were often
made through intermediate Syriac versions—two steps removed from the original.61
One of the Dominican order’s greatest, and earliest, advocates for Aristotle
was Albert of Cologne. From before the middle part of the thirteenth century,
Albert was key in the debate over philosophy’s role, Aristotle in particular, in
the theologian’s work. He became an outspoken defender of the so-called
“Christianized philosophy” as master of theology at Paris between 1245 and 1248.
With his own “encyclopaedic recapitulation of Aristotelian natural philosophy”
Albert strove to integrate all of Aristotle’s philosophy, not simply his logical
works, into the Dominican curriculum.62
In 1248 the order decided to create schools in the provinces of Provence,
Lombardy, Germany, and England to parallel St-Jacques as studia generalia of
theology. Of particular importance was Germany’s studium, located at the convent
of Heilige Kreuz in Cologne, where Albert, the order’s first German master of
theology, was named its first teacher. Thomas Aquinas, incidentally, was among
his students there. Albert continued to expand Aristotle’s works in his teaching,
including a course on Aristotle’s Ethica, and later he disputed a cycle of questions
drawn from De animalibus.63 However, despite its geographical distance from the
university influence, the school at Cologne and the intellectual tradition associated
with Albert itself became a center of advanced theological studies. Consequently,
“the presence of the Dominican school greatly enhanced Cologne’s stature as a
centre of learning and led to the rise of a secular studium in Cologne.”64
Albert’s contribution to the spread of Aristotle throughout the order went far
beyond the conventional commentator:
Albert calls upon Avicenna and Averroës, Pythagoras and Plato, Socrates and the
“Stoics.” But Albert never actually lemmatizes or quotes Aristotle’s texts directly
after the manner of a commentator, and, to be sure, he does much more than
comment. Albert digresses, he explores difficult implications, and supplements
Proclus’ Liber de causis to Aristotle. All of these authors were cited with great frequency by
Eckhart and other masters of his time. See Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart and
the Rhineland Mystics, trans. Hilda Graef (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957), 30-31.
61
See Dodd, “Aristoteles latinus,” 64-7.
62
See discussion of Albert’s contribution to the rise of the Studia Naturarum in
63
Ibid., 255-6.
64
Ibid., 368-9.
areas in Aristotle he felt had been left ambiguous. Occasionally, Albert fabricated
whole books his reading of Aristotle told him should have been there, possibly
having been lost in transmission or never completed by the author.65
Moreover, while attempting to give coherence to the Aristotelian world view, Albert
also made no qualms about correcting Aristotle when he thought he was wrong.
According to Mulchahey, Albert’s work on Aristotle “coincides convincingly
with the steps forward taken by his order’s studia naturarum,”66 which by 1271 had
become a permanent part of Dominican advanced education, and made mandatory
in all provinces in 1305.67 However, it must be kept in mind that this new philosophy
did not replace the course of study of the studia artium. A Dominican student was
only eligible to proceed to one of his province’s studia naturarum after studying
logic for three years in a studium artium. This prerequisite was expected for entrance
to the Dominican philosophy program throughout most of the fourteenth century.
Moreover, it can be assumed that the natural philosophy curriculum was yet only
another step for students destined for higher theological studies.68
Although Aristotle spread throughout the Dominican order, as it did in the
university, inevitably the difference in focus led to a clash between some members
of the arts faculty and the theology faculty, for those bound by the religious
life had by this time begun to gain more of the limited chairs in theology at the
university.69 In 1255, the arts faculty adopted a new syllabus consisting primarily
of the Aristotelian corpus, wherein, according to Lohr, “the arts faculty became
what we might call a philosophical faculty, with a new importance in its own eyes
and a tendency to develop a teaching independent of the theological faculty.”70
We must bear in mind that medieval universities in Europe were often initiated
by the Church, and we cannot lapse into thinking of the university in terms of a
state–church separation under which we operate today.71 The university was not
65
Ibid., 259. Mulchahey continues: “Albert’s instincts were proven correct in at least
one case, when he chanced upon Aristotle’s previously unknown De motibus animalium
while in Italy in 1256-57, having in the meantime written his own tract on the motion and
movement of animals.”
66
Ibid., 254-5.
67
Ibid., 263-5.
68
For more on the influence of the syllabus of the University of Paris on the Dominican’s
advanced curriculum of studies, see Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 271-4.
69
See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 75-9. See also C.H. Lohr, “The Medieval
Interpretation of Aristotle,” in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy,
ed. Kretzmann, Kenny, and Pinborg, 87-8: “What came to be known as the Averroistic
controversy in the 1260s and 70s led to some of the most intransigent formulations of the
masters’ own understanding of their role” (88).
70
Lohr, “Medieval Interpretation of Aristotle,” 87.
71
See, for example, A.B. Cobban, The Medieval Universities: Their Development
and Organization (London: Methuen, 1975), 25-6. Popes often established universities or
conferred privileges on them.
“secular” in the contemporary sense. Nor should we therefore believe that university
faculty outside of the religious orders were not interested in the salvation of souls
or the possession of religious truths. However, differences between disciplines
inevitably arose, and the conflict between the secular faculty and the Dominicans
was deeper, of course, than the number of chairs held by the religious; it had to
do with the very premises upon which philosophy had been built, creating a split
between philosophy and theology:
Medieval exegesis had been concerned with the Bible. Its premiss was that the
exegete was already in possession of a truth revealed by God himself. His task
was accordingly not the discovery of new truths, but rather the unveiling of the
truth concealed in the words of the sacred text. In accomplishing this task he not
only turned to the councils and Church Fathers as authorities to lead him, but also
felt himself, as a living link in a corporate undertaking, endowed with the same
authority to teach. In the twelfth century, as discrepancies among his authorities
became increasingly obtrusive, his conviction that the tradition of which he was
custodian was at bottom coherent guided his efforts to penetrate more deeply
into the truth of God’s word as a sort of concordia discordantium. Even the great
Summae of the thirteenth century which arose out of this effort are in this sense
exegesis. Their point of departure was the articles of faith which God had revealed
in the Bible. The purpose of the summist was to try to make the res, the transient
things of this world, shine in the light of the voces, the divine words as the bearers
of immutable truth. That is why Thomas could say that theologians are like the
mountains, elevated above the earth and first illumined by the rays of the sun.72
In contrast, the master of art’s approach was quite different. While the theologian
was concerned with “unveil[ing] a truth concealed,” that is, a truth already
possessed in the infallible text, Scripture, the “philosopher”—that is, the master of
arts—sought the truth while recognizing the fallibility of his sources. “Since the
work of Aristotle, the primary source for a member of the arts faculty, was for him
neither a new dogma nor an infallible guide, he need make no clerical attempt at
harmonizing science and the Bible.”73
While Lohr’s description of the difference between the arts and theology
faculty may be overstated, he illuminates the Dominican’s characteristic approach
to theology through the contemplative life. Even in their adoption of Aristotle, the
Dominicans departed somewhat from the university. If we follow Aquinas’ thought
quoted by Lohr above, while philosophy can assist the theologian’s understanding,
the theologian must first be “elevated,” that is, informed and enlightened by the life
of faith. With that in mind, consideration must be made of how Aquinas inspired,
and was inspired by, this Dominican insight and how he attempted to capture this
insight in his great Summa.
72
Lohr, “Medieval Interpretation of Aristotle,” 88.
73
Ibid., 89-91.
C. Aquinas’ Influence on the Dominican Life
Although Aquinas’ physical life was relatively short, his impact on the Dominican
life was immeasurable. Although his desire to replace the long-used standard
text of theology, the Sentences, with his own Summa went unfulfilled, within a
few decades of his death his work—not only his writings, but also his work as
an administrator—thoroughly permeated every level of Dominican study, and
further, Aquinas’ influence extended beyond the classroom and into the order’s
preaching office. The thesis of this chapter is that, while the Summa, and the first
thirteen questions of the Prima pars in particular, did not become a standard text
of teaching, perhaps Aquinas did capture something of the unique Dominican
pedagogy—study through contemplation—and, thus, it must be an important
interpretive tool for Eckhart, who strove, as did many of his contemporaries, to
write in conformity with the thought of Aquinas.
Aquinas, born around 1225 and dying in 1274, joined the Dominicans as a
young man already well educated and absorbed in the religious life.74 The young
Aquinas was sent to the studium generale in Naples in 1239 to receive more
advanced education. According to Torrell, while there, he studied liberal arts and
philosophy as a prerequisite to his study of theology. There, Aristotelian science,
Arabic astronomy, and Greek medicine were flourishing.75 Very likely Aquinas
became familiar early in his studies with Aristotle’s natural philosophy and
metaphysics, even though these studies were still officially banned in Paris.76
And in Naples he encountered and decided to join the Dominicans. According
to Torrell,
Thomas surely perceived very quickly that his inclination toward study would
be better satisfied in the new order and that, according to the theory he developed
later, if it is good to contemplate divine things, it is even better to contemplate
and transmit them to others.77
Around 1246 Aquinas was sent to the studium generale in Cologne, where
he studied under the studium’s founder, master Albert, who was “reputed
to be accomplished in all realms of knowledge”78—especially, as we have
seen, in Aristotelian philosophy. Studying under Albert in Cologne, Aquinas
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1. Aquinas received his early education and was
74
introduced to the Benedictine religious life when he was 5 or 6 years old. Ibid., 4-5.
75
Ibid., 6.
76
Ibid., 7. While Aristotle’s natural philosophy and metaphysics was officially
banned in Paris, “the repetition of the interdictions shows that they were scarcely respected.
And, like the study of Averroes, the study of Aristotle was already flourishing in Paris
around 1230.”
77
Ibid., 15.
78
Ibid., 18. Cologne’s studium generale was opened in 1248 by Albertus Magnus.
demonstrated himself to be an intellectually-gifted student destined for the

highest level of education the Dominicans provided to a select few of their friars.
Through Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher’s intervention, Aquinas was ordered to Paris
to prepare to teach the Sentences there. He began teaching there as a bachelor
in 1252.79
The Dominican notion of contemplation as study exhibited itself from the
outset of Aquinas’ academic career. For example, one of Aquinas’ early biblical
commentaries was Super Isaiam. Torrell uses this work to illustrate Aquinas’
exegetical style, which gave preference to the literal sense—a preference Aquinas
later explains in detail in the first question of his Summa.80 However, Torrell adds
that Aquinas did not stop with the literal sense: “starting with a word from the
text of Isaiah, Thomas hastily notes suggestions that he has about it for a spiritual
or pastoral expansion of his literal commentary.”81 Torrell uses the last note, or
collation, from Aquinas’ text to illustrate that, for Aquinas, the spiritual sense
“animates” the literal:
This last collation is a highly structured meditation on the place of the Word of
God in theology and preaching. From the outset, it is a light for the intelligence.
But affectivity also finds a place there: to meditate on the Word is joy. … We see
in this development the practical goal that Thomas assigns to theology.
As to the “instructing others,” we can see here, without deceiving ourselves, the
signature of the young member of the Order of Preachers. The ruminatio on the
word does not find its end in itself.82
While Aquinas carefully gives priority to the literal sense of Scripture for
the purposes of argumentation, he recognizes the role of the spiritual sense as
an essential part of teaching: study as approached through the eyes of faith.83
This is an echo of Dominic’s vision, adapted from the Rule of Augustine, of the
contemplative life as study. This theme of contemplation plays such an important
and vital role for Aquinas. Study of God goes far beyond learning the material at
79
Ibid., 37-38.
80
Ibid., 28.
81
Ibid., 29.
82
Ibid., 31. See also Denise Bouthillier, “Splendor gloriae Patris: Deux collations
du Super Isaiam de S. Thomas d’Aquin,” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans:
Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers,
ed. Kent Emery, Jr. and Joseph P. Wawrykow (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1998), 139-56, where Bouthillier discusses the main themes of two of Aquinas’
Isaiah collations, and “Le Christ en son mystère dans les collationes du super Isaiam
de saint Thomas d’Aquin,” in Ordo Sapientiae et Amoris: Image et Message de Saint
Thomas d’Aquin, à travers les récentes études historiques, herméneutiques et doctrinales.
Hommage au Professeur Jean-Pierre Torrell OP `à l’occasion de son 65e anniversaire,
ed. Carlos-Josaphat Pinto de Oliveira (Fribourg: Universitaires Fribourg, 1993), 37-64.
83
See, for example, STh, Question 1, especially Article Ten.
hand—it involves the whole student. According to Torrell, in the commentary on

Isaiah we find,
at least sketched out, the great spiritual themes of all times: God, to be sure,
Christ, and the Holy Spirit; but also more precise subjects: the approach to God,
prayer, raising our gaze toward God, cooperation in the work of the Holy Spirit,
the evil effects of sin, the return to oneself, tears of compunction, the demands
of poverty.84
And we can surmise that Aquinas went through this same process in his formation
as a Dominican friar:
If we are seeking a reason for the great predominance of the Psalms over all
the other books, we might in the first place hear an echo of Thomas’s prayer.
He did not just work with a concordance; the material that came spontaneously
to his heart and mind is that on which he had meditated longest. … [This is] a
general rule observable in Thomas’s contemporaries as well. They give their
preference to the wisdom books, because these books lend themselves more
easily to “moralizing,” an integral part of exegesis at the time.85
Aquinas not only internalized the notion of contemplation as study, but then
expresses it as a pedagogical method. Torrell cites a passage where Aquinas
explains qualities doctors in Sacred Scripture must possess in order to perform their
tripartite duty of lecture, disputation, and preaching: “They must be ‘elevated’ …
by the eminence of their lives to be able to preach effectively; ‘enlightened’ in
order to teach in an appropriate way; and ‘fortified’ to refute errors in disputation.”86
Aquinas continued to refine the theme of contemplation in his more mature
work. Consider his Johannine commentary, dated to his second period of teaching
at Paris. This commentary is considered by many, such as James Weisheipl and
Jean-Pierre Torrell,87 as one of his most profound biblical commentaries. Torrell
states that it is “the theological work par excellence by Saint Thomas,” because, at
least for Aquinas, “John’s gospel contains the ultimate in revelation.”88 In Aquinas’
interpretation of John’s gospel we see the theme of contemplation at the center of
Aquinas’ inspiration. Torrell points to material
pertain[ing] to John’s Prologue, or the no less beautiful lecture concerning the

Holy Spirit, regarding the “wind that blows where it will,” and the “spring of
84
85
Ibid., 34.
86
Ibid., 54.
87
James A. Weisheipl, “The Johannine Commentary of Friar Thomas,”
Church History 45 (1976): 190 and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 200.
88
living water that gushes from his breast”; and the Paraclete in chapters fourteen to
sixteen, who completes Jesus’ work and leads us toward all truth. Thomas reveals
himself here as one of the contemplatives of whom Saint John is the model.89
Biblical commentaries like these were normally the product of a master’s

classroom lecture. But Aquinas did not always teach at the advanced level of the
university, a fact which undoubtedly affected his appreciation and development of
his pedagogical theory. In 1261, for example, he was named lector to the Orvieto
priory where he taught friars most of whom would probably never study at the
higher levels of Dominican schools.
And, in fact, Aquinas asserts in his Summa that it is written for those beginning
their journey in theology, although this assertion is not without debate. First of
all, we have to be careful in making assumptions about who Aquinas considered
“beginning theology students.” For example, if Dominicans departed with the
university regarding their approach to theology, friars entering the order well
grounded in theology would need to be redirected in their thought. This would,
in a sense, make them, too, “beginners” in theology. Further, according to
Leonard Boyle, Aquinas had a much broader distribution in mind for the Summa;
the Summa was to be Aquinas’ legacy to his order. However, John Jenkins disagrees
with Boyle’s assessment of Aquinas’ “beginners” of theology. According to
Jenkins, the Summa theologiae is a work of “second-order pedagogy” and geared
more towards those advanced students destined to be university masters than
towards the order itself.90
In any event, given Aquinas’ focus on contemplation in his commentaries, it
is only natural that the Summa should also be written with this theme at its heart.
1. The Writing of the Summa Theologiae
Aquinas achieved notable repute within the Dominican educational system and
was commissioned to assist the orders in reforming their studies. Apparently,
after 1261 he continued to participate in the Roman provincial chapters, and may
have used this position to assist in his goal to found his own house of theological
studies in Rome, at Santa Sabina.91 According to Boyle, this would be more of a
studium personale than a studium generale like those found in Paris, Bologna, or
Cologne, an experiment where Aquinas could apply a study program according
to his own theory of teaching.92 Unlike the order’s studia artium, which focused
Ibid., 201.
89
See Leonard Boyle, The Setting of the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas,
90
The Etienne Gilson series, 5 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982), 19,
and John Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997).
91
See Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 5 and Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 143-4.
92
Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 9-10.
on logic and grammar, and the studia naturarum, which expanded its study to the
rest of the Aristotelian corpus, Aquinas’ studium would center on theology. But
Aquinas intended to go well beyond the standard theology curriculum practiced
by the order at that time, which emphasized moral theology—an emphasis
reflecting the Dominican concern over salvation of souls. For Aquinas, however,
this accent on practical theology needed to be balanced by “dogmatic” theology.93
Consequently, in the Summa, which grew out of Aquinas’ teaching experience, the
section on practical theology, the Secunda pars, is framed by the dogmatic: the
doctrine of God and creation on one end, and the incarnation and sacraments on
the other. With the Summa, according to Boyle, Aquinas puts practical theology
within its full theological context.94 Paradoxically, although the intent of the
Order is geared toward the practical end of salvation, Aquinas’ attention to the
full implications of theology—directed by the speculative—shows Aquinas to be
most truly Dominican, for the Summa captures the Dominican spirit of learned
preaching at its most profound depths.
Lombard’s Sentences, beginning with the doctrine of God, served as the primary
source of dogmatic theology in the studia generalia. But obviously Aquinas
was not satisfied with the use of the Sentences as the textbook for theological
lectures. Earlier in his teaching career he wrote, as did others before him, his own
commentary on the Sentences.95 During the first academic year at Santa Sabina, he
used his commentary—as he did when he wrote it at Paris for his new students.
At the end of the academic year in 1266, however, he abandoned it and began
composing the Summa theologiae’s Prima pars. Torrell agrees with Boyle that,
although Aquinas did not actually begin composing the Summa until his stay in
Rome, his four years of teaching at Orvieto gave him the motivation to take on
the project of creating a new classroom textbook going well beyond Lombard,
specifically, “to fill in the most conspicuous gaps by giving moral theology the
dogmatic basis it had been lacking.”96
The underlying problem Aquinas grappled with in his attempt to capture
the Dominican ethos was the isolation, specifically in Dominican conventual
education, of moral and sacramental theology from an overarching doctrine of
God: creation, Trinity, and so on. While the Sentences was standard in university
and in Dominican studia generalia, it was rarely used by conventual Lectors—and
93
Boyle uses the terms “dogmatic” and “systematic” theology, and later “doctrinal”
to refer to the theology of God, Trinity, Creation, and incarnation. “Practical” theology
refers to moral theology and ethics. See Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 15-16.
94
Ibid.
95
For more information on Aquinas’ commentary on the Sentences, see Leonard
Boyle’s article, “‘Alia Lectura Fratris Thome,’” Mediaeval Studies 45 (1983): 418-29.
96
Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 144-5. See also Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 15-19.
The Sentences never became a standard textbook at the conventual houses of study. If it was
used by conventual lectors, it was most likely confined to the fourth book which dealt with
the sacraments.
then, only Book Four, which treated the sacraments. Beginning his Summa with
the question of the nature and attributes of God (and how to articulate this
incomprehensibility), “put practical theology, the study of Christian man, his
virtues and vices, in a full theological context”:
to study human action is therefore to study the image of God and to operate on
a theological plane. To study human action on a theological plane is to study it
in relation to its beginning and end, God, and to the bridge between, Christ and
his sacraments.97
Remember, one of the things setting the Dominicans apart from other preachers
was their attention to learned preaching as a method of leading souls to God.
Aquinas perceived that isolating moral theology from its fuller theological
context—especially the doctrine of God and creation—was likely to hinder this
task. Further, learning to speak about God (appropriately but improperly) is the
underlying method Aquinas uses to instill in his future preachers the means by which
to carry out their mission. This will be a point taken up in the following chapters.
As with the Sentences, the Summa begins with God and creation; however,
Aquinas departs radically from Lombard—not only in his use of authorities,
citing Aristotle almost twice as much as Augustine, but in his arrangement of
the material. Recall that Lombard’s material is divided into what he considered
“logical and historical” sections. Aquinas wanted to give the students a more
“organic synthesis that would permit them to grasp internal links and coherence.”98
The theological material is organized with “God as the center and everything else
around Him, according to the relationships that they maintain with Him, whether
they come from Him as their first cause or return to Him as to their final end.”99
Evidently, Aquinas found the Sentences too fraught with multiplications of useless
questions, articles, and arguments to provide the unity and coherence needed to
impart one with the skills for contemplative study or learned preaching.100
Regarding this thought, Mulchahey brings up the interesting question of what
texts Aquinas selected for his lectures while he was composing and teaching
material for the first part of his Summa. She speculates he may have used the
Pseudo-Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus:
Thomas’ commentary on the De divinis nominibus is generally thought to have

been written in Italy before 1268, and some scholars have placed it as early as
1258. The terminus ante quem is suggested by the fact that Thomas wrote without
apparent awareness of the influence of the Elementatio theologica of Proclus, the
translation of which Thomas’ confrère William of Moerbeke completed only in
97
Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 16.
98
Ibid.
99
Ibid.
100
See Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 321.
May of 1268. And it has been mooted that the work was presented as a series of
lectures during one of Thomas’ assignments as a teacher for the Roman Province,
either as a lector at Orvieto or, in fact, in the studium in Rome.101
The hypothesis that Aquinas focused on the Pseudo-Dionysius while he

simultaneously worked on the beginnings of his Summa, Mulchahey continues,
may account for a significant characteristic of the Summa’s organization within
the Plotinian cycle of emanation and return.102 Mulchahey points to an early
passage in the Prima pars where Aquinas asserts that the purpose of his Summa
is “an exploration of God, not only in and of Himself but as the beginning and
end of all things.”103 Accordingly, Aquinas intends to treat first, “of God and
the procession of all creatures from Him; second, of the movement of rational
creatures back towards God; and, finally … the incarnate Christ, who is the avenue
by which man moves towards God.”104
The theme of the exitus of all things, whose origin is from God, and the reditus
of all things back to God as their final goal became fundamental to Aquinas’
development of theological science.105 This pattern of exitus/reditus that Aquinas
adopted for his Summa was probably one deeply ingrained in his theological
imagination since his days as a young friar studying under Albert. Mulchahey
explains how this pattern may also have inspired Aquinas to move beyond writing
another commentary on Lombard’s Sentences to his own Summa:
It is not so much that lecturing upon the De divinis nominibus suggested such
a pattern to Thomas, as that he chose to comment upon the Pseudo-Dionysius
at Santa Sabina along-side his principal lectures because the pattern already
seemed to him significant. As a young man he had been exposed to Albert the
Great’s treatment of the Corpus Areopagitum as a starting place for theological
enquiry; when he came to write his first commentary on the Sentences at Paris,
Ibid., 291.
101
Albert Patfoort, however, disagrees with contemporary scholars who hold

102
the Summa to the emanation/return schema. Patfoort cites lack of explicit mention of
emanation/return in the first part of the Summa as evidence that the Summa does not follow
this pattern. Thomas d’Aquin, Les clés d’une théologie (Bar le Duc: presses de l’Imprimerie
Saint-Paul, 1983), 51.
103
Mulchahey,“First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 297.
104
Ibid.
105
However, other Aquinas scholars are also beginning to recognize the profound
Neoplatonic influences in Aquinas, particularly in the organization of the Summa, as
opposed to a more strictly Aristotelian interpretation. See, for example, W. Norris Clarke,
Explorations in Metaphysics (Notre Dame. IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994);
W.J. Hankey, God in Himself: Aquinas’ Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa
Theologiae (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Robert Henle, Saint Thomas
and Platonism: A Study of the Plato and Platonici Texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956).
Thomas worked to interpret the Lombard’s text as an essay in exitus and reditus.
The difficulties he encountered in making the Lombard’s text fit this pattern
is a central factor in Thomas’ decision to compose a work which allowed him
to arrange his material differently. Here is another reason to contemplate the
possibility that Thomas lectured upon the De divinis nominibus even as he began
to compose his Summa theologiae.106
According to Mulchahey, Albert set a precedent for using this text in his advanced
theology course at the order’s new studium generale during the time Aquinas
had accompanied Albert to Cologne some fifteen years earlier. Aquinas even
copied Albert’s lectures on the De divinis nominibus, and kept this copy with him
throughout the duration of his career. Perhaps Aquinas even used these lecture
notes, Mulchahey further speculates, as he organized his own lectures on theology.107
Torrell discusses the differing opinions over the specific influence Aquinas’
study of Pseudo-Dionysius had on Aquinas’ appropriation of Platonism.108 Some
see Pseudo-Dionysius as of primary importance in this area, while others believe
in fact Aristotle was responsible for transmitting Platonic elements to Aquinas.
According to this view, “[i]f Thomas is a Platonist, it is because Aristotle
himself is more of one than we usually think.”109 Torrell suggests a better answer
includes the influence of Proclus’ Liber de causis through which Aquinas was
linked to the Platonic heritage.110 However, as Mulchahey hints, Aquinas should
be seen to go beyond his adoption of an exitus/reditus schema in organizing his
commentary—and later, his Summa—to capture something deeply characteristic of
his Dominican context of study as contemplation. And, Torrell explains, Aquinas’
presentation—which already anticipates the plan of the Summa—does not stem

from a simple pedagogical option. It expresses a deep spiritual intuition. … First,
attentive to the demands of the word theo-logy, Thomas sees in God Himself the
primary “subject” of his discourse.111
Torrell and Mulchahey indicate that, not only is the organization of the Summa a
product of Aquinas’ creative mind, but more importantly, Aquinas himself was a
product of his Dominican background, including, of course, his Dominican and
university education. The implications of this are far reaching, especially as we

106
In fact, this copy still survives, in MS. I.B. 54 of the Biblioteca Nazionale in
107
Naples. Ibid., 292.

108
For more information on Aquinas’ relation to Pseudo-Dionysius, see
Fran O’Rourke, Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas, Studien und texte zur
geistengeschichte des mittelalters, XXXII (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992).
109
110
Ibid.
111
Ibid., 44.
consider the relationship between Meister Eckhart and Thomas Aquinas. The
exitus/reditus pattern, perhaps obscured in Aquinas’ work, is indeed a favorite
theme of Eckhart in his work, most obviously in his German sermons. However,
the connection may be more profound and meaningful than immediately apparent.
This issue must be considered in more detail later.
Aquinas’ work as a teacher of theology in the Roman Province was not yet
finished, for, three years later, in 1272, he was assigned to conduct a “studium
generale theologie” at San Domenico. During this time, having finished the
Secunda secundae of the Summa while in Paris, he began the Tertia pars when
he arrived at San Domenico and composed the first ninety questions by the end
of 1273.112 However, Aquinas’ stay at San Domenico was short-lived, for in 1273,
after directing the program for barely a year, he quit teaching and died early the
following year.
Aquinas probably did not lecture upon Scripture at Santa Sabina, so far as can
be ascertained, but focused on theological science. But during his return to the
Roman Province, at San Domenico, Aquinas is reported to have changed back
to the conventional scriptural exegesis for one of the two lectures and chose to
comment upon the Hebrew Scriptures: Psalms 1-54 during the 1272-73 school
year and Romans and 1 Corinthians during the school year until December 1273.113
Not surprisingly, the Psalms played an important role in the themes Aquinas
presented as the core of his teaching at San Domenico, since, for him, the subject of
the Psalms—praise of all of God’s works—is the whole of theology: “His creation
of the world, His governance of the world, His saving of the world, and His final
glorification of the world.”114 Clearly, the years of training and spiritual formation as
a Dominican friar, as well as the unique Dominican character of approaching study
through contemplation, were well ingrained in Aquinas’ theological imagination.
Having discussed the context behind the Summa, that is, the time frame
within which it was written, during his tenures at Santa Sabina, Paris, and finally,
San Domenico, and the Pseudo-Dionysian pattern on which the Summa may have
Ibid., 310.
112
See, for example, Mulchahey’s table of lectures in “First the Bow is Bent in
113
Study,” 320; see also 314.

114
Ibid. See also Tom Ryan, “‘Fere evangelium et non prophetia’: Thomas Aquinas
as Reader of the Psalms” (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame, 1997):
Like much scholarly writing of the period, one of the distinctive literary features
of Super Psalmos is its highly structured, organizational method. Aquinas’
decisions about textual division, however, were driven by more than concern for
clarity and accessibility. … He seeks … to produce students who are not only
informed about the Psalms but also personally formed by them. (abstract)
Ryan’s dissertation has been published as Thomas Aquinas as Reader of the Psalms
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).
been written, it is of utmost importance to our discussion to answer the question of

why the Summa was written—that is, the intention behind it.
The answer has been introduced above. In his vocation as teacher of theology,
Aquinas was dissatisfied with the standard classroom textbook, Lombard’s
Sentences. His experimental course at Santa Sabina highly suggests Aquinas
wanted the Summa to become the successor to the Sentences as a textbook of
theological science, and ultimately to replace its role in the traditional theology
course. Mulchahey explains the evidence for asserting this as Aquinas’ intent:
Concurrent principal and secondary lectures, disputations, and doubtless,

the entire range of ancillary academic exercises were all in place in both of
Thomas’s schools. An acknowledgment of the appropriateness of continuing
to concentrate upon the Bible as the core of the theologian’s training appears
unambiguously in the Naples syllabus. But as early as 1266 at Santa Sabina,
Thomas had served notice that, to his mind, the days of the usefulness of the
Sentences as a textbook of theological science were numbered. … It was to avoid
such pitfalls [as found in Lombard] that Thomas wrote his own companion to
sacred doctrine “secundum quod materia patietur”. But in the Summa theologiae
the legacy of Thomas Aquinas to his Dominican confrères most especially can
be seen under two important aspects. It was the teaching text he wished his order
to have and to use. But it was also a testament of his designs for intermediate,
provincial theology education in the coming years.115
If Aquinas preferred his exitus/reditus pattern to the Sentences, it was because he

felt it more intimately tied to the content of theology itself. Another way to view
this is how Aquinas reveals in his prologue his pedagogical theory: the content is
more easily assimilated by a student if it reflects the form in which it is presented,
a point that will be elaborated on in greater detail as Aquinas’ work is explored in
the following chapters.
Unfortunately, Aquinas’ designs for the Summa theologiae were never
completely realized116—although the impact of the Summa and the influence
of Aquinas and his work throughout the Dominican order simply cannot be
overestimated. Indeed, the Summa was used in the classroom, but not in the
manner Aquinas had intended.117
2. The Acceptance of Aquinas’ Work in the Order’s Curriculum
Although Aquinas’ work had begun playing an increasingly important role in

Dominican education in his years as a mature theologian and after his death, the
115
See Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 23-4 and Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in
Study,” 321.
116
See Mulchahey, “First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 321.
117
Ibid., 322.
formal introduction of Aquinas’ writings into the classroom and into the conventual
curriculum in particular did not take place until 1313, several decades after
Aquinas’ death. The Summa was used in the classroom; however, not as a textbook
replacing Lombard. Rather, the conventual teachers were instructed to lecture on
Lombard “according to the mind of Thomas.”118 This consisted of treating three or
four articles of Aquinas each day in the lecture on Lombard’s Sentences. “Ideally,
friars everywhere were to become familiar enough with Thomas’ opinion that they
would be able to defend it in any situation in which they might be called upon to
do so.”119
We might suppose that by “treating three or four articles” of Aquinas in the
classroom, the Summa was meant, for the obvious reason that articles “form the
basic building-blocks of the Summa theologia.”120 However, this is not explicit;
references to using Aquinas in the classroom refer to his “doctrina,” his “opinio,”
or even his “opera” in the plural.121 Neither the Summa nor any other individual
work is consistently mentioned by name, and in any case “are certainly not
Ibid., 141.
118
Of course, the acceptance of Aquinas in the classroom was not without controversy.
119
See Robert Wielockx, “Autour du procès de Thomas d’Aquin,” in Thomas von Aquin. Werk und
Wirkung im Licht neuerer Forschungen, ed. A. Zimmermann (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), 413-38
and “A Separate Process Against Aquinas. A Response to John F. Wippel,” in Roma,
Magistra Mundi: Itineraria Culturae Medievalis, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-la-
Neuve: Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 1998), 1009-31. However, whether
or not Aquinas was implicated in the 1277 condemnation and whether or not a separate
process directed against Aquinas was later initiated is still a matter of debate, particularly
among Wielockx, Roland Hissette, J.M.M. Hans Thijssen, and John Wippel, and beyond
the scope of this work. For more information on this issue, see also John Wippel, “Thomas
Aquinas and the Condemnation of 1277,” Modern Schoolman 72 (1995): 233-7, and
“Bishop Stephen Tempier and Thomas Aquinas: A Separate Process against Aquinas?,”
Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 44 (1997): 117-36; Roland Hissette,
“L’implication de Thomas d’Aquin dans les censures parisiennes de 1277,” Recherches de
Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 64 (1997): 3-31 and “Thomas d’Aquin directement
visé par la censure du 7 Mars 1277? Réponse à John F.Wippel,” in Roma, Magistra Mundi:
Itineraria Culturae Medievalis, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-la-Neuve: Internationale
des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 1998), 425-37; Hans Thijssen, “1277 Revisited: A New
Interpretation of the Doctrinal Investigations of Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome,”
Vivarium 35 (1997): 72-101. Also see Palémon Glorieux, “Pro et contra Thomam un
suvol de cinquante annees,” in Sapientiae Procerum Amore, ed. Theodor Kohler, Studia
Anselmiana, 63 (Rome: Anselmiana, 1974), 255-88.
In any event, the Dominicans reacted to this attack by creating expositions on Aquinas’
teaching, and in 1286, Dominican officials exhorted the friars “‘omnes et singuli,’ to
familiarize themselves with Aquinas’ doctrine, to promote and defend it.” Mulchahey,
“First the Bow is Bent in Study,” 152-5.
120
121
Ibid.
indicated as textbooks.”122 And, as Mulchahey points out, since the Dominican

chapter was searching for a way to incorporate Aquinas as a gloss on the Sentences,
we should not ignore the commentary Aquinas wrote early in his academic career
on Lombard’s Sentences, the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum.123
Besides the Summa and the Scriptum becoming important parts of the
Dominican classroom, Aquinas’ influence spread throughout all areas of
Dominican life. One area vital to the Dominicans was that of learned preaching,
the goal to which the friar’s lifelong study aspired. Along with his Summa and his
commentaries—notably his biblical commentaries—one would assume Aquinas
would also have made significant contributions as a Dominican preacher. After
all, as a Dominican friar, preaching would have been a requirement not only of
his formation, but of his duties in the life of the order. However, it appears that
Aquinas’ sermons were largely ignored.124
On the other hand, Aquinas did contribute greatly to preaching, not through his
own sermons or through any manual on sermon construction, but rather “through
his teaching and through the theological and philosophical texts he produced.”125
Other friars making a vocation of preaching created their own preaching manuals
using Aquinas’ works. For example, a schoolmate of Aquinas, Ambrogio Sansedoni,
quoted frequently from Aquinas’ Scriptum in his own sermons. And Aldobrandino
Cavalcanti, a popular preacher in the later part of the thirteenth century, not only
preached but compiled several collections of model sermons circulated widely
throughout Italy which were replete with the doctrine of Aquinas. Aldobrandino
da Toscanella, who was known as a preacher and teacher in the late thirteenth and
early fourteenth centuries, provided the Dominican order a “sourcebook of natural
philosophy made preachable,” showing an intimate knowledge of Aquinas’
commentaries on Aristotle.126
These Dominican preachers and others like them began to define a new way of
sermonizing—while not a stylistic change, for sure—that “enlarged the compass
and challenged the theology of the moralizing sermons of even a few years
before.”127 They began introducing Aquinas as an authority in their preaching
even before works such as the Scriptum and the Summa were formally integrated
into the Dominican schools, in fact even in the wake of his condemnation. The
122
Ibid.
123
Probably both the Summa and the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum were at
the lectors’ disposal. Mulchahey cites texts appearing at this time that juxtaposed Aquinas
conclusions in both the Summa and the Scriptum. Ibid., 163-4. Additionally commentaries
on Lombard’s Sentences were written in the fourteenth century explicitly drawing the
majority of their material from the Summa and other works of Aquinas. These commentaries
were known as lecturae thomasinae. Ibid., 163. See also Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 47.
124
125
Ibid., 432.
126
Ibid., 439.
127
Ibid.
use of Aquinas in sermons and sermon handbooks, however, was not always
done explicitly.
As this chapter illustrates, Aquinas’ work was marked through and through
with the Dominican approach to theology from the perspective of faith and its
interpretation of the contemplative life as study. And not only does he internalize
this theme in his commentaries, he also reflects explicitly on how contemplation
as study is played out pedagogically. In other words, Aquinas attempts to capture
the Dominican mission of preaching (learning to speak about God) in his Summa.
This point will be examined in detail later when the content of the Prima pars,
Questions 1-13 is explicitly considered.
D. Meister Eckhart
Having raised the theory that Aquinas integrated or captured the essential Dominican
theme of “study through contemplation” throughout his own work, including the
Summa—and spread it throughout the life of the order—it is appropriate to turn to
the issue of Eckhart’s relation to Aquinas’ work. As the above discussion of Aquinas’
influence on his order reveals, Eckhart could not have possibly been unaffected by
his predecessor, and even if he departed from Aquinas’ thought, he would not have
done so openly. Rather, he would have attempted to integrate Aquinas’ thought
throughout his own work. One of the goals of this book is to understand how Eckhart
did just that; in other words, how Eckhart put into practice the unique Dominican
approach—expressed by Aquinas—of knowing and speaking about God.
However, before taking up this issue, it is important to know something of
the diversity and popularity of Eckhart’s career as a Dominican, which included
teacher—and master—of theology, administrator, spiritual advisor, and preacher.
What emerges from this portrait is that Eckhart himself exemplified the dual
Dominican focus on the contemplative and active life.
1. Background
Unfortunately, although Eckhart was apparently one of the most popular Dominicans
of his time, information on his life is meager, “extracted” says Ancelet-Hustache,
“with great difficulty from various documents.”128 It is generally accepted that
Eckhart was born around the year 1260 in the village of Hochheim in Thuringia,
either near Gotha or near Erfurt.129
Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart, 23-4.

128
Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 4. Some scholars believe that Eckhart was of noble birth,
129
but this is in dispute. For example, James Clark, The Great German Mystics: Eckhart,
Tauler, and Suso (Oxford: Blackwell, 1949), 7, believes that Eckhart was of noble birth, but
Tobin does not (Meister Eckhart, 4).
Eckhart entered the monastery at Erfurt as a very young man, and, like other
young friars, studied Latin, logic, and rhetoric as a prerequisite to his theological
studies in the Bible and Lombard’s Sentences. As one of a few select students
“who were conspicuous both for piety and for intelligence,”130 Eckhart was sent to
the province’s studium generale in Cologne for more advanced study of scripture
and theology, probably during the decade following Albert’s death.131 The exact
sequence of Eckhart’s education is not clear; however, Eckhart apparently
received his advanced education in Cologne and Paris, possibly receiving a
dispensation from the normal duration of coursework.132 During his academic year
in Paris, 1293-94, Eckhart began his teaching career.133
Eckhart apparently was not in Paris for long, however, and was commissioned
to two important posts between 1294 and 1298: prior of the Dominican house in
Erfurt and vicar of the Dominican houses in Thuringia. These positions included
administrative and financial duties as well as the more pastoral concerns of those
friars and students under his care. The fact that Eckhart was given two offices
simultaneously is strong evidence of the esteem his order held for him. However,
because holding two such offices imposed conflicting demands, in 1298, the
order’s general chapter banned anyone from continuing to be both prior and vicar.
It is estimated that Eckhart may have remained prior in Erfurt until 1300.134
In 1302, Eckhart is mentioned with the title of Master in Sacred Theology135 and
was appointed to the Dominican chair of theology in Paris, which was reserved for
a non-Frenchman. With this, Eckhart achieved the highest recognition possible in
the academic circles of his day. Eckhart was magister actu regens, that is, actively
teaching, during the 1302-1303 school year.136
According to Ancelet-Hustache,

130
This date is in dispute. Tobin conjectures Eckhart came to Cologne while Albert
131
was still there, in the year 1280 (Meister Eckhart, 4) However, Clark (Great German
Mystics, 7) and Ancelet-Hustache (Master Eckhart, 25) doubt this claim and believe
Eckhart arrived some time after Albert’s death.
132
Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 7. McGinn and Colledge take most of
their biographical material from Koch, “Kritische Studien zum Leben Meister Eckharts,”
Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 29 (1959): 1‑51; 30 (1960): 1‑52.
133
Clark points to the discovery of fragments of a commentary on the first four books
of the Sentences—Eckhart’s earliest known work, written between 1300 and 1302—as
evidence that Eckhart lectured on the Sentences in Paris for at least a year as Baccalaureaus.
See Clark, Great German Mystics, 7.
134
Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 6. See also Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart, 26.
135
Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart, 26.
136
[h]aving spent the first decades of his life in the atmosphere of German
mysticism,137 Master Eckhart, now aged about forty, found himself plunged
into the liveliest intellectual milieu of Christendom, the very meeting-place of
its main currents of ideas. He was cognizant of all these doctrines, which he
assimilated and forged more or less into his own individual thought.138
Thus, at Paris Eckhart attained the title by which he was to be known from that
time onward: Master Eckhart139—or, the German “Meister” Eckhart.
However, again, the new master did not remain at his academic post in Paris
for long. In 1303, the Erfurt chapter appointed Eckhart as Provincial Minister
of Saxony, which included forty-seven male Dominican houses and a number of
convents.140 After this, he was appointed Vicar General of Bohemia and entrusted
to the reform of the order’s Dominican convents there. By this time, Eckhart had
become one of the most eminent members of the order in Germany. According
to Clark, “his fame was not confined to his own native province of Saxony; he
was also honorably known in the much larger and more important province of
Alemannia, which included all the rest of Germany.”141
Although elected Provincial Minister of this region in 1310, the General
Chapter of Naples did not confirm the election. Instead, they relieved Eckhart
of his administrative duties in order to send him for a second tenure to Paris as
professor of theology.142 Apparently, “a second such appointment was an unusual
occurrence and has to be considered a great honor,” shared only by a select few,
such as his renowned predecessor Aquinas.143
In 1314 Eckhart was sent to Strasbourg, a great center of religious life in
the fourteenth century, to serve as the Vicar General of the Province of Saxony.144
In addition to his duties as Vicar, he was very involved with preaching and spiritual
direction in convents of Dominican nuns. Ancelet-Hustache surmises Eckhart
served as “prior, preacher, and professor of theology of the students of his Order.”145
137
The mystics with whom Eckhart was most involved were the Beguines, a movement
of lay persons not affiliated with any traditional order, emphasizing contemplation,
devotion to the Eucharist, and mystical visions; they were ultimately charged with “heresy,
pantheism, and antinomianism, the belief that one is independent of the moral law.” See
Robert Forman, Meister Eckhart: The Mystic as Theologian, An Experiment in Methodology
(Rockport, MA: Element Books, 1991), 35-9.
138
139
Ibid., 41.
140
141
Clark, Great German Mystics, 9.
142
143
Ibid., 8.
144
Although it is not certain what position he held there, a document dated 1319 was
signed by Eckhart with the title of vicar. See Clark, Great German Mystics, 9.
145
Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart, 42.
Eckhart’s preaching gained such recognition and approval with the nuns and laity
that he became the most popular preacher in Germany.
Sometime around 1323 he was in Cologne, where he may have been master of
the more advanced students. But he continued being a very popular preacher; and,
according to Edmund Colledge, it was his preaching that was to make Cologne
the scene of his downfall.146 While there is no documentary evidence showing
that Eckhart was involved with heretics at Strasbourg, it is quite possible that
during this time he came under suspicion of treating “abstruse matters which the
common people could not understand” in his sermons.147 At the General Chapter
in Venice in 1325, although Eckhart was not specifically named, complaints had
been made of “certain German friars who preached about subtle and lofty matters
to the people to the peril of their souls.”148 And finally, in Strasbourg, this same
accusation was made directly against Eckhart.149
In 1326 the archepiscopal court of Cologne summoned Eckhart in order
to answer the charge of heresy, including not only certain propositions taken
from his written work, but material taken from what he allegedly preached in
his sermons. Eckhart declared he was not guilty of the charges, “because heresy
is a matter of the will, and it was his intention to remain and to die a faithful
son of the Church.”150 Eckhart ultimately took his defense to the highest court
in the Church—Pope John XXII himself. However, this effort to clear his name,
too, was in vain, since the same procedure was followed as was at Cologne, and
in the end Eckhart was condemned.151 The papal document “In agro dominico”
pronounced that
The first fifteen propositions, acknowledged as his by Eckhart, are heretical and
are condemned, as are the last two, which he denies having taught, but which
are nonetheless rehearsed. With regard to the remaining eleven, it is conceded
that although they have an offensive ring … are rash, and smack of heresy …
they could, “with many explanations and additions,” be given or already have a
catholic sense.152
146
Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 10.
147
148
Ibid.
149
Ibid.
150
151
Ibid. Papal commissioner, Cardinal James Fournier, later Pope Benedict XII,
expressed dissatisfaction with the method typically used in reviewing cases such as
Eckhart’s was. When pressed to pronounce on Durandus of Saint-Pourçain’s case—a case
Colledge remarks was “far more delicate that Eckhart’s,” Fournier protested he could not
make a just verdict until he had examined the contexts from which the propositions had
been taken.
152
Ibid., 12. The bull’s conclusion informs the archbishop, to whom it is addressed,
that Eckhart recanted on his death bed, a statement Colledge says was undoubtedly for the
benefit of the laity. The document does not report that Eckhart said he accepted the Church’s
The conclusion of the bull suggests that before it was finished, Eckhart had died.
The specific date and circumstances of his death are uncertain, but most scholars
place his death between 1327 and 1329.153
Colledge concludes that many modern historians of medieval spirituality
believe that “In agro dominico’s” verdict was “at least in part unsound.” One fact
is apparent: “if the commissioners had had a better knowledge of the fathers of the
Church, both Eastern and Western, they would have perceived that they too had
taught some of what Eckhart was now being condemned for teaching.”154
2. Aquinas’ Influence on Eckhart
Although Eckhart is not considered a disciple of Aquinas,155 he was obviously

greatly influenced by his predecessor, and he was careful to call attention to his
“conformity” to the mind of Aquinas, in accordance with the requirement of his
order. For example, in his prologue to the commentary on the Book of Genesis,
Eckhart says he omits or abbreviates material found in other commentaries,
especially so that the better and more useful interpretations that the saints and
venerable teachers, particularly Brother Thomas, have written are not neglected.
On a few occasions I decided merely to note where their interpretations are to
be found.156
And Eckhart not only paid respect to Aquinas in his own work, but in Eckhart’s
defense against charges of heresy, he identifies his own situation with that
of Aquinas:
long ago, but in my own lifetime, the masters of theology at Paris received a
command from above to examine the books of those two most distinguished
men, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Brother Albert the Bishop, on the grounds that
they were suspect and erroneous. Many have often written, declared and even
publicly preached that Saint Thomas wrote and taught errors and heresies, but
with God’s aid his life and teaching alike have been given approval, both at Paris
and also by the Supreme Pontiff and the Roman curia.157
judgment that the propositions were heretical. Colledge disagrees with Koch, however, who
asserts that the bull claimed “an absolute revocation” by Eckhart. Ibid., 13.
153
154
155
See Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 313.
156
“Rabbi Moses treats it [intro of the Book of Genesis] especially in book two,
chapter thirty-one, of the Guide to the Perplexed, and Thomas in the Summa of Theology,
Ia, qq.44-47, and later qq. 65-74.” Colledge, introduction to Essential Sermons, 82.
See also 86, with regard to the notion of the indistinction and distinction of God.
157
Ibid., 72.
He concludes his defense:
The first mistake they make is that they think that everything they do not
understand is an error and that every error is a heresy, when only obstinate
adherence to error makes heresy and a heretic, as the laws and the doctors
hold. … Third, they object to things as heretical that Saint Thomas openly uses
for the solution of certain arguments and that they either have not seen or not
remembered. An example is the distinction and nature of univocal, equivocal
and analogous terms, and the like.158
More than likely, Eckhart is referring above to Aquinas’ discussion of analogous

language-use in the Prima pars of the Summa. Although Eckhart does not often
explicitly refer to Aquinas, he does occasionally refer to this part of the Summa
in his biblical commentaries. For example, in his commentary on the Book of
Wisdom, Eckhart writes, “But God is something indistinct which is distinguished
by his indistinction, as Thomas says in Ia, q.7, a.1, at the end.”159 And he makes
several references to Aquinas in connection to Maimonides with regard to the
names of God in his commentaries on the Book of Genesis160 and the Book
of Exodus.161
As this brief outline of Eckhart’s life illustrates, Eckhart was a person
simultaneously absorbed in the active and the contemplative life. While the title
“Master” suggests his role as an advanced teacher of theology, we see that he was
equally, if not more, involved in the most practical aspects of Dominican life such
as administration and preaching. But although his career seems geared especially
to the active life, his role as spiritual director to the religious communities—and
especially the mystics—would have necessarily required Eckhart to be grounded
in the contemplative life.
Robert Forman sums up this uniquely Dominican character Eckhart expressed
during his life:
On the one hand it was an active life, suited to an urban ministry, in which
preaching and teaching played the key roles. Yet it was simultaneously a
contemplative one: immersed in hours of silence, the friar or nun chanted the
Divine Office and practiced mental prayer daily.162
Forman links Eckhart’s dual focus on the contemplative and the active life
with Aquinas:
158
Ibid., 75.
159
McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher, 169.
160
161
McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher, 91.
162
Forman, Meister Eckhart, 44.
Thomas appreciated the duality of [the Dominicans] professed ideals when he

wrote that the life of teaching and preaching proceeds “from the fullness of
contemplation.” [Eckhart] redirected the visionary mystic’s emphasis away from
passing ecstatic episodes and advocated a transformation that is permanent, one
that may be enjoyed while living and working in the world. In emphasizing
the mystical life, Eckhart represents the contemplative aspect of Dominicanism;
and in redirecting it towards the more profound, permanent transformation he
is in accord with the Dominican ideal of an entire life lived out of the “fullness
of contemplation.”163
While Aquinas expressed the Dominican character by developing a pedagogical

tool to be used in the classroom, Eckhart put this character into action, not only
in the classroom, but in every aspect of his life as a Dominican friar, a reality that
manifests itself throughout his work, a point that will be later developed.
E. Summary
The first section of this chapter explored the impetus behind the Dominican
order—the primary context shared by Aquinas and Eckhart—which was the
preaching of doctrine. This had a twofold purpose: initially, to defend the faith
against heretics, and second, and more centrally, to impart knowledge necessary
for salvation. For the Dominicans, in order to preach doctrine, every friar first had
to be learned in the discipline of theology. Initially, Dominic and his disciples
turned to the university to educate themselves and provide a model for their
own system of educating their friars. However, they had to depart in significant
ways from the university model in order to accommodate their uniquely religious
character which they had inherited from the Rule of Augustine. First, the focus of
their studies had to be seen in terms of a means, not an end in itself. Because of
this, knowledge not relevant to or contrary to theology could not be pursued. But,
it soon became apparent to many Dominicans, especially those who joined the
order with a higher education, that the other disciplines and the knowledge they
imparted—especially the philosophy of Aristotle—were useful to the knowledge
of theology. Second, theology had to be approached through faith. What this
meant for the Dominicans was that their religious formation provided the context
for their studies: liturgy, prayer, and meditation on the Word of God. Thus, study
was to be seen as contemplation. Third, in addition to the threefold scholastic
method of instruction—lecture, repetition, and disputation—the Dominicans
added another, preaching, which was not only the culmination of their education,
but their reason for it. Preaching was, in fact, incorporated into their curriculum,
for students learned to preach just as they learned to dispute.
Ibid.
163
Finally, the different branches of instruction were seen as a unity, each

one reinforcing and leading into the next: the material presented in the lecture
was internalized through repetition, and put into practice through disputation.
As Mulchahey puts it, the friars were trained to think on their feet. Without doubt
it could be added to this qualification that each of the scholastic techniques used in
instruction, for the Dominicans, was intimately related to the friar’s spiritual and
religious formation: lecture as meditation on the Word, repetition as their life of
prayer and liturgy (for example, liturgy of hours and so forth), and disputation as
related to preaching—imparting knowledge to others; thus the contemplative life
issued forth into the active.
It can fairly be argued that Aquinas saw this unity between lecture, repetition,
disputation, and preaching and expressed it in his intended theological handbook,
the Summa. This lecture textbook, which was supposed to replace the Sentences,
took the form of disputation: the quaestio. And, as the next chapters will
show, Aquinas could be interpreted in the first part of the Summa, especially
Questions 3-13, as refining the notion of “repetition” in terms of examples of
how we speak about God using human language—broadly defined as analogical
language-use. Finally, Aquinas’ Summa, as a textbook, prepares the student not
only for repetition and disputation exercises, but also for preaching, because he
is trying to internalize within the student the essential link between speaking
about and knowing God. And if the theory is correct—that Aquinas managed
to capture something of the unique character of the Dominican educational
formation of friars—then it makes sense that Eckhart, who was formed out of
this context, internalized and put into practice what he learned as a Dominican
student, teacher, and preacher.
This chapter has given us the opportunity to explore the uniquely Dominican
character of Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s life. The Dominican notion of “study as
contemplation,” adapted from the Augustinian Rule, illuminates a dimension of
these masters’ work that the scholastic method of the medieval university may
not: the goal of education, and ultimately theology, is knowledge of God necessary
for salvation; and salvation, for Aquinas, is the beatific vision (which turns out to
be, ultimately, knowing God). Thus, for the Dominicans, there exists an essential
link between knowledge and prayer.
It is apparent that for Torrell Aquinas captures the mission of his order in his
own work, especially in the Summa. Aquinas expresses this unique character in
terms of speculative and practical theology:
As subject, God is a person whom we know and love (because He has given
Himself to be known and to be loved), a person whom we invoke and whom we
meet in prayer. When Thomas says that theology is principally speculative, he
means that it is in the first instance contemplative; the two words are practically
synonymous in Thomas. This is why—we shall not be slow to see this operative
in Thomas’s life—research, study, reflection on God can find their source and
their completion only in prayer.
Considered as practical knowledge (that is, theology as it directs Christian

action—what is commonly called moral theology), theology does not lose its
contemplative aim (1a q 1a.4). It is still and always directed by the consideration
of God, since He is the End in view of which all decisions are made and the
Good in connection with which all other goods are situated. To speak of God
as beginning and as end is not a purely theoretical option; it concerns the entire
Christian life.164
Torrell’s understanding of Aquinas reminds us of Augustine’s “restless heart”

that inspired the Dominicans to approach theology through the life of faith, for,
“faith is … the only thing able to give a real object to this knowledge.”165 This
knowledge of necessity extends from the speculative to the practical, because
“faith would not know how to be itself if it did not act in charity.”166
Finally, this chapter’s exploration of the Dominican context reveals the vital
link between speaking about and knowing God. This link is expressed through the
Dominican notion of “learned preaching.” For preaching is most of all speaking
about God. And for the Dominicans, preaching was the means of imparting
knowledge necessary for salvation. It is, therefore, especially relevant to approach
Aquinas’ Summa as a pedagogical tool for learning to speak about God in order
to draw closer to our ultimate Source, a practice for which Eckhart became most
famous—and, perhaps, most misunderstood.
164
165
Ibid., 158.
166
Ibid.
Chapter 3
Thomas Aquinas:
A Pedagogy for Speaking About God
Chapter 1 laid out the obstacles to speaking intelligibly about God, and presented
the non-contrastive direction we must take to mitigate such impediments,
using Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart as our guides for this endeavor.
Chapter 2 provided us with the proper context in which to interpret these two
medieval masters, who lived in a world directed by their academic obligations
and wholly permeated by their religious life. This chapter considers Aquinas’
Summa, specifically his first thirteen questions, as a pedagogical instrument for
developing a non-contrastive appreciation of religious language-use. Following
upon this exercise, Chapter 4 explores how Eckhart masters Aquinas’ lessons on
speaking about God in a way that protects both the Creator’s transcendence from
and immediacy to creatures, a conviction central to both Christianity’s doctrines
and its religious forms of life.
A. Speech about God and Christian Forms of Life
As Chapter 1 indicated, because our language requires us to make comparisons and

contrasts when describing relationships between things in the created universe, all
speech about the Creator–creature relationship risks reducing the Creator God into
another being in the universe—thus compromising the Creator’s unique distinction
from creatures and ultimately diminishing a sense of God’s incomprehensible
mystery. But more than just a perception of God’s incomprehensibility is at stake,
so too is the spiritual journey of the human creature drawing back to its Creator.
Our journey towards our Ground and Source depends on a transcendent God who
is at the same time wholly immanent, present to us in a manner so intimate that
every breath is sustained and permeated by God’s existence. Of course, a creature
(including a human creature) is united with its Creator regardless of any awareness
of its created purpose or any effort on its part—this claim is also central to the
Christian faith. But belief in a distant God gives little motivation for the Christian
forms of life to which Scripture calls us: “Love the Lord, your God, with all
your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor
as yourself.”1
1
Mt 22:37, 39 (NAB).
These two commandments encompass both personal and communal dimensions

of our faith journey, and by extension, the religious language that expresses it. The
two forms of speech are inseparable in this process of faith seeking understanding.
Loving God includes speaking to God in praise as well as petition; loving your
neighbors includes speaking about God with the hope of guiding them towards
God’s loving embrace.
Speaking to and about God not only expresses our hope and desire to be
united with God, but is integral in moving towards that end; for, being united
with God means, metaphorically speaking, “seeing God face to face,” or, more
intimately, “knowing” God. Believers seek to know the One who draws them
near; faith seeks to understand—or, in the words of the Song of Solomon (echoed
by Augustine): “I will seek him whom my soul loves.”2 This “understanding” is
not the cold data resulting from discursive logic, but the passionate disclosure
between lover and beloved, articulated such that what is voiced only hints at
the unvoiced depths of the relationship. Knowledge this immediate and personal
can only be revealed verbally through poetical language, as this Song of Songs
brilliantly illustrates:
O my dove … let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is
sweet and your face is lovely.”3
The kind of knowledge expressed in these few Scriptural words is something far
beyond discursive language. It speaks of a presence so intimate, yet strangely
invisible, compelling ardent yearning in the one to whom that presence has
been revealed to “see” (not incidentally, a verb often used synonymously with
“understand”) that which lies out of reach. The author’s words communicate
an awareness of something unseen but at the same time familiar, something of
unfathomable beauty and worth, and the hope of someday being reunited with
it; this is Augustine’s journey of the “restless heart.” Speaking to and about
the beloved goes further than articulating this awareness, however; in some
imperceptible way it brings the lover closer to the object of desire. The author
of the Song proclaims to the one he seeks, “Your name is perfume poured out,”
and implores her, “[d]raw me after you.”4 As Scripture witnesses, speaking the
“name of God”5—that is, speaking to and about God—draws us ever nearer to our
ultimate end: communion with our Source.
2
Sg 3:2. The identification of knowing and loving God will be discussed later in
this book.
3
Sg 2:14.
4
Sg 1:2-4.
5
In his exegesis on Exodus, Eckhart explores the “names of God” (“I am who Am”),
the difficulties of speaking about God. This text will be considered in Chapter 5.
Thomas Aquinas: A Pedagogy for Speaking About God 67
B. The Scriptural Narrative of the Summa
As the second chapter reveals, the Order of Preachers took the Scriptural commands
to “love God with all your might” and “love your neighbor as yourself” to heart,
dedicating their friars to drawing closer to God through contemplation and to
drawing others closer to God though religious language, specifically through their
preaching. For the Dominicans this practice of speech about God must go beyond
the moral exhortations of earlier preachers; they must be grounded in Church
doctrine, which expresses Christianity’s articles of faith revealed in Scripture.
While Scripture, especially the accounts of Jesus Christ and the early Christian
communities, provides practical examples of the Christian life, the articles of faith
derived from Scripture provide precepts upon which those Christian forms of life
are based; in other words, the doctrinal aspects of Christianity shape and inform
the practical aspects, and vice versa. Therefore, the soteriological aim of preaching
is ultimately directed by Scripture. And, since Scripture contains the Revelation of
God and is the primary source for theology (speech about God), study of doctrine
must be grounded in contemplation.
Study as contemplation is an endeavor (if it can be called that) graced through
and through, from beginning to end. Scripture was the core of every aspect of
the medieval Dominican friar’s life, including their academic life, and this
was no less true for Aquinas and Eckhart than for any of their brothers. Since
Scripture contains the Revelation of God—God’s self-communication—then it
is considered (by those who hold it as authoritative) to be thoroughly graced,
God’s gift to humankind. Therefore, we must not presume we can “think” our
way to God, a belief that renders God to our bidding, rather than the other way
around. If we can become “closer” to God through rumination or speech, it is only
because we have first been invited and beckoned to do so by God, not because
we have the natural intellectual powers to do so ourselves.6 “Contemplation,” as
it is used in the context of faith, is not equated with discursive reasoning. Yet as
the notion of “study” itself implies, contemplation is in no way separated from
the intellectual process. The Dominican approach of study through contemplation
grows out of the friar’s religious practice, thoroughly based on and guided by
Scripture: silent prayer, divine liturgy, sacraments, acts of charity, preaching. This
practice exercises the whole range of the Dominican’s intellectual pursuits, from
the novice’s memorization of the Psalter to the conventual teacher’s scriptural
exegesis and to the parish priest’s discerning of appropriate penance for confession.
Thus the Dominican method of study as contemplation not only holds together the
delicate balance and interrelatedness of “faith” and “reason,” but, as it will soon be
shown, Aquinas re-articulates this relationship in a way that reveals Scripture to be
the most appropriate and important source for doing theology.
6
Terms like “closer” or “towards” are not literal when applied to the faith journey:
we cannot know how we become united to God, nor can we ever be “away” from God.
Scriptural study was also integral to the medieval university curriculum, upon
which the Dominicans built their own educational system, and the brightest students
such as Aquinas and Eckhart were sent to the university with the expectation
that they would master its curriculum as well as contribute to the order’s own.
But, as Chapter 2 infers, the religious life and soteriological mission that bound
the Dominican student was not necessarily presumed in the university study
of theology (and it certainly is not today);7 therefore, reading Aquinas’ Summa
from a purely “academic” approach to theology inevitably misses Aquinas’ true
intention in writing it. Fully appreciating the Summa’s design requires considering
the specifically religious/spiritual life in which Aquinas was engaged; the divine
liturgy and hours spent in prayer and service to his order creates an underlying
narrative in Aquinas’ work not necessarily obvious from a surface reading of it.
Like other university masters, Aquinas wrote and lectured on Scripture, but he
was also bound to his order’s goal of teaching novices, preaching doctrine, and
even hearing confessions. We can infer from this that in his Summa Aquinas did
not mean simply to provide information about the nature and attributes of God, or
arguments to prove the existence of God, because these pursuits would hold little
meaning in light of the Dominican mission to lead others to salvation, understood
ultimately as communion with God, or “beatific vision.” Even if it were possible to
know “what God is” (which Aquinas explicitly asserts we cannot),8 then we would
still need to answer the deeper existential questions of “who” God is to us, and
“how” we are united to this Divine Existence—issues that make up the very
story-line of Scripture itself: creation, sanctification, and redemption. Regardless
of whom Aquinas wrote the Summa for—advanced university students, colleagues,
or the true “beginners” in theology (the Dominican novice9)—we must be attentive
to the implicit Scriptural narrative that underlies the Summa.
As introduced in Chapter 2, the Neoplatonic cycle of emanation and return is
recognized today by many scholars to be the framework within which the Summa is
written; in more specifically Christian terms, we could also say the Summa closely
follows the Scriptural narrative of creation–sanctification–redemption. As Boyle
discerns, Aquinas wished to place the issues treated by “practical” theology
(for example, moral theology and sacraments) within their fuller theological
context by framing them within the doctrine of God: creation on the one end and
7
Although medieval universities and the Church were often closely linked; therefore
many scholars wrote with religious intent, explicitly stated or not. We must not read any
medieval author—especially Aquinas—from the perspective of the contemporary secular
university. This will be reiterated regarding Aquinas’ notion of scientia, which has a much
different connotation than the one we have today.
8
See, for example, STh, I.3: “Sed quia de Deo scire non possumus quid sit sed quid
non sit, non possumus considerare de Deo quomodo sit sed potius quomodo non sit.”
9
Victor White captures Aquinas’ intention to address the broadest audience possible
as a teacher of Catholic faith. See Holy Teaching: The Idea of Theology According to
St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Blackfriars, 1958), 5-6.
redemption on the other.10 In this way, the form of the Summa remains closely
attached to the journey of the believer from her emanation out of God (being
created) to her return back to God through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.
The “narrative” Aquinas employs in the Summa leads student-readers through
their own journey by exercising them in appropriately extending human language
to the Divine, thus developing in future preachers and teachers skills in using
language flexibly in order to draw others away from misconstruing the articles
and doctrines of the Christian faith and towards knowing God. To avoid distorting
the Christian message revealed in Scripture, the believer must appropriate a
non-contrastive grasp of religious language, where our Creator God is neither
compared to nor contrasted from the world, but is realized as its unique Source and
Ground. The ultimate goal of this narrative is moving the believer from focusing
on knowledge about God towards knowing God—an awareness that “speaking
about God” goes beyond describing God to building a relationship with God.
In Eckhart’s terminology, the preacher assists believers in “detachment” from
false conceptions that hinder their spiritual journey.
C. The Method and Arrangement of the Summa
This chapter examines a non-contrastive reading of I.1-13 of the Summa theologiae.

This interpretation assumes that whatever Aquinas asserts about the existence,
nature, or attributes of God intends to preserve the unique distinction of the Creator
from creatures, and, in so doing, assists the reader in developing a highly nuanced
skill in speaking about God that will help others in their faith journey. In order to
accomplish this task, Aquinas must first distinguish the theology, sacred doctrine,
having as its goal the salvation of souls from the theology, metaphysics, which
conveys knowledge about God by demonstrating (to the extent possible through
human reason) the existence and nature of God.
According to a non-contrastive approach, the material presented in Question 1
on the nature and language of theology is key to understanding the questions that
follow it; for without this question it would be difficult to make the connection
between speaking about God and coming to know God. In fact, without the
first question, it is too easy to read the Prima pars as a work of metaphysics,
or as descriptive information about God’s nature and existence. To make the
connection between speaking about God and knowing God, Aquinas must first
show that sacred doctrine is a scientia, a “way of knowing”; second, that it is
a type of knowledge leading the believer forward and deeper in faith seeking
understanding; and third, that sacred doctrine necessarily employs language—for
example, found in Scripture—in a way that challenges our discursive modes
of thinking and helps us transcend the limitations of human language when we
speak about the Divine.
10
See Boyle, Setting of the Summa, 15-16.
Ultimately, the role of Question 1 is to lay a foundation in the Summa for

a non-contrastive grasp of religious language, in other words, on how to avoid
contrasting or comparing words that refer to creatures with God. The source and
narrative for this foundation is Scripture, providing the exemplar of analogical
language-use, because it uses ordinary language—rocks, water, the bodily senses,
human relations—in extraordinary ways to communicate God’s divine activity in
human history as well as God’s incomprehensible presence and meaning to human
life. Therefore the connection between theology and Scripture is imperative in
setting readers on the correct track for doing the theology they will be called
upon to do in their religious vocations—whether these vocations are specifically
academic or pastoral.
After establishing the nature and language of theology as sacred doctrine,
Aquinas begins the journey designed to lead the reader away from the temptation
of trying to impart knowledge or facts about God—although apart from
Question 1 and by outward appearances, the opposite may seem to be true, because
Questions 2-26 treat God’s existence and divine attributes, the very material of
metaphysics. For our purposes, Questions 1 through 13, where Aquinas explicitly
treats “analogy,” a concept that has received considerable attention from scholars
with regard to articulating the Creator–creature relationship, will be considered.
The fundamental goal of using these thirteen questions is to show how Aquinas
in fact takes us beyond conventional notions of analogy and develops the skill of
analogical language-use, that is, of using language non-contrastively.
Although only the first few questions of the Summa will be
considered, it is helpful to briefly note the arrangement of the Summa
as a whole, because, guided by an implicit Scriptural (or exitus/reditus)
narrative—creation–sanctification–redemption—the Summa continues the
non-contrastive lesson introduced in its Prima pars. Questions 1-13 set the
tone and direction for doctrinal and practical topics contained within the
Summa. After these initial questions follow questions on the Divine operations
(God’s knowledge, will, and power), the Trinity, creation, and creatures, and
Divine government (control of things in the universe), topics which give the
Summa the anterior of its doctrinal framework. The second part of the Summa
concerns the human being’s movement towards God, the “practical” or moral
content of the Summa; the third part discusses Christ “who, according to his
humanity, is for us the way that leads toward God,”11 thus closing the theological
circle (God as Creator, God as Redeemer) as well as the Scriptural narrative and
cycle of emanation and return.
Having laid out the Summa’s arrangement, it seems appropriate to ask just
what kind of a theological work it is. According to a non-contrastive interpretation
(and according to Aquinas’ own words),12 the Summa is concerned with the
theology of sacred doctrine, rooted in Scripture with soteriology as its goal.

11
See, for example, STh, I.1.

12
However, the Summa is not itself a work of sacred doctrine, because it employs
many sources other than Scripture: the Church fathers, “pagan” philosophers, even
non-Christian theologians (for example, Maimonides and Avicenna). In fact, on
the face of it the Summa reads more like a philosophical treatise than a scriptural
exegesis, especially because of Aquinas’ heavy use of Aristotle and metaphysical
terms such as esse, essentia, action. But the Summa cannot be read strictly as
a work of metaphysics either, because, as it will become clear, Aquinas tells us
rather bluntly that metaphysics will not get us where we want to go; it cannot bring
us closer to God, and, it cannot even do what it apparently claims to do: give us
knowledge of what God is.
Given the Dominican emphasis on education laid out in Chapter 2 as well as
Aquinas’ own preface, the Summa is rather best regarded as a pedagogical work,
a tool for teaching skills needed for “doing” sacred doctrine. As Victor White
observes, “St. Thomas’s own treatment and arrangement will be governed, not by
the interests of the professional investigator … but … by the ordo disciplinae—the
order of learning, pedagogical method.”13 However, ingeniously, metaphysics
does play an important role for Aquinas in this aspiration. The “metaphysics” of
the Summa is the content by which Aquinas brings about his pedagogical goal of
developing the reader’s skill in religious language-use. Employing philosophy and
all other sources at his disposal, and guided by an implicit Scriptural narrative,
Aquinas assists the reader in making the essential connection between speaking
about God and knowing God lying at the root of the believer’s journey of faith
seeking understanding.
D. Question 1: Scripture as the Primary Source for Theology
Aquinas states in the Summa’s prologue that he plans to “treat of whatever

belongs to the Christian Religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of
beginners.” He refers to the matter under consideration (“whatever belongs to the
Christian Religion”) as “sacred science,” which in Question 1 he also calls “sacred
doctrine.” Aquinas has a particular perspective of “science” as well as of “sacred
doctrine” in mind, however, that he carefully lays out before proceeding further in
presenting the contents of his instruction.
Aquinas takes what was at his time a conventional understanding of “science,”
based upon translations of Aristotle circulating within the university and,
inevitably, in his religious order as well (despite earlier bans on Aristotle’s natural
philosophy).14 In order for “science” to include sacred doctrine, he must reinterpret
Aristotle for his students, because Aristotle’s method does not include a Christian
13
See White, Holy Teaching, 7. For more on sacred doctrine in medieval education,
see T.C. O’Brien, “Sacra Doctrina Revisited: The Context of Medieval Education,”
The Thomist XLI, No. 4 (1977): 475-509.
14
See Chapter 2, section B.1.b) “The Rise of Aristotle in the Dominican Order.”
concept of revelation or faith.15 Aristotle’s God, the “unmoved mover” (received

by Aquinas through Avicenna), while ultimately transcendent—that is, at the top
of the chain of creation—is not also immanently present and therefore does not
communicate or reveal itself to creation with the same immediacy and intimacy
as does the Creator God of Scripture. Aristotle’s God is far removed from creation
by a number of intermediaries while the Hebrew/Christian God creates all things
directly. However, Aquinas does show how an Aristotelian notion of science
may indeed include Revelation, and furthermore is well suited to assisting in the
journey of faith seeking understanding.
In addition to explaining sacred doctrine as a science in a modified
Aristotelian sense, Aquinas clarifies for his Dominican readers (or introduces to
his non-Dominican readers) the nature, scope, and content of “sacred doctrine.”
Aquinas’ particular interpretation of sacred doctrine is vital to his pedagogical aim,
because sacred doctrine must make the connection between speaking about God
and knowing God—for his Dominican reader, the connection between preaching
and leading others to God. Aquinas goes about making this implicit connection
through ten articles, moving from topics about the nature of theology as sacred
doctrine to the language employed by this science (particularly through its primary
source, Scripture):
1. Whether there is a need for a science outside of philosophy

2. Whether sacred doctrine is a science
3. Whether sacred doctrine is one science
4. Whether sacred doctrine is a practical science
5. Whether sacred doctrine is nobler than other sciences
6. Whether sacred doctrine is the same as Wisdom
7. Whether God is the object of sacred doctrine
8. Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument
9. Whether holy scripture should use metaphors
10. Whether a word in holy scripture may have several senses
Articles 1-8 deal with the scope, nature, and content of theology. The scope of
theology depends upon what we want to get out of it: definitive knowledge about
what God is or deepening of faith leading to salvation.16 Thus Aquinas qualifies
two different “types” of theology, metaphysics and sacred doctrine. The nature
of theology as sacred doctrine is leading others to salvation, and its content is
15
See Eugene Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: Sacred Doctrine and the
Natural Knowledge of God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 32-4.
16
The contrast between “definitive knowledge about God” and “salvation” is drawn
because Aquinas intends to dispel the misconception that knowledge about God can lead
to salvation. On the contrary he contends that salvation is not gained through knowledge
about God; this type of discursive, definitive, or positive knowledge cannot be possessed
in this life.
everything relating to God, both doctrinally and practically.17 The scope of sacred
doctrine, therefore, is much broader than that of metaphysics, and since sacred
doctrine encompasses not only topics of the existence and attributes of God, but all
things related to God, Aquinas chooses it as the theology with which the Summa is
concerned; and so too it is theology as sacred doctrine more so than metaphysics
that concerns this book. Articles 9 and 10 take up scriptural language and its
relationship to sacred doctrine. The connection between theology and Scripture
is not initially obvious from the list of articles Aquinas presents—there seems to
be a break between Article 8 on the function of argument in sacred doctrine and
Article 9, which switches from sacred doctrine to the use of metaphors in Scripture.
In fact, some scholars contend that Aquinas uses “sacred doctrine” and “sacred
scripture” interchangeably.18 However, the connection between theology and
Scripture is established very early on in the question, because the scope, nature,
and content of theology as sacred doctrine are determined by its primary authority
and source: Scripture. This determination is grounded by the soteriological goal of
sacred doctrine, as revealed through Scripture: the beatific vision, “knowing” God.19
Since this theology’s goal is ultimately soteriological, there must be an essential
link between theology (speaking about God) as sacred doctrine and coming to
know God. Aquinas ingeniously makes this connection by investigating theology
as “science”—“science” understood not merely as a body of knowledge, but as a
way or mode of knowing. However, the inclusion of sacred doctrine as a science
raises several difficulties that Aquinas must overcome: first, other sciences employ
discursive reasoning20 as their primary mode of knowing; yet, because of the
element of Revelation (the reality of God disclosed through grace) inherent in sacred
doctrine’s primary source, discursive reasoning always falls short of its theological
goal. Second, language employed by Scripture includes metaphor and other poetical
language, making clear and direct statements about God problematic at best. In effect,
it seems that trying to put sacred doctrine into the category with other sciences is
doomed to failure on the side of both faith and reason; since the object of a science is
to lead inquirers to making true statements through the human intellectual process,
“science” seems to be a poor apparatus for faith seeking understanding.
See STh, I.1.7, reply obj. 2.

17
Victor Preller asserts, “Normally, Aquinas uses the expression sacra doctrina
18
inter-changeably with sacra scriptura—and that is clearly its primary use; he also
applies it, however, to the Apostles’ Creed, the ordinary teachings of the Church, and the
speculations of the theologian. ... The prime and radical locus of sacra doctrina is the Word
of God” (Divine Science, 232).
19
The beatific vision is reserved for the “afterlife” and for those “blessed departed.”
This knowing is ultimately communion with God, a state of distinction without separation.
See Preller, Divine Science, 259-60.
20
Discursive reasoning is the movement of the mind from one conclusion to another
until the end of the reflexive process. See Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 24-5.
Discursive reasoning is understood as a linear way of thinking and is often contrasted to
other types of intellection or ways of knowing, such as “intuition.”
Aquinas is not hindered by these problems, however; instead he uses the

difficulties to his advantage, transforming in the process our very perception
of “science” itself, as well as the relationship of reason and faith. Essentially
(if implicitly), Question 1 introduces us to the direction the theologian must
take to do what “faith seeking understanding” demands: provide a way of
knowing appropriate to its incomprehensible object.21 This “way” is by necessity
non-contrastive—transcending yet encompassing discursive reasoning and the
comparisons and contrasts that this mode of knowing employs. Three strategies
in the first question help Aquinas establish the non-contrastive direction of
the Summa: he affirms first, that theology as sacred doctrine is a science, and
furthermore one that has salvation—beatific vision/knowing God—as its ultimate
goal; second, that faith plays a critical role in the method of this sacred science
(“faith seeking understanding”) not opposed to reason; and third, that sacred
doctrine employs unique and fitting mode(s) of speaking about God of which holy
Scripture is the exemplar. In the words of Marie-Dominique Chenu, “[f]aith has
its dwelling within reason, and it is thus entitled to ‘theologize.’”22 Thus Scripture,
as the original narrative of faith seeking understanding, is the constant source and
inspiration for theology.
1. Theology as Scientia
Question 1 opens with whether a doctrine of God is needed beyond philosophy.

In response to the objection that everything concerned with being, even God,
is treated within philosophy, Aquinas refers to the need for the unique type of
knowledge given in holy Scripture:
It was necessary for man’s salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed
by God, besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed,
because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his
reason: The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou has
prepared for them that wait for Thee (Isa. Lxvi.4). But the end must first be
known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it
was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human
reason should be made known to him by divine revelation.23
Here Aquinas emphasizes the essential Dominican objective: what matters is

knowledge needed to direct others towards salvation, not simply information
about God. For Aquinas, the theology that is part of philosophy, metaphysics, does
Of course, the term “object” is improper here—God is in no way an object;

21
however, it can be applied since knowing God is the objective of sacred doctrine.
22
Marie-Dominique Chenu, Is Theology a Science?, trans. A.H.N. Green-Armytage
(New York: Hawthorn, 1959), 49.
23
STh, I.1.1, reply.
not provide that knowledge. Yet there is still needed a teaching dealing with saving
knowledge revealed in Scripture, and this is called “sacred doctrine.”
In drawing this distinction between philosophy (metaphysics) and Scripture
(sacred doctrine), Aquinas implicitly raises the critical problem of reason versus
faith—since we cannot reach the knowledge we need for salvation through reason
(and even if we can get “part way” it would take much too long),24 then we must
hold it by faith. But, given the apparent dichotomy between faith and reason,
is it not futile to develop or pursue any doctrine of God?—should not reading
Scripture itself be enough? It seems even from Aquinas’ own explanation above
that the need for the type of knowledge (salvation) and the method of obtaining it
(Revelation) creates a vicious circle leaving out the process of rational intellection
and learning altogether.
The first article has raised a difficult problem for the teacher of theology: given
that knowledge “above” reason is necessary, does sacred doctrine stand on the same
footing with philosophy and other disciplines that a student is expected to master?
Following upon the necessity of revealed knowledge, Aquinas’ second article
considers whether sacred doctrine is, in fact, a science. From the first objection
it seems evident it is not, because other sciences, like philosophy, “proceed
from self-evident principles” whereas “sacred doctrine proceeds from articles of
faith which are not self evident.”25 In other words, since sacred doctrine cannot
proceed logically in the same manner as other disciplines—that is, from principles
ascertained through the reasoning process (for example, deduction, where “from
certain known things, other, unknown things are recognized”26)—then it cannot be
a science. But Aquinas will declare in Article 5 that not only is sacred doctrine a
science, but it is one more noble than other human sciences.27 In Article 2 he hints
at sacred doctrine’s exalted position among the other disciplines by referring to
Augustine: sacred doctrine is the only science whereby “saving faith is begotten,
[and] nourished.”28
The question Aquinas does not ask, but assumes, in Article 2 is more interesting
and relevant than whether sacred doctrine is a science: that is, why should we want
it to be? For sacred doctrine does not have the same goal (obtaining knowledge
about something) as the other disciplines. This question is not innocent, because it
hints there are presumptions about what a science is that may prevent us (as well as
it apparently did many of Aquinas’ own colleagues) from a faithful reading of the
Summa. If this insinuation is true, Aquinas has his work cut out for him. For, whether
sacred doctrine is a science strikes at the very heart of the process of faith seeking
understanding. We want to understand the God that we seek. And as Preller reminds
us: “[t]hat of which we cannot speak is that of which we cannot know. … In order
24
Ibid.
25
STh, I.1.2, reply obj. 1.
26
Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 26.
27
STh, I.1.5, reply.
28
STh, I.1.2, sed contra.
to talk about something, we must be able to refer to it in a meaningful way.”29 If we

cannot trust our reason in making such references to God, then how can we trust our
faith, which seems much less certain, to do so? The question of sacred doctrine’s
status as scientia anticipates the important relationship of faith and reason.
But before broaching the issue of faith’s relation to reason directly, we must
first examine what lies behind the notions of “doctrine” and “science” Aquinas
has raised: A doctrine of God beyond philosophy is necessary for salvation;
furthermore, as Aquinas’ predecessors have advanced and as Aquinas will
re-affirm a few articles later,30 this doctrine has a superior relationship with regard
to the other disciplines or “sciences.” In these first two articles Aquinas has thrust
us into the middle of the dilemma. And he has also given us a clue for finding
our way through it. By emphasizing the soteriological dimension of theology in
Article 1, he has told us that his concern is a Dominican one, and therefore we
must approach the text as a Dominican would. As discussed in Chapter 2, the
Order of Preachers carefully developed the already dynamic medieval method of
pedagogy (lecture, repetition, disputation—and to this they added preaching), and
they emphasized contemplation as their mode of study (prayer, liturgy, silence,
and acts of charity). In this light, “doctrine” and “science” have added dimensions
that must be recovered in order to perceive how Aquinas plans to proceed with this
introduction in the Summa.
Although sensitivity to pluralism and diversity developing since the latter half
of the twentieth century has certainly begun to change the pedagogy of academia,
it is probably no exaggeration to say that in the West the university is still tainted
with a rationalistic ideology. From this deeply ingrained perspective, to qualify
as “knowledge” (as opposed to a matter of opinion, for example) a proposition
or claim must be either “demonstrated” through scientific evidence or explained
by discursive and syllogistic logic.31 Aquinas, however, shows us a different way,
ironically using Aristotle, the philosopher often credited with bequeathing to us
the very principles of syllogism, as his inspiration.
As Thomas Gilby observes, “doctrine” is derived from the Latin, docere, to
teach.32 It has already been ascertained that the medieval method of teaching was
a very active one, and for the Dominican, the entire person, including his or her
spirituality, is involved in the learning process. For Aquinas, there is an intimate
connection between the teacher and the student, and the process of learning is
by no means a passive one. There are two ways of understanding the process
of learning that Aquinas rejects: first, that knowledge comes from outside of a
student and is received as if into an empty receptacle; second, that all knowledge is
29
Preller, Divine Science, 4.
30
STh, I.1.5.
31
Evidenced, for example, by the predominance of the “lecture” format of most
undergraduate courses.
32
Thomas Gilby, STh, Blackfriars translation, Appendix 5, “Sacra Doctrina,” 61.
See also White, Holy Teaching, 7-10.
already in the student and is waiting to be unlocked or unfolded.33 Rather, Aquinas

adheres to a third understanding of knowledge as potential. While knowledge
must come from external sources, through sense experience, it is not imposed
upon but actively received, interpreted, and assimilated by the student. The student
is, in effect, transformed by knowledge as well as by the process of learning, and
ultimately, through this process a bond or identity between the student and teacher
is formed.34 This understanding of doctrine, where the teacher and the student are
actively engaged, allows for the possibility that “sacred doctrine” may be a means
of uniting the student (who is also by extension the believer) with the ultimate
Teacher who is God.
Aquinas takes a similar approach when explicating how sacred doctrine is a
science. His goal is to show not only that sacred doctrine is a science, but that it is
one leading towards beatific vision—a union between the Supreme Teacher and the
student of faith. “Science” must be understood as more than a body of knowledge
obtained through demonstration. At the very least, Aquinas has something more
organic in mind.35 As Victor White observes, “the second article asks: Utrum sacra
doctrina sit scientia, whether this holy teaching is knowledge. This is sometimes
read to mean, ‘Whether theology is a science.’ But this is not what is asked.”36
White implies that “science” in the modern sense carries a specific meaning for
us that it does not for Aquinas. We are accustomed to associate “experiments” and
“demonstration” with science. Aquinas uses the term scientia much more liberally
to indicate a “way of knowing.”37 This connotation is not limited to discursive
intellection, thereby opening the way for modes of knowing other than employed
by metaphysics. In order for a science to include salvation as its goal and Scripture
as its source, its mode of knowing must include Revelation (on the part of God, the
Teacher) and faith (on the part of the human student/believer).
The objection raised in Article 2 is that in order for a doctrine to be a science, it
must “proceed from self-evident principles.”38 Responding to this objection, Aquinas
exposes and then dispels the underlying presumption that in order for a discipline
to be a mode of knowing, it must proceed by way of “natural” reason, what is often
referred to as “discursive” or “logical” reasoning. In fact, Aquinas observes, it is
not the method of reasoning that qualifies a discipline as a science, nor the logic
that can be abstracted from it, but its first principles, which may be—and often
are—“borrowed” from a higher science. Regardless of whether first principles are
“self-evident” (accessible through the reasoning process) or “borrowed” (assumed),
they somehow illuminate the object of the discipline, thus allowing the object to
33
Gilby, STh, ed. Blackfriars, Appendix 5, “Sacra Doctrina,” 59-60.
34
Ibid., 61.
35
Ibid.
36
White, Holy Teaching, 12.
37
See Preller, Divine Science, 4 and 233; White, Holy Teaching, 12-13; Rogers,
Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 34.
38
STh, I.1.2.
be “known.”39 According to Eugene Rogers, “when Thomas writes that a science

‘proceeds from first principles,’ he is not remarking on its discursivity or its logic. He
is remarking on its deep connectedness with a concrete object that gives rise to it.”40
Principles are not a set of propositions abstracted from some perceived internal
logic of a science, but the reality that holds a discipline together, the formal unity
that makes it “what it is,” and the creation of this unity involves a process. This
understanding is thoroughly Aristotelian. “Both things and thoughts, for Aristotle,
are on the way from something to something, and the whole journey hangs
together”41 by virtue of its principles: “the beginning is a first principle (archê),
the end is a final principle (telos), and the way in between is an inner principle, or
form (morphê).”42 First principles are the “unitary beginnings (archai) that make
both things and ideas work.”43
A discipline, then, is a science by virtue of the existing reality that underlies
and inheres within it, not by virtue of our ability to discover that reality through
the process of deduction or discursive thought.44 Thus sacred doctrine is more of
a science, in an Aristotelian sense, than are other human disciplines, because the
reality out of which it arises (and the object to which it aspires) is God. Since
a “discipline counts the more as an Aristotelian science the more it attends and
returns to its first principles,”45 and sacred doctrine borrows its principles from
the highest “science”—God’s self-knowledge—then sacred doctrine is a higher
or more noble science than metaphysics, which according to the objection raised
in Article 1 presupposes its principles are self-evident, demonstrable through the
process of reasoning (for example, proofs of God’s existence).
In employing Aristotle’s notion of “first principles” Aquinas goes further,
however, than showing sacred doctrine to be a higher science than metaphysics;
he “co-opts” Aristotle to re-orient his readers to a different type of “knowing”
calling for a distinct pedagogy: first, there exists a profound relationship between
the knowing subject and the object (the reality) the knower seeks; and second, the
knower does not simply obtain knowledge, but goes through a process ultimately
transformative in bringing the two together.46 In terms of sacred doctrine, the
39
According to Preller, “for us to know what God is … would be for God to be a
kind of thing, a being essentially conditioned by his relationship to contingent beings, and,
indeed, a contingent being in his own right” (Divine Science, 90-91).
40
Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 24-5.
41
Ibid., 22.
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid., 26.
44
In other words, there is a distinction between the reality that is the object of the
science and the logic that best describes it. See ibid., 24-5.
45
Ibid., 20.
46
Aquinas postulates a new mode of knowing, the “lumen gloriae, which enables the
beati to internalize that which man in via can in no way conceptualize—the ‘whatness’ or
form of God.” Preller, Divine Science, 233. Since we cannot know “what God is” in this
life, we must be concerned with the journey which draws us to God’s self-knowledge.
“concrete object” giving rise to the principles of sacred doctrine is God and God’s
own self-knowledge (although we do not normally think of God as concrete
since God is incorporeal, and as already established we should not think of God
as an object), therefore there is an intimate connection between the student of
sacred doctrine and the objective after which the student seeks: union with God.
In Chenu’s words, “[t]o know is in some sort to become the object. … In truth,
theology is a participation in God’s own knowledge of himself.”47 Despite the fact
that God’s self-knowledge radically transcends human reason, the first principles
of sacred doctrine allow for the process of knowing to take place—that is, for the
journey of faith seeking understanding to proceed—by virtue of God’s initiative
(not ours) and God’s unique distinction: transcendence-in-immanence.
Since first principles are not limited to the confines of human intellection, the
possibility for Revelation to function within a mode of knowing not only exists, but
is absolutely required for theology in its most profound sense. The first principles
of sacred doctrine are the articles of faith derived from Scripture and revealed by
God. Thus, sacred doctrine “borrows” its first principles from the highest science,
the “science of God and the blessed”; this is God’s knowledge of God’s-self and
the knowledge disclosed to the departed blessed who are now reunited with God.48
“A real science enjoys its scientific character ‘not just on account of the play of
categories, judgments, and syllogisms in it;’ it enjoys scientific character just
‘because an object shows itself, because a real source of light presents itself.’”49
Revelation found in Scripture is just that: God’s presenting God’s-self through the
events and persons of human history. The articles of faith derived from Scripture
sacred doctrine borrows as its first principles are truly Revealed principles.
Rogers clarifies the relationship between “borrowed first principles” and
Revelation. In some way, “borrowing” principles from a higher science is itself
a kind of revelation, no matter what science we consider, because principles are
presumed, not demonstrated, within the confines of the discipline itself (even if
they can be demonstrated).50 For example, the melody a musician plays is based
upon mathematics (arrangement of patterns, meter, scale, and so on), although
the musician may know nothing about mathematics at all: the musician is
unconcerned about mathematics; he cares about music.51 However, the principles
of music are implicitly revealed through the practice of his art; a mathematician
listening to the music may be very aware of the specific mathematical character
of the melody—and may even take more pleasure in the music because of this
recognition. The mathematician is able to render explicit the mathematics revealed
through the operation of the music, even though the average listener and the
47
Chenu, Is Theology a Science?, 23-4.
48
Ibid., 90-91.
49
Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 24 (emphasis mine).
50
See STh, I.1.8, reply.
51
See Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 26, for more on the relationship
between mathematics and music.
musician are not required to know math in order to enjoy or play the music. As this
example illustrates, any given science is dependent to some extent on revelation,
because the discipline relies on principles to which it is has no immediate access
in order to function; demonstration or explanation of first principles is not a part of
the discipline itself. The most important point of this example is that there exists
a “deep connectedness” between the higher science lending its principles and the
science receiving them, and, since those principles are what makes the lower science
“work”—indeed, according to Aristotle they operate at every level from beginning
to end of it52—they are revealed practically within the science that borrows them.
It may certainly be beneficial in mastering an art to study the principles which
inhere within it. Following the example above, if a musician desires (and is
intellectually inclined) to understand the first principles of this discipline, it is
possible to do so; the musician can study math and it may be demonstrated how
mathematics and music are connected. But this is not the case for sacred doctrine.
The first principles of sacred doctrine, revealed by the highest science, the
scientia Dei, cannot be demonstrated, because God is ineffable, and we therefore
have no direct access to God’s knowledge. The difference between the revelations
to which other human sciences are privy and the Revelation upon which sacred
doctrine relies is not simply a matter of degree, but of kind, for the Revelation of
Scripture is imparted by a reality “outside” of the created world,53 a Creator who is
not a being within the created order—indeed not a type of being at all. Therefore,
the knowledge obtained through sacred doctrine also differs in kind from that of
other human sciences, and the identification or participation that is the end or goal
of this science is one of a unique union, a transformation on the part of the student
far outreaching other human disciplines. As Rogers remarks,
Thomas pursues a science that proceeds from principles that lie outside the
world…. Under those circumstances, to proceed from first principles must
therefore mean to proceed from … revealed first principles—no longer in the
straightforward sense in which all science proceeds from the revelations of
existing things, but now in the radically theological sense in which a revelation
sheds a light that goes beyond the created tendency to associate being with the
deliverances of our natural conceptual scheme and requires an intentionality
empowered by God’s elevating agency.54
This “radically theological sense” to which Rogers refers is the very orientation
Aquinas is driving at in Question 1. Unlike a specifically philosophical sense that
52
As Rogers explains Aristotle: “the beginning is a first principle (archê), the end is
a final principle (telos), and the way in between is an inner principle, or form (morphê).”
Ibid., 22.
53
“Outside” of the created world must be understood non-contrastively and
metaphorically, of course, since nothing is outside of God.
54
Rogers, Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 41.
strives to analyse (for example, in the case of metaphysics, analysis of God’s

existence, nature, and attributes), theology in its deepest sense aspires to change
the lives of those who consider its “object” (God), to arouse an awareness of the
deep connectedness between the principles of theology (doctrine) and its practical
operation (Christian forms of life), and to move its subjects closer to its ultimate
goal (beatific vision). Like other disciplines, sacred doctrine has its own object and
principles. Its radically theological nature suggests two aspects proper to sacred
doctrine alone: first, sacred doctrine enjoys access to knowledge other disciplines
do not by virtue of its divinely revealed principles; second, sacred doctrine’s
objective is ultimately soteriological. However, a further aspect of science now
must be considered: its specific mode of knowing.
Aquinas hints in the first article that sacred doctrine has its own proper mode of
knowing, by virtue of its revealed first principles: since the goal of sacred doctrine
lies “outside” of human discursive intellection, its first principles are not subject
to demonstration. The revealed first principles of sacred doctrine must be taken
on “faith.” Therefore, the mode of knowing that operates in sacred doctrine must
include “faith” on the part of the theologian as well as on the part of the one
to whom this doctrine is imparted. But Aquinas must carefully explicate exactly
how “faith” operates in this discipline in a way compatible with our “rational” or
discursive manner of thinking, for preachers and teachers under his tutelage must
learn how to articulate to their audiences the connection between the believer’s
faith (manifested in Christian forms of life) and the Church’s doctrine (which is
often expressed propositionally) in order to lead them forward in their search to
know God.
2. Faith and Reason
In the opening articles of Question 1, Aquinas establishes sacred doctrine as a

science, a way of knowing, despite (and ever because of) the fact it relies on
Revelation; now he must show that sacred doctrine is a way of knowing
originating in faith but proceeding by reason. The problem lies in the tendency to
oppose faith and reason, consequently undercutting theology’s reason for being
(to render explicit our conceptions of God) as well as the traditional conviction, so
eloquently expressed by Augustine, that the human creature’s particular rational
nature is vital to its end in God.55 It is within the context of human creatures’
endless questioning to understand their destiny that faith in God, as well as hope
for salvation, evolves. Hence, the paradox: faith must be related to reason—the
question of faith only arises because of our (so-called) rational nature (as far as we
know, other creatures do not have faith in God). But the contents of faith transcend
the boundaries of reason, and therefore faith cannot originate in or be generated
by discursive thought. Indeed Christianity adamantly asserts that faith exists only
through grace, God’s free gift of self-communication and not through our efforts;
55
Augustine, Confessions, I.
it is not because we are rational creatures that we are united with our Creator.
It is because the Creator freely willed such a personal and intimate union with
the human creature that it was created with a rational nature and graced with an
incipient awareness and direction towards its Source.56
Once again, Aquinas must examine certain presumptions germane to our
conception of faith. The first presumption is to see faith as another type of reason
or further knowledge sharply contrasted to our natural mode of intellection
(that is, discursive thinking). The second presumption is understanding faith as
replacing reason. In both cases, faith is opposed to reason rather than compatible
with it. Furthermore, both presumptions prevent the reader from perceiving
how Aquinas adapts Aristotle to his own end throughout the Summa, and from
following the non-contrastive directive of the Summa. His adaptation is so subtle
it can lead to a reading of the Summa as a work of metaphysics.
Three articles in the first question contribute to re-visioning a relationship
between faith and reason that, in compliance with Aquinas’ intent, is essentially
non-contrastive. Article 5 re-affirms the superiority of sacred doctrine over
other human sciences, first by virtue of its certitude, transcending the certainty
human reason can attain, and second because of the worth of its higher subject
matter, God—even extending to the discipline’s practical goal, the beatific vision.
Article 6 identifies sacred doctrine with “wisdom above all human wisdom”
because it derives its principles from divine knowledge, which orders and
prioritizes (in other words, judges) knowledge gained through human reason.
Finally, Article 8 asserts that sacred doctrine employs human reason, not to prove
faith, but to clarify faith assertions upon which Church doctrine is formed. In this
article Aquinas explicitly treats the vital relationship between faith and reason.
Reason does not function to prove the tenets of faith; rather the reverse: faith
re-forms and re-orients reason, ultimately imbuing all human knowledge with
existential meaning. As will become clear, all three of these articles imply that,
rather than being opposed to reason, faith provides our rational intellection with
its foundation and direction; non-contrastively speaking, faith becomes the ground
and source of rational intellection about God.
In Article 5 Aquinas responds to the objection that, since the principles of
sacred doctrine are articles of faith, which can be doubted, sacred doctrine is
less noble than other sciences, whose principles can be shown to be certain. The
stated premise of this objection is that the nobility of a science depends upon the
To preserve the distinction between grace and nature, we must qualify that the
56
end to which our natures are directed is freely bestowed by God: human beings may have
been created rational creatures with no awareness of God—human intellection need not
necessarily have been involved in the process of salvation or being drawn back to the
Creator. Furthermore, Christianity holds that even human creatures with extremely limited
intellectual abilities are directed towards God. The task remains for theology to revise its
notions about what “rational” means, and what essential role persons with such disabilities
play in salvation.
certitude it establishes. But the unstated presumption is that faith can never lead
to certitude, because it cannot be reached through demonstration or discursive
reasoning. Aquinas accepts the precept connecting “nobility” to “certitude” but
attacks the underlying presumption that faith cannot lead to certitude because it is
opposed to reason.
To the premise that the nobility of a science depends on its certitude, Aquinas
adds, with regard to “speculative” sciences, that nobility can also depend on the
worth of the subject matter, and with regard to the “practical” sciences, to the ultimate
goal or “further purpose” to which the science aspires. It is clear where Aquinas’
additional qualification is leading: obviously sacred doctrine is more noble than
other sciences because its “subject matter” is the highest possible subject matter,
God, and its goal the ultimate end, “eternal bliss” (in which all things relating
to God participate).57 Thus, because sacred doctrine covers both speculative and
practical aspects of theology, it is even more noble than metaphysics, which is
primarily a speculative discipline. Furthermore, Aquinas’ additional qualification
that sacred doctrine is both speculative and practical justifies the entire contents
of the Summa, both the doctrinal (speculative) and the moral (practical) sections.
But Aquinas does not abandon the issue of certitude; rather, in Article 5 he
uses the notion of “certitude” to begin laying the foundation for aligning faith
with reason that he further develops in Article 6 and makes explicit in Article 8.
In Article 5 Aquinas asserts that what we take to be less certain in this life may
indeed be more certain in reality, but because of the weakness of our intelligence,
we simply are not able to ascertain it.58 The rationale for this statement has already
been given in previous articles: there is an ultimate reality beyond ourselves
which we seek and the issue is whether or not and if so how we can access
that reality. This reality is the highest reality, God. Since this divine reality is
beyond ordinary rational intellection, knowledge of it cannot be realized through
discursive reasoning; only God and the blessed are privy to it. This fact, however,
does not diminish the objective certainty of that knowledge. In other words, God’s
knowledge is certain and irrefutable knowledge and is no less certain because we
cannot demonstrate it. Therefore, holding something by faith does not necessarily
mean it is less certain than what has been demonstrated. To follow our example of
music and mathematics, just because a musician does not know math—or perhaps
has no aptitude for math—does not mean the principles of mathematics operate
any less through the music, or the music is less mathematical in nature.
Likewise, holding articles derived from Scripture by faith does not mean the
knowledge revealed by God in Scripture is simply opinion without any objective
reality until it is proved through demonstration. In fact, Christianity asserts that
belief in God is not holding an opinion about whether or not God exists—faith
in God has existential implications for one’s entire life. Proving that a god exists
See also STh, I.1.7, reply obj. 1; I.1.3, reply.

57
However, Aquinas gives much credit to the human intellect, which is actively
58
involved in the faith journey.

does not prove one must or ought to relate to it; take, for example, Avicenna’s
unmoved mover, who operates through intermediaries, and is therefore too far
removed to touch the daily concerns of one’s ordinary life. This is why, to preview
the dilemma raised by the next question of the Summa, proofs of the existence of
God typically fail to move an unbeliever to faith, and are therefore not the main
objective of theology (especially of sacred doctrine), a point Aquinas foreshadows
in Question 1, Article 8.59 Faith in God has implications that opinion and even
belief do not. According to Berard Marthaler:
In the New Testament, pistis [faith] is made to incorporate the meaning of several
Hebrew words that suggest the trust and confidence one puts in a person or a
person’s word because that person is judged trustworthy and dependable. Old
Testament faith meant that the Israelites committed themselves to Yahweh and
accepted with full confidence that the word spoken by God would be fulfilled. …
In the Gospels, faith connotes the trust and confidence that arise from accepting
the person of Jesus and his claims.60
Marthaler contrasts this dynamic Scriptural understanding of faith with the notion
of “belief” we tend to hold today:
Whereas to believe originally meant to hold dear and clearly implied a strong
personal commitment based on trust, it now connotes an element of uncertainty,
and even when addressed to a person—“I believe you”—it signals a minimum of
trust and does not imply commitment. … “Faith” and “belief,” as defined in our
modern dictionaries, are not synonymous. Faith is more than believing. It rests on
the kind of certitude that is implied in the phrase “believing in.” Faith establishes
a personal relationship. But strictly speaking one has faith—believes—only in
a person.61
The proposition “I believe that God exists,” for example, is open to revision if
it could be demonstrated through physical evidence that such a being could not
exist. However, if one assumes that God does exist and asks the further question
of the implications of believing in—having a personal relationship with—God, the
STh, I.1.8, reply.

59
Berard Marthaler, The Creed: The Apostolic Faith in Contemporary Theology,

60
revised ed. (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1993), 22.

61
Ibid., 23-4. Marthaler states the classic distinction of St. Augustine: “credere Deo
(to believe on God’s authority), credere Deum [esse] (to believe that God exists), and credere
in Deum (to believe in God). Only this last illustrates true faith. Medieval theologians
repeated St. Augustine’s threefold distinction, with Aquinas asserting all three as aspects
of the single act of faith” (24). See also Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), esp. ch. 5, “Credo and the Roman Catholic
Church,” 69-104 and ch. 6, “The English Word ‘Believe,’” 105-27.
proposition now takes on great existential significance. Faith is therefore not an

abstract concept, but is directly related to the believer’s concrete situation:
An act of faith that does not take the world and the human condition seriously
does not, in effect, accept God as the ground of all being. It implies that God is
finite and an entity apart from the created universe. The locus of faith, like the
proper place for prayer, is not a niche in a corner of one’s life, a space, however
small or large, where “religious” activity and perhaps ethical decisions take
place. Faith is more like the atmosphere, fresh air that permeates and enlivens
every hour of individual and communal life, waking and sleeping, work and
leisure, production and consumption. Where faith is concerned, there are no
gaps. … In making an act of faith a person exercises a fundamental choice that
defines one’s views about reality, about what is important and what is not, about
what is moral and immoral. Faith is not an optional accessory one adds like a
fireplace in a house or air-conditioning in an automobile.62
Marthaler’s distinction between “faith” and “belief” implies not only that faith
plays an essential role in shaping Christian forms of life, but further, that faith
provides a function unique with regard to proofs and demonstrations; in other
words, it is not merely a replacement for proof. This function becomes clear in
Article 8 as the misperception that faith versus reason evaporates.
But Article 6 first makes a critical and rather bold move which further erodes
the presumption that faith is opposed to reason by identifying sacred doctrine
with wisdom, a step above and beyond Aquinas’ assertion in Article 5 that sacred
doctrine is privy to certain and irrefutable knowledge. Not only is the knowledge
of sacred doctrine certain, it is “wisdom above all human wisdom.”63 By moving
from certainty to wisdom Aquinas has a very specific intent in mind; he not
only further disintegrates the notion that demonstration or proof is essential to
knowledge, but he replaces it with the method of study rooted in contemplation.
By demoting the importance of demonstration as a mode of knowing, Aquinas is
ready to reposition faith with regard to reason, and by implicitly raising the notion
of contemplation, he moves us a step closer to the language of Scripture as the
foundation for theology’s speech about God.
The objection raised in Article 6 is that sacred doctrine cannot be the same as
wisdom because “part of wisdom is to prove the principles of other sciences,” a
task that we know sacred doctrine cannot do, for its principles are revealed in the
most profound sense of the word. Aquinas fells the postulate that proving is a task
of wisdom with one swift blow: wisdom does not prove, but arranges and judges.
“The wise … arrange and judge … [using] the light of some higher principle” to
judge lesser matters.64 Since sacred doctrine uses the highest principles, borrowed
62
Marthaler, The Creed, 27-8.
63
STh, I.1.6, reply.
64
Ibid.
(that is, revealed) from the scientia Dei, then sacred doctrine is more wise than any
other human science.
The act of judging serves a very different end than that of proving something.
To prove or disprove something is simply to say whether it is or is not true; to
judge something is to evaluate its worth and prioritize its importance among other
things. For example, in the well-known story, King Solomon discerns that the life
of a newborn infant is more important to the babe’s true mother than her claim to
it.65 He does not seek proof of motherhood through physical or biological evidence
(even if he could have access to DNA testing, we assume he would not), because
for him wisdom dictates that life has priority over possession, and that motherhood
is more about nurturing children than being biologically related to them. In order
to wisely judge the case before him he must evaluate and interpret the details
presented to him.
Wisdom, acting as judge, interprets and arranges knowledge. Recall in Article 5
that Aquinas discerns that sacred doctrine is above other sciences by virtue of its
subject matter and objective. So, because of its elevated status, which rises to
the level of wisdom, sacred doctrine has the task of judging other disciplines,
interpreting and ordering them to its own end. This is why Aquinas, quoting
Proverbs 9:3, “Wisdom sent her maids to invite to the tower,” asserts that “[o]ther
sciences are called the handmaidens of this one [sacred doctrine].”66
Sacred doctrine derives its principles from divine knowledge, “through which,
as through the highest wisdom, all our knowledge is set in order.”67 Remember, the
Revelation upon which sacred doctrine is built differs in kind from other sciences
in that it is concerned with a different type of knowledge—not knowledge about
God, but knowing God, a pursuit that transcends the realm of ordinary experience
to personal identification with our Divine Source—and therefore demonstration
does not render the type of knowledge sought by sacred doctrine; demonstration
yields knowledge about something in the world (that is, whether or not something
exists, how it is structured, and so forth). We typically say, then, that the principles
of sacred doctrine must be held by faith. But the fact that we are dealing with a
different type of knowledge should in turn indicate that “faith” functions differently
than demonstration.
Aquinas’ discussion of wisdom implies this very point: since the principles
of sacred doctrine are held by faith and not by demonstration, and since we are
seeking something different than ordinary knowledge, then faith does not simply
replace demonstration, but functions in a way proper to its own discipline. If sacred
doctrine is wisdom, whose task it is to judge, then faith assists in the interpretation
and arrangement of the knowledge obtained through sacred doctrine, and, by
virtue of its higher subject matter, all knowledge obtained by the other human
disciplines as well. Faith, then, is not opposed to demonstration, because it has a
65
1 Kg 3:16-27.
66
67
STh, I.1.6, obj. 1.
different function: demonstration provides proof; faith requires (and provides the
means for) interpretation. Thus, if demonstrations reveal the truth or existence of
something, then faith judges the importance and meaning of that something. With
regard to sacred doctrine, believers assume God exists, and seek why and how
God’s existence is relevant to their lives.
But before moving on to articulate how faith manages this task, Aquinas wants
to open up a specific avenue of learning for his reader, one proper to its task.
The objection raised in Article 6 is that sacred doctrine cannot be the same as
wisdom because it is “acquired by study, whereas wisdom is acquired by God’s
inspiration.” The same presumption of which Aquinas desires to rid us inheres
within this objection: that faith (given through grace, God’s inspiration) is opposed
to the reasoning process (study). In order to achieve his end, Aquinas qualifies the
term “judging”: There are two kinds of judging, one gained by virtue of the judge,
who is the measure of the act, and the second due to knowledge gained through
study, which does not originate within the one judging. The first type of judging
stems from grace. The judging that belongs to sacred doctrine is “acquired by
study, though its principles are obtained by revelation.”68
The second type of judging is likened to the abilities that a human judge must
acquire through the active process of learning, say, law school and practice on
the bench. However, the measure or standard used by sacred doctrine in the act
of judging comes from elsewhere (outside of the theologian’s own power of
reasoning), and this measure is revealed—that is, given by grace—in Scripture by
God who is in reality the measure itself.
If we recall the Dominican method of learning, there is no contradiction
between the active life and the “graced” life—in other words, between study
and contemplation. For we must now understand contemplation to involve every
dimension of the religious life—and these dimensions are all ground in Scripture.
Both types of judging are involved in sacred doctrine; the ultimate judge, God,
lends the measure that the human judge, sacred doctrine (and by extension, the
theologian and believer), “studies.” Sacred doctrine holds the place of wisdom
both by grace and by study. We must therefore continually return to Scripture to
discern how and why God gives meaning to our lives, for Scripture contains the
original example for this expression. Far from hindering that Wisdom held by
faith, study actively engages it through contemplation.
This method of study is non-contrastive. It does not seek data or information,
but attempts to arrange and prioritize the contents of faith (articles, doctrine) in
such a way that the believer is led back towards God who is both transcendent
and immanent. As Aquinas has indicated, since the scope of sacred doctrine
comprises anything relating to God, all human sciences are servants to this end.
Thus, sacred doctrine employs its method of study through contemplation in
order to interpret and direct knowledge gained by human disciplines, whether
specifically theological (as is metaphysics) or not (as are mathematics and music),
68
STh, I.1.6, obj. 3.
towards its soteriological end. By identifying sacred doctrine with Wisdom,

Aquinas has begun to raise our awareness regarding the role of faith in the
reasoning process—faith provides a lens or filter through which reason may be
directed towards God. In other words, faith refocuses the intellect in such a way
that the unique Creator–creature relationship is preserved: we are not seeking an
impersonal, distant deity, nor a god who is a superior version of creation, but a
God who is the ground and source of creation.
Article 8 finally makes this role of faith explicit by deconstructing the remaining
perception of faith’s opposition to reason. Aquinas achieves this task by considering
whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument. Of course, the groundwork
has already been laid, the main contentions already worked out; Aquinas only
needs to re-articulate them. Aquinas highlights two misunderstandings about
faith constituting the presumption that faith and reason are opposed: first, that
faith can replace reason; second, that faith is a kind of knowledge above reason.
Against these misperceptions, Aquinas suggests that faith employs reason in order
to lend meaning to everything within the realm of human knowledge; nothing,
even proofs of God’s existence and other information obtained through argument,
is irrelevant. Faith allows knowledge from every discipline to participate in the
believer’s journey back to its Source.
The objection is raised that sacred doctrine is not a matter of argument, because
it is based on the weakest form of proof, argument from authority, which, in the
case of sacred doctrine must be held on faith. In contrast to this, the objection
assumes, reason is the strongest form of argument. Following his previous articles,
Aquinas reiterates that proof is not what sacred doctrine is after. However, human
reasoning holds an important place in sacred doctrine’s objective; “sacred doctrine
makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for thereby the merit
of faith would come to an end), but to make clear other things that are put forward
in this doctrine.” Aquinas continues,
since therefore grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it, natural reason
should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity.
Hence the Apostle says, “Bringing into captivity every understanding unto the
obedience of Christ.”69
The presumption that faith and reason are opposed is uncovered and consequently
deconstructed in three ways in this text. First, reason and faith have different
functions. Reason is supposed to clarify the articles of faith, not prove them.
Their truth and certainty are already assumed by virtue of the subject matter’s
existential importance to the believer. In other words, it has already been judged
that the subject matter of sacred doctrine has priority over obtaining other kinds of
knowledge. Second, reason should therefore minister to faith, for faith possesses
the superior function. In Aquinas’ analogy of the relationship between charity and
STh, I.1.8, obj. 2.

69
the will, it is charity that holds the superior position, giving direction to the will.
The will is not in competition with charity, but is a vehicle for it—after all, an act
cannot be considered charitable if it is forced. However, if it is to comply with
charity then an act must be performed for no other motivation than that dictated by
charity: disinterested piety.
Likewise, faith directs reason to its own end, not the other way around. For
example, so-called proofs of God’s existence rarely lead to faith in God. Even
belief in the existence of God does not necessarily lead to faith. Rather, God’s
existence is assumed, and believers’ faith in God directs their reasons—as well as
their actions—to the end of communion with God. Faith must direct reason, for
any rumination or action that is directed by any other motivation than disinterested
piety will not achieve faith’s intended goal.
Finally, faith suffuses rational intellection about God with existential meaning,
consequently transforming—that is, perfecting—reason and, by extension, the
rational creature. Human reasoning about God is thus formed and informed by
faith. To put it in Marthaler’s terms, faith provides the “atmosphere that permeates”
our reflections about and actions with regard to God. This is very different than
saying that human reasoning yields propositions or definitive knowledge about
God. Such knowledge (if it could exist) would be neutral, it would not answer
the questions of why God is meaningful and relevant to our lives and how we
are united to God; but faith actually brings us towards the answer, by identifying
with the Source itself. The end result of faith’s guidance is not information or
data, but communion with the object of that knowledge. So not only are the two
compatible with each other, but reason in fact depends upon faith; faith makes
all things under God reasonable and the intellectual quest to know God possible.
We cannot therefore say that faith replaces reason. In fact, we must say that faith
calls for reason; it compels the process of intellection to move beyond itself and
bring the believer with it.
As Article 8 clarifies, the tenet, “faith perfects reason,” though a familiar
phrase, is empty if we operate under the presumption that faith and reason are
opposed. The misperception that faith replaces reason or is additional knowledge
must be dispelled in order for a non-contrastive train of thought to develop.
As Preller remarks:
The popular notion that natural reason can take us part of the way toward God
and thus supply us with a logical platform from which we can take a “leap of
faith” fails to discern the locus of the problem. … The propositions of natural
theology … postulate the “reality” of a meta-empirical being to which no
significant and intelligible reference can be made.70
The concept of a “leap of faith” is contrary to a non-contrastive grasp of the

Creator–human relationship because it breaks the continuity between faith
70
and reason. In other words, a “leap of faith” tries to bypass rational intellection
altogether; it supposes that we want to know “what God is” and because of our
intellectual limitations, cannot do so naturally. “Faith” operating in “leap of faith”
is understood as a kind of supernatural knowledge above natural knowledge. This
faith-knowledge does not engage (let alone perfect) our intellect in a meaningful way.
A non-contrastive understanding of the Creator–human relationship supposes
that what we desire is “knowledge” that is existentially significant. A leap of faith
cannot produce this end because it is not reasonable—it cannot supply our intellect
with reasons why or how speech about God is relevant to our lives. Rather, faith
must supply our rational intellection precisely with such “reasons” yet it can do so
only if faith directs intellection about God towards its goal.
Faith is a perfection [of reason] because it is not merely an extension … of the

natural powers of the intellect. Faith perfects the language of natural reason by
enabling it to do what it cannot do on its own—point toward the God of faith. …
Faith, then, perfects the language of natural reason by giving to it a referential
value that it cannot achieve on its own.71
Thus, faith judges (re-prioritizes, arranges) knowledge in such a way that “what”
is interpreted as “why” and “how”; and “why” and “how” are the atmosphere that
shapes and guides our knowledge, which terminates in our actions. This is the
process whereby faith perfects reason.
Non-contrastively speaking, faith judges knowing God above knowledge
about God in level of importance. Knowledge about God (if indeed we can have
any at all)72 as well as knowledge about human acts and the created world assists
in the faith journey. As Preller puts it, “just as no object in the world can be judged
intelligible without the natural light of reason, so also no particular object can
be judged salvific without the supernatural light of faith.”73 Far from replacing
reason, faith directs and transforms rational intellection to the human creature’s
soteriological end. “The application of the light of faith to certain empirical
events … makes present to the intellect nonempirical aspects of those same events,
their soteriological efficacy.”74 The illumination of an event’s soteriological
significance (for example, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) allows
us to direct our thoughts and actions to that particular end.
Furthermore, theological reflection directed by faith moves believers’ thoughts
and actions in a properly non-contrastive direction, so that Christian forms of life
may be better aligned with the Church’s faith claims. It is one task of theologians
to ensure faith statements not be taken improperly, because the result is practices
Ibid., 181.
71
See STh, I.1.9, obj. 3 (“Magis enim manifestatur nobis de ipso quid non est quam
72
quid est”) and I.3 (“Sed quia de Deo scire non possumus quid set sed quid non sit”).
73
74
Ibid., 252.
which do not appropriately reflect the faith of the Church. A closer examination
of the following two articles reveals that when we encounter speech about God
that is, on the one hand, articulated using ordinary language (as it must be) but,
on the other hand, fails to capture the depth of our religious experience (as it
inevitably does) we should conclude such statements must be referring to a reality
uniquely distinct from anything in our created experience—for our salvation lies
“outside” of the world, that is, outside of our ordinary concerns of daily survival.
Therefore, we can (and do) say more about God than we can know about God.
Through Question 1’s articles, Aquinas lays the groundwork for the connection
between speaking about God and knowing God.
3. Scripture and Speech about God
If the mode of knowing employed by sacred doctrine (Revelation on the part of

God and faith seeking understanding on the part of the theologian) is unique, then
its mode of expression must also be unique. In Question 1, Article 7, Aquinas
speaks generally of theology as the “treating” of God;75 his purpose here is to
defend the inclusion of practical theology within the science of sacred doctrine.
However, the etymology of the word “theo-logy,” God-talk, is also very relevant
to Aquinas’ objective. Of course, “theo” refers to god or that which relates to
god. But for Christianity, the second half of “theo-logy”—derived from logos
(speech)—also has a particularly profound meaning, for we refer to the second
person of the Trinity as the Logos or Word (who as incarnate is Jesus Christ),
and liturgically we extend this reference to holy Scripture as the “Word of God.”
Furthermore, scriptural interpretation of Logos is often Wisdom, and therefore
Aquinas’ identification in Article 6 of sacred doctrine with “wisdom above all
human wisdom” is especially ingenious: speaking about God (theologizing)
is connected to divine Wisdom, which in its perfected end is beatific vision, a
participating in God’s self-knowledge—and even in this life, as the Song of Songs
poetically attests, we “know” God through an inchoate awareness as the one we
must seek and with whom we yearn to be reunited.
The essential connection of scriptural language to Christian theology is in
no way lost on Aquinas. Aquinas asserts not only that Scripture is the primary
source for sacred doctrine, but that the language Scripture employs, far from being
a hindrance, is particularly appropriate to the theologian’s ultimate purpose of
leading others towards God. It may even be inferred that Aquinas believes one
cannot really do theology without Scripture and its poetical language, and thus
there is no true theology other than sacred doctrine.76 The conclusion that sacred
75
STh, I.1.7, reply.
76
Rogers emphasizes the Christo-centric character of the Summa, easily
overlooked unless one pays attention to the structure and implicit references in
Question 1 (Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth, 58-70). Christian theology cannot be solely
based on metaphysics, because metaphysics is not compelled to consider the Word incarnate.
doctrine, by virtue of its divinely-inspired source, is the only true Christian

theology is justified by the last two articles of Aquinas’ first question. These
articles move from the nature, scope, and content of sacred doctrine to its proper
mode of expression.
Article 9 considers whether holy Scripture should use metaphors, and Article 10
considers whether a word in Scripture may have several senses. Aquinas establishes
the place of Scripture as the primary source for sacred doctrine in Article 1, so we
must assume Article 9—whether Scripture employs metaphors—extends to the
question of whether sacred doctrine itself should employ or rely on any source
using language in such an imprecise and indirect manner; indeed, as stated earlier,
there is even some question as to whether Aquinas equates sacred doctrine with
Scripture in this article.77 But, as Article 10 explains, there is at least one essential
distinction between the language of sacred doctrine and the language of Scripture,
and that is the place of the so-called “spiritual senses,” which exist only in
Scripture, thus eliminating any true equating of the Scripture and sacred doctrine.
This apparent inconsistency in Article 9 between Aquinas’ use of Scripture and
sacred doctrine does, however, implicitly direct us to the underlying issue, which
takes a more concrete form when we get to Question 13. There we find Aquinas’
explicit treatment of analogy, which tackles how we can refer to God at all, be
it in a Scriptural context or in a theological one, without violating either God’s
transcendence or God’s immanence.
As the first chapter of this book indicates, the problem with religious language
is in the tendency to believe theologians are somehow able to translate the poetical
language of Scripture into concrete propositions (for example, articles of faith,
doctrine), and in so doing, allow us to make direct references to or statements
about God. Aquinas tells us straight out in Article 9 that it is not possible for
theology to translate the language of Scripture into purely non-metaphorical
language. Furthermore, all of the articles leading up to Articles 9 and 10 have
consistently maintained that is not what sacred doctrine intends to do; while sacred
doctrine is by necessity expressed in a much more “discursive” manner than its
primary source, Scripture, the purpose of this science is not to define, describe, or
demonstrate God.78
The task of theology is to render concrete our conceptions of God, but for
sacred doctrine not in order to define what God is—rather, to exercise our skills of
extending ordinary language beyond itself when referring to the Divine, and thus
pave a pathway for faith seeking understanding to proceed. The skill of extending
language continually raises our awareness that the One we seek is not a being in
the universe or part of the universe, but One who—while radically transcending
In Article 7, sacred doctrine is one science that treats not only the divine, but all matters
relating to the divine, including human “things and signs; or the works of salvation; or the
whole Christ, as the head and members.”
77
See, for example, Preller, Divine Science, 232.
78
See, for example, Chenu, Is Theology a Science?, 74-5.
the created world—is also intimately present within it. Through speaking about
God in such a way that this awareness develops, one is imperceptibly drawn closer
to knowing God, a knowledge that respects, even intensifies, a sense of God’s
incomprehensible Mystery.
The objections to Article 9 highlight the misperception that the purpose of
sacred doctrine is translating Scripture into propositions describing the Divine.
The first two objections allege metaphorical language is not fitting for a primary
source of theology, first because metaphor is the mode of expression proper to
poetry, and second because this type of language obscures truth, contrary to the
intent of sacred doctrine which is to make truth clear. A further objection is offered
that, assuming we could accept metaphorical language for doing theology, we
should at least use representations taken from higher creatures, “yet in Scripture
representations are often taken from the lower creatures.”
Aquinas answers all of these objections by referring to sacred doctrine’s true
task: Divine Revelation does not allow those “within whom revelation is made”
to rest in metaphors, “but raises them to the knowledge of truths; and through
those to whom the revelation has been made others also may receive instruction
in these matters.”79 Again, as in previous articles, the role of the intellect does not
contradict but serves faith, for “[t]he very hiding of truth in figures is useful for
the exercise of thoughtful minds.”80 Therefore, the use of metaphorical language is
valuable to theology, both in “exercising” believers on their journey of faith and in
“elevating” theologians and believers to Divine truth. We must infer, however, that
when Aquinas refers to the “knowledge of truths,” he does not mean discursive
knowledge about God, but the kind of knowledge that cleaves the believer to
God—a type of knowledge that cannot be realized directly in this life.81
Furthermore, as Eckhart will better express for us than does Aquinas, the
type of knowledge attained through sacred doctrine is never intended, even in the
“after-life,” for any kind of discursive expression. When the blessed creature is
reunited with its ultimate Source and End, there is no need at all for propositions;
for, detached from all creaturely limitations, the very function of speech—to bring
the hearer closer to that subject which is being addressed—is now altogether
vanquished. The creature and Creator now enjoy an identity of distinction without
separation. Therefore, there is no subject about which to speak. For instance, in
one of his German works, Eckhart queries:
But now I ask: “What is the prayer of a heart that has detachment?” And to
answer it I say that purity in detachment does not know how to pray … [A] heart
79
STh, I.1.9, obj. 2.
80
Ibid.
81
According to Preller, Aquinas ordinarily uses “scire” for “know,” and never in
connection with cognitions of God through natural reason. Cognito and cognoscere are
the broadest possible generic terms, referring to any state of mind connected with the
apprehension of reality (Divine Science, 32).
in detachment asks for nothing, nor has it anything of which it would gladly be
free. … And as the soul attains this, it loses its name and it draws God into itself,
so that in itself it becomes nothing.82
For Eckhart, when the transcendent-yet-immanent Creator and the creature are
reunited, even the medium of language disappears, for it no longer has a purpose.
Not only the assertions, claims, and statements which are expressed by propositions,
but even prayer—even naming—disappears, so intimate and personal a knowing
is that to which the restless soul aspires. In order to express such an immediate
sense of the Creator–creature relationship, Eckhart stretches language as far as he
possibly can: to the extent of paradox.
However, before Eckhart’s bold language of “detachment” can be appreciated
and grasped in the deeply orthodox way intended, we must come to realize by
its very nature (and by necessity, in this life) theology calls for a distinct mode
of speaking which inevitably remains “metaphorical” in a very broad sense of
the word. The problem then becomes: how are we able to navigate around the
difficulties inherent to such imprecise language? The answer to which Aquinas
directs us lies in Question 13: through analogical language-use. But in Question 1,
Article 9 he foreshadows and prepares his readers for his understanding of analogy
by indicating the use of ordinary language in preserving God’s unique distinction.
Responding to the objections that similitudes (such as metaphor) proper to
poetry, the lowest science, obscure truth and are unfitting for the highest human
science, Aquinas replies that due to the capacity of the human intellect which relies
on sensible objects, spiritual truths must be expressed verbally through figures of
corporeal things; therefore metaphor is “both necessary and useful.” To cut to the
chase, that is all that we have. We do not have a special language reserved for
divinity (not that it would help if we did). But Aquinas then goes a step further
and takes this answer as a springboard for his true target, the objection that, given
we have no choice but to use metaphorical language, representations of the Divine
ought to be taken from higher rather than lower creatures. Aquinas’ reply is key:
As Dionysus says, it is more fitting that divine truths should be expounded under
the figure of less noble than of nobler bodies …. Firstly, because thereby men’s
minds are the better preserved from error. For then it is clear that these things
are not literal descriptions of divine truths, which might have been open to doubt
had they been expressed under the figure of nobler bodies, especially for those
who could think of nothing nobler than bodies. Secondly, because this is more
befitting the knowledge of God that we have in this life. For what He is not is
clearer to us than what He is. Therefore similitudes drawn from things farthest
away from God form within us a truer estimate that God is above whatsoever we
may say or think of Him.83
On Detachment (Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 292).

82

83
The most obvious conclusion drawn from this text is that Aquinas wishes to maintain
a primarily negative theology, especially evident in the statement that “what God is
not” is clearer to us in this life than “what God is,” a claim Aquinas will reiterate in
Question 3. However, Aquinas in fact exposes in this text an insidious underlying
predisposition—of which he may have thought Dionysus to be instinctually
aware—that is, the possibility for believers to understand references made to God
in their ordinary sense, which would inevitably render God another being in the
universe. To follow Aquinas’ example, if we use the most noble figure we can think
of to refer to God, we are by admission saying that God is or is like the greatest
thing in the universe. This implies some proportion between God and created
beings, which transgresses God’s radical transcendence from the world. The use of
less noble figures (and the less noble the better), on the other hand, preserves God’s
unique distinction: using references that are almost ridiculously contrary to any
proportional notion between the Creator and creatures draws attention to the fact
that we are employing ordinary language in an extraordinary way, thus exercising
our skills in extending human language to the Divine.
Article 10 establishes Scripture as the exemplar of flexible language-use. That
a text in Scripture may have several different but related senses, some of which are
distinct to Scripture, functions first to set Scripture apart as uniquely appropriate for
theology, and implicitly points to the flexibility of human language—and human
language-users—in transcending language’s limitations to make meaningful and
existentially significant references to God. Ultimately, Aquinas’ discussion of the
various senses of Scripture assists in developing a non-contrastive understanding
of religious language, because we learn that even a so-called “literal” sense has the
capacity to refer to and open the believer to a profound reality inaccessible through
a “propositional” understanding of language-use. In a propositional understanding
of language, we perceive there to exist (mistakenly) virtually a one-to-one
correspondence between the words used and the reality to which they refer; in a
non-contrastive understanding of language, we know first of all there is always
some discrepancy between a reality and the verbal expression of it, and second,
when that reality is God, the words we use refer to a reality distinct from any other
thing and therefore the correspondence between the two is incomprehensible.84 The
hearer must rely on the verbal and non-verbal context surrounding speech about
God in order to discern its meaning—that is, to make the connection between the
words and the reality to which they refer.
Article 10 opens with the objection that a word in Scripture cannot have
several senses: first, because confusion and deception will result, and second,
because all force of argument will be destroyed. From this, the precept is advanced
that “Scripture ought to be able to state truth without fallacy.” By this time it
should come as no surprise that Aquinas attacks not the precept but its underlying
84
God’s “incomprehensibility” does not negate God’s intelligibility. God’s
incomprehensibility provides the basis for intelligibility. This will be discussed later in
the book.
presumption, which in this objection is that in order for truth to be stated without
fallacy, it must be stated in a direct and straightforward manner—in other words,
propositionally. The issue of Scripture as an authoritative source for argument has
already been resolved: Scripture is only effective for argument if the opponent
holds to at least some of the articles of faith. Argument is mainly used to bring
the opponent into agreement with other tenets of faith; belief in the existence of
God and the authority of Scripture is presupposed.85 So, in this case, the mode of
argument is in question, and as Aquinas has established through earlier articles,
due to the subject matter of sacred doctrine and our limited intellectual access to
it, we have no direct recourse and must rely on the flexibility inherent in poetical
language in order to perceive the truth towards which we strive.
Scripture is the unique source for Christian theology, and due to its inclusion
of “metaphorical” or poetical language, Christian tradition has assigned several
“senses” or ways of interpreting it, generally: historical or literal, allegorical,
tropological, or moral, and anagogical. Aquinas further points out that there
are additions to this categorization, which include etiological and parabolical.
The objections addressed in Article 10 warrant sifting through all these senses
to ascertain which one sense is proper for sacred doctrine’s purpose. From the
conditions of the objection it seems that this task is fairly straightforward: the
prevailing sense must be the one that does not produce confusion or deception, and
must be able to articulate the truth.
Aquinas’ response to the objection that the truth cannot be articulated through
more than one sense is based upon a distinction between the “literal” sense and
the “spiritual” sense. The “literal” sense, sometimes referred to as the “historical”
sense, is the meaning that is signified by the word, and the “spiritual” sense is
a further signification indicated by the thing itself; according to Aquinas, the
spiritual sense is “that signification whereby things signified by words have
themselves also a signification.”86 The spiritual sense has a threefold division: the
allegorical, wherein things of the “Old Law” or the Hebrew Scriptures prefigure
the “New Law” or Christian Scripture; the moral, wherein things done in Christ or
which signify Christ are types of what we ought to do; and the anagogical, wherein
things signify “what relates to eternal glory.”87
Although written by human hands, ultimately God is the author of Scripture
in its entirety. But, while a human author may intend the literal sense of a word
or text, the Holy Spirit alone is responsible for the spiritual sense(s).88 Therefore,
85
STh, I.1.8, reply.
86
STh, I.1.10, reply.
87
Ibid.
88
There is considerable debate over Aquinas’ definition of the literal sense.
See Robert Kennedy, “Thomas Aquinas and the Literal Sense of Scripture” (PhD Diss.,
University of Notre Dame, 1985); Mark Johnson, “Another Look at the Plurality of
the Literal Sense,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 2 (1992): 117-41; John Boyle,
“Saint Thomas and Sacred Scripture,” Pro Ecclesia 4 (1995): 92-104; Beryl Smalley,
the spiritual sense is found only in Scripture; it is a mode of expression proper

to Scripture alone, rendering it a unique authority for the divine science. On the
other hand, the literal sense has a priority over the spiritual senses, and this for
three reasons: first, the spiritual senses are “founded” or based on the literal sense,
thus putting all the senses in relation to each other (and the spiritual in a relation
of dependence to the literal); second, the literal sense is the only one from which
argument can be drawn; and third, because “nothing necessary to faith is contained
under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in
its literal sense.”89
And so it appears clear that the literal sense wins out as the primary sense to be
employed by sacred doctrine, for it seems to lead to the most forthright and direct
interpretation. However, Aquinas is not through with the matter for he goes on to
qualify the “literal” sense in such a way that presumes the inherent flexibility of
both human language and human language-users. He responds that the literal sense
includes history, etiology, analogy, and parable. For Aquinas, the historical sense
is “whenever anything is simply related,” the etiological sense, “when its cause
is assigned,” the analogical sense “whenever the truth of one text of Scripture is
shown not to contradict the truth of another,”90 and the parabolical sense, wherein
a word signifies something figuratively. To explain how parabolic language fits
into the literal sense, Aquinas uses the example of Scripture’s reference to God’s
arm: “when Scripture speaks of God’s arm, the literal sense is not that God has
such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely, operative
power.”91 Far from being direct and straightforward, the literal sense still relies
on the context of the passage and the ability of the human reader to perceive and
even creatively interpret the meaning of the words. Among the expressions of the
literal sense, only the historical appears to relate a “plain” fact. Other types of
language-use, especially parabolic, indicate that neither religious nor theological
language can escape being to some extent metaphorical. Consequently, we cannot
equate the “literal” sense with propositional statements about God.
The metaphorical nature of theological and religious language allows for a
non-contrastive perception of the Creator–creature relationship, as well as the
creature’s journey back to its Source, to develop. According to Janet Martin
The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983); and Wilhelus
Gerhard Bonifatus Maria Valkenberg, Did Not our Hearts Burn? Place and Function of
Holy Scripture in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Utrecht: Thomas Instituut, 1990).
89
STh, I.1.10, obj. 1.
90
Aquinas does not give an example of what he means by “the truth of one text … not
[contradicting] the truth of another.” However, inferring from the non-contrastive exercise
following Questions 1-13, he may include in the “analogical” sense texts that appear
paradoxical, such as those that refer to Christ’s dying as a means to everlasting life. When
such texts are explicated, they are found not to be contradictory but complimentary and
essential to expressing a more profound truth than one text alone could articulate.
91
STh, I.1.10, obj. 3.
Soskice, a metaphor is not merely “ornamental”—that is, a prettier way to say

the same thing (although it can be). More importantly, metaphors can be used to
expand one’s understanding:
[M]etaphor goes beyond the role of ornament. … The purpose of … metaphor is

both to cast up and organize a network of associations. A good metaphor may …
be … a new vision, the birth of a new understanding, a new referential access.
A strong metaphor compels new possibilities of vision.92
Unlike propositional language, where the intent is a one-to-one correspondence,

metaphorical language strives to go beyond, expressing something to which the
words themselves do not (and cannot) exactly correspond. When used with this
intent, metaphor “suggests new categories of interpretation and hypothesizes new
entities, states of affairs, and causal relations.”93 Through metaphor, language
transcends its own limitations and increases the language-users’ understanding by
developing a new horizon in which to view life. From this perspective, statements
about God are not confined to propositions comparing and contrasting God with
things in the world. Such statements permeate every aspect of ordinary living with
salvific meaning.
Soskice’s description of metaphor’s potential resonates well with Aquinas’
attempt to increase his student’s skill in using ordinary language in an extraordinary
way to refer to God. Soskice confirms that in order for metaphors to go beyond
ornamentation, the context must be taken into consideration.94 As we have seen,
context is vitally important to Aquinas’ literal sense, which includes metaphorical
language. Referring to Aquinas’ last article of Question 1, Soskice contends that:
The mutability of literal senses does pose a problem for some accounts of
metaphor, for if one assumes that literal senses and literal truth conditions can
readily be assigned to words and sentences independent of contexts of use, then
inability to specify precise literal senses of terms will block any exhaustive
description of a natural language.95
If “literal” and “propositional” are equated, consequently the literal is opposed

to the metaphorical, because propositional language expects a one-to-one
correspondence, which metaphor does not do. Language-users expecting such
a correspondence will not be able to move forward in their search to refer
meaningfully to that which is incomprehensible. Indeed, they cannot really
appreciate the implications of an Incomprehensible Reality.
92
Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 57-8.
93
Ibid., 62.
94
Ibid., 21.
95
Ibid., 84.
The context of the literal sense is not only essential to derive its intended
meaning, but also to grasp that the Divine reality to which the term refers is
not being contrasted or compared to anything in the world. For example, to
know that God’s “arm” literally refers to God’s operative power and not to some
bodily appendage, one must know that God is incorporeal, as is revealed in other
Scriptural texts. In this context, the use of “arm” to express an incorporeal reality
tips the audience off that the writer is using ordinary language in an extraordinary
way. As Aquinas attests, similes drawn from things farthest away from God
prevent us from perceiving God to be like anything noble in the universe, thereby
forming an awareness “that God is above whatsoever we may say or think
of Him.”
Furthermore, Soskice’s assertion that metaphorical language has the potential
to increase understanding in the language-user reveals the link between speaking
about God and knowing God; this is the end to which Aquinas directs his readers
in Question 1 of the Summa. For Soskice, metaphorical language-use allows novel
visions and referential access to emerge. For Aquinas, this is the task of faith in
perfecting reason. As Marthaler expresses it, faith is the “opening up of a new
vision of reality,” a grace “whereby human potentialities are caught up and given
a new dimension by God acting on the person.”96 Through the lens of faith, all
things, acts, and knowledge are imbued with new existential significance. Faith
and metaphor are inextricably bound to one another in the process: Faith is the
mode of knowing on the part of the believer; metaphor (as Aquinas uses it, in
the broadest sense of the term) is the proper mode of expression allowing for the
possibility of knowing to progress.
Aquinas broaches the relation between “metaphorical” and “literal” references
to God again in Question 13, for asserting metaphorical language to be appropriate
for sacred doctrine (as Aquinas does in Question 1) does not in itself exhaust—in
fact, does not satisfy—the requirements for a non-contrastive grasp of religious
language. A non-contrastive grasp of religious language demands the Creator’s
unique distinction, transcendence-in-immanence, be preserved in order for
Christian forms of life to conform to Christian tradition and its faith assertions.
Strictly employed, metaphor tends towards a univocal understanding of the
Creator–creature relationship, because these metaphors refer properly to creatures
and appear to highlight a likeness between the Creator and creature. Thus, in order
to allow for the range of flexibility required for a non-contrastive interpretation,
metaphor must be taken to encompass all types of poetical language-use, a practice
duly carried out by our Master Eckhart.
Eckhart is indebted to Aquinas for attending to this non-contrastive dimension
manifested throughout Eckhart’s work, for in his Summa Aquinas provides his
successors with a rigorous exercise in religious language-use. As Question 13
illustrates, all linguistic applications (even analogy) fail to capture the Divine;
therefore, we must effectively qualify our speech about God by finding ways to
96
Marthaler, The Creed, 22.
call attention to the fact that we are not applying our language in an ordinary way
when referring to the Divine. But in order to really absorb this lesson, we must
first work our way through the preceding questions, which offer instructions on
how to use language non-contrastively. Characteristic of Aquinas, he makes use
of every source at his disposal to lead his students onward in their vocation of
faith seeking understanding; and in this case—given the emerging importance of
Aristotelian philosophy in his order as well as in the university—Aquinas employs
the language of metaphysics, modifying it to achieve his pedagogical end.
Chapter 4
Thomas Aquinas:
From “Proof” to Analogy
Question 1 orients us towards theology’s proper end: deepening awareness of that

communion where God’s true incomprehensibility is experienced. An important
move here is to re-vision faith as reason’s counselor and guide rather than its
opposite, and thus distinguish this theology—sacred doctrine—from metaphysics,
while repositioning metaphysics to its service (“faith seeking understanding”).
Since metaphysics seeks knowledge about God’s existence and nature, however,
metaphysics seems at cross purposes with sacred doctrine, because for sacred
doctrine to define God would be to conceive God as some sort of creature and
thereby compromising the God of Scripture and of Christian Tradition: the intimate
Creator who is Incomprehensible Source, Sustainer, and End of all creatures.
If metaphysics is to play a role in faith seeking understanding, Aquinas must
correct its tendency towards “defining” God. He initiates his corrective in Question 1
by pointing out that all theological language, by its nature, is metaphorical. While
not yet qualifying what “metaphorical” includes, Aquinas clearly intends to
emphasize the flexibility of even the most mundane language to refer, indirectly,
to the Divine.1 He asserts that even elevated language refers but indirectly to God,
and here we must exercise enormous caution; better yet, we should use the lowest
of language to refer to God rather than risk seeing God as some noble creature.2
Aquinas borrows from Dionysius to justify this restraint: “what [God] is
not is clearer to us than what He is.” Aquinas takes most seriously Dionysius’
preference for negative interpretations of speech about God, repeating the caution
at both the opening of Question 2 (on the existence of God) and the opening
of Question 3 (on the simplicity of God). We must conclude that besides more
flexibility in religious language-use, Aquinas promotes a thoroughly negative
approach to theology. But simple negation is as perilous to Aquinas as positive
language-use about God, because—as Kathryn Tanner points out—this cuts off the
immediacy of God’s creative power and God’s intimately permeating presence.3
Negative interpretations tend to emphasize the Creator’s remotion rather than the
Creator’s presence to creatures. For a negative interpretation of religious language
to remain within the confines of orthodoxy, in speaking of God we must find a way
to preserve God’s immanence as well as God’s transcendence.
1
See STh, I.1.9.
2
Ibid., reply obj. 3.
3
Tanner, God and Creation, 45-6.
“Non-contrastive” language—language fostering awareness that God is neither

in opposition to nor identified with the world—is essential to overcoming the
obstacles inherent to religious language-use. In Question 13, Aquinas provides his
concept of “analogy” as a linguistic tool protecting the Creator’s transcendence-in-
immanence. “Analogy” provides a “middle way” between univocal and equivocal
understandings of the Creator–creature relationship. This “middle way” fosters a
non-contrastive awareness of the Divine.
However, “analogy” in and of itself is inadequate to accomplish Aquinas’ desire
for his students, because he does not want simply to describe the relationship
between Creator and creature, but to assist in their faith journey and train them to
help others in theirs. “Analogy” too easily becomes another definition by which
to pin God down. But Aquinas will not let his students off so easily, because in
the questions leading up to his treatment of analogy Aquinas carefully qualifies
the language of God-talk such that, despite saying a lot about God, in the end, the
only thing we can declare—positively—is that we can say more than we know
about God. On the other hand, our appreciation of God’s true incomprehensibility
increases enormously, especially our discernment of God’s profound and
penetrating presence to us.
Thus, Aquinas’ treatment of analogy, exercised as religious language-use
through the previous questions, is not only non-contrastive but overcomes
problems created by either positive or negative interpretations of God language.
Aquinas transforms non-contrastive language by providing a way for negative
theology to go beyond verbal cessation to deepening knowledge. “Deepening
knowledge,” does not mean any kind of “information” about God, but rather,
appreciation and awareness of God’s presence, and further, foretaste of the
ultimate communion with the intimate and personal Creator for which the soul
longs. The Summa does not end with a lesson on the most proper way to speak
about God—this is only the beginning of Aquinas’ treatise. The Summa’s second
part moves into theology’s practical concerns, centered on the human creature’s
action, and finally in his third part, the movement of the human creature
“back towards” its Source, accomplished through Jesus Christ and the work of
the Holy Spirit, concretely realized in sacraments and other Christian forms of
life. However, for these to be effective channels of grace, they must be grounded
in awareness of the Creator’s unique relationship of transcendence-in-immanence
to creation. This discernment is developed through faith seeking understanding,
and, for Aquinas, this undertaking will be more fruitful if the believer becomes
skilled in analogical language-use.
This chapter considers how Aquinas moves us from a static concept of
“analogy,” used to describe the relationship between the Creator and creatures,
to a dynamic realization of how language can be used to deepen awareness of
God’s incomprehensibility, manifest in the practical and doctrinal theology
constituting Christian forms of life. Question 2, considering God’s existence,
lays out the elements making up Aquinas’ metaphysics, and begins maneuvering
to preserve God’s unique distinction, effectively allowing God to remain truly
Thomas Aquinas: From “Proof” to Analogy 103
incomprehensible. In Questions 3-11, considering God’s nature, Aquinas

uses his metaphysics to exercise the reader in non-contrastive language-use.
Questions 12-13 take the reader beyond non-contrastive language by linking
how we attain knowledge concerning God to how we speak of God, providing an
avenue for deepening awareness of God’s incomprehensibility and the possibilities
of communion with our Source and End.
A. Question 2: The Necessity of Demonstrating God
Article 1: Whether the Existence of God is Self-Evident

Article 2: Whether it is Demonstrable
Article 3: Whether God Exists
Having already carefully reoriented the relationship of faith to reason from one
where faith opposes or replaces natural reason to one where faith guides and
provides the existential (and eschatalogical) horizon for reason, it seems puzzling
that Aquinas immediately turns in Question 2 to proving the existence of God;
because Question 1 seems to call into question both the necessity and the value—as
well as the effectiveness—of such argumentation.
Recall the objections of Question 1, Article 8 drawing upon the association of
natural reason and argumentation: since sacred doctrine borrows its first principles
from the scientia Dei, whose principles cannot be demonstrated, they must be taken
on authority; and authority, the objection asserts, “is the weakest form of proof.”4
Aquinas’ response re-affirms sacred doctrine’s superiority despite its own inability
to prove its principles (not part of its task). Rather, argumentation based on the
highest authority—divine revelation—is stronger than argumentation based on
reason, provided that “the opponent admits some at least of the truths obtained
through divine revelation.”5 Indeed, sacred doctrine employs argumentation based
on natural reason, not to prove matters of faith, but to clarify the content of faith,
which in Christianity is Jesus Christ’s saving significance: living transformed lives
in light of the life, death, and resurrection of God-become-human. This implies,
does it not, that God’s existence is assumed as a matter of faith, so how can it be
sacred doctrine’s task to prove it so? After all, how and why God’s existence pertains
to salvation is the concern of sacred doctrine; whether God exists is a question more
relevant to metaphysics, whose subject matter is being.6 However, before Aquinas
4
STh, I.8, obj. 2.
5
Ibid., answer, and reply obj. 1 and 2.
6
For example, while Jesus’ miracles are often read as proof of divinity, their real
significance lies in associating God’s power to salvation: power to heal is the power to save.
Seeing miracles as proof of divinity misses the point. In his own time, anyone intent on
debunking Jesus could explain his miracles as trickery. Witness of his miracles held the real
message: how he transformed the person healed and those to whom the healed proclaimed.
proceeds with his treatise on how humanity specifically obtains its pre-ordained
goal, Aquinas takes up the thesis of God’s being—that is, God’s existence and
nature—virtually inviting a philosophical approach to his whole work.
This difficulty may be why many scholars tend to analyze the Summa as a
work of metaphysics rather than as a work of sacred doctrine.7 Because Question 2
takes up the fact of God’s existence, and those questions immediately following
it examine the nature of that existence, it might seem Aquinas intends his Summa
to be a presentation of his metaphysics. It is therefore easy to separate this first
part of the Summa from its introductory first question as well as its more pastoral
second part and doctrinal third part. However, this puts Aquinas into a precarious
position regarding his philosophical competency, especially in modern thought,
which incorporates a radically different cosmology and world view than that to
which Aquinas was privy.
Many scholars unfortunately take their starting point from Aquinas’ second
question, after perhaps giving a passing nod to his first question on sacred doctrine
as a matter of politeness. Undeniably, at first glance there seems to be a discontinuity
between Questions 1 and 2, compelling the reader to choose one approach over
the other (sacred doctrine or metaphysics). But some scholars force the association
of metaphysics with the Summa even further by extracting Question 2, not only
from Question 1, but from the Summa itself, as if the Summa was a catalog of
metaphysical topics such as “existence” and “attributes.”8 Furthermore, much of the
scholarship on Question 2 considers only the answer to Article 3, the “Five Ways”
of proving God’s existence, apart even from its preceding articles and surrounding
text. Having sequestered the Five Ways from any distracting contextual elements,
the proofs are considered on their own merits. Thus Question 2 has become a topic
of controversy among scholars with regard to its place and function in the Summa
as well as the soundness of Aquinas’ proofs.
Leo Elders, for example, asks: “Do we have the right to isolate the Five Ways
in I 2, 3 from their theological context and consider this passus merely from a
philosophical point of view?”9 His answer is emphatically, “yes,” based upon the
article immediately preceding the proofs which concludes that God’s existence
is a preamble of faith rather than an article of faith, and therefore falls within
7
Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways: St. Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s Existence
(Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969); John F.X. Knasas, The Preface
to Thomistic Metaphysics: A Contribution to the Neo-Thomist Debate on the Start of
Metaphysics (New York: Peter Lang, 1990).
8
Kenny and Knasas analyze the Five Ways without considering Question 1. Knasas
ties the Five Ways to other works of Aquinas, asserting they can only be understood
as intended by Aquinas—metaphysically—in the context of previous works such as
Commentary on the Sentences, De Ente et Essentia, De Princiipiis Naturae, and so on. See
Knasas, The Preface to Thomistic Metaphysics, 127.
9
Leo Elders, The Philosophical Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1990), 83.
the allowance of natural reason (meaning it may be taken on faith but can be
demonstrated by reason)—although later he checks himself by acknowledging
scriptural authority provides the pretext for the demonstrations.10 But this
concession carries more weight than Elders cares to give it. Not surprisingly, his
interest in Question 2, and the Five Ways particularly, concerns its contribution to
Aquinas’ metaphysics.
Separating the Five Ways from its context consequently reveals the proofs’
weaknesses, especially the glaring defect, philosophically speaking, common to
them all: each ultimately assumes the God as Creator at the outset in order to
establish the existence of the being concluded at the end of the demonstration.
Anthony Kenny, maintaining Aquinas intended his Five Ways to be taken
“as seriously as he meant any other philosophical proof,”11 argues that they fail
principally because they cannot be separated from the medieval cosmology
providing the background for each proof. This cosmology rests on the underlying
presumption that the order of the universe reflects the design and intelligence
of God, seen in the inherent tendency for created things to act for an end;
cosmological arguments are, for this reason, often referred to as arguments from
design or teleological arguments. Kenny is adamant that Aquinas’ “proofs” are
unacceptable, not only because the cosmology upon which he bases his proofs has
been radically revised, but more importantly because arguments from design or
teleology are logically invalid: they are tautological.
Victor Preller, taking the proofs as tangential, “even dangerous” to Aquinas’
doctrine, questions the assumption of scholars that Aquinas presented the Five Ways
as expressions of his own philosophical understanding of God’s existence. Indeed,
labeling Aquinas’ arguments as “cosmological” would tie God too closely to
creation to “satisfy Christian demands for his ‘otherness’ or transcendence.”12
Preller accepts the unsoundness of the cosmological argument, insisting Aquinas’
Five Ways must be radically re-read in light of the questions which immediately
follow it. He reproaches,
[i]f we take the proofs of the existence of God to be convincing forms of

argumentation, we may claim to know that the natures of things, as they really
are in their own esse, derive from “forms” inherent in the “intellect” of an
“intentional being.”13
We know by now, of course, that Aquinas immediately asserts at the opening of

Question 3 that we cannot know the essence of God, a warning he forecasts even
10
Ibid., 131.
11
Kenny, Five Ways, 1.
12
Preller, Divine Science, 108. Preller claims causal regress arguments lose a necessary
sense of God’s transcendence precisely because they entail ordinary understandings
of “causality.”
13
Ibid., 168.
earlier, in his prelude to Question 2: “Considering the Divine Essence, we must

consider: 1) Whether God exists?; 2) The manner of His Existence, or, rather, what
is not the manner of His existence.” Preller insists Aquinas intends his readers
to take him seriously that we cannot know “what God is”; it would therefore
seem contradictory to attempt to prove that God exists14—unless, for Aquinas,
God’s existence is just as much a part of this negative theology as God’s essence.
And, as we see in his outline of the Prima pars, Aquinas includes the question
of God’s existence under consideration of God’s essence. Therefore, focusing on
Question 2’s proofs of God’s existence jeopardizes a negative reading of the whole
section. Preller indicates that, far from proving God’s existence through several
versions of the cosmological argument, Aquinas intends just the opposite:
he intended to posit in existence an unknown entity whose very relationship to

the world is equally unknown. … Aquinas’ intention in quoting the proofs can
be understood only … in the light of the immediately succeeding questions in
which the intelligibility of God is defined in negative terms.
What then can we make of Aquinas’ presentation of the Five Ways supposedly
proving God’s existence, or his inclusion at all of such a question in his Summa—a
work Aquinas claims in his preface as well as in Question 1 to be directed towards
sacred doctrine? Certainly the content of the arguments and also much of the content
of the following questions makes use of metaphysical principles; furthermore, the
arguments’ form is definitely recognizable as “cosmological.” How is it possible to
understand these arguments in light of the supposedly negative theology Aquinas
posits for speaking about God’s essence?
W.J. Hankey ascertains that the Five Ways “do more than indicate that
he is, they involve insight into the divine essence.”15 Hankey, like Preller, sees
Question 2 closely tied to the following questions about God’s nature; in fact,
Question 2 provides a plan for how Aquinas is going to proceed in Questions 3-11.
If this is the case, we must pay attention to how Aquinas introduces and lays out
the metaphysics he uses to teach us how to speak about God. Furthermore, if the
Five Ways intend to do more than supply proofs, it is important to ask how the
demonstrations work together—how their arrangement prepares for the proceeding
questions. Given this possibility, it is likely that, since each demonstration is
obviously fraught with weakness on its own, there may be something in their
organic unity into which Aquinas wants to draw his readers.
Finally, granting an essential link between Question 2 and those which follow,
it is certainly valid to expect that the question of God’s existence is inextricable
from the context of faith elaborated in the Summa’s opening question. As we
are introduced to Question 2, it is clear Aquinas intends his treatment of God’s
existence to flow directly from his explication on the method and aim of sacred
Ibid., 135.
14
Hankey, God in Himself, 73 (emphasis mine).

15
doctrine, because he opens not only with explicit reference to Question 1, but also
to the plan of his Summa as a whole:
Because the chief aim of sacred doctrine is to teach the knowledge of God, not
only as He is in Himself, but also as He is the beginning of things and their last
end … we shall treat (1) of God; (2) of the rational creature’s advance towards
God; (3) of Christ, Who as man, is our way to God.
He continues by dividing his treatment of God into three parts, the first of which,
“Whatever concerns the Divine Essence,” contains the question of God’s existence:
Considering the Divine Essence, we must consider: 1) Whether God exists? (2)
The manner of His Existence, or, rather what is not the manner of His existence
(3) Whatever concerns His operations.
Here, as Aquinas introduces a topic seeming to fall readily within metaphysical

inquiry, he advises he does not for a moment propose to depart from his Scriptural
(exitus/reditus) narrative: creation–sanctification–redemption. Further, including
the question of God’s existence under the heading of God’s essence gently
reminds us that this presentation will, at best, refer to God inadequately, so a
negative interpretation is preferred to misinterpretation. Thus he establishes from
the beginning of Question 2 the way to read it, together with what follows, in light
of faith seeking understanding (as Question 1 establishes), and, having done this,
expectedly there is more to his philosophical treatment than meets the eye.
Article 1 begins with the objection that God’s existence is self-evident, implanted
in us by God. This appears to support a reading in light of sacred doctrine, because,
recall in Question 1, we must have some knowledge of God in order to orient our
actions towards our divinely- intended end in God. Aquinas’ reply reminds us this
is an inchoate awareness of God, implanted only in a “general and confused way.”
Indeed, with this qualification Aquinas sets up the need for demonstrating God’s
existence—apparently moving towards a philosophical reading. But in his answer
Aquinas performs a sleight of hand, continued into the next article, which allows
the later philosophical demonstrations to serve sacred doctrine’s goal.
In order to catch the trick, both second and third objections must be scrutinized:
the second objection combines Aristotle’s notion that the first principles of
demonstration are self-evident with Anselm’s Proslogian definition of God as
“that which nothing greater can be conceived”; while the third objection, based
on Scripture, aligns truth with the self-evident. Aquinas quickly disposes of the
third objection by declaring something can be self-evident in itself, but not to
us; this should remind us of a parallel, drawn from Question 1, that the truth of
something can be certain in itself (God’s knowledge), but not to us (for example,
because of lack of intellectual capacity).16 His example in Question 2, Article 1,
16
relies on predication and foreshadows the following series of questions (3-11):

God’s existence is self-evident, for to say God exists is to say something about the
essence of God which sets God off from everything else that is created. But this is
hardly self-evident to us, because we do not know what it means for one’s essence
to be its own existence.
Now for the first part of the trick: the objections imply that, in the proposition
“God exists,” roughly equaling “God is (God’s own) Existence” or “God’s essence
is God’s existence,” Anselm’s definition—“that which nothing greater can be
conceived”—may be substituted for “Existence.” For Aquinas, however, since
we cannot conceive of something whose existence is the same as its essence,
God’s existence is as unknown to us as God’s essence, and therefore cannot be
in any manner self-evident to us. God’s existence, no matter how formulated
propositionally, must be interpreted negatively. Second, Anselm’s definition
should alert us to yet another potential danger: conceiving God as resembling
the most noble creature (which just happens to be greater than we can conceive).17
This leads us to the second part of the trick, and to Article 2. Aquinas has already
asserted in his answer to Article 1 that, since God’s existence is not self-evident
to us, it “needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us.”
In Article 2, “Whether it can be demonstrated that God exists,” Aquinas shows us
the manner and limits of such demonstration, providing the key to how Aquinas’
metaphysics actually go beyond proving anything about God—rather, serving
sacred doctrine’s end.
To the objection that God’s existence cannot be demonstrated because it is an
article of faith, Aquinas replies that God’s existence is a preamble of faith and
therefore may be known by natural reason. Aquinas further reminds us that faith and
reason are not opposed, indeed “faith presupposes natural knowledge.” However,
demonstration, as a mode of natural reason, must be qualified when applied to
the divine; proofs of God’s existence will be no exception. In demonstrations
proceeding from effects (rather than from the cause itself), the effect “takes the
place of the definition of the cause.” As the second objection points out, essence
is the middle term of demonstration, but since we cannot know God’s essence,
names of God derived from effects, though substituting for the middle term, do not
refer to God’s essence. Aquinas will, of course, further qualify this qualification in
Question 13 with reference to predicating perfections; however for the moment,
allowing but limiting the power of effects to substitute in demonstrations of God’s
existence serves Aquinas’ negative perspective, which he takes one step further in
his final reply: perfect knowledge of God is not possible.
The third objection draws attention to the major difficulty in substituting
effects for God’s existence: God’s effects are not proportionate to God, because
“between the finite and infinite there is no proportion.” The absence of proportion
between Creator and creature is not the main problem that must be addressed in
demonstrating God’s existence, but it looms large in predicating names of God
STh, I.1.9.
17
and, ultimately, in speaking meaningfully about the Creator–creature relationship.

Aquinas’ reply raises the question of what we expect from demonstrations of
God’s existence; certainly, it cannot be “perfect knowledge” of God’s essence.
By “perfect” knowledge, this means our knowledge of God cannot be proportionate
to its object, and this lack of proportion refers us yet again back to the relationship
between the Divine and the “non”-divine. As in the case of faith and reason, what
is considered Divine and what is not divine are not opposed, nor can they be
identified with each other.
Recall the definition Aquinas previously gave, and rejected, where God is
“that of which nothing greater can be conceived.” The problem here is assuming
a proportion between God and the world: although we cannot conceive of it, the
Creator is at the very top of the chain of creatures. This is like saying there is some
number so great that it simply cannot be conceived because of a person’s limited
ability to count high enough. But Aquinas does not accept this notion of God’s
infinite “greatness” because the finite is not proportionate to the infinite. Rather,
the infinite is the source and ground of the finite—the infinite Creator is the source
and ground of the finite creature’s existence.
In these first two articles Aquinas implicitly re-orients our expectations of
“demonstrating” away from proving that God is to expressing (and affirming)
the relationship of Creator and creature. Aquinas rejects Anselm’s definition
on two grounds: 1) the signification for God as “that which nothing greater
can be conceived” is not a term that can be known—and therefore used in
demonstrating—since there is nothing else with which to compare one whose
existence and essence are the same; 2) anything greater than could be conceived
may be misunderstood as being proportionate to things that can be conceived,
which God is not. This objection to Anselm is implicit in Article 2, where Aquinas
reaffirms there is no proportion between an infinite cause (God) and a finite effect
(creatures). Yet, a qualified demonstration is warranted precisely because God
is assumed to be the cause of creatures. Consequently the definition of God as
“that which nothing greater can be conceived” must be rejected ultimately because
it fails to include the relationality upon which the whole of Scripture as well as
Christian life is based; Anselm’s definition says nothing about God as Creator.
Thus any demonstration not based on God as Creator is irrelevant to sacred
doctrine and meaningless to the believer.
What is meaningful, and therefore to be demonstrated, is God’s existence
as Creator. Prior to investigating the nature of God’s existence—the topic of
the following questions—it must be established that the God we are assuming
has a specific existence vis-à-vis creatures. This re-orientation follows upon the
demands of sacred doctrine as laid out in Question 1 as well as the structure of
the Summa as a whole. The question of whether God exists cannot be divorced
from the Creator–creature relationship, that is, how we are to form our lives to
that end, and how God is present to us in such a way that that end may be fulfilled.
Demonstration of God’s existence, though qualified, is needed, not to convert the
non-believer (although it might, if the non-believer were to connect these “proofs”
with existentially important moments in his or her life), but to keep believers
from falling into heresy of a “pagan” god, that is, a God who could be compared/
contrasted with the world. Far from slighting sacred doctrine’s ultimate purpose,
demonstrations of the Creator-God’s existence may facilitate the journey towards
faith’s fulfillment.
1. The “Five Ways”
1. From motion
2. From the nature of the efficient cause
3. From possibility and necessity
4. From the gradation found in things
5. From the governance of the world
In the first two articles of Question 2, Aquinas justifies the need to demonstrate
God’s existence while subtly preparing his readers to approach such “proofs”
guided by faith’s requirements: it is not enough to prove the existence of a god;
it is the Creator God of Scripture that is sought. Yet, it is of course Aquinas’
perspective that the God of Scripture and the god of philosophy need not be at
odds: with regard to God’s nature, certain “formal features” must be attributed
in order for God to be God—for example, simplicity, immutability, infinity—and
as Maimonides observes, these features must indeed be attributed to the God of
Scripture, though they must also be interpreted negatively, in order to preserve a
sense of God’s incomprehensibility.18
Accordingly, while Aquinas is determined not to depart from the goals of
sacred doctrine, he also takes the opportunity to begin preparing his readers for
the metaphysics which will be unfolded throughout his following treatment of
God’s nature. Before his presentation of the Five Ways, Aquinas introduces the
concepts of causality and participation essential to developing a metaphysics that
will serve to orient his students—and, with any luck those to whom the future
teachers and preachers minister—towards sacred doctrine’s salvific goal. In the
second article, Aquinas refers to God as cause and, implicitly, creatures as God’s
effects. This articulation allows Aquinas to relate the god of philosophy to the
Creator God of Scripture, and at the same time maintain an intimate relationship
between Creator and creature. Philosophically speaking, the relationship between
the cause, or first principle, and its effects (creation) is commonly referred to as
the metaphysics of participation. Yet in order to compensate for the problems
raised by the philosophical approach—namely, how God as cause remains
incomprehensible—Aquinas must develop a corrective: as Article 2 clearly
indicates, knowledge of this unique relationship between cause and effect is not
proportionate. Furthermore, as Aquinas has maintained from the beginning of the
18
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Chaim Rabin (Cambridge:
Hackett, 1995), Book I, 65-87.
Summa, the only way to avoid such misunderstanding is to pay careful attention to
how creaturely words are attributed to this ultimate Cause.
In Article 3, which presents the Five Ways, Aquinas introduces his metaphysics
by attending to the way God’s incomprehensibility may still be maintained
while permitting the creature to participate in God’s existence. Rather than
being concerned with whether each demonstration is philosophically sound and
self-contained, Aquinas is concerned to move our articulations about God out of
the realm of ordinary speech in a way that demonstrates God’s existence to be
uniquely distinct from the world. By laying a foundation where the Creator may
be articulated as the ground and source of the creature—the one who causes and
sustains the existence of all things—the “formal features” of God presented in the
following questions may be understood non-contrastively as relating to the world
transcendently, yet intimately, though incomprehensibly, present.
Article 3 opens with the objection that there would be no evil if God existed,
because God is understood to be the contrary of evil: infinite goodness. Second,
there is no need to suppose God’s existence because the world may be explained by
natural principles. The sed contra pits philosophy against Scripture by asserting,
from Exodus, that God is named “I am Who am”: Not only does God exist, but
God is the One Who Exists, indeed Existence itself. Aquinas answers that the
existence of God can be proved (probare), or better, tested, in five ways, thus
suggesting that philosophy may be used to support the scriptural affirmation of
God’s existence.
The First Way begins with motion. “Nothing can be in motion except it is in
potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch
as it is in act.” Motion is the reduction from potentiality to actuality, and only
something in the state of actuality can move something from potentiality to actuality.
The problem is that this movement cannot go on into infinity; therefore, there must
be something, being fully actual, that does not, cannot and never contained any
potentiality; this is Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover,” and “this everyone understands
to be God.”19
Kenny observes, from Aquinas’ text, that the Latin “motus” should more
properly be translated as “change” than motion, pointing to Aquinas’ adherence
to Aristotle, who distinguishes between change of quality, change of quantity, and
change of place.20 Kenny also shows that the so-called “infinite regress argument”
does not, in fact, prove God’s existence because it does not demonstrate there is
“an unmoved mover at all resembling God.” For Kenny, to reach the God Aquinas
intends, “unmoved” must mean “changing in no respect.”21 Contrary to Kenny’s
own thesis, however—that Aquinas meant for his arguments to be taken as proper
proofs for God’s existence, but that each proof is fraught with weaknesses and
19
This last phrase is included in the Fathers of the English Dominican Province
translation, but not in the Blackfriar’s Latin edition.
20
See Kenny, Five Ways, 7.
21
Ibid, 23.
inevitably fails22—understanding motus as change is the first step in establishing

the God of Scripture. But this will not be obvious until we follow through with
the other four arguments and take up the questions on God’s essence, especially
regarding God’s immutability. For immutability is concerned with the unchanging
nature of God. The Creator God of Scripture must be, as Kenny observes, “changing
in no respect” but at the same time active in and through the existence of creatures.
The implications of this paradox are disclosed only by a non-contrastive grasp
of religious language such as employed by Scripture and lived out in the lives of
the faithful.
The important part of the first argument is not the definition of God as “unmoved
mover” but Aquinas’ introduction of Aristotle’s act and potency. By articulating
the “unmoved mover”—implicitly at this point in the arguments—as fully actual,
Aquinas can table the problem of God’s immutability for the time being because
in order to “change” in the creaturely sense of the word, a thing must contain
some potentiality, that is, the potential to change or move towards something
else. God, understood as fully actual, has nothing to change into and nothing to
move towards but rather becomes the very end of the changing into and moving
towards of all beings that contain any potentiality. Thus, the introduction of act
and potency in effect sets up the relationship wherein the creature not only enjoys
an immediate relationship with its Creator, but, due to its very incompleteness,
imperfection, finitude—or whatever else it may be called—finds its fulfillment
and end in communion with its Source. In other words, the potential (potency)
of the creature for transformation allows it to participate in the existence (act) of
its Creator.
However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to see the profound implications
of act and potency as presented in the first argument of the “unmoved mover,”
because it is deficient as a proof for the existence of the Creator God of Scripture:
an “unmoved mover” does not necessarily have an immediate or an intimate
relationship to any other being as does the God of Scripture. Furthermore, simply
understood as unmoved mover, what distinguishes this god from other beings
does protect God’s distinction from the world except that it has no mover. In order
to arrive at an understanding of God as distinct yet immediate, Aquinas needs to
take several more steps, the first of which is to introduce act and potency into
the definition of God. This subtle modification is evidence Aquinas intended his
proofs to work together in moving away from the Aristotelian god of philosophy
towards the God of Scripture.
The Second Way re-articulates the God–World relationship as one of cause and
effect. Aquinas observes, “[i]n the world of sense … there is an order of efficient
causes … [but] … there is no case known in which a thing is … the efficient
cause of itself.” Drawing upon the same principle as in the First Way—nothing
can go on ad infinitum—Aquinas arrives at a first efficient cause, one that is itself
uncaused, “to which” he asserts, “everyone gives the name [nominant] of God.”
Ibid.
22
This proof, although similar to the proof of the unmoved mover, draws one step
closer to the God of Scripture because, as Kenny himself notes, “[t]wo of the
best known Aristotelean theses about causation were that effects were like their
causes and that causes were prior to their effects.”23 While the unmoved mover
has neither an immediate nor an intimate relation to the world, the first efficient
cause has at least one essential feature similar to the Creator God of Scripture: the
resemblance of its effects to itself, calling to mind Genesis, where God says, “Let
us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.”24 Affirming that
the human creature enjoys a close—even familiar—relationship to its Creator
by virtue of the Creator’s causality is so important that it is repeated in the next
Scriptural passage:
God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.25
Like the relationship of first efficient cause to its effects, the Creator God is both
prior to creatures, having created them, and “familiar” to creatures in the sense that
they somehow—though incomprehensibly—reflect their maker.
The first efficient cause moves yet another step forward in presenting the
Creator God: it must be distinct from any worldly cause. Aquinas implies this
at the beginning of the proof in observing there is no case in the world of sense
where a thing is its own efficient cause. Establishing there must be an efficient
cause transcending any worldly cause appeals to the existence of effects; if there
be no ultimate cause, then ultimately there would be no effects. Now, for obvious
reasons, this proof appears to be unsound from a philosophical standpoint: in
order to see God as cause, the world must be interpreted as an effect (or series
of effects) and for that to be so, the cause must be assumed from the outset, since
by definition an effect includes the notion of its cause—therefore the argument is
circular. But the argument does make sense from a theological standpoint: it hints
at the doctrine of creation that lies at the heart of all faith statements and which
provides the foundation for how human beings are to live—as creatures whose
beginning and end (and everything in between) is inextricable from their Creator,
an end that lies beyond the world that is finite and corruptible. Only a Creator that
transcends this worldly finitude can preserve a beloved creature from its own fall
back into non-existence;26 only a Creator that is itself exempt from the possibility
of falling back into non-existence can achieve this act. Such a Creator must be
23
Ibid., 40.
24
Gen 1:6 (NRSV).
25
Gen 1:27.
26
Aristotle’s “efficient cause” is reinterpreted as “cause of being,” for a creator ex
nihilo could not be an Aristotelian “efficient case,” which presupposes material to work on.
fully actual—containing no potentiality at all—as well as uncaused, and there is

nothing in “the world of sense” that meets these requirements.
While both the First and the Second Ways do not make any direct reference
to God’s distinction from the world, these subtle moves Aquinas makes within
the demonstrations (for example, including act and potency in the definition
of the unmoved mover) and between the demonstrations (shifting from God as
“unmoved mover” to “first efficient cause”) make room for this interpretation.
Preller picks up on the implications of Aquinas’ modifications from the First Way.
He keenly perceives that
[w]hatever Aquinas’ first mover is doing (whatever “power” or “agency” he is

communicating to objects in the world) it has nothing to do with motion as it
“is certain and evident to our senses.” Aquinas is reading Aristotle’s argument,
but he is hearing or intending the Doctrine of Creation.27
Preller senses here that Aquinas is wrestling with the problem inherent to the
philosophical proofs that there is no direct way to articulate the Creator God of
Scripture. Unless the argument is modified in such a way that removes God from
ordinary experiences of the world, God is either too attached to the world or too
removed from it. Yet, scholars such as Elders28 point out that Aquinas begins
each of his Five Ways from the world of the senses: the first on the basis of our
perception of motion in the world; the second on the basis of our observations that
certain causes yield corresponding effects. Aquinas has already established in the
previous articles of this question that, by necessity, all demonstrations begin with
the senses, because this is the mode of human knowing. On the other hand, unless
guided by faith, this knowledge does not lead to the God of Scripture, but at best
to the pagan god of the philosopher. And faith assumes a God whose existence is
as immanent as it is transcendent. This is the theological interpretation of God’s
distinction from the world.
Thus far, the first two demonstrations have created the space for God’s
transcendence by beginning with our understanding of motion and causality in the
world of sense and appealing to a being that must be the origin of these worldly
phenomena, without being subject to them. However, both demonstrations lack
the sense of God’s necessity with regard to the Creator’s own continued existence
as well as that of creation. In other words, God must transcend the world in yet
another way: it must be impossible for God not to be at any given time. In the
first demonstration, there is nothing to prevent God from being the first mover
and then going out of existence; likewise, in the second demonstration, there is
nothing to prevent God from causing the first worldly efficient cause and then
ceasing, leaving nature to continue its own causality. But this is far from the God
of faith, who is so immediate and so intimate that creation relies on its Creator

27
Elders, Philosophical Theology, 128.

28
to continually sustain its existence, and who keeps it from falling back into the
nothingness from whence it came.
Aquinas takes up this issue in his Third Way. Once again beginning with the
world of the senses, he observes that in nature there are things that “are possible
to be and not to be,” given the contingency and corruptibility of created things.
At some point, the logic goes, we must come to something whose existence is
absolutely necessary—that is, not only incorruptible, but whose necessity is itself
uncaused—otherwise there would be nothing in existence. This is so because, if it
were possible that everything could not-be at some time, there would be nothing
to begin being at all. In other words, non-being would regress back infinitely, and
at some point there would be nothing from which to begin creation, for everything
that could possibly not be, at some time did not exist. And the unstated implication
is that should there be a being who, having created, ceases to be, then at some
point in time, there will again be nothing, since all contingent things inevitably
pass away: “it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible
not to be at some time is not.” There must be a being who is excluded from this
possibility. This absolutely necessary being, Aquinas asserts, “all men speak of
[dicunt] as God.”
This proof may be the most difficult of all of the arguments that Aquinas
presents; but so much rides on it that it must be carefully examined. The language
Aquinas uses in this demonstration is tricky, because it is tempting to speak of
God’s “eternity” to explain how God is distinct from creatures with regard to their
contingency and corruptibility. One problem with speaking of God’s distinction
as “eternal” is that we also have cases of creatures being eternal; for instance
the beatified, who, having passed through earthly life, “rest eternally with God”
despite having been created as contingent and corruptible beings, who could have
been or not been, and whose earthly life was sure to pass away at some time. And
angels, though perhaps spoken of as eternal, are still created, and thus contain
some contingency.
Aquinas will take up God’s eternity later in Question 10, after considering
God’s infinity, and there he will be in a position to develop this essential feature
non-contrastively in order to allow us to speak more intelligibly about the
Creator–creature relationship—especially that with which sacred doctrine is
ultimately concerned, between the beatified and the One with whom they have
been reunited. However, at this stage in the lesson, as he is introducing the major
components of his metaphysics, Aquinas must be careful to avoid a misleading
interpretation of God’s existence. Although he refers here in the third proof to
a “time” in which things “may not be,” he refrains from attributing the term
“eternal” to a being for whom there is no possibility of non-existence, because
that would directly oppose God’s “eternity” with time or could ever lead us to the
conclusion that eternity is an “infinitely” long time. Ultimately, this interpretation
compromises God’s distinction from the world as well as prevents Aquinas from
further moving towards developing the metaphysics of participation that he will
introduce in following demonstrations.
Aquinas emphasizes that God’s existence goes beyond duration in time (past,
present, or future); more is at stake than the capacity (or not) to count “infinitely”
backwards to a time where God came into existence. God’s infinity is about the
nature of creation’s dependency upon its Creator. Before Aquinas takes up God’s
eternity, he considers God’s infinity—and in so doing he will move it away from
its association with quantity (for example, duration of time or number of causes).
But for now, Aquinas allows us to assume our conventional understanding of
“infinity” so he can appeal to the philosophical concept of “infinite regress” to
move God out of the ordinary world of sense experience. In Question 10, which
follows God’s infinity, Aquinas considers God’s eternity, and there he will shift the
discussion away from temporal language, so eternity and time may be spoken of
non-contrastively, by re-articulating eternity in terms of immutability.
Instead of speaking of God’s eternity here in his Third Way, which would
present a more immediate problem than the conventional notion of infinity he has
employed in the previous two demonstrations, Aquinas refers to God’s necessity to
communicate creation’s reliance on God for existence—not simply in the sense of
being created or caused by God, but in the sense that without God, creation would
neither come to be nor remain in existence; there would simply be nothing. Although
Aquinas does use temporal language, his demonstration is not about how long God
must have been in existence (that is, always), but why God’s existence is necessary
rather than contingent: to create and sustain all things. The notion of God’s absolute
necessity includes everything that has been affirmed in the first two Ways: first, God
is fully actual, containing no potentiality whatsoever, and second, God is uncaused.
But God’s necessity goes beyond the unmoved mover and first efficient cause in that
God’s existence is interminably required for anything to have ever existed and, we
must assume, for anything to continue to exist, because if a created thing’s cause
could not-be, then so could its effect.29 And by God’s “interminable” existence—as it
is being used improperly here—more than unending time is indicated. The Christian
doctrine of creation is undeniably intended, for nothing could exist “prior” to God’s
existence, and this implies not only that God is the author of time itself, but more
importantly that God creates ex nihilo. Furthermore, at any time the existence of all
things will fall back into nothingness without God’s continual causality. Thus, God
is both the Creator and Sustainer of creation.
Given the immediacy of the Creator’s existence to creation suggested by the
previous (third) argument, Aquinas is now in the position to formally introduce the
basic structure of his metaphysics of participation central to the Creator–creature
relationship. In his Fourth Way, Aquinas shifts his attention back to God’s effects,
as he takes up the gradation found in created things. Recall that in the Second Way
Aquinas appeals to God’s effects, creatures, as evidence of their ultimate efficient
cause, a move correlating well with Scripture, where God creates all things directly
and human creatures in the divine image and likeness. From the Third Way we
discover God not only creates but remains present to creation, because there is
Ibid., 105.
29
never a moment wherein divine causality can be absent; furthermore, this causality
of necessity must exclude any contingency whatsoever, or creation is doomed to
fall back into nothingness. Whereas in the first and second demonstrations Aquinas
establishes God’s existence as necessarily transcendent, within the second and
third demonstrations, Aquinas begins to establish God’s existence as necessarily
immanent. Unlike the unmoved mover, who sets the first thing in motion, the first
efficient cause in the Second Way creates each thing directly; and furthermore,
although the first efficient cause is “outside” of the world because it is exempt
from causality, the worldly effects resemble it in some manner. In the Third Way,
this first cause, containing no contingency whatsoever, must remain active in
creation to preserve it from nothingness.
However, the previous demonstrations, while progressively moving towards
the God of Scripture—whose existence is both transcendent from and immanent
to creation—still lack the dimension of the Creator’s intimacy affirmed in
Scripture as well as in the lives of the faithful. With regard to the Second Way,
while creaturely effects must resemble their divine cause, there is no sense of the
manner in which that likeness exists. With regard to the Third Way, while God’s
existence is necessary to preserve creation, there is no sense that this presence
exists personally or with any intentional intimacy towards creatures. The Fourth
Way now steps implicitly in this direction. In this demonstration, God’s existence
is derived, not merely by virtue of the existence of effects, but by the specific
resemblance of the effects to their Cause as well as by the relationships of the
effects to each other.
Beginning, of course, with the world of sense, Aquinas observes that
[a]mong beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the
like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they
resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum.
Aquinas employs the principle that the maximum in any genus is the cause of
every member of the genus,30 and he concludes there must be something which is
the cause of all perfections as well as of all being, “and this we call God.”
Aquinas reaches this conclusion by assuming that if there is a maximum for
every perfection (goodness, truth, and so forth), then there is also a maximum for
being. In fact, being is associated with perfection, following Aristotle’s Metaphysics
(ii): “those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being.” However,
Aquinas does not explicitly include—but rather assumes—the fact that being,
while considered a perfection, cannot be a genus in the proper sense of the word,
because being is common to all genera, and consequently inclusive of every created
thing. In order for something to belong to a genus, it must first exist. In this sense,
30
Aquinas’ metaphysics of participation includes elements of Aristotle. See Elders,
Philosophical Theology, 115-17. See also Kenny regarding the Platonism of the Fourth
Way (Five Ways, 79).
being holds priority over any given perfection. On the other hand, since being is
a perfection common to all genera, it may be used as the criterion with which to
compare and contrast them; in other words, among beings there is more or less
being with regard to their respective genus or species. Thus, Aquinas implicates
two different measures in the created world: that among creatures of the same kind
and that between creatures of different kinds. These two measures’ relation to the
maximum of being, the cause of all, is important in imaging the Creator.
Aquinas’ modification lies between the maximum of being (which implies
God) and the maximum of each particular genus. Since the maximum of being
is the cause of all being—and hence all genera—then the maximum must, in this
case alone, be the cause of its own existence. Since no created thing can be the
cause of its own existence (or its essence would be its own existence) then the
maximum of being cannot be compared to or contrasted with anything that it
causes. By organizing his metaphysics of participation around the principle that
the maximum of a genus is the cause of all in that genus and by further including
being among perfections—in fact giving it priority of perfections—Aquinas lays
the groundwork for speaking about a Creator who is distinct, yet whose effects
exist profoundly in relation to it.
The entity who causes all being is not only excluded from every genus but is
outside of all genera, and therefore is uniquely “outside” of the world (Question 3
will make explicit), for we define things in the world by categorizing them into
their genus, species, and finally, their individual qualities. The implications of
this conclusion are critical to the negative theology of both Aquinas and Eckhart,
because this prohibits God from being spoken of as any type of being at all: the
one who causes all being is not being itself nor any particular being, and cannot be
placed within any of the categories by which everything in our world is described.
Therefore, God is ineffable.
On the other hand, precisely because this God—and no other—causes all
being, all things have an immediate relation to its Creator, as well as to each
other; each thing is related to all other things by what they share: being. Being,
or existence, is the most immediate and intimate thing that can be said about
something—something has first to be (even if only in the imagination) before
it can be any particular thing. Yet, to be a creature at all, its existence must be
inseparable from its particularity: in creating, God causes something to be this and
not that. In this sense, God’s very incomprehensibility, that which distinguishes
God from the world and allows God to be the cause of all, is the very source of the
intelligibility of creatures, and it is the particularity of the creature which relates it
not only to other created things but to its Creator as well. Therefore, the creature is
a reflection of its Creator, not only in itself, but in its relationship to others.
What the Fourth Way adds to previous demonstrations is how creatures
resemble God in their particular relationships to each other. This allows Aquinas
to move forward in demonstrating the existence of the God of Scripture. Presently,
in Question 3, Aquinas will further develop the implications of God’s exclusion
from every genus. Specifically, he will explore the issue of the difference between
the Creator’s essence and that of the creature (God’s essence and existence
are identical while the creature’s essence and existence are not),31 effectively
eliminating any possibility of God’s belonging to any genus or species. However,
central to his explication, Aquinas must show God not only as the immediate and
immanent Creator—causing and continually sustaining creation—but also as the
intimate and personal Creator, whose creatures reflect and return to their ultimate
Source. The Fifth Way will complete the plan by showing that God intentionally
creates the world such that their end is that same source.
As noted above, all creatures resemble other creatures in their genus in relation
to the maximum of that genus; Aquinas uses the example of particular perfections
such as “good” and “noble,” which are said to be more or less in relation to a most
good or most noble. Thus we can describe something by comparing and contrasting
it with other things of the same genus. Furthermore, while all creatures can be
compared and contrasted to others of their own kind, one kind can also be compared
with and contrasted from another by virtue of their order of being: for example, with
regard to existence a fern is more noble than a rock, a horse more noble than a fern, a
human more noble than a horse, and an angel more noble than a human. This reflects
the standard Neoplatonic hierarchy of being. The Neoplatonic hierarchy, however,
lacks the resources to separate creation from its Creator. In this schema, then, it
could be said that creatures possess their existence and all the perfections it entails in
proportion to their Creator. But we know that Aquinas rejects this position: creatures
have no proportion to the Creator. Even less should it be said that any creature, no
matter how noble its existence, is like the Creator, because that could very well lead
to the misapprehension that there is a proportion between the two.
The Fourth Way distinguishes the Creator from all else by incorporating efficient
causality (that is, the Creator is the maximum of being, the cause of all perfection
and of all genus), effectively removing God from the world of comparisons and
contrasts and eliminating the possibility that any creature—or any genus—enjoys
a relationship of proportion to the Creator. But, with the same move, since all
things are related to each other by their common feature of existence, not only the
very multiplicity, but the hierarchy of creation reflects the Creator. According to
Rudi Te Velde,
The diversity of creatures is not a sheer multiplicity, but must be understood to

proceed from a common origin as it is a diversity within the unity of an order.
One creature would not suffice to represent the abundant goodness of God. This
diversity requires an inequality among its parts, implying a diversity of grades
of perfection. There can never be an adequate likeness of God if all things are
of the same degree.32
31
Aquinas introduces this distinction in that opening of the second question. STh,
I.2.1, answer.
32
Rudi Te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1995), 212.
If God is the cause of existence, then God is the cause of all perfection; if God is
the maximum of being and of perfection, then in God’s existence alone is found
the perfection of perfection. No single creature and no single type of creature, no
matter how noble, adequately reflects God’s perfection. Yet through the continuity
of being—where there are no gaps and no distance between creatures—the
simplicity and unity of the Creator shines forth, the inexhaustible intelligibility
of God is implicated. As Elder notes, for Aquinas, “[b]eing shows itself in the
perfection it exhibits.” The more being—and the more beings—therefore, the
more God’s perfection is manifest. God’s incomprehensibility is found in God’s
inexhaustible intelligibility, displayed in the continuous profusion of creation.
The order of creation, not merely creation’s existence as effects, demonstrates
God’s existence. But even this demonstration does not yet fulfill the requirements
of Scripture’s Creator which includes God’s intentionality towards creation. For the
faithful, not only is God the fullness of Goodness, Truth, and all such perfection, but
above all, God is “Love”; and love is a personal gift given in absolute freedom. A God
whose creation is only a natural “by-product” of its existence is not meaningful to the
believer. For God to be the God of Scripture, the act of creating must be intentional
and purposeful—and personal. For human creatures, this purpose is finding their
end in their Creator, ultimately for reunion and for communion. Thus, when the God
of Genesis professes the creation of the world “good,” this affirmation expresses
more than an emanation or effusion of the Creator’s own goodness into creation;
it expresses an intentional and personal act of the Creator’s self-communication
and self-sharing with the creature, which can only be described as an act of divine
Love. Not only does the order of creation reflect the perfection and existence of
the Creator, but it also reflects the love of the Creator for creation: God’s free and
personal self-communication manifest in all of creation.33
The Fifth Way accomplishes this last step, though quite implicitly at this point
in the treatise, demonstrating a God whose creative operation is intentional rather
than natural, and whose effects reflect their cause by virtue of the end to which they
are purposefully designed. Aquinas argues that even things lacking intelligence act
for their proper end, which in effect means reaching their full potential with regard
to their particular place in the order of being. “Now whatever lacks intelligence
cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with
knowledge and intelligence. … Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom
all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”
This argument “from the governance of the world,” is often called the
teleological argument, referring to the inbuilt purpose something reaches after its
existence fully unfolds, for example an acorn becoming a tree.34 While Aquinas
reaches to the lowest common element—those things lacking intelligence—his
aim is obviously drawn much higher on the scale of being, specifically humanity,
whose teleology is communion with God. This is clear not only from the beginning

33
See Elders, Philosophical Theology, 120.

34
of the question of God’s existence, where Aquinas replies that knowledge of God’s
existence is implanted in us (if only in a “general and confused way”) because
“God is man’s beatitude,” but also from his introduction to the questions on God’s
existence and nature: the mission of sacred doctrine is to teach the knowledge
of God, “as He is the beginning of things and their last end, and especially of
rational creatures.” The Fifth Way comes full circle by demonstrating God whose
existence we are considering is none other than the Creator who draws all things
towards their intended end and, as Aquinas will further indicate, who ceaselessly
coaxes the human creature into communion with its Ground and Source.
Thus, while the Five Ways may perhaps fall somewhat short of proving the
existence of God from a purely philosophical perspective, careful examination
from the “radically theological” perspective Aquinas intends does demonstrate
that, in order for God to be “God,” God must exist as uniquely distinct:
transcendent (distinguished from the world) yet immanent (related to the world
as cause); and further, in order for God to be the Creator God of Scripture, God
also exists intimately related and personally present to creatures (as their ultimate
source and end).
Preller points out that even philosophically speaking the Five Ways succeed,
at least in establishing the parameters around which we may inquire about God:
To ask if God exists is to ask if a new kind of reference is possible—if there is a

use of “exist” other than that defined by the sorts of references we find ourselves
making to things of which we can naturally conceive. … [W]e want to define a
kind of logical space (however unique or peculiar) which can be intended on the
basis of our references to the world. Thus, Aquinas defines “God” not merely
as “above all things and removed from all things,” but also as the “cause of
all things.”35
Preller perceives that the theological motivation for creating this unique kind
of logical space removing “God” from the range of our conceptual powers is
emphasizing our natural inability to “conform our minds to God” without God’s
grace.36 In other words, the Scriptural imperative demands that not only God’s
distinction from the world, but God’s incomprehensibility be preserved. This is
at the heart of what it means to be a human creature in relation to the Creator,
whose gratuitous self-communication is the only means by which the human
may accomplish its intended end. Furthermore, if the Five Ways do create such a
“logical space” for speaking about God, then (contrary to Preller’s initial claim)37
Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God are neither dangerous nor irrelevant to
his doctrine; indeed, they are essential to understanding Aquinas’ metaphysics as
35
Preller, Divine Science, 151-2. Words such as “cause” are not employed in the
ordinary sense when applied to the Divine.
36
Ibid., 156.
37
Ibid., 108.
driven by theological and linguistic concerns. This hypothesis is further supported

by the allusion to naming God that closes each of the Five Ways.38
The conclusion to the proofs reveals yet another correlation with the following
questions: Questions 3-11 treat the “formal features” of God’s existence—that
is, God’s essence or the manner of God’s existence—and Questions 12 and 13
consider how God is known and named by human creatures. This fits well with
Hankey’s suggestion that the Five Ways, taken together as one organic proof
and in conjunction with the first question, provide a plan for what follows.39
Specifically, Hankey sees in this plan the exitus/reditus dialectic, where
“the movement of knowledge coming down from God’s self-disclosure mediated
to us through Scripture [Question 1] meets the movement of thought rising from
the scientific understanding of natural phenomena and reaching up towards God
[Question 2].”40 The questions on God’s essence, beginning with God’s existence,
are complemented by the questions of how human creatures know God, through
the senses, and of how we speak about God, which embraces this dialectical
movement—and ultimately overcomes it, allowing speech about God to retain its
thoroughly negative character.
Finally, the “unique logical space” created by Question 2, allowing us to
inquire about God while maintaining God’s incomprehensibility, is not only
conducive to a non-contrastive grasp of language, but goes beyond this possibility
precisely because it suggests the “reditus” part of the dialectic: the creature’s
return to God, and the movement made possible because of this inbuilt telos.
While not apparent within the Five Ways themselves, this especially relates to
the human creature, who images its Creator, at least in part, by its participation
in the perfection of intellect; the second question implicates the centrality of the
human creature’s relation to God, since it is because of our intellect that we seek
to inquire after God in the first place—and require the kind of “demonstrations”
Aquinas provides with the Five Ways. By following through with the implications
raised by Question 2—that is, the requirements of existing as God (transcendent-
yet-immanent: causing and sustaining creatures as well as intentionally and
intimately bringing them into relation)—the Scriptural narrative begins to come
into focus. Questions 3-11 utilize the unique logical space opened up in Question 2
by drawing out the features of the Creator God of Scripture in such a way that the
Creator’s incomprehensibility is preserved. Questions 12 and 13 then connect this
Creator specifically to the human creature who seeks to know and to articulate,
however inadequately, its ultimate Source and End.
38
The first way (from motion) closes with “This everyone understands to be God”;
the second way (from efficient cause) with “which everyone gives the name of God”; the
third way (from necessary being) with “this all men speak of as God”; the fourth way (from
perfection) with “and this we call God”; and the fifth way (from the one in whom the end
of all things is directed) with “and this being we call God.”
39
Hankey, God in Himself, 73.
40
Ibid., 42.
B. Questions 3 through 11: The Manner of the Creator’s Existence
The Simplicity of God (Question 3)

The Perfection of God (Questions 4-6)
The Limitlessness of God (Questions 7-8)
The Immutability of God (Questions 9-10)
The Unity of God (Question 11)
Question 3 introduces us to the manner of the Creator’s existence. Aquinas outlines

this section by repeating Dionysius’ warning for a third time:
because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no
means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not. Therefore we must
consider 1) How He is not; 2) How He is known by us; 3) How He is named.
Now it can be shown how God is not, by denying of Him whatever is opposed
to the idea of Him—viz., composition, motion, and the like.
Aquinas’ aim here is to draw an intimate connection between knowing God and
speaking about God, but not before the correct order of the relationship between
Creator (the One spoken about) and the creature (the speaker) is firmly embedded
in the minds of his readers. To appropriately grasp this relationship, Aquinas
examines certain features said to be unique to the Divine, thereby setting God
apart from all else. Such “formal features”41 are attributed to the Creator alone:
simplicity, oneness or unity, perfection,42 limitlessness (infinity), and immutability
(eternity). Not only do these features establish the Creator’s distinction from
creation, they give the believer a specific vocabulary with which to speak to and
about God, especially as Creator and in relation to creatures. These formal features
certainly deny any and all creaturely attributes; however, what Aquinas does not
yet reveal is that this negative interpretation must at the same time encompass
every creaturely attribute so God is articulated as the Creator of all—in other
words, this negation must be understood non-contrastively.
We have already seen that Aquinas follows Dionysius: it is better to compare
God to the lowest existing thing than to risk understanding God as the most noble
of creatures, for “what God is not is clearer to us than what [God] is.”43 However,
Aquinas is also indebted to the medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides
for his negative theology. Like Aquinas, Maimonides is primarily concerned with
41
See David Burrell’s use of “formal features” in his Excercises in Religious
Understanding, ch. 3, “Aquinas: Articulating Transcendence,” and Analogy and Philosophical
Language (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 129-31. See also Burrell’s Knowing
the Unknowable God (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 46.
42
Perfection, however, deviates from the other formal features, but is crucial to
Aquinas’ development of non-contrastive language-use.
43
STh, I.1.9, reply 3.
safeguarding God’s distinction from all created beings. Maimonides observes

that due to the highly metaphorical language of Scripture the average believer
inevitably falls into the error of anthropomorphism when speaking about God,
thus compromising God’s absolute unity from which this distinction is derived; for
biblical language often describes God in terms making God appear to be composed
like other creatures. Because of the danger associated with this type of language,
Maimonides believes most faithful must be instructed “parrot-wise” that the
difference between the Creator and creatures is not one of degree, but of kind: God
is one, eternal, and incorporeal, all of which exemplify God’s ultimate perfection.44
Although Scripture is replete with anthropomorphisms and other metaphors,
Maimonides maintains it does truly reveal God’s essence, particularly in Exodus
where the divine name is given to Moses: “I am who am.” In this one divine name,
all attributes distinguishing the Creator from creatures are contained. Although
the masses must unquestionably accept such divine attributes (or formal features)
above all other descriptions of God so to counter their tendency to understand God
anthropomorphically, a few will strive for a higher stage of speculation wherein
conclusions of God’s distinction can be reached philosophically. Maimonides, too,
brings philosophical reflection on the nature of God to bear on his religious tradition.
Maimonides perceives that metaphysics must be used to articulate the distinction of
Creator from creatures and also to preserve God’s incomprehensibility; therefore
anything said about God, even philosophically, must be interpreted negatively.
For Maimonides, everything except completely equivocal usage must be ruled
out when applying essential attributes to God. That is, any attribute applied to
God’s essence—even existence or unity—must be understood as a negation of
any creaturely notion of the term, since any positive assertion made in creaturely
terms implies multiplicity or composition.45 Positive assertions having a negative
prefix, like immortality or incorruptibility, affirm a privation of some creaturely
attribute, and so are essentially negative in form.46 However, Maimonides had
to contend with Scriptural language, which also makes positive assertions about
the “living,” “powerful,” and “knowing” God; and this attribution goes beyond
merely describing actions of God to attributing something to God’s essence.47
Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, I.XXXV (p. 63 in Rabin trans.).

44
For more on Maimonides’ negative theology, see Arthur Hyman, “Maimonides on

45
Religious Language,” in Studies in Jewish Philosophy: Collected Essays of the Academy

for Jewish Philosophy, 1980-1985, ed. Norbert Samuelson (Lanham, MD: University Press
of America, 1987); and Julius Guttman’s introduction in the Rabin translation of Guide of
the Perplexed.
46
Harry Austryn Wolfson, “Maimonides on Negative Attributes,” in Essays in
Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy, Studies from the Publications of the American
Academy for Jewish Research, ed. Arthur Hyman (New York: KTAV, 1977), 192.
47
Maimonides distinguishes between attributes of action and essential attributes.
See Guide of the Perplexed, I.LII (p. 71 in Rabin trans.). Joseph Buijs, “Attributes of
Action in Maimonides,” Vivarium XXVII, No. 2 (Nov. 1989), 87, believes many medieval
scholars—including Aquinas—misinterpreted Maimonides.
How is it that such positive assertions about God can be understood completely
equivocally and simultaneously affirm the Creator God of faith? Maimonides’
answer goes further than simple negation of Divine attributes, but includes
the proper ordering of that negation. As Harry Austryn Wolfson observes,
Maimonides’ ordering of divine attributes shows how—when taken as the
negation of their opposites—such propositions constitute a complete description
of the dissimilarity between Creator and creatures, safeguarding God’s absolute
unity and unique distinction:48
God is Existent (“I Am Who Am”) = God is not contingent 49

Negates the similarity between the Creator’s necessary existence and creatures’
accidental, possible, and transient existence
God is Living = God is not dead 50

Distinguishes the Creator from the sublunar elements (inanimate/dead bodies)
God is pure form = God is not corporeal 51

Distinguishes the Creator from the celestial spheres and living corporeal beings
God is first = God is not caused

Distinguishes the Creator from incorporeal caused beings (intelligences, angels)
God is powerful = God is not weak

Distinguishes the Creator’s ultimate and primary causality from the creature’s
limited and secondary causality
God is knowing = God is not foolish

Distinguishes the Creator’s wisdom from the creature’s knowledge; the Creator
is not a blind force acting by necessity and unconscious of results produced
God is willing = God is not rash or neglectful

Distinguishes the Creator’s intentional and free action from the creature’s rash
and often neglectful action
48
Wolfson, “Maimonides on Negative Attributes,” 190-91.
49
Wolfson’s translation is “God is not missed.” However, his description better
fits “not potential or contingent” because the proposition intends to point to God’s
necessary existence.
50
Aquinas specifically criticizes Maimonides’ negative interpretation of “God is
Living = God is not dead,” asserting this is not what ordinary Christians (or Scripture)
mean by attributing Life to God. STh, I.13.2, answer.
51
Common usage is God is “incorporeal.” Wolfson uses the philosophical terminology
of “form.”
God is One = God is not many (in number or in composition)

All negations summed up, thus safeguarding the Creator’s absolute
unity and distinction from creation. God is excluded from any creaturely
category whatsoever
Notice the first proposition presents the thesis of the negation: The Creator’s
existence is unlike the existence of anything else. The next three propositions
show the distinction of this existence by moving God out of the created order of
being: inanimate and animate corporeal things as well as incorporeal things. The
second set of three propositions shows how God’s perfect action is unlike human
action: without God’s creative act there would be no other; this primordial creating
is neither necessary nor accidental, but fully gratuitous and intentional. The last
proposition reaffirms the singular uniqueness of God’s existence. Excluded from
all creaturely categories, the Creator in no way essentially participates in the
order of creation. But Maimonides’ negation—in keeping with a purely equivocal
interpretation—goes beyond excluding God from all creaturely categories;
Maimonides also qualifies that propositions of Divine attributes must be negated,
and further, the terms themselves must be negated in their ordinary sense.52 For
instance, not only does “God is powerful” mean “God is not weak” but also that
Divine power is totally equivocal to creaturely power: God is not weak and God’s
power is unlike creaturely power.
Not incidentally, for Aquinas, both the order of essential attributes and the
negation of these attributes in their ordinary sense play a critical role in his
negative theology developed throughout Questions 3-11. In the end, Question 11
on God’s unity actually reaffirms God’s simplicity, treated in Question 3, as well as
summarizes God’s perfection and other formal features examined in Questions 7-10.
Furthermore, within these questions Aquinas strives to show precisely how these
essential attributes are not to be understood in their ordinary creaturely sense.
Therefore, in light of Maimonides’ qualifications regarding affirmative forms of
Divine attribution, Aquinas’ treatment of the manner of the Creator’s existence
may be interpreted as thoroughly negative.
On the other hand, Aquinas proposes a “middle way” in Question 13 between
an equivocal and an univocal understanding of the Creator–creature relationship,
which would seem to compromise a truly negative theology. Maimonides rejects
any such position between equivocal and univocal uses referring to Divine essence
because this would inevitably imply a third likeness between the Creator and
creature, endangering the Creator’s distinction from creation.53 Although both
Maimonides and Aquinas are primarily concerned with preserving this distinction,
Aquinas—by virtue of his religious vocation dedicated to orienting the faithful
See Wolfson, “Maimonides on Negative Attributes,” 192.

52
See David Burrell, “Aquinas’ Debt to Maimonides,” in A Straight Path: Studies in

53
Medieval Philosophy and Culture. Essays in Honor of Arthur Hyman, ed. Ruth Link-Salinger
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of American Press, 1988).
towards their beatific salvation—recognizes he must be able to articulate this

distinction not only in terms of the Creator’s transcendence from creation, but by
the Creator’s immanence to it as well.
This is not to say that Maimonides was uncommitted to this saving goal, for
he was first and foremost a Rabbi before a philosopher; but his perspective on
ordinary believers’ ability to understand Scripture’s metaphorical nuances was
considerably less optimistic than Aquinas’. It is abundantly clear from the first
page of his Summa that Aquinas actually counted on ordinary believers’ desire and
potential to become skilled in discerning biblical prose. Question 1 asserts that
while it is impossible for us to come to know God through rational thought, aided
by faith’s guidance as well as inbuilt telos, our natural penchant for intellection is a
vital part of our return to God who is beyond intellection altogether. This intimate
union has little meaning if we can only speak about a God who is transcendent.
The force of Aquinas’ philosophical labor is aimed at articulating the God of
Scripture, whose distinction, as illustrated by Question 2, depends just as much
on the Creator’s immanence to creatures as it does on the Creator’s transcendence
from creatures—and our ability to become aware and build upon this awareness
through our religious expressions.
Having set up this condition in Question 2, Aquinas attempts to show how
this relationship of transcendence-in-immanence can be articulated such that
God’s incomprehensibility is respected, and—as Dionysius and Maimonides
demonstrate—this can only be accomplished by adhering to the demands of a
thoroughly negative theology. Aquinas’ strategy, developed implicitly throughout
the preceding questions and discussed explicitly in Question 13, must fall clearly
within the confines of negative theology. As with Maimonides, the ordering of
the formal features in these questions is crucial, but Aquinas shows his ordering
constitutes a complete description of the dissimilarity between the Creator and
creature while revealing the immediate, intimate, and necessary presence of the
Creator to creature. Since this immanence totally exceeds any creaturely presence,
speaking of the likeness of creature to Creator articulates a thoroughly distinct
relationship. Seen in this light, analogical language-use retains its negative
character. Nothing said about God’s essence, even terms also attributed to
creatures, such as goodness or perfection, may be understood in its ordinary sense.
Using ordinary words in an extraordinary way to refer to the divine requires
a non-contrastive grasp of language. Even terms not commonly used to refer to
creatures, such as limitlessness and immutability, imply the negation or limitation of
some creaturely attribute, so nothing said about God is exempt from the tendency to
compare or contrast the Creator and creature. But as Aquinas has already established
in his second question, to call God the Creator is to move God out of every possible
category by which proper comparison or contrast may be made, thereby uniquely
situating God as Cause and Measure of all things falling within the order of creation.
Aquinas now explicates this divine position by progressively demonstrating how
special terms used to talk about the Creator’s transcendence from the created order
necessarily indicate the Creator’s immediate and intimate presence.
Question 3 confirms and expands upon how God is completely outside of

the created order and subtly raises the question of how, if this is the case, God
can be immediately present to it. Article 7 gives a concise summary of God’s
unique transcendence:
there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not

a body; nor composition of form and matter nor does His nature differ from
His suppositum nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him
composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore,
it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. … Secondly,
because every composite is posterior to its component parts, and is dependent
on them; but God is the first being …. Thirdly, because every composite has a
cause. … Fourthly, because in every composite there must be potentiality and
actuality; but this does not apply to God. … Thus in every composite there is
something which is not it itself.54
The first article appeals to both scriptural and philosophical arguments. All five
objections raised refer to passages in Scripture referring to God in corporeal terms.
Recalling Question 1’s conclusions about scriptural language, Aquinas responds
that these texts are meant to be taken metaphorically, and such bodily terms refer
literally to God’s power and incomprehensibility.55 Therefore, corporeal terms
are not taken in their ordinary sense when used of God. Aquinas also takes this
opportunity to restate the distinction he made in the First Way between potency
and act, creating a basis for removing the Creator from all creaturely categories
and establishing the Creator as primary cause. Anything corporeal contains some
potency and must be moved to actuality by something already in act, but since
God is pure act, not only is God incorporeal but He is the cause of bringing all
potential things into actuality. Article 2 further qualifies God’s incorporeality by
distinguishing it from any type of form which participates in matter. Article 3
concludes that God’s essence is, therefore, God’s individual and full definition:
“Since God then is not composed of matter and form, He must be … His own Life,
and whatever else is thus predicated of Him.”56 Articles 4 and 5 make this explicit:
“God is not only His own essence, as shown in the preceding article, but also
His own existence.”57 The identification of God’s essence and existence removes
the Creator from creatures by the very way we define ourselves, that is, by the
categories of genus and species in which we participate, necessitating a separation
between our essence and our existence. We must say the Creator is outside of
creation, and further, the Creator is outside of all creaturely definitions—essentially
preserving God’s ultimate incomprehensibility.
54
STh, I.3.7, answer.
55
See, for example, STh, I.1.10, reply obj. 3.
56
STh, I.3.3, answer.
57
STh, I.3.4, answer.
Article 5 seals the Creator’s complete transcendence from creatures. The Creator
is outside of all genus and species, and simultaneously the measure of all genus and
species. This measure is in no way proportionate, because a proportionate measure
must be homogeneous with what is measured. So, “measure” is not used in its
ordinary sense when referring to the Creator. Rather, Aquinas says, “He is called
the measure of all things, in the sense that everything has being only according as
it resembles Him.”58 This calls attention back to Aquinas’ development of divine
causality in the Five Ways: it is by virtue of God’s causing and sustaining all things
in being—moving them from potency (nothingness) to act—that any likeness
or measure is possible at all. Moreover, this likeness or measure is much more
profound than resemblance; it manifests the Creator’s presence and immediacy to
creatures. Therefore, the Creator’s complete transcendence from the created order
also allows for the Creator’s immanence.
Articles 6 and 8 implicitly raise the question of how the Creator is present
to creation. Objection 1 foreshadows Aquinas’ treatment of God’s perfection
as well as the notion of analogy by asserting there must be accidents in God
because “wisdom, virtue, and the like, which are accidents in us, are attributes of
God.” Aquinas replies that these are not predicated of God and of us univocally.
Therefore, we may conclude, these perfections are not used in their ordinary sense
when referring to God. Since we do not share in God’s perfection in an univocal
way, can we then say that God is present to us by entering into the composition
of things? Question 8 refutes this understanding as well, following Dionysius,
that union with God does not imply co-mingling.59 The Creator’s immediate
presence to creation, as well as a creature’s ultimate communion with God, does
not compromise the Creator’s distinction, because the Creator is the first efficient
cause, which does not participate in the form or matter of the thing caused. The
Creator’s presence to creation, therefore, must be an altogether unique kind of
presence. In Question 3 Aquinas accomplishes what Maimonides did by providing
a complete description of how the Creator transcends creation, but goes well
beyond Maimonides by pointing towards the issue of the Creator’s immanence
to creation.
Questions 4-6, on God’s perfection and goodness, re-orient the question
of the Creator’s presence so that all divine formal features may be understood
non-contrastively. These three questions together form a unit, for goodness is
considered the primary perfection: “because everything in so far as it is perfect
is called good.”60 However, viewed together with the other questions concerning
the manner of God’s existence, those on God’s perfection and goodness do not
seem to fit with the notion of formal feature; since we attribute limitlessness,
immutability, and the like only to God and not to created things, we do attribute
various perfections to creation—indeed, we especially speak of the creature’s
58
STh, I.3.5, answer.
59
60
STh, Question 4, introduction.
goodness in terms of its relation to the divine goodness. If anything, perfections

such as goodness seem to permit an univocal understanding of the Creator–creature
relationship—contrary to Aquinas’ assertion that anything attributed to creatures
must be denied in God—precisely because in accordance with Scripture creation
participates in God’s goodness by virtue of the divine creative act.
On the other hand, consideration of God’s perfection and goodness flows
directly from Question 3, where God’s simplicity is based on the singular
identification between God’s essence and existence which sets God apart from
the world and establishes God as Creator. The notion of causal participation—an
articulation of the Creator–creature relationship wherein the creature is said to share
in the Creator’s perfection—rests upon the Creator’s exclusion from all creaturely
categories. Only by being excluded from every possible genus and species can the
Creator be intimately present to everything contained in them (which will be the
topic of Questions 7-10). Questions 4-6 reveal that all such God-talk is really about
the Creator’s immanence to creatures, rather than about the Creator’s transcendence
from creatures. This redirects our understanding of the formal features under
consideration: when we speak of God’s eternity or infinity, for instance, we are not
saying how far God exceeds us in time or space, but rather how intimately close
God must be to us! We should not underestimate the importance of these three
questions to the rest of the section, as well as to a non-contrastive understanding of
God-talk, because they go far beyond comparison or contrast, and—as we will see
in Question 13—well beyond univocal or equivocal predication; this is the core of
Aquinas’ notion of “analogy”.
Questions 4, 5, and 6 establish non-contrastive usage by eliminating univocal
understandings of the Creator’s perfection and the creature’s, and by qualifying
non-univocal usage through reversals and extensions, aimed ultimately at affirming
the scriptural declaration that we are made in God’s image and likeness. Question 4
begins by reversing the creaturely meaning of perfection when attributed to God.
For creatures, perfection lies in the way they are made, including their place in the
order of creation: a living tree is more perfect than a rock which merely exists;
a full-grown tree is more perfect than its seed, which is only in its beginning
stage. According to this defining, the Creator cannot be considered perfect, for the
Creator’s essence is existence (the lowest level on the order of creation) and the
Creator is the beginning of things (which is less perfect than the end). Aquinas
completely reverses the definition of perfection when attributed to the Creator:
“[God’s] existence is the most perfect of all things, for it is compared to all
things as that by which they are made actual; for nothing has actuality except so
far as it exists. Hence existence is that which actuates all things.”61
From the perspective of creation, existence has the lowest status, requiring nothing
else to reach its perfection, but from the divine perspective, existence has the

61
highest status because without it there is nothing to be perfected. Furthermore,

while in creatures the beginning necessitates potentiality—that is how it is directed
to its perfect end—the Creator as beginning of all things necessitates a complete
lack of potentiality, and is for that reason the end that all things seek. The Creator
may only be improperly called perfect, since our creaturely understanding of
perfection rests on a notion of initial incompleteness and possible non-existence.62
This reversal invalidates an univocal understanding of perfection between Creator
and creature, and moves into the equivocal, by negating the meaning of creaturely
perfection when it is applied to the divine.
However, Aquinas is not finished. Article 3 turns its focus from Creator to
creature, not only anticipating the scriptural imperative of creation’s goodness
which underlies Question 6, but revealing Aquinas’ true aim—the Creator–creature
relationship and articulating it without violating the Creator’s incomprehensibility.
Having established the Creator’s perfection as altogether different criteria-wise
from that of the creature, the question is posed, “can any creature be like God?”
Here Aquinas also shifts from reversing our understanding of perfection when
applied to the Creator to extending our usage of creaturely terms; and, in a final
step, he will take this extension beyond itself.
Aquinas sets up this extension, as he did with the previous reversal, by rejecting
a univocal understanding of “likeness” when applied to the Creator–creature
relationship. When we say two created things are “alike,” we usually mean they share
some agreement in form, and hence can be compared. However, creatures share no
form with the Creator, since the Creator is excluded from any category from which
a form can be derived. Aquinas answers first by providing the example of efficient
causality, wherein an effect may be said to be “like” its cause, not specifically, but
generically, for instance as “the sun’s heat may be in some sort spoken of as like the
sun.” Generic “likeness” is a far distant reproduction of the cause than one sharing
the form of species, thereby providing an example of a non-univocal or, rather,
an equivocal usage of the term “likeness.” This example is equivocal, not in the
sense that there is no shared meaning between Creator and creature, but that an
opposition between the two is created: within a single relationship, by definition,
the cause is excluded from being the effect, and vice versa.63
However, extension of the creaturely term to the divine adds a priority
the reversal does not; in this instance the cause is pre-eminent over the effect.
Of course, this qualification is critically important to grasping the Creator–creature
relationship, because the relationship does not go both ways: the cause can exist
without an effect but the effect must have a cause; accordingly, all that comprises
the effect comes from the cause.64 Extending this case to the Creator–creature
62
Ibid.
63
An effect can also be a cause if it brings about another effect (for example, a mother
who has a daughter who has her own daughter), but the prior effect becomes a cause, and
so on—the two are still in contrast.
64
See STh, I.4.2, answer.
relationship, all perfections existing in the creature it receives from the Creator, its
primary and ultimate cause. Thus, the most proper meaning of “perfection” would
be applied to the divine; however, when we get to Aquinas’ treatment of analogy,
it will become clear that, since the understanding we have of such terms is derived
from our creaturely experience, our notion of perfection can only be attributed
improperly to the divine.
At this point in the exercise, the Creator is clearly distinct from the creature.
At the beginning of Question 4, univocal predication of divine perfection was
shown to be unacceptable because every criterion by which we attribute perfections
to ourselves is nullified in God. Therefore, any such predication extending a
creaturely perfection to God must be in some sense equivocal. However, this
equivocally-based extension creates two problems: first—as we have discussed
at length in this book—whenever the divine is opposed or contrasted with the
world (just as when compared), God becomes a type of creature and cannot be
incomprehensible; second, if the terms we use for us and for God have little in
common save a defective or far-removed reflection of our cause, then a personal
and loving Creator God is incoherent.
Aquinas now corrects these problems by moving his language-extension a
step beyond itself, essentially rejecting the equivocal language-use he just took
such great pains to establish. He is able to do this based on the type of unique
distinction setting God apart from the world, introduced in the Five Ways and later
developed in Question 3. The identification of essence and existence excludes
God from worldly categories, so the Creator in no way shares any form with
creation. Therefore, God cannot be opposed or contrasted to the world. According
to Aquinas,
Likeness of creatures to God is not affirmed on account of agreement in form

according to the formality of the same genus or species, but solely according to
analogy, inasmuch as God is essential being, whereas other things are beings
by participation.65
While creatures’ participation in the Creator’s existence may in some way be

likened to effects to their cause, the qualification that the cause shares no form
whatsoever with the effect drives the extension beyond both univocation and
equivocation, because even if we were to accept the example of a generic-type of
likeness, the most we could say about the likeness between God and ourselves is
that it is far removed and defective. Aquinas says as much in his answer: “if there
is an agent not contained in any genus, its effects will still more distantly reproduce
the form of the agent.”
However, he goes on to say that “created things, so far as they are beings, are like
God as the first and universal principle of all being.” As we’ll see, Aquinas’ analogy
attempts to convey a likeness of creatures to their Creator more profound than any

65
formal likeness (univocal or equivocal), because creatures actually participate in

that which is more immediate than any other created thing: existence—which in
itself takes no form (and yet all forms) since it is common to all.
This article draws out the implications raised in the Fourth and Fifth Ways:
no one creature, no one kind of creature, can adequately reflect the Creator;
however, the whole order of creation manifests the Creator in its very existence,
by participation, as well as by its telos that finds consummation in becoming fully
actualized—a return in fullness to the divine source from whence all things come.
In Genesis, where humanity is created in the divine image, it therefore should not
be understood that we bear a formal likeness to the Creator, but an existential one:
our true image lies in actualizing our end (telos): communion with our source.
Image in this sense is not understood as “looking like” or “resembling” God, but
dynamically, in the very act of being itself.
The idea that likeness—that is, relationship—between creature and Creator
is more profound and dynamic than any formal description is reinforced in
Questions 5 and 6. Article 3 of Question 5 asks whether every being is good.
To this, Aquinas answers, “every being, as being, is good. For all being, as being,
has actuality and is in some way perfect.” Illustrating his rejection of any kind
of formal extension to the Creator, which would at best be equivocal, Aquinas
explains that if we are to understand the “goodness” of a creature as “looking
like” the goodness of God, our articulations capture only a defective idea of the
Creator’s goodness, and worse (by implication) of the goodness which inheres in
the creature. Consequentially, any knowledge we could claim about God through
our own goodness would imply a separation between Creator and creature, contrary
to our faith. Rather, the creature’s goodness is received from the Creator, not
formally, but by virtue of its ordered end. This redirects the discussion away from
a definition of goodness—or any perfection—applied univocally or equivocally
to God, to focus on the Creator–creature relationship, and more specifically on
its goal: communion, which is not about the Creator’s transcendence from but
more so about the Creator’s immediate presence to the creature. And, because the
Creator can in no way properly be compared with or contrasted to creation, this
presence is ultimately indefinable, pointing to divine incomprehensibility.
Questions 7-10 concern God’s incomprehensibility, because the features treated
in these questions are uniquely and properly attributed to the divine and by definition
excluded from creatures, in all but a metaphorical sense.66 This seems to accentuate
the vast—the incomparably vast—distance between Creator and creature. But,
Questions 4, 5, and 6 have prepared us to look for the Creator’s presence to creatures
in whatsoever we attribute to the divine, with the qualification that this presence is
like no other between creatures. Aquinas’ lesson on how perfections are attributed
to the Creator and creature should make us wonder if “incomprehensibility” itself
must also have a different meaning than normally ascribed.
66
These formal features include, scripturally speaking, God’s infinity and eternity,
or, philosophically speaking, God’s limitlessness and immutability.
Indeed, as Question 12 will reveal, it does, for incomprehensibility in this

case does not mean we cannot comprehend God in the same way, for example,
we cannot comprehend a foreign language—fully understood only after a long
time and with much effort—or on the other hand sheer gibberish, which excludes
the possibility of understanding at all. Divine incomprehensibility is neither fully
explained by our limited intellectual capacity nor equal to divine unintelligibility.
Rather, because God is the author of all things—and further because creation is
ordered such that something can be known because everything is related by the
thing most common and immediate (existence itself)—God’s incomprehensibility
is derived from God’s inexhaustible intelligibility, not only allowing for the
possibility but provoking us to search for our divine origin and end. This implies
that the more things there are to know and the more intimately and personally we
know them, the more we can know their author; however, as Question 1 insinuates,
Aquinas is driving us towards a different type of “knowing” than the results of
accumulated data. The kind of knowing we should seek—the only true knowing
possible regarding God—is that which fosters relationship, and ultimately
communion. As Question 12 will reiterate, we have to begin with the data of our
senses, but allow it to be driven by the light of faith in order for it to be oriented
towards our created end. The consequence of this type of knowing—as Eckhart
illustrates even more dramatically than Aquinas—is radical transformation, the
inevitable consequence of personal relationship. Divine incomprehensibility,
therefore, discloses the Creator’s intimacy and immediacy to creatures as well
as the possibility of communion rather than the Creator’s unbridgeable distance.
So when we use certain terms, such as immutable, eternal, and infinite, to
explain the Creator’s incomprehensibility, they should be understood to articulate
the Creator’s presence to creatures, just as perfection terms do; and, they must
draw attention to the uniqueness and intimacy of this presence—as well as to
how Christian forms of life are to reflect and manifest it. Conventionally we
use terms such as infinite, eternal, and unchanging in contrast to the way we
understand creation to be set up: the vast night sky seems to go on to infinity
with innumerable twinkling stars in contrast to this one insignificant, tiny planet;
waiting on the results of a test that could reveal a life-threatening illness seems
to take an eternity; the mountains seem to stand unchanging and immovable
in contrast to the flow of seasons and passing generations. In these instances
we do feel a strong sense of the divine, especially with regard to our own utter
dependence on something “above” and “outside” us. But using these adjectives
solely with this contrastive (or comparative) understanding to refer to God
expresses only a superficial glimpse of the relationship between the creature
and its Creator, emphasizing the distance and difference between the two or a
proportionality between them of which the divine is far “above” and “superior.”
From the perspective of faith, however, when we call God infinite or eternal we
are not really referring to God’s size or age at all, but to God’s limitless, constant,
and immediate love for us, eliciting a response of recognition and imitation. Thus
the kind of dependence the human creature experiences is active and empowering
rather than passive and invalidating, the implications of which will be explored in
the last chapter of this book.
From the introductions to Question 7 and Question 8 it should be obvious
that Aquinas intends to teach the use of formal features to emphasize the singular
presence of the Creator to creatures. Question 7 asserts, “we must consider the divine
infinity, and God’s existence in things; for God is everywhere, and in all things,
inasmuch as He is boundless and infinite.” Question 8 restates this proposition,
by concluding, “it evidently belongs to the infinite to be present everywhere, and
in all things.” In order to make the leap from God’s infinity to God’s existence in
things, however, Aquinas must reform our understanding of infinity, which, after
all is said and done, depends upon our creaturely notion of finitude, rendering it
not only improperly, but inappropriately attributed to the Creator.
As he did on God’s perfection, Aquinas’ first move in Question 7 is to reverse
the criteria as it is conventionally used. The objections in Article 1 remind us that
with created things the infinite is imperfect because it lacks form, by which a thing
achieves its perfected end and makes it what it is. Having previously established
God as perfect, we must conclude God cannot be infinite. Furthermore, “finite
and infinite belong to quantity. But there is no quantity in God, for He is not
a body.” In his answer, Aquinas reverses these requisites and anticipates his
lesson on extension: first, the perfection achieved through form can only apply
to matter—which contains potentiality—and as we have seen, God’s perfection
is due to the lack of potentiality; therefore, this criterion does not apply. Second,
infinity, when applied to God, is not a measure of some quantity (such as the space
a body takes up) and therefore does not belong in the same category as the finite.
This is an important qualification, because if infinity were to be categorized with
the finite, then the finite might be understood to be some proportion of the infinite,
allowing for comparison or contrast of the finite creature with the infinite Creator.
In fact, the infinite is excluded from every creaturely category, because being
categorized into genus or species requires receiving form, limiting it to being this
thing or that thing.
The implications of Aquinas’ reversal are more apparent if infinity is seen in
terms of limitlessness. The Creator must be limitless, contrary to creatures, who
require—by the act of being created—some kind of received limit, whether it be
form, matter, or, as with angels, received being. Only that which is essentially
limitless (that is, self-subsisting) can create all else, including the matter out
of which they are created. Consequently, “the fact that the being of God is
self-subsisting, not received in any other … shows Him to be distinguished from
all other beings, and all others to be apart from Him.”67 When infinity is seen
as limitlessness, it cannot apply to creatures, since before receiving a limit the
creature does not yet exist, except in pure potentiality. Contrary to where the
question began—identifying the infinite with imperfection—infinity is related to
perfection, which in turn is properly attributed to the Creator: to be perfect in
67
the proper sense of the word means to be self-subsisting, which requires being
limitless, which belongs to God alone.
Limitlessness not only preserves the distinction between Creator and creature
but makes room for extending a creaturely understanding of the infinite beyond
itself. In Article 1 Aquinas expands infinity’s definition to include form, something
outside of the category of “quantity” on the basis of lacking a body, creating
the opportunity to move the discussion towards the relationship of potency to
act—which, as in previous questions, allows for non-contrastive language-use.
Prior to being contracted by matter, form may, in an abstract way, be considered
infinite since it is undetermined. But depending on the perspective, infinite form may
be considered either imperfect or perfect. From the creatures’ perspective, infinite
form is imperfect because, being undetermined, it is “formless matter”—strictly
speaking nothing (no-thing). But from the perspective of limitlessness, infinite
form is perfect because it is unrestricted being; it is not confined by time or space.
In the following article, Aquinas extends this second notion of infinity by using
an example of something lacking quantity but considered infinite: angels, who as
forms without matter to limit them enjoy relative infinity; they are limited only by
virtue of having received being.
Aquinas is now ready to apply an extended use to the singular case of God,
which in Question 8 and those following better reveals the Creator’s unique presence
to creature. Having maintained God’s distinction from created beings in the last
question by virtue of God’s unlimiting self-subsistence, Question 8 asserts that,
being infinite, God exists in all things and everywhere. By reminding us that God’s
existence is excluded from every possible creaturely category, Aquinas moves even
beyond his last extension of the infinite to unlimited form, because God is excluded
even from the category of angels who, while unlimited by matter, are nonetheless
contracted to a determinate nature—unlike God, angels have being but are not their
own being. Extending infinity to angels, however, shows there could be an infinite
entity not limited to space or time. But extending this kind of infinity to God still
fails to communicate divine incomprehensibility, because it does not necessarily
say anything about the relationship between the creature and the infinite being.
What we want to express, according to Aquinas, is what causes us to be and to act,
as confessed by Isaiah: “Lord … thou have wrought all our works in us.”68
Articulating the existence of something present in the manner of the Creator
God requires another type of extension, and here Aquinas draws upon the example
of an agent and its presence in its effects. While this is different from his extension
of infinity to unlimited form, Aquinas has taught his reader with the last example
that certain terms may be applied in an extraordinary manner when detached from
conventional assumptions. Aquinas began this exercise in his Five Ways, where
he drew our attention to how the god of philosophy (the unmoved mover) does not
meet the criteria of the God of faith, and he began maneuvering towards the God
of Scripture by introducing the relationship of potency to act—which develops

68
the basis for his extension of perfections/formal features to the Divine, allowing
creatures to participate in the Creator’s existence. In Question 8 the implications
of those earlier demonstrations become clear:
God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident; but
as an agent is present to that upon which it works. For an agent must be joined
to that wherein it acts immediately, and touch it by its power … Now since God
is very being by His own essence, created being must be his proper effect. …
Now God causes this effect in things not only when they first begin to be, but as
long as they are preserved in being. … Therefore as long as a thing has being,
God must be present to it, according to its mode of being. But being is innermost
in each thing and most fundamentally inherent in all things since it is formal
in respect to everything found in a thing. … Hence it must be that God is in all
things, and innermostly.69
Aquinas explicitly restates from the first two Ways that, unlike the unmoved mover,
the God of faith creates without mediation, and unlike the first efficient cause, the
Creator God must remain with the effect throughout its existence. Now Aquinas
makes it clear, God is very different than conceived by philosophers or heretics;
for the God of faith is in all things “by His power,” contrary to the Manichees who
believe God is only responsible for creating the incorporeal, “by His presence,”
contrary to those who believe God’s providential care does not extend to inferior
bodies, and “by His essence,” contrary to those who believe God’s presence is not
necessary for the creation and maintenance of all creatures.70
But where Aquinas held off in the Five Ways, he now renders explicit the
intimate and personal consequences of God’s unique presence: the Creator is
innermost present to the creature; “hence nothing is distant from Him, as if it could
be without God in itself.”71 Not only is the Creator in all things, but such that there
is absolutely nothing closer to the creature than the Creator’s presence, no object
or being, not even the creature’s own breath. Recalling Question 2 where Aquinas
asserts the human creature is inherently driven to know God,72 Question 12 will
take up the Creator’s special intimacy with the human creature, who through
participation enjoys the possibility of knowing its divine author in a way no other
creature can, thereby fulfilling its particular telos. The third article of Question 8
anticipates Question 12 as well as future questions on the human creature’s love for
the Creator and on the beatified’s communion with God.73 In his answer, Aquinas
claims God’s presence as operator is proper “according as the thing known is in the
69
STh, I.8.1, answer.
70
Ibid.
71
72
73
See, for example, Questions 1a2æ.27-8 and 1a2æ.2.8 and 3.8. See also Appendix 5
in the Blackfriars edition, “The Vision of God,” 153-5.
one who knows, and the thing desired in the one desiring,” which is “especially in
the rational creature, [who] knows and loves Him actually or habitually”; further,
he mentions “another special mode of God’s existence in [the human] by union”
which he treats later in the Summa.74
This union, referring to the faithful departed, is articulated in Christianity
as “eternal life.” A contrastive reading leads us to interpret this as God’s
granting the beatified unending existence, opposed to the relatively short span
of time between the beginning of the human being’s existence and its inevitable
creaturely end. But we want to say more about our ultimate destiny than how long
(that is, interminably) we will be granted existence; we want to say something about
the quality of that existence. Eternity for the beatified is the state, metaphorically
speaking, of “seeing God face to face,” radically communicating the impression
of equality between creature and Creator. The nature of this “equality” is the
communion between the creature and its Creator, or, the identification of creature
with its source.
To avoid the superficial understanding of eternity as an interminably long time,
Aquinas moves his reader from this contrastive interpretation to a non-contrastive
use where eternity is not the measure of time but, rather, of immutability. As with
infinity, Aquinas must render immutability, and then eternity, free from any
association with quantity, again by appealing to the relationship of potency to act.
In his answer to Question 9, Article 1 he establishes God’s immutability on the
basis of previous questions:
First … there is some first being, whom we call God; and … this first being
must be pure act, without the admixture of any potentiality, for the reason that,
absolutely, potentiality is posterior to act. Now everything which is in any way
changed, is in some way in potentiality. Hence it is evident that it is impossible
for God to be in any way changeable. … Secondly … in everything which is
moved, there is some kind of composition to be found, but it has been shown
that in God there is no composition, for He is altogether simple. … But since
God is infinite, comprehending in Himself all the plentitude of perfection of all
being, He cannot acquire anything new, nor extend Himself to anything whereto
He was not extended previously. Hence movement in no way belongs to him.
Appealing to Augustine, Aquinas explains that when we speak of God in terms of

movement, we speak “not … as movement and change belong to a thing existing in
potentiality,” but rather of God’s operation. Aquinas illustrates this, as he did in the
Third Way, in terms of God’s necessary existence and pure act: God alone creates out
of nothing and preserves creation from falling back into nothingness. This operation
requires no movement on the Creator’s part, since before it is created, there is strictly
nothing to move or to change. What immutability really articulates, then, is the
relationship of act and potency rather than the lack of movement or change.
Ibid.
74
As in his previous questions, Aquinas has reversed the criteria we might be

tempted to use based on our creaturely experience, which when extended to
God inevitably renders God a creature. Having removed the criteria of quantity
(whatever it is to be moved or changed) from the notion of operation, we can
now conceive of cases where an agent can act without motion, for example in
“understanding, willing and loving.”75 Although our thoughts, emotions, and
intentions are stimulated by our senses and thus require data out there in the world
in order to operate, the creaturely examples of “immutable act” can extend to the
singular case of God, who calls things out of pure potentiality, pure nothingness.
In attributing immutability to God, Aquinas pushes the extension of immutable
operation beyond mental acts to the act of creation, possible only because God’s
distinct existence—as demonstrated in Question 2—requires no pre-existing data
in order to actuate creative power.
Thus, immutability refers to God’s necessary, permanent, and fully actualized
existence. This is much more dynamic than conceiving immutability as
“unchangeability”—which inevitably limits our conception of God’s power to act,
especially in terms of the created world. Like infinity, immutability refers to God’s
limitlessness, but includes the notion of God’s creative operative power, a step
forward in articulating God as Creator. Consistent with the pattern established in
Question 2, anything attributed to the God of faith must be distinguished from the
god of philosophy and direct us towards the God of Scripture, the immediate and
personal Creator. We must assume this same progressive pattern with eternity in
Question 10, and if this follows the Five Ways, “eternity” should turn our attention
again to effects—creatures—as did the Fourth Way in implicating the order of
creation and the participation of creatures in the existence of their Creator.
In order to accomplish this, Aquinas first unmasks the misconceptions of
eternity as an interminably long time or the “now that stands still,” because
these definitions rely on comparing and contrasting eternity with time, which is
none other than the “numbering of movement by before and after”76—in other
words, the measuring of change. Eternity cannot be interminable time, because
time would be measured in proportion to eternity, giving the impression God
is a very ancient creature who will merely outlive all things now existing. This
sense of eternity must be understood only in a metaphorical sense to avoid falling
into anthropomorphism. On the other hand, contrasting eternity and time also
creates another difficulty, for the opposite of time is immutability, conventionally
understood as the lack of motion. Following upon Question 9, however, where
immutability refers not to the lack of change or movement but to the fullness of
being, eternity becomes the measure of permanent being77—a status that can be
extended to all things in so far as they exist, and in a special way to those human
creatures who attain salvation.
75
See, for example, STh, I.9.1, reply 1.
76
STh, I.10.4, answer.
77
Ibid.
This notion of eternity adds to that of immutability a space for expressing the
participation of creatures in the existence of the Creator without compromising the
Creator’s distinction from creation. The Creator’s existence is singularly unique
because nothing else is its own duration and its own being,78 and therefore nothing
brings or moves the Creator to being nor sustains it there. But, at the same time,
the Creator’s existence is not opposed to that of creatures since the Creator is
the author and agent of all beings and as such is absolutely necessary to them in
every respect of their existence. To be opposed to creatures would mean a totally
separate and disconnected existence, such as the gnostic god, dwelling in and only
concerned with the transcendent incorporeal realm. As effects, creatures participate
in the Creator’s existence by being actualized—by being moved (metaphorically
speaking) from nothingness into being and sustained there—but the Creator does
not likewise participate in the creature’s existence. So the participation of creatures
in their Creator’s existence refers not to how long they exist in proportion to or
measured against the Creator’s interminably long life, but to the quality of their
participation in it, according to their being in the order of creation.
Questions 7-10, in addition to providing several exercises in extraordinary
language extension, have also established an identification between God’s infinity,
immutability, and eternity, because when severed from creaturely assumptions,
each feature points to the Creator’s unique distinction from the world. Yet, with
each example, the reader is pushed closer towards recognizing God of Scripture’s
intimate presence and to anticipating the special place of the human creature in the
existence of its source as its final end. Question 11 now completes the cycle by
summarizing this identification and returning to the formal feature from whence
the reader began this journey, God’s simplicity. Aquinas adds to his features that of
unity or oneness. In reality, God’s oneness sums up all of God’s features:
God is one: First from His simplicity. … Now this belongs to God alone; for God
Himself is His own nature. … Secondly from the infinity of His perfection. …
God comprehends in Himself the whole perfection of being. … Thirdly … from
the unity of the world. … For many are reduced into one order by one better
than by many; because one is the per se cause of one. … [I]t must be that the
first which reduces all into one order should be only one. And this one is God.79
The idea of God’s oneness exceeds, but includes, the quantity—or number—of
God; it extends to the quality of this one God’s existence. Furthermore, God’s
oneness illuminates the relationship of the many creatures to their one divine
source: “For multitude itself would not be contained under being, unless it were
in some way contained under one.”80 The unity of the world, therefore, obtains
from the fullness of God’s being, and from the distinction of the Creator, who calls
78
Ibid.
79
80
all things forth from nothing: “and so in being, by reason of its universality, the
privation of being has its foundation in being.”81 By moving God’s oneness away
from numerical or quantifiable association, Aquinas has reached the Creator God
of Scripture and Tradition: “I Am Who Am,” who, far from a deity dwelling in a
detached transcendent realm and wrapped up in its own self-contemplation, is the
God of Moses, the One God who not only through pure existence brings us into
being, but out of intimate concern leads us out of slavery into freedom—ultimately
into communion and our own deification. Thus, the features that we properly
attribute to the divine do not really attempt to define the manner of God’s existence,
but communicate the personal and unique relationship between Creator and creature.
C. Questions 12 and 13: Articulating Divine Incomprehensibility
How God is Known by Us (Question 12)

The Names of God (Question 13)
Aquinas’ presentation of God’s formal features in Questions 3-11 clearly falls

within non-contrastive language-use, because anything attributed to God’s essence
must preserve God’s distinction from the world, and simultaneously articulate
divine transcendence and immanence. This is what simplicity in Question 3 is
qualified to do, and the other features progressively follow suit. As Sokolowski
and Tanner perceive, comparing or contrasting God and the world cannot lead us
to Scripture’s free, intentional, and immediately present Creator.82 Aquinas shows
that some features may be utilized to avoid such comparison or contrast because
they refer exclusively to God—while at the same time communicate the Creator’s
intimacy to creatures and implicates creatures’ participation in the Creator’s
existence. Consequently, Aquinas’ lessons on non-contrastive language not only
maintain a unique distinction, but also reveal a unique relationship.
In addition to preserving God’s distinction from the world, Tanner suggests
the practical role of non-contrastive language for Christianity: the purpose of
Christian theology is to insure Christian forms of life are consistent with the
doctrines of faith and vice versa.83 Non-contrastive language permits us to direct
faith towards this end by balancing out our tendencies towards addressing a
too transcendent or a too creaturely God. Directing faith and action was at the
heart of the medieval Dominican mission of preaching doctrine, and Aquinas
was particularly concerned that the words and deeds making up the content of
Christian faith—moral theology in particular—are firmly set within the context
of the doctrines of God, creation, and Jesus Christ. This means, for Aquinas, that
speech about God is at the same time speech about our participation as well as our
81
82
Sokolowski, God of Faith and Reason, 32-3; Tanner, God and Creation, 28.
83
Tanner, God and Creation, 12.
end in the divine life, brought about by Jesus Christ who through his incarnation
makes this reditus journey possible. In the doctrine of Jesus Christ, asserting his
full humanity and full divinity, we find the perfect expression of this balance, and
further, the articulation of human and divine consummation: eternal life in its
fullest sense of actualized being.
Indeed, Aquinas’ insight into how formal features reveal the uniquely intimate
relationship between Creator and creature as well as its intended fulfillment goes
beyond non-contrastive language. For Aquinas, speaking about God and knowing
God are intrinsically connected, and knowing God is the result of the believer’s
journey of faith seeking understanding. Since the knowing that results from the
faith journey is not data about God but personal union—transcends all human
relations—more than balancing divine transcendence and immanence is entailed;
the believer must reach for the incomprehensible, an endeavor that would be futile
without the capacity to recognize and respond to that which is always beyond
grasp. Due to the human creature’s limited intellectual faculty, this inchoate
awareness—the “restless heart”—must be developed and directed to its end by
some power greater than itself. This extraordinary endowment, generally referred
to as “grace,” requires its own language, and with the notion of grace we must
move from balancing language to transforming it.
Recall in Question 1, Aquinas re-visions faith so that instead of being a
type of revealed knowledge far exceeding the faculty of human intellection
and, thus, unquestionably accepted in a leap of imagination, faith becomes the
instrument—given through revelation and nurtured by tradition—wherein all
human knowledge and experience is imbued with saving significance.84 In this
re-visioning, grace is not merely an occasional gift given to bolster faith when it
languishes, but the immediate and continual communication of God’s presence,
not only in relation to a particular event or moment in time, but in everything
within and outside of the life of the believer; and so faith ever-expands as the
believer becomes more aware of God’s presence and providence in all things.
Aquinas demonstrates this intimate relationship in Questions 3-11, and in so doing,
also begins to open a linguistic space in which to discuss grace. In Question 12
on how we know God, grace becomes the determining factor in moving beyond
a superficial sense of knowing God based upon visual or formal data (“knowing
about”) to knowing God as union and identification with the incomprehensible.
Finally, Question 13 makes explicit the role religious language-use plays in this
journey: with the rising awareness of our inbuilt telos to seek after God as our
own end and with the attempt to verbalize the deepening appreciation of God’s
incomprehensible presence accompanying this realization, we begin to discern that
the most basic principle of speaking about God is understanding that our words do
not adequately capture the reality they seek to articulate. We must strive instead
to speak in a way that draws attention to the uniqueness and significance of God’s
presence. As believers, our ceaseless quest to express the incomprehensible leads
See Marthaler, The Creed, 27-9; STh, I.1.8.

84
us beyond ordinary speech, transforming—hopefully—not only the language of

faith but speaker and audience as well.
1. Question 12: How We Know God
Questions 3-11 began to create a linguistic space in which to speak about

grace as the communication of the Creator’s presence to the human creature
by demonstrating that as infinite, immutable, and eternal, God is necessarily in
everything and everywhere at all times. This suggests there is never a moment or
event where God’s communication—or grace—is absent. The faith journey is the
believer’s maturing recognition of and response to God’s extraordinary disclosure.
The difficulty is discerning and articulating God’s presence, given the restricted
operation of human cognition which requires sensory data in order to process a
novel experience as well as the existence of other more familiar things with which
to compare it.
Question 12 addresses this difficulty by linking God’s incomprehensibility
to the idea of grace and by moving towards the process of knowing as personal
relationship rather than as acquiring information. The first consideration is whether
it is possible to know God, since, according to Chrysostum, it is not possible for
a creature to see the increatable, and from Dionysius, “neither is there sense, nor
image, nor opinion, nor reason, nor knowledge of Him.”85 The remaining three
objections refer to God’s infinity and existence which, so far exceeding the created
intellect and excluding any proportion between the two, make God unknowable
and unintelligible. All of these objections appeal to God’s incomprehensibility;
however, as Aquinas’ earlier questions on God’s essence forecast, the criteria for
incomprehensibility will have to be reversed in order to properly refer to the divine.
Ordinarily we speak of something as incomprehensible if it “does not make
sense” or if the subject matter exceeds our education or ability. Incomprehensibility
when attributed to God, however, cannot be unintelligibility because “everything
is knowable according as it is actual, [and therefore] God, who is pure act … is in
Himself supremely knowable.”86 Hence, divine incomprehensibility is in reality
derived from God’s inexhaustible intelligibility. But even given that the Creator
could never be known well enough to be comprehended by any created being,
divine incomprehensibility cannot be fully explained by a limited intellectual
capacity, particularly because the inability to know the Creator would thwart
the telos of the human creature for beatitude. Aquinas replies that the human,
although intellectually limited, is indeed “proportioned” to know God as its
ultimate cause.87 This proportioning, explicated and further qualified as analogy
in the following question, makes room for God’s grace while focusing in on
knowing as relationship.
85
STh, I.12.1, obj. 1.
86
87
In the first article of Question 12, the human creature’s proportion to its Creator
is explained as a “relation,” but one where the idea of quantity (that is, whatever
is to be measured) is excluded. As in preceding questions, once the criteria of
quantity is removed, a term may be extended to include something which
transcends the constraints of the physical world, and then further extended to the
singular case of God who transcends all creaturely categories whatsoever. In this
question, however, Aquinas now factors the creature into this extension. Thus, the
proportion between human creature and its Creator may be described as a potency
to receive, respond to, and be transformed by the Creator’s self-communication.
It does not refer to humanity’s existence as more or less in proportion to the
Creator’s when compared to other creatures in the order of being (although we
do speak metaphorically of the human being as closer to God than “non-rational”
creatures), nor does it refer to a formal likeness between the two that could be
measured; this latter qualification was already made in Question 4, where Aquinas
submits that creatures’ likeness to Creator is not one of form but of participation.
Obviously the initiative for the human creature’s participation remains entirely
with the Creator, who produces and sustains it throughout its faith journey, and
according to Christian tradition, this is equally true with regard to its fulfillment,
the granting of eternal life. However, as the Fourth and Fifth Ways of Question 2
indicate, each creature has its own particular telos according to its place in the
created order as well as a correlating means of achieving its end. For the human
creature, defined by its rational nature, not only the way but the goal—eternal
life—involves the intellect. Aquinas reminds us of this correspondence in
Question 12:
the ultimate beatitude of man consists in the use of his highest function, which
is the operation of the intellect. … [Accordingly] there resides in every man a
natural desire to know the cause of any effect which he sees; and thence arises
wonder in men. But if the intellect of the rational creature could not reach so far
as to the first cause of things, the natural desire would remain void.88
He concludes that those who reach their intended goal must know their
divine source.
The following twelve articles explore the manner by which the human
creature comes to know the Creator, given that the object of this intellectual
pursuit transcends any comparable creaturely relation. The first and more
apparent determination of this inquiry is that natural reason can grasp that the
Creator, as the primordial cause of all things, is uniquely distinct from creation
and consequently enjoys a relationship of transcendence-in-immanence with
it; however, the nature of this existence still remains unknown.89 In order to come
to a higher knowledge of God, we must have the benefit of divine revelation,

88

89
allowing us to formulate this distinction in a way that not only directs us towards
God as the incomprehensible Creator, but as Sanctifier and Redeemer as well.
Since formulations like the doctrine of the holy Trinity and of the hypostatic union
are derived from revelation proclaimed in Scripture, they have their origin in
God’s grace rather than in human reason. These graced formulations are essential
to religious faith because they are designed to lead believers away from the
misapprehension of God as a being while further revealing the human being’s
appointment in the divine life; and doctrines accomplish this by drawing attention
to the singularity of the Creator God’s existence and also to the singularity of the
Creator–creature relationship—particularly the Creator–human relationship. Free
from misdirection, the believer’s faith ever increases as, according to Aquinas,
“we know Him more fully according as many and more excellent of His effects
are demonstrated to us.”90 In Christian terms, believers led by faith become open
to seeing the saving significance of Christ in everything around them. Although
God’s essence is still unknown, the nature of humanity’s end may be revealed.
However, having established that knowledge given through revelation assists
the rational faculty by directing it towards ascertaining God as Creator, Sanctifier,
and Redeemer, throughout Question 12 Aquinas continually reminds us that a
set of propositions about God—natural or revealed—cannot reunite the human
creature with its Creator, because it does not yield knowledge of God’s essence,
wherein the knower finds ultimate fulfillment in the beatific vision. “[W]hen any
created intellect sees the essence of God,” says Aquinas, “the essence of God
itself becomes the intelligible form of the intellect.”91 This divine illumination,
which raises the intellect “to such a great and sublime height” radically transforms
the departed blessed, who are made “deiform—that is, like to God.”92 Rational
cognition is inadequate for such an identification of creature to its Creator,
because the knowledge produced, information about, stands between the knower
and the object known. Neither can simply adhering to a doctrine—revealed or
otherwise—produce communion; in fact, later Eckhart, following Aquinas, will go
to great lengths to detach us from any formulation about God. For, in the beatific
vision, knowledge between creature and Creator is unmediated and active, likened
to but far exceeding the personal knowing between lover and beloved.
In order to show how cognition is nevertheless involved in the journey whose
end lies beyond physical death, Aquinas must first dissociate the necessary use
of bodily organs from the operation of intellect, allowing the beatific vision to
transcend the physical limitations of the human creature—in fact, Aquinas
implicitly prepares his readers to understand terms such as “vision” and “sight”
as metaphors, used improperly when attributed to knowing God. Article 2 rejects
the idea that God’s essence is seen through an image by reminding us, as he
did in Question 4, that there is no formal likeness—but a much more profound
90
91
92
Ibid.
one—between Creator and creatures. The following two articles eliminate the
use of the bodily eye in the beatific vision, and it therefore must be concluded
that knowing God’s essence does not terminate in data about God. For Aquinas,
the intellect is a cognitive power that is not an act of any corporeal organ but a
capacity to receive God’s self-communication and a potency to respond to that
recognition.93 It is in this sense we may say that human creatures are proportioned
to their Creator.
At this point, Aquinas begins to distinguish between knowledge derived
through the senses and unmediated knowledge. Rational cognition produces
knowledge by similitude, which mediates things outside of the knower to mental
images inside of the knower through the bodily senses. But there is another type
of knowledge where the object is immediately present and directly united to
the knower, which Aquinas later explains in his consideration of the causes and
effects of beatitude.94 This knowing moves beyond verbal articulation, towards
transformation, wherein it goes by another name: love. For, as Question 28 of the
Prima secundae affirms, in a relationship of deep intimacy knowing and loving
become inseparable, causing a dynamic communion between the participants:
Mutual indwelling is both a cognitive and an orectic effect of love. … the lover
is cognitively present in the person loved in the sense that he is not satisfied
with a surface knowledge of him, but strives for personal insight into everything
about him, and penetrates into his very soul.95
It is love-knowledge that cleaves human creature to Creator, moving it from

instinct to awareness, from inquiry to response, and ultimately—as Eckhart will
even more dramatically illustrate—from rhetoric to silence.
Although Question 12 does not yet present this type of knowing in terms
of love, Aquinas does begin to shift the language of knowledge from acquiring
information to expressing relationship, while, of course, maintaining the Creator’s
distinction and priority. Article 7 answers affirmatively the question of whether
the beatified comprehend God. God cannot be comprehended in the sense of
being contained in the created intellect. If, however, comprehension is not limited
to the accumulation of information but is understood in the broader sense of
attainment, then the blessed truly comprehend God, because “they … possess
Him as present … and possessing Him, they enjoy Him as the ultimate fulfilment
of desire.” This comprehension, the illumination of the human intellect which
unites the creature to its Creator, does not undermine divine incomprehensibility,
because it is not required that the blessed “see all in God”—this would make
them indistinguishable from their Creator. Rather, in attaining to their Creator, the
blessed are united as creatures whose telos is fulfilled, and to the extent they have
93
94
STh, Ia.2ae.2-3.
95
STh, Ia.2ae.28, 2.
realized their full actuality, they are deified, not infinitely, but with respect to their
intended end. For Aquinas, and Eckhart as well, this special relationship is one of
distinction without separation.
2. Question 13: Analogy and Beyond
Having demonstrated knowing God is not only possible, but is required for human
creatures in order to fulfill our destiny, Aquinas now turns to how we might
articulate this ineffable reality. The heart of Question 13, how we speak about
God, is analogy, standing as one of Aquinas’ more controversial presentations in
the Prima pars, because—as with Eckhart’s explanation of analogy—it finds little
consensus among scholars as to its interpretation or as to its consistency with his
use of analogy in other works. In reality, however, Aquinas starts preparing his
students for his presentation of analogy from his first question, and in Question 3
he begins a rigorous and progressive exercise in analogous language-use. By the
time we have reached Question 13 the hard work on appropriating analogy has
already been accomplished, and so Aquinas’ main task is to make explicit what
we have been doing all along. Consequently, without the benefit of having worked
through Questions 3 to 11, and without the benefit of the first two questions’
guidance, it may be difficult to grasp the subtle nuances in the explanation of
analogy that Aquinas gives in Question 13.
Analogy is the extension of a term from its ordinary usage to a new context,
thus revealing a similarity or relationship that may otherwise remain obscure.96
In Questions 3-11, we find a repetitive pattern of extensions, with subtle yet
sophisticated twists; for the divine context that we want to ascertain is absolutely
novel, and consequently there are no terms that can properly be stretched to such an
extent; in fact, it is not simply a matter of how far a term can be extended, but what
kind of extension is possible. As Article 1 of Question 13 expresses this dilemma:
“Can we use any words to refer to God?”97 This query is echoed again at the end of
the question, where he asks, “Can affirmative statements correctly be made about
God?” If Aquinas is consistent with his proscription at the beginning of Question 3
that we can only know what God is not, the answer must be: terms ordinarily used
to refer to creatures must be negated when extended to the divine—which seems to
be counter-productive to the whole exercise, considering all we can know comes
from creaturely experience, and further, we name things as we know them.98 The
question becomes “Can we make such negative extensions, and if so of what use
are they to us?”
In Questions 4-6 Aquinas considers the validity of extending perfection terms
to God. Later, in the third article of Question 13 he reaffirms these terms are indeed
more appropriately extended to the divine than are any other creaturely terms, and
96
See Soskice, Metaphor and Religious Language, 64.
97
Emphasis mine.
98
STh, Question 13, introduction.
so may be considered literal names of God.99 Here he makes explicit that they
are understood properly only when referring to the Creator and improperly when
referring to creatures, thus, as Gavin Ardley reminds us, “restor[ing] theology to
its right order, instead of the upside-down condition to which anthropomorphists
reduce it.”100 In analogical terminology, this makes God the prime analogate in the
relationship, thus preserving the priority of Creator over creature.
This qualification has already been indicated in Question 4, where Aquinas
reverses the criteria of perfection when it applies to the divine, not only restoring
the correct order of the relationship, but securing the distinction of Creator from
creature. God’s perfection comes from being uncreated and fully actual rather than
having reached a designated end, which would necessitate having a measure of
potentiality. Consequently, God is the Creator from whom all things have their
origin and, hence, all perfections flow from Creator to creatures. Remember in this
question Aquinas maintains a non-univocal understanding of divine perfection,
for the likeness of a creature to its Creator is not one of formal resemblance, and
therefore we cannot compare the Creator’s perfection to creaturely perfections,
confined in our rational cognition to forms. Since we can only understand these
perfections from our creaturely experience of them, these terms are therefore used
improperly when applied to God, although we intend them to signify a reality
that exists primarily and properly in God. With this kind of extension—as long
as we are aware that we are using a term improperly—we can say more than
we can understand about God, thus maintaining God’s distinction and, further,
“allow[ing] the genuine negative way to emerge.”101
Aquinas then moves from terms conventionally attributed to both creatures
and Creator to terms attributed primarily to the Creator and only metaphorically
to creatures—that is, the divine features: infinity, eternity, immutability. While the
features explored in Questions 7-10 are included in the category of perfections,
they present a special case because they are specifically meant to distinguish the
divine from the non-divine—the uncreated from the created—and are therefore
equivocal in nature. Aquinas’ task in these questions is to show divine features
are not truly equivocal, but rather reveal the true intimacy of Creator to creatures.
Aquinas employs the same strategy to accomplish this as he did in the prior
questions: reverse the criteria we would conventionally assign them; however,
in Questions 7-10 this maneuver uncovers the misguided presumption that these
features are free from creaturely conceptions to begin with, and so in addition
to being reversed such criteria must also be qualified. In actuality, conventional
usage of these divine features is based upon an opposition to creaturely experience:
infinity to the finite; eternity to time; immutability to change. These features are, in
a sense, negative extensions of creaturely terms. But such extensions are not all that
99
See Gavin Ardley, “From Greek Philosophy to Apophatic Theology,” Prudentia
100
(Supplementary, 1981): 141.

101
Ibid.
useful in describing the Creator–creature relationship as professed by Scripture and

Tradition. It must be qualified that the Creator, being excluded from any restrictions
belonging to creaturely categories, is immediately present to creatures in a way
that exceeds any and all created relationships. As we saw in Questions 7-10, far
from being opposed to creaturely experience, divine features describe the Creator
as the origin of all things who permeates every created being, every event, and
every experience. No longer understood as equivocal, this extension does not fall
within the univocal either, for the Creator still holds priority over creatures while
maintaining the distinction between the two. What is gained by this extension is
that now we have a means of speaking about the Creator–creature relationship
which includes the necessity of the Creator’s immediate self-communication.
While neither equivocal nor univocal, however, this analogous language-usage still
falls within the bounds of negative theology, for we do not articulate any positive
content about the Creator’s essence. As the last article of Question 13 concludes,
“true affirmative propositions [such as the doctrine of the Trinity] can be formed
about God”; but what we express in these propositions, as Question 12 demonstrated,
is the uniqueness of God’s existence as Creator, not what God is. By opening
up a linguistic space for the Creator’s self-communication—that is, religiously
speaking, God’s grace—Aquinas makes negative theology much more useful than
removing inappropriate conceptions from the divine, which benefits believers only
by preventing them from being misdirected but gets them no closer to their source;
the via negativa is in reality a step forward in the faith journey because it teaches
believers to look for the ineffable not in this thing or in that, but in everything,
given that all things as existing in relation to one another bear within them the
inexhaustible intelligibility of their divine Creator.
But there is more to this appropriation than developing an awareness of the
Creator’s immanence to creation, for the human creature’s purpose is incomplete
until it responds to this presence, and is changed by it. Because of its flexibility
in diverse contexts, analogy holds the most promise for plumbing the depths of
this dynamic divine–human relationship. In the answer to Question 13, Article 5
Aquinas explains how analogy—properly qualified, of course—provides a way
“between” the limitations of univocal language-use, which only expresses similarity
among things, and equivocal language-use, which only expresses differences:
[N]ames are thus used … according as one thing is proportionate to another, thus
healthy is said of medicine and animal, since medicine is the cause of health
in the animal body. And in this way some things are said of God and creatures
analogically. … Thus, whatever is said of God and creatures is said according to
the relation of a creature to God as its principle and cause, wherein all perfections
of things pre-exist excellently. Now this mode of community of idea is a mean
between pure equivocation and simple univocation. For in analogies … a term
which is thus used in a multiple sense signifies various proportions to some
one thing; thus healthy applied to urine signifies the sign of animal health, and
applied to medicine signifies the cause of the same health.
In this article, Aquinas chooses one description of analogy, the analogy of

proportion, as more appropriate for naming God. However, in making the leap
from the creaturely example of “health” to that of divine perfection, Aquinas
assumes his prior qualifications preserving the Creator’s distinction. These
qualifications are essential to his argument, because without them it is tempting
to see analogy as being a form of univocal language-use or “positive” theology,
neither of which is able to accomplish what Aquinas intends. The most critical
qualification in Aquinas’ argument has to do with the idea of “proportion” itself,
as it applies to the creature’s relation to its Creator. Recall that in Question 4
Aquinas defines proportion in its most general sense as relation, and qualifies that
with regard to Creator and creatures, proportion refers to the manner in which
the creature fulfills its particular telos. The human creature is proportioned to
its Creator by its capacity to receive the Creator’s self-communication which
engages its highest faculty, the intellect. In the most intimate human relations,
the intellect embraces but moves beyond rational cognition to effect the fullest
knowledge between the lover and beloved, which transforms both through
a dynamic communion. In an even more profound sense, the human intellect
illuminated by divine grace is directly united to the ultimate object of its desire,
God, moving from knowledge to an identity of creature to Creator, thus allowing
it to fulfill its intended purpose: deification.
The example of “health” Aquinas uses in Article 5 to explore how the analogy
of proportion can describe a dynamic relationship whose effect is transformation
without violating the distinction of the prime analogate is particularly appropriate
to the Creator–human creature relationship. In this analogy, medicine gives or
restores health to the presumably ailing animal. We must also presume here that the
animal has the capacity to receive the medicine, and to be made better by it—that
is, to respond to it. In other words, the animal must be “proportioned” or fitted to the
medicine. While the animal is changed by the presence of the medicine in its body,
however, there is no reciprocal change in the medicine. In applying the analogy
to the divine–human relationship, “health” being the state of perfection, medicine
being the Creator, and the animal being the human creature, the implications are:
first, the human being has the capacity to receive the Creator (and further must
receive the Creator if it has hope of being restored); second, it has the potential
to respond positively to the presence of the Creator; and finally, the resulting
change will be its own perfection, which is its fullest actualization. Names of
God—perfections—predicated analogously, therefore, do not define divine nature,
but rather describe a relationship, the implication of which is the transformation
of one participant and, if taken to its logical conclusion, identification with the
divine, for the fullness of perfection is existence itself, and to the extent that a
creature achieves its own perfection, it shares in the divine existence wherein all
perfections are one.
Finally, we must conclude that Aquinas pushes the envelope of the negative
way with his development of analogy, because his “middle way,” in excluding
both equivocal and univocal language, in reality sets up a “negation of negation.”
Equivocation is just as unacceptable to Aquinas as univocation because, in the first

place, this type of language must rely on some creaturely conception in order to be
opposed to it. Second, equivocation cannot express the intimacy and immediacy
of the Creator God of faith, and finally, it certainly cannot articulate the dynamism
of the Creator–creature relationship.
In rejecting the limitations of this kind of negation (equivocation), not only
does Aquinas take analogy well beyond its conventional usage, he lays the
foundation for taking language beyond itself, for in the end, the identification
that is the effect—and, as it turns out, the cause—of love-knowledge transcends
the necessity of verbal expression altogether, leaving the believer open to the
ineffable experience of pure presence, what Denys Turner might describe as
the “silence of the apophatic.”102 And as we shall soon discover, Eckhart, free
from the task given his predecessors of developing a philosophical justification
and methodology for using language to this end, extends analogy further yet,
wrenching those brave enough to dare from any conception that might hold them
back from recognizing this profound silence, inherent in words and deeds as
much as in rest. Analogy, for Eckhart and Aquinas alike, can be a means to an end
as well as it is a description of it.
102
Denys Turner, “The Art of Unknowing: Negative Theology in Late Medieval
Mysticism,” Modern Theology 14, No. 4 (Oct. 1998): 479.
Chapter 5
Meister Eckhart:
From Analogy to Silence
If Aquinas believed approaching theology through metaphysics is fruitful so

long as one becomes highly skilled at using language non-contrastively, such a
metaphysical interpretation for Eckhart becomes a dangerous, but promising,
adventure: dangerous because of the inherent temptation to render and then cling
to always inadequate formulations of God and of the Creator–creature relationship;
promising, because the metaphysical vocabulary, especially of the Neoplatonists,
gives the believer another way to fathom the journey of faith complementing
the Hebrew/Christian scriptural narrative of creation–sanctification–redemption.
It is, finally, an adventure, because the end destination is unknown and in some
sense is unknowable at the beginning of the journey as well as all along the way.
Since the early Church, Christianity has been concerned with articulating
the saving encounter of God into theological formulations so that it may be
faithfully transmitted to future generations. However, the desire to preserve and
transfer the divine–human encounter in this manner, while seemingly efficient, is
compromised by the human proclivity to adhere to formulation without delving
into the implications of its content. The heart of the Christian message is God’s
revelation through Jesus, necessarily leading to a profound conversion within the
believer; a transformation so personal it cannot be captured in any formulation.
Immediately following the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, followers passed
on their faith experience, not through formulas, but through reliving and retelling
the Jesus event, preserving it in writings only after many decades had passed.
These accounts do not merely reflect a historical biography (or biographies) of an
important person, but the collective theological reflections on the God of Scripture,
now reinterpreted in light of the person, Jesus.
As the first century closed with the Gospel of John’s highly symbolic theology,
the concern began to shift to protecting the Christian message from heretical
interpretations, specifically those denying God’s immanence or the fullness
and interrelatedness of the divine and human natures of Jesus. Early councils
attempted first and foremost to retrieve the Scriptural notion of God from various
forms of Gnosticism, formulating in the first article of the Nicene-Constantinople
Creed, God as the one who creates all things—seen and unseen (corporeal and
incorporeal)—directly without the mediation of any demigod or angelic creature.
This assertion counters the notion that the Divine rests in an unreachable
transcendent realm. God’s transcendence necessarily implies God’s immanence
and sustaining presence to the world. Divine transcendence-in-immanence
inheres in the Trinitarian formula, further drawn out in the Creed’s second and
third articles. As Son, the second Person is articulated as “one in being with the
Father” sharing without separation or distinction of any kind in the Father’s divine
nature. Together with the Holy Spirit, the Father and Son share in the divine act of
creation, each in their own immediate, and intimate manner, thus establishing their
identities as three unique Persons.
Unfortunately, the many reiterations in the opening of the Creed’s second
article regarding Jesus’ oneness with the Father—“eternally begotten,” “God from
God,” “light from light,” “true God from true God,” “begotten, not made,” “one in
being with the Father”—leads to the equally heretical tendency to overshadow
the narrative of Jesus’ humanity, a problem taken up by the Council of Chalcedon
in 451. The Chalcedon formula, or “hypostatic union,” although not incorporated
into the Creed, intends to counter this contrastive tendency, while at the same
time preserving the transcendence-in-immanence of this unique person: Jesus is
“one in being with the Father regarding his Godhead,” and “one in being with
us regarding his humanity,” “unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably
[united].”1 However, the formula more often than not is understood contrastively
such that divine and human natures exist in opposition within Jesus, rather than in
interrelation to each other.
Religious formulas such as the Trinity and the hypostatic union were never
meant to become the end-all and be-all of theological reflection, but rather the
beginning of reflection on how God’s revelation relates to the life of the believer.
Since more is required of faith than formulas, those in charge of helping believers
forward in their journey towards God must learn how to inspire them beyond the
structure of a doctrine—that is, from formula to encounter, ultimately pushing
them out of their comfort zones towards conversion.
For his diverse audiences—many of whom were someday to engage in
vocations where they would be responsible for expounding intelligently on the
Church’s doctrines—Eckhart created novel “universes of discourse,” to use
Tanner’s phrase,2 drawing students, readers, and listeners beyond familiar formulas
towards deeper awareness of God’s radical presence, an awareness that can only
develop with the realization of the Creator’s unique distinction from creation.
Further, Christian audiences would be familiar with the stories of Scripture, which
move from the divine act of creation to the saving event of Jesus Christ. Eckhart
took his cue from Aquinas, who, observing the congruence between the Christian
journey and the Neoplatonic cycle of exitus/reditus, implicitly arranged his Summa
according to this cycle and adopted the vocabulary of the Neoplatonist philosophers
(especially pseudo-Dionysius and Aristotle). This vocabulary, carefully modified,
allowed Aquinas to highlight divine features found in Scripture—Eternal, Infinite,
Perfect, One—easily misused by those who might be tempted to conceive God in
opposition to creatures.
See Marthaler, The Creed, 116-20.

1

2
Meister Eckhart: From Analogy to Silence 155
Neoplatonism also had much to offer Eckhart in his attempt to direct students
and congregations away from conventional understandings and towards a deeper
appropriation of their faith. First, because emanation correlates with the divine
act of creation depicted in Scripture, but especially because the second part of the
cycle, return to the Source, can be re-visioned in scriptural terms to emphasize
salvation as deification, the believer’s radical and dynamic self-identification
with God. In the scriptural narrative there is a necessary middle act connecting
emanation with return to God: redemption from the circumstance named “sin” that
provokes the human creature’s alienation from its Creator.
Salvation in its more profound sense goes beyond achieving an interminable
status of perfection to realizing a relationship of identification with God, or
deification. In Neoplatonic terms, reditus is a total and complete return to the One
from whence creation came. There is no longer any separation between Creator
and creature, but as in the beginning, before creation, one existence in the Creator,
now a dynamic unity of love—a unity so profound, Eckhart asserts, that it cannot
even be conceived or uttered in conventional terms;3 as in the case of other such
terms, “love” must be understood non-contrastively if it is to be used at all to refer
to the Divine.
For Christians, through his incarnation, death, and resurrection Jesus provides
the link between emanation and return by freeing humanity from the alienation of
sin and rejoining the human and the divine, allowing believers to be reunited with
God. As part of the exitus/reditus cycle, sanctification must be more than God’s
continual pardoning of the incapacitated believer from sinful act to sinful act; it
must include transformation, a movement of identification with and manifestation
of the Divine. In traditional Christian terms this is achieved through the “imitation
of Christ.” This language is used to articulate that the movement from the
condition of sin to embodying Christ is “adoption”: what Jesus was by nature
(the divine Son), those who die having lived as he lived become, through adoption,
sons and daughters of God. This “adoption” language presents a formula designed
to show the intimacy existing between God and the beatified, while maintaining
the strict distinction of the Creator from creature.
Eckhart employs the adoption formula many times throughout his works, but
finds that, in and of itself, it fails to express the dynamic identification of creature
with Creator, so he uses the exitus/reditus cycle as well as his own linguistic devices
to force the audience beyond a conventional understanding of adoption (even to
the point of abandoning this term altogether in some instances), giving us novel
approaches to the “imitation of Christ,” reaching towards the Eastern Christian
notion of deification. Eckhart uses similar strategies with formulations of the
3
See, for example, German Sermon 83: “You should love God … as he is a non-
God, a nonspirit, a nonperson, a nonimage” (Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons)
and On Detachment, “And when this detachment ascends to the highest place, it knows
nothing of knowing, it loves nothing of loving, and from light it becomes dark” (Colledge
and McGinn, Essential Sermons).
Trinity as it pertains to the immanent Trinity—the divine interrelations—and the

economic Trinity—the roles and relations of the divine Persons within creation,
and with regard to the human creature in particular. In every instance, Eckhart
intends to teach us to use these doctrines, not as formulas or descriptions of divine
reality, but as entrances onto paths leading towards identification with God.
Eckhart clearly discerns the tendency to substitute one set of formulas
for another, thus perpetuating the attachment to God-words rather than to
God-encounter; however, he perceives the same danger in employing philosophical
language. While Aquinas’ use of Neoplatonists and the metaphysical language of
Aristotle does provide an excellent exercise in detachment through deconstructing
and reversing presumptions about divine perfections, this skill in non-contrastive
language use can be acquired only through much labor and—at least in terms of
the philosophical vocabulary employed—by a select few trained academically,
despite Aquinas’ assertion that ordinary Christians can, and do, make the
distinction between proper and improper uses of God-language.4 As a preacher
especially, Eckhart cannot presume such rigorous linguistic exercises, nor would
they be appropriate for every audience. So Eckhart appropriates Aquinas’ lessons,
but incorporates his own dramatic methods to make the congruence between the
exitus/reditus cycle and the Christian journey more explicit, and the believer’s
relationship to the transcendent-yet-immanent Creator more immediate.
For instance, Eckhart deters his students from becoming attached to Neoplatonic
principles through inclusion and dialectical use of the term “nothing” which is a
prime example of Eckhart’s dynamic analogy in action. The problem with the
Neoplatonic schema of exitus/reditus is in blurring the distinction between Creator
and creature and, further, lacking the intimately personal dimension of the God
proclaimed in Scripture. In academic works such as his Latin scriptural exegeses,
Eckhart uses the terminology of “nothing” to underscore the Creator’s unique
distinction from creatures, thus preserving God as the prime analogate, the one
distinct cause bringing everything into existence out of nothing. In many of his
German works, however, Eckhart makes this distinction less obvious, choosing
instead to emphasize the believer’s return to God as well as how immeasurably the
human creature images its Creator. In God the creature is nothing, for there is no
separation between Creator and created; they are identical. The “nothingness” of
the creature in either case is not meant to denigrate its ontological status compared
to God, nor its efforts to reach God, but to highlight its potential to be one with
God in a way radically different than anything creaturely-conceived.5
There is hardly any contradiction between his academic works, stressing God’s
distinction, and his sermons and German works, stressing the human creature’s
dynamic relation to the Creator, however, since because Eckhart is speaking to
STh, I.13.2.
4
See, for example, German Sermon 1, on Mt 21:12 (McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt,
5
Teacher and Preacher) and Counsel 6, “Of Detachment and of the Possession of God,” in
Counsels on Discernment (Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons).
very different audiences he appeals to different “universes of discourse.” Eckhart’s

students, destined to become teachers or doctrinally sound and soteriologically
moving preachers, must learn to preserve God’s distinct transcendence-in-
immanence in their own work before they can be considered experts in religious
language-use. On the other hand, as the master preacher speaking to religious and
lay communities seeking to deepen their spirituality, Eckhart wants to bring hearts
and minds to full awareness of God’s presence and the possibilities of absolute
union with God. The diverse use of “nothing”—as well as Eckhart’s other linguistic
strategies—keep each audience from clinging to any one conceptualization of God
or Creator–creature relationship; his ultimate goal is moving believers beyond
concepts altogether: for God is not found in formulas, but in our encounter of
God’s immediate presence, wherein all utterances cease.
This chapter examines how Eckhart works to move audiences and readers
from religious formulas to “detached intellection,” where all God-words,
those about God as well as those directed to God, give way simply to knowing
God—or, rather, “un-knowing”—to avoid an ordinary contrastive interpretation.
This “unknowing,” for Eckhart, is the divine Silence that discloses God through
the experience of creation and through the experience of self-presence.
The first formula to be considered is the Creator–creature “analogy.” Like
Aquinas, Eckhart modifies the conventional understanding of analogy to preserve
the Creator’s distinction from creation while creating a linguistic space for the
human creature’s return to its Source. His revised notion of analogy allows for
a great deal of flexibility and innovation in extending language to the divine and
exploring dimensions unique to the creature–Creator relationship. Eckhart’s novel
and dynamic approach, based on non-contrastive language-use, must be examined
with regard to traditional Trinitarian and Christological formulas which, laid
bare and stripped of superficial interpretations, have remained controversial to
magisterium, academics, and believers up to this day.
However, his most dangerous reflections attract many scholars to Eckhart as
well as everyday believers seeking to deepen their spirituality by way of apophasis,
which has gained popularity due to its compatibility with other world religions
such as Buddhism. Indeed, Eckhart is considered to be the apophatic theologian
extraordinaire. By penetrating the depths of religious formulas and showing us
how to use them, Eckhart bridges the gap between speaking about and knowing
God, revealing the divine Silence that lies at the heart of the Word.
A. Analogy in Action
“They that eat me, shall yet hunger.” With this unusual scriptural passage from
the book of Sirach,6 Eckhart begins his exegesis on the analogical relationship
between Creator and creature. In true scholastic fashion, however, Eckhart moves
6
Sir 24:20.
immediately from the scriptural to the philosophical. Incorporating references

from Aquinas, Eckhart notes
that these three are to be distinguished: “the univocal, the equivocal and the
analogous. Equivocals are divided according to different things that are signified,
univocals according to various differences of the [same] thing.” Analogous
things are not distinguished according to things, nor through the differences,
but “according to the modes [of being]” of one and the same simple thing. For
example, the one and the same health that is in an animal is that (and no other)
which is in the diet and the urine [of the animal] in such a way that there is no
more of health as health in the diet and urine than there is in a stone. … Being
or existence and every perfection, especially general ones such as existence,
oneness, truth, goodness, light, justice, and so forth, are used to describe God
and creatures in an analogical way.7
From his own interpretation, Eckhart concludes:
It follows from this that goodness and justice and the like [in creatures] have
their goodness totally from something outside to which they are analogically
ordered [Latin: analogantur], namely, God. … Analogates have nothing of
the form according to which they are analogically ordered rooted in positive
fashion in themselves. But every created being is analogically ordered to God
in existence, truth, and goodness. Therefore every created being radically and
positively possesses existence, life, and wisdom from and in God, not in itself
as a created being.8
Eckhart’s construal of the Creator–creature relationship in this passage has

been called “extrinsic analogy” or the “analogy of formal opposition,” because
everything the creature possesses, even existence, comes from a source outside of
itself.9 Similarly, in some passages Eckhart submits that the creature’s existence
is “borrowed” rather than possessed,10 and in other passages he maintains the
creature is nothing in itself11—although this is only one of many ways that he
7
Commentary on Ecclesiasticus (hereafter Comm. Ecc.), n. 52 (McGinn, Tobin, and
Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher). Quoted text from Aquinas appears to be from In I Sent.
D. 22, q. 1, a.3, ad. 2.
8
Comm. Ecc., n. 52.
9
De Libera, Le problème de l’être chez Maîter Eckhart, 6; Colledge and McGinn,
Essential Sermons, 32-3.
10
See, for example, Commentary on John (hereafter Comm. Jn.), nn. 24, 107
(Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons).
11
For example, Commentary on Wisdom (hereafter Comm. Wis.) (1:14), n. 34
(McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher); German Sermon 71 (McGinn,
Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher).
employs the term “nothing”; for example, at times he dialectically asserts that
from the creaturely perspective, God is nothing (no-thing), a linguistic strategy
leading some scholars to call Eckhart’s analogy dialectical or reverse analogy.12
As Chapter 1 of this book observed, scholars tend to contrast Eckhart’s
so-called extrinsic analogy with Aquinas’ so-called analogy of proportion,
especially as formulated in Question 13, precisely because Aquinas seems to give
more autonomy to the creature than Eckhart. This is probably partially due to the
(mistaken) impression of Aquinas’ analogy of positive attribution as opposed to
Eckhart, who is seen primarily as a negative theologian.”.13 But closer examination
of Aquinas’ development of analogy reveals it not to be positive theology but
apophatic, rejecting both positive and negative attribution; moreover it transforms
attribution altogether. By reading further on in Eckhart’s exegesis of Sirach, we
discover he too reverses this negation, by showing that only by being totally
“outside” of the creature can the Creator be completely immanent to it and draw it
towards its final end. Eckhart continues:
“They that eat me, shall yet hunger” is perfectly fitted to signify the truth of the
analogy of all things to God himself. They eat because they are; they hunger
because they are from another. … God is inside all things in that he is existence,
and thus every being feeds on him. He is also on the outside because he is above
all and thus outside all. Therefore, all things feed on him, because he is totally
within; they hunger for him, because he is totally without.14
As often in other works,15 here Eckhart moves in one direction, then suddenly
works in reverse, indicating he is using language in a transformed manner. In the
opening of his exegesis on Sirach 24:20, Eckhart advances God’s transcendence
by declaring the Creator totally outside of the creature. However, in the next
passage he reverses himself by beginning with God’s immanence—the Creator’s
being “within” the creature—but then again reverts to God’s transcendence, the
Creator’s being totally “without” the creature. This dialectical movement between
the Creator’s being within all things and the Creator’s being without all things
reverses the negation set up earlier in his exposition and signals that Eckhart means
for his Creator–creature analogy to be read non-contrastively. The relationship
12
For example, German Sermon 71 (“When he saw nothing, he saw God”) and 83
(“you with him perceive forever his uncreated is-ness, and his nothingness, for which there
is no name”). See Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, 33 (dialectical analogy) and
Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge, 31 (reverse analogy).
13
See Commentary on Exodus (hereafter Comm. Ex.), nn. 143-74; the introduction to
14
Comm. Ex., nn. 143-74.
15
See, for example, Latin Sermon IV on the Feast of the Holy Trinity (McGinn,
Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher).
between the Creator and creature can be neither contrasted (that is, opposed) nor
compared; therefore, the analogy is neither negative nor positive.
Eckhart first secures God’s unique distinction here by demonstrating
that the Creator must be wholly transcendent in order to be, simultaneously,
wholly immanent to the creature. Recall that, according to Tanner, this is a first
requirement for the God of Scripture and tradition, who creates ex nihilo and
who is the supremely personal God of faith.16 The Creator’s transcendence and
immanence are inseparable as Eckhart’s dialectical rhetoric, proposing a negation
of negation, clearly establishes. Therefore, to call Eckhart’s analogy “extrinsic”
or one of “formal opposition” only captures one half of his articulation of the
Creator–creature relationship: God’s transcendence. For Eckhart, articulating
God’s immanence is equally—if not more—critical to expressing the Creator.
Eckhart does not stop with securing God’s distinction and providing a lesson
in non-contrastive language use. For this Dominican, the God of Scripture is not
only the Creator, but the personal Creator who draws the creature back towards
itself, a reunion that for the human creature in particular constitutes a process
of deification:
This is what is said, “They that eat me, shall yet hunger.” … In spiritual and
divine things it is different on both ends. First, because every act first causes
a separation from its bitter opposite. Here there is nothing prior and posterior;
each and every act is first for this reason. Forward progress then is not to leave
the First [that is, God], but to draw near to it, so that the Last is the First. The
reason is progress brings one nearer the end, and the End in the Godhead is the
Beginning. … Therefore, an approach toward the end is always joined with its
beginning if it is God and the pure divine that is eaten and drunk.17
Here Eckhart appropriates the Neoplatonic exitus/reditus schema to further

explain the dynamic nature of the Creator–creature relationship. The divine act of
creation causes a distinction between Creator and creature, but this “opposition”
must be understood metaphorically (and non-contrastively), because the creature
cannot exist apart from its Creator without falling back again into non-existence.
Thus the distinction between Creator and creature cannot be understood like any
other distinction in the world. The creature is, however, fashioned with an inbuilt
telos. Although it never leaves its Source in any ordinary manner experienced in
the world, as created, the human creature now shares a dynamic relationship with
its Creator in which its completion is, metaphorically speaking, consummation or
reunion with the Divine so profound no separation of any kind exists between them.
Because the Creator–creature relationship is dynamic and transforming, more is
required than articulating a balance between God’s transcendence and immanence.
By dialectically moving between the Creator’s being within and outside of the

16
Comm. Ecc., n. 56.

17
creature and by incorporating Neoplatonic elements into his narrative, Eckhart goes
beyond dialectical or reverse analogy and creates a linguistic space for expressing
the creature’s return to its Source, wherein its own completion is achieved. It is
not merely the creature’s autonomy (or lack thereof) vis-à-vis the Creator that is at
stake, but more pointedly, the creature’s actualization, the mode of which depends
on the creature’s particular telos as determined by its place in the order of creation.
For the human creature, its telos is deification—identification with the divine—and
its mode of actualization is its intellect, achieved through wisdom or “detached
intellection”; this is the way in which the human creature images its Creator.
Scholars who contrast Eckhart and Aquinas often miss the deeper significance
they place on the analogical relationship between creature and its Creator,
doubtless born out of their shared background as Dominicans concerned with
saving souls, as explained in Chapter 2 of this book. For both Aquinas and Eckhart,
it is the saving God of Scripture and faith, not the god of philosophy that must be
professed. Aquinas should be recognized for laying the foundation for Eckhart’s
remarkable ability to negotiate around the limitations of religious language, since
it is precisely Aquinas’ exercises in non-contrastive language-use that allow for
analogy to go beyond itself in referring to the divine without violating either
God’s transcendence or immanence, while—more importantly—giving voice to
the creature’s imaging of its Creator and return to its one and the same Source.
It is important to see how Aquinas lays out this foundation before moving on
to Eckhart. Recall that Aquinas’ analogy of proportion holds the most promise
for divine attribution, as well as for articulating the Creator–creature relationship.
However, since there can be no proportion between any creature and the Creator,
Aquinas has to make some essential qualifications, the full implications of
which can hardly be perceived unless the reader has carefully worked through
the preceding questions on the manner of God’s existence as One, Infinite and
Eternal. These perfections secure God’s unique distinction of transcendence-in-
immanence. Although on the surface they appear to highlight God’s transcendence
from the world, attentive reading of the first thirteen questions as a unit reveals
Aquinas’ intention to underscore God’s immanence.
In accordance with the requirements of Christian orthodoxy, Aquinas insists
there can be no proportion between creature and Creator because, obviously, there
is nothing bodily by which the Creator can be measured;18 if there were, God would
be another type of creature. In fact, Aquinas goes on to assert that the Creator does
not even share any type of form with the creature,19 a point which becomes crucial
to understanding how Eckhart puts Aquinas’ lessons on analogical language-use
into practice. Undeterred by the problems presented by employing “proportion,”
Aquinas introduces another, most extraordinary, strategy whereby the biblical
assertion that the human creature is made in the image of God is united with the
Neoplatonic notion of participation.
18
STh, I.3.5, especially reply obj. 2.
19
STh, I.4, reply obj. 3.
In Question 4, Aquinas considers the creature’s likeness to the Creator, based

on the Genesis passage: “Let us make humankind to our image and likeness,”
explaining that “likeness of creatures to God is not affirmed on account of agreement
in form … but solely according to analogy, inasmuch as God is essential being,
whereas other things are beings by participation.”20 Rather than denying that the
creature can be like the Creator, he insists the human creature images the Creator
more profoundly that any form can apprehend. Since analogical language-use
cannot presume any shared form between Creator and creature, it instead suggests
the way in which the creature participates in the divine existence.
Later Aquinas tells us what this “participation” signifies, reminding us again
that there can be no proportion between creature and Creator in the ordinary sense
of the word, as a measure of one thing compared to another. But proportion also
carries the broader sense of “relation,” something not resting on measure or, for
that matter, shared form. In the case of the Creator–creature relationship, the
creature is related to the Creator “as potentiality to its act”; the creature’s relation
is determined by its place in the order of creation and reaches its full actuality—its
full relatedness—to the Creator when it realizes its inbuilt potential: for the human
creature, one who truly knows God.21
Knowing God is ultimately the beatified “seeing God face to face.” Seeing
God, however, is a metaphor for attaining or possessing God, as Aquinas goes on
to explain, and this is extremely important to understanding how Eckhart moves
into identification, or “deification,” language:
because they see Him, and in seeing him, possess Him as present, having the
power to see Him always; and possessing Him, they enjoy Him as the ultimate
fulfilment of desire.22
For Aquinas the blessed’s knowing God and possessing God are essentially
the same. Both are signified by the metaphor of “seeing”: in the first sense,
comprehending something, and in the second, beholding an object of great import.
But even knowing and possessing must be interpreted metaphorically, for in God
there is strictly no-thing to know or to possess. God is not a thing of any kind.
Aquinas takes his readers through several levels of language-transformation, in
which Eckhart was no doubt very well trained as a Dominican student. First, seeing
is a metaphor for both knowing and possessing, which shows the flexibility with
which Aquinas expects his students to become familiar. Knowing and possessing
become, then, further metaphors for presence: possessing God is the believer’s
total presence to God and God’s total presence to the believer. Finally, the most
subtle move: the “power to see always” is transformed into fulfilled existence.
20
STh, I.4, reply obj. 3.
21
STh, I.12.4.
22
STh, I.12.7.
In his earlier lessons on God’s infinity and God’s eternity, “always” has a
non-contrastive meaning when used in reference to the divine. Aquinas divorces
divine Infinity and Eternity from their quantitative presumptions and connects
them instead to immutability, which in God is not a static or unending existence
but rather one of pure act. Eternity must be understood differently than being
“a really, really long time”; this would contrast or measure created time against
divine time. Eternity is, non-contrastively speaking, the source, the center, and
the fulfillment of time. Therefore, living the eternal life implies more than never
dying; it means living a fully actualized existence, to be alive all-ways, that is, in
every way: the divine way.
Since the human belongs in the created order of intellect, fully actualizing
existence means attaining to the divine intellect—Wisdom—which in God is
the same as Existence; this is so because God’s essence and God’s existence
are one, and Wisdom belongs to the perfection of God’s essence. Therefore, to
take Aquinas’ process of transforming metaphors to its logical conclusion, the
beatified know God in God’s-self and in so doing themselves become deified;
their knowledge is now divine knowledge. In God there is no separation between
knowing and possessing or possessing and presence, and thus the beholder
(beatified) and beheld (the Divine) are one. Far from any formal sense—there is
no form to share, but only pure presence. This brings Aquinas much closer to the
notion of deification than might be easily recognized.23
Aquinas’ above lessons are in no way lost on Eckhart. All of the vital elements
Aquinas develops in his exercises are dramatically present throughout Eckhart’s
works, notably in his commentary on the Book of Sirach with his own explication
on analogy. For Eckhart, as with Aquinas, creatures do not share a formal likeness
to the Creator, but—in Eckhart’s own words—a much more “radical … and
positive” possession, especially in “existence, life and wisdom,” the three levels
distinguishing creatures in the created order.24 Far from articulating an extrinsic
relationship and unbridgeable gap between them, Creator and creature have the
capacity and desire to be fully open to each other; in fact, the creature’s potential
existence—its “nothingness”—is not a disadvantage to its fulfillment, but a
potency, its greatest strength and way to God.
Eckhart returns time and again to the human creature’s potency as intellect,
laboring to detach his readers from narrow and misguided notions about the
intellect as well as how it relates to divine Wisdom and, ultimately, to knowing God.
In fact, the human intellect plays a determining role in Eckhart’s examination of the
doctrine of the economic Trinity, and, Christologically formulated, of the adoption
of believers as heirs (sons) of God, derived from the scriptural writings of Paul.
23
For more on deification in the Summa, see A.N. Williams, The Ground of Union:
Deification in Aquinas and Palamas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), especially
ch. 2.
24
Comm. Ecc. on Sir 24:20. This use of “formal” is distinguished from God as formal
cause, which belongs to God’s oneness in Formal, Efficient, Material, and Final cause.
Again, Eckhart relies on Aquinas’ non-contrastive treatment of the human–divine

relationship to achieve this. For Aquinas, intellect is not limited to the rational
faculty, which cannot know God because it relies on worldly data attained through
the bodily senses and processed according to the laws of discursive logic. Any
reality existing outside of this mode of intellection is therefore unattainable; thus,
knowledge of God is not possible unless it is divinely revealed. However, as we
saw in the previous chapters, Aquinas subtly redirects more advanced students
around this epistemological barrier to a deeper level of linguistic discrimination,
first by qualifying the type of knowledge we should be looking for (personal, not
factual) and second by expanding the definition of intellect to include the graced
capacity given the human creature to fulfill its divine telos. This capacity is the
openness to receive God’s personal self-communication as well as the ability
to respond to that revelation by imaging God. The relationship between nature
(human intellect) and grace (divine Knowledge) is not one of opposition but is
rather non-contrastive. Divine revelation is not merely information about God that
cannot be acquired in any natural manner, but it is in-formation, intended to guide
the believer towards personal transformation by imbuing knowledge reached
through the rational faculty with existential significance, thereby actively relating
creatures to their Creator. Wisdom, as we discover in Question 1 of the Summa
orders all natural knowledge towards its divine end.25
Eckhart’s portrayal of the human intellect as an appetite for God’s Wisdom
in his commentary on Sirach captures Aquinas’ lesson on using language
non-contrastively brilliantly. This inbuilt appetite as telos must be met with the
possibility of fulfillment; otherwise it would be extraneous to the creature and,
furthermore, contrary to divine Wisdom, which is such precisely because every
divine act of creation is directed by the Creator’s free will and intent to draw all
things back to their Source. To put it boldly, if God is Wise, then creatures must be
able to know their Creator, each in their own way:
Thirst and hunger, desire and appetite are taken in a double way. “In one way as
meaning the appetite for something not possessed; in another way as meaning
the exclusion of disgust.”26 Beware of thinking that the latter sense, that is, the
exclusion of disgust is the principal or first meaning. Many do this and thus crudely
explain our text, “They that eat me, shall yet hunger,” as though they eat without
saiety. This seems to give too little to divine Wisdom, that is, to God, especially
speaking of himself, teaching about himself, and recommending his excellence.27
For Eckhart, God’s Wisdom is inseparable from God’s self-revelation, which

in turn is inseparable from the creature’s return to its Creator. God’s Wisdom,
25
STh, I.1.6.
26
Eckhart is citing from Aquinas, STh, Ia.IIae.33.2.
27
Comm. Ecc., n. 60. The accompanying footnotes in McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt,
Teacher and Preacher suggest Eckhart includes Aquinas in his attack here.
furthermore, is inseparable from God’s existence: God’s existence as the Creator

is to exist as self-revealing. If the human creature is proportioned to the Creator
through its intellect, then the fulfillment of human existence must also lie in
self-revelation, that is, in total presence to self, to God, and to other creatures.
This presence requires detachment from all things as they appear to the rational
faculty, with an intellectual openness to all things as they are in themselves—an
openness which ultimately transforms, because the self-present intellect takes
on the same perspective as the divine intellect, wherein every creature is known
as it is in itself and in its own existence, rather than through a form. Since the
analogical relationship between creature and Creator stems from divine Wisdom,
ordering of all things back to God and in God, the analogical relationship between
human creature and its Creator relies on God’s self-revelation and the believer’s
self-transforming response to that personal disclosure.
In fact, the text in Sirach, Chapter 24, part of the scriptural canon of Wisdom
literature, corresponds perfectly to Eckhart’s intent of following Aquinas in
exploring analogy to express the creature’s participation in the divine Intellect.
The connection between divine Wisdom and the return of the creature to its
Creator is portrayed throughout Chapter 24, though a superficial reading may lead
to quite the opposite conclusion. Verse 20 (he who eats … shall hunger yet) is
framed by verse 18, which seems to echo the Song of Songs wherein the lover
calls to his beloved. In Sirach, the poet summons, “come to me, all you that
yearn for me, and be filled with my fruits.” On the other hand, however, verse 26
reminds us, “[t]he first man never finished comprehending wisdom, nor will the
last succeed in fathoming her.”
While this latter verse seems to support the interpretation rejected by Eckhart
that the creature hungers for the Creator without satiety, the scriptural passage
continues on to suggest quite the contrary:
Now I, like a rivulet from her stream, channeling the waters into a garden, said to
myself, “I will water my plants, my flower bed I will drench”; and suddenly this
rivulet of mine became a river, then this stream of mine, a sea. Thus do I send my
teachings forth shining like the dawn, to become known afar off.
Verse 26 makes it is clear that the human creature cannot comprehend its Creator.
From the perspective of negative theology, the human’s inability to fathom its
Creator expresses the supremely unknown God who remains hidden even while
close at hand. Further, it suggests the human creature’s natural incapacity to know
its Creator and the necessity of supernatural knowledge or Revelation to raise it
above its intellectual limitations.
However, this interpretation does not conform to the Scriptural narrative, as any
good Dominican in line with Aquinas should quickly perceive, for it neglects the
pivotal detail that the human being is made in the image of God in a way more
profound than any form can capture. Indeed, Sirach is replete with symbolisms
derived from the Creation story. Recounting Genesis, the Creator God is the nourisher,
feeding God’s-very-self to creation as water to creation. This divine self-knowledge

grows from a small stream into a vast ocean encompassing everything within
it and saturating all creation with its very being. This is what Revelation is, not
external knowledge entering from the outside, but something that penetrates from
the outside-in and the inside-out, until all things are utterly drenched. And further:
this “water” of knowledge is not alien but the very substance of the life it enters,
necessary for survival and for reaching full growth. The water in the garden does
not merely surround the plants, but is absorbed into every fiber of the plant, until it
becomes the plant and the plant becomes the place and life of the water.
That even the last human will not fathom divine Wisdom does not, therefore,
reflect God’s incomprehensibility as unintelligible by human standards; on the
contrary, God’s incomprehensibility is the source of inexhaustible intelligibility
within creation itself. It does not declare the weakness of the creature to know
its Creator naturally, but rather, the potency of the creature to know its Creator
personally, at the depth of its own being. The human creature becomes the
knowledge it absorbs. It drinks because it has a taste for it; and its appetite only
increases with each drink until consumer and consumed become the self-same—the
creature itself becomes a source of divine revelation.
This is why Eckhart must reject the negative way: it does not express the
God of Scripture or the depth of the creature’s imaging of and participation in its
Source. Eckhart concludes his exegesis of Sirach 24:20 with another reversal: his
famous “negation of negation”:
Furthermore, nothing is truly taught by negation, and negation posits nothing,

but is fixed and made firm in affirmation, having no perfection in itself. That is
why negation has no place at all in God himself; he is “Who is” and “He is one,”
which is the negation of negation. Therefore, hunger as the exclusion of satiety
is not to be accepted in divine matters.28
Here Eckhart ties the creature’s telos, its inbuilt appetite for its Creator, with God’s
divine existence: to be. Negation is rejected because the end to the creature’s search
is not a hidden, God, but the self-present God. Speaking of the creature’s appetite
in terms of a capacity to possess—to be one with—God, Eckhart re-emphasizes
that this telos is fulfilled by an imaging beyond any creaturely form:
Again, when hunger is taken as “the appetite for something not possessed,”
formally speaking, hunger or appetite is not defined on the basis of the thing that
is not possessed. This is only a negation or privation and is something material.29
The reader must adopt a non-contrastive approach in wending through Eckhart’s

many negations. Understanding the human appetite for God negatively, as something
Comm. Ecc., n. 60.

28
Ibid.
29
un-possessed and un-possess-able, begins at the wrong end—with the creaturely

perspective. When hunger and appetite are taken in their ordinary sense, as lacking
something needed to bolster life, the perception is that relief must come externally.
Recall, however, in earlier paragraphs Eckhart speaks of God as both with-out and
with-in, revealing the total dependence of the creature on its Creator, but more
importantly the proportioning of the creature to its Creator. The Creator, not the
creature or any created form, is the prime analogate, and as such the one and only
source as well as fulfillment for the creature. Nothing but God can satisfy. The appetite
is not given to the creature to belittle its existence, but to orient it towards the Divine,
to render meaning to the creature’s efforts to reach it, and to endow the creature with
the possibility of becoming one with its Source. In other words, as prime analogate,
the Creator defines the creature’s existence; the creature’s worldly experience—or
rejection of it—does not define the Creator, or the creature–Creator relationship.
Thus, any notion of beatification conceived over against the creature’s
experience in its earthly life is misguided. For example, a person hoping for material
riches in the next life based on reading Scripture has an impoverished faith and a
misguided notion of justice. As Aquinas points out, such images of heaven must
be taken metaphorically, as a way to expand the horizon of faith and probe the
deeper implications of the seemingly ordinary.30 Scripture’s metaphorical language
reveals God’s closeness and personalness and is meant to lead the believer into a
more intimate relationship with God by drawing a connection between earthly
experience and its divine Source.
As he does elsewhere, Eckhart asserts that the negation of negation is the most
positive affirmation, because it is rooted in the existence of God.31 But this does
not refer to “positive” as opposed to “negative” theology. The non-contrastive
(analogical) way represents a negation of a positive or conventional interpretation
of divine attribution as well as a negation of the opposite of that same attribution.
Rather, as we shall see, the way of analogy is truly apophatic, referring to the
negation of both positive and negative attribution, and more significantly, to the
transformation of the creature and its end in possessing God. It is not the creaturely
method of making divine attribution, but the creature’s appetite, Eckhart interprets
to be positive. Human language never adequately articulates God’s essence, but
theological language discloses and informs us of what it means to be a creature in
relation to its Creator. The creature’s nothingness in itself refers not primarily to
the creature’s total dependence on its Creator but to its total potentiality, its very
possibility of overcoming the “thing-ness” keeping it from being one with God.
Eckhart closes his exegesis of Sirach 24:20:
the essence of hunger is formally an affirmative appetite, the root and cause for
the exclusion of saiety which accompanies it. As such it belongs to something
possessed and is a thing in some way positive. …
STh, I.1.9-10.
30
See, for example, Comm. Ex., n. 556.

31
Each and every one of these explanations is based on some of the supreme
attributes of the godhead, such as infinity, simplicity, purity, priority, and so
forth. They teach … the nothingness … of creatures in themselves in relation
to God.32
The hunger to know the Creator and to become one with the Source belongs
first and foremost (and essentially) to God’s existence, and this appetite creates
and arranges the very way in which the human fulfills this divine directive and
participates in the divine Existence. In this sense, we possess God by allowing
ourselves to be defined by the Divine. The supreme attributes, being distinct from
any creaturely category and thus divorced from created forms, allow us to know
God more intimately and immediately than anything in our ordinary experience,
because they are not limited to knowledge attained through the process of rational
intellection. That is why Eckhart says these divine features “teach” us about our
own nothingness: in becoming detached from all creaturely forms by which the
believer defined itself—even religious terms such as “Christian”—the believer
enters into its own nothingness and becomes conformed to the divine life.
B. Doctrine as Analogy
Christian doctrines are designed to maintain God’s unique distinction of

transcendence-in-immanence, safeguarding the Creator God of Scripture. Yet
for Eckhart, the true value of such formulations lies in their potential to aid the
believer in detaching from common misuses of religious language (including
Christian rhetoric) and move towards union with God. This catechetical endeavor
must be undertaken non-contrastively, or the consequences could be devastating
to the journey of faith. Even well-intentioned believers tend to interpret doctrines
“literally,” creating the illusion that the reality of the doctrine is contained within
the words articulating it. Divorced from the context establishing its symbolic
meaning, we tend to cling to doctrine’s formulation rather than exploring
how it allows us to reach into our own nothingness and so be defined by our
Divine Source.
It is crucial to Eckhart that any metaphysics involved in religious doctrine
be understood metaphorically. Recalling Aquinas, metaphor is not contrasted
with literal, or plain, meaning but is integral in conveying literal truth when the
divine reality to be communicated is rooted in Scripture. Metaphor is particularly
suited to God-talk because of its multidimensionality, thus allowing the speaker
to communicate many perspectives and a multitude of possibilities in a single
utterance. While still bound by the restrictions of human thought, which processes
ideas consecutively rather than simultaneously, the use of metaphors, in a
sense, imitates the divine perspective, “seeing all with one glance” (figuratively
Comm. Ecc., n. 61.

32
speaking). Sensitivity to metaphor allows us to better detach from formula, which

in itself inevitably fails to capture the divine Reality because human concepts are
bound to creaturely forms.
Eckhart is very intentional about the metaphorical nature of the metaphysics
he intertwines throughout his Scriptural exegeses and homilies, and there
is no exception regarding expounding doctrine, his primary agenda as a
Dominican preacher. Eckhart scholars such as Susanne Köbele, Alois Haas, and
Bernard McGinn,33 have noted that Eckhart employs what has been variously
termed “master,” “exploding,” or “absolute” metaphors, which function in the
believer’s detachment and journey towards mystical encounter. For example, the
nothingness of God, and as it is similarly employed, the divine grunt, offer the
primary examples of such metaphors.34 According to McGinn, the metaphor of
grunt is explosive because
it breaks through previous categories of mystical speech to create new ways of

presenting a direct encounter with God. When Eckhart says, as he frequently
does, “God’s ground and my ground is the same ground,” he announces a new
form of mysticism. … [T]heir function is … to transform, or overturn, ordinary
limited forms of consciousness through the process of making the inner meaning
of the metaphor one’s own in everyday life.35
As Aquinas taught, ordinary metaphors—while necessary and fitting—cannot stand

on their own in articulating God’s existence or the Creator–creature relationship.
In fact, we tend to mis-communicate when using noble figures to refer to God,
because it is too easy to convey God as a great creature against whom other, much
lesser, creatures must be measured. That is why it is less misleading to call God
a rock than a king, although, of course kingly images of God are abundant in
Scripture.36 Ordinary metaphors relate a sense of God’s closeness and familiarity
and allow believers to feel connected to God through creation as well as through
human social structures and relations; however, they fail to convey God’s unique
transcendence-in-immanence and may give the wrong impression that “God is
like us” rather than the other way around, to follow Scripture: we are made in
God’s image, and in a way unlike any resemblance between creatures. Unless
we are aware that such metaphors are being used improperly, they inadvertently
impose creaturely forms onto the Divine.
Master metaphors work to reverse this ordering; they become analogical
because they express, not any essential attribute in God, but the dynamic
relationship between the Creator and creature. With a master metaphor, creaturely
attributes are reflexively extended to the divine, meaning that divine significance
33
See McGinn, Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 37-9 and 210 (fn. 12).
34
The “nothingness” of God is Haas’s use; Grunt is McGinn’s. See ibid.
35
Ibid., 38.
36
See STh, I.1.9, reply obj. 3.
is reflected back on creaturely traits and perfections.37 Consequently, master

metaphors lead the believer forward in faith by moving away from comparing,
contrasting, or otherwise measuring Creator and creatures, and moving towards
a non-contrastive awareness of the Creator’s unique distinction and, especially,
the creature’s end in its Source. They explode through the presumptions of
conventional religious language to make it fresh and alive, forcing believers out of
their comfort zone and into the dynamism of deeper faith. This, for Eckhart and his
Dominican predecessors, is the true intent of doctrines, which are formulated to
draw attention to God’s uniqueness while conveying God’s relevance to the world
and to the human creature’s redemption.
Unlike ordinary metaphors which draw from familiar figures, master or
exploding metaphors attribute to God the unusual—even the seemingly absurd
and most removed from the status of divinity, yet that which is attached to no
particular creaturely form. This follows Aquinas’ warning (via Dionysus) to avoid
attributing lofty things to God which are inevitably bound to creaturely forms.
Recall, for Aquinas, metaphor is necessary but improper use of religious language.
Perfection terms are more appropriately used of God, because while lofty they are
abstracted from physical form. Yet, they too must be rendered free from certain
creaturely presumptions before they can be used properly, for they tend to impose
our human expectations of perfection on God. So Aquinas goes to considerable
length to show that God’s perfection is received only through certain unique
features38 which preserve the Creator’s distinction and define God as the Source
and End of every creature. Eckhart’s master metaphors take a short cut through
Aquinas’ process by attributing to the Creator terms that simply defy the kind of
categorization that allows us to impose any creaturely form, yet are an intrinsic
part of the experience of existence itself.
“Nothingness” and “Ground” are terms that are imbedded in existence, but
lack any specific sense of creaturely form. In fact, these terms are so basic that
they cannot properly be called features, as can divine perfections, which from
the creaturely perspective may be designated by this perfection or that perfection.
Unhindered by the limitation of being “this” and not “that,” to which all created
things are bound, these master metaphors create a non-contrastive way of
directing talk of divine perfection, as well as of the creature’s participation in
divine existence: nothingness does not allow for comparison or contrast because
there is no “thing,” or no form, by which or against which to measure; the idea of
the absolute ground goes a step beyond this to establish the source of thing-ness,
because the ground—itself having no particular form—is that out of which things
are formed.
Soskice distinguishes analogy from metaphor by placing analogy into literal speech
37
(Metaphor and Religious Language, 64-6).

38
The term “formal features” is not used here to avoid confusion with the kinds of
forms to which creatures are bound.
Since they do not adhere to any creaturely form, master metaphors are able
to express God’s unique distinction from the world. Furthermore, they refer to
the Divine in a literal—meaning “proper”—way by securing God as the prime
analogate from which all else flows, without, however, falling prey to the illusion
of a one-to-one correspondence, or to the misconception inherent to ordinary
metaphors and perfection terms which convey creaturely forms along with the
idea of imaging the Divine. Master metaphors work to reverse ordinary metaphors.
While ordinary metaphors are taken from creaturely experiences that can be
explained through their forms, master metaphors are taken from those experiences
that, while common to every creature, lack defining features.
Applied primarily to the Creator, and then extended reflexively to creatures,
the master metaphor confers divine significance to even the most ordinary object
or mundane experience, because existential meaning is derived from being created
and informed by the ground of being, which in itself is no-thing. When the most
mundane experience is interpreted as an encounter with the Divine, the order
of the universe is completely turned around. Thus the comfortable God, safely
tucked away from the rational intellect in a shroud of “mystery”— who doles out
just enough information about the divine Self to set the believer on the righteous
path—becomes the demanding and disquieting God, whose disclosure through
routine and traumatic experiences alike forces the believer to re-evaluate every
experience and creature—even the seemingly unholy or unorthodox—as possible
bearers of the Divine. The believer must reach into the no-thingness of the creature,
into the source of its incomprehensible intelligibility, and encounter God there.
For the religious master, this radical method of reversal has its roots in Scripture,
beginning where the Creator imparts the divine image to the creature, thus
merging two apparent opposites and, consequently, breaking through conventional
ideas of what it means to be divine, for example wholly transcendent, supremely
unknowable, and untouchable. This theme of reversal is continually carried out
through the scriptural narrative: a nation arises out of slavery, a king arises from
among the poor, and in the final movement, victory over alienation from God
comes by the shameful death of an innocent person. In each instance, God is
revealed, not in the lofty as would befit a powerful being, but in the most unlikely
of places and with the most surprising results. The divine king does not lord over
his subjects, but serves them by completely identifying with them. The lesson:
God is not what is expected, nor is the believer’s road to salvation. Redemption
comes not by adhering to moral and religious codes, but by imaging God in
extraordinary and unconventional ways. Accordingly, theological and religious
articulations must draw attention to the strangeness of God and, at the same time,
maintain the relevance of that strangeness to the faith journey. To accomplish this,
language must explode through our presumptions and agendas.
The following section draws out Eckhart’s analogical exploration of doctrine:
first, on the Trinity as it pertains to the Creator–creature relationship in general; and
second, on the human creature’s adoption to divine Sonship through the imitation
of Christ—or, in Eckhart’s more evocative language, through the “birth of the
Word in the soul.” For Eckhart, religious doctrines provide entry into the Christian
faith journey, involving a process of detached intellection. In his explications
of doctrine, Eckhart employs the Neoplatonic structure of exit and return, but
modifies it through the use of “master metaphors,” to keep his audiences from
becoming attached to this philosophy as well as to emphasize how profoundly
creatures image the Creator. In effect, his dynamic speech leads reflectively to
Christian forms of life, whether it be living as the “Just Man,” or seeing all things
in themselves as they are in God; the result of which, in any case, is being aware of
the “inner meaning” of everyday life—“direct encounter with the Divine.”39
1. Trinity as Analogy
The divine act of creation, in Christian theology, is Trinitarian: each divine Person
has a proper and distinct role in bringing all things into being and sustaining them,
transforming them, and bringing them back to their divine Source. Indeed, creation
is imprinted with this Trinitarian structure according to its own designated end,40
and for human creatures, the intellect is especially conformed to the second Person,
who is the Word of God. Through conformity to the divine Word, the believer is
actualized and reunited with God. While Eckhart discusses the immanent Trinity
(the interrelations among the divine Persons), he invariably moves his rhetoric to
the economic Trinity, the divine Persons’ intimate involvement with creation and
especially with the human creature’s existence in and return to God. Eckhart is
concerned with the analogical relationship between Creator and creature, not the
divine essence.
Of course, for Eckhart, Trinitarian language remains metaphorical regardless
of its reference to some incomprehensible reality. Among his most controversial
assertions is “everything said or written about the Holy Trinity is in no way really
so or true.”41 All things originate from the Ground, beyond differentiation and
beyond conception. But, since all things derive their intelligibility from God,
all concepts must have a basis in divine reality, however inadequately it can be
verbalized, and Eckhart is careful to maintain that “[i]t is true, of course, that
there is something in God corresponding to the Trinity we speak of and other
similar things.”42
In his German works, when Eckhart speaks of the Trinity or of creation, he
speaks of their source in the divine grunt. The grunt acts as a master metaphor
because, as source for both Trinity and creation, it creates a linguistic space for
discussing the distinction between the origination of persons in the Trinity from
that of creatures, while simultaneously—and more fundamentally—emphasizing
the immediate connection between Trinity and creation and the potential identity
39
McGinn, Mystical Thought, 39.
40
See, for example, Eckhart’s Comm. Jn., 1.122.
41
Latin Sermon IV, n. 30.
42
Ibid.
of creature with Creator through participation in the divine existence. However, in

Latin there is no corollary to “grunt” as it is used in his German works.43 Rather,
Eckhart employs another master metaphor in his Latin works to achieve the same
objective: indistinction.
In Latin Sermon IV on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, Eckhart considers the
familiar expression taken from Romans 11:36, “all things are from him, and
through him and in him.” He points out the common Trinitarian explication:
“from him” the Father, “through him,” the Son, “in him,” the Holy Spirit.
Borrowing from the philosophical categories of material, efficient, and final
causality, Eckhart clarifies,
“All things” are “from” the maker, “through” the form, and “in” the end.
Therefore, God is the “from whom” of all, that is, the maker of all; the “through
whom” of all, that is, the form of all or what forms all; and the “in whom” of all,
because [he is] the end of all things.44
The creature’s exit and return is implied within the Trinitarian structure; however,
Eckhart weaves his master metaphor of indistinction within this conventional
explanation, thus stretching the boundaries of the exitus/reditus paradigm in order
to emphasize the depth of the Creator’s immediacy and presence to the creature as
well as the creature’s identification with its Creator.
God is totally indistinct in himself according to his nature in that he is truly and
most properly one and completely distinct from other things; so too man in God
is indistinct from everything which is in God, and at the same time completely
distinct from everything else.45
The Creator’s essential indistinction, linked to the divine feature of Oneness,

secures God’s differentiation from creation. Eckhart reinforces this point: “no being
can be counted alongside God.” This should be obvious, because “existence is from
God alone, and he alone is existence: ‘I am who am’… If there were anything
outside him or not in him, he would not be existence and consequently not God.”46
In contrast to the Creator’s existence, the creature is nothing—it has no
being of its own, a tenet that finds its roots in the Christian doctrine of creation,
“creatio ex nihilo.” “This is what John 1 says,” Eckhart quotes, “‘without him’
(that is, not in him), ‘what was made is nothing.’”47 He clarifies, “every being,
every maker, every form, every end that is conceived of outside or beyond
existence or that is numbered along with existence is nothing—it is neither a
43
See McGinn, Mystical Thought, 38-44.
44
45
Ibid., n. 28.
46
Ibid., n. 23.
47
Ibid., n. 22.
being, nor a maker, nor a form, nor an end.”48 Like his Latin commentaries on
Wisdom and Exodus,49 the creature’s nothingness draws attention to the Creator’s
distinction, and specifically to the Creator’s unique power to bring all things into
being without pre-existing matter, as well as the Creator’s necessary sustenance in
keeping creatures from falling back into non-existence.
Because it is employed to support the Creator’s distinction, the term
“nothing” does not operate as a master metaphor, as it does in some of Eckhart’s
German works, where it is closely connected to the grunt. However, led by
the master metaphor of indistinction, the nothingness of creatures conveys yet
another—although implicit—significance. To understand how the term “nothing”
can function in a dual way, we must return to the scriptural story of creation.
In Genesis 1, God does not, in fact, bring the world to being out of “thin air” so
to speak, like a magician, but rather creates all things out of a formless wasteland.
God does create out of “nothing,” but in a more artistic sense: where there was
no particular thing—no-thing, a formless wasteland that served no particular
purpose—now there are specific things (formed) that have specific purposes
(informed). The story of creation is, therefore, not really about God’s power over
creation, but about God’s wisdom in forming and arranging creation, and, as the
story continues, arranging so that the divine is imaged by and manifest within
creation, especially by the human creature, the culmination of God’s creative
activity. By this divine ordering the creature participates in the divine existence.
Derived from Scripture, tradition holds two senses of creation from nothing: one
securing God’s distinction from and power over the world; the other, emphasizing
the creature’s manifestation of and designated end in its Creator.
The first sense is clearly present in John’s Gospel. In response to Jn. 1:3, Eckhart
declares (note the implicit Trinitarian structure), “How might there be or might
something be that is beyond existence, or without existence, or not in existence?”50
God alone is the author of existence, and God alone is existence. This seems to indicate
the Creator’s transcendent power over and distinction from creation. However,
Eckhart is not content to present the doctrine of creation without plumbing its depths;
nor is he afraid of the controversy this dangerous exploration will inevitably cause
for his audiences—in fact he counts on it. Eckhart prefaces his above reply to John,
first asserting that “‘[a]ll things are in him’ in such a way that if there is anything not
in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not God;” and then, continuing:
If there were anything outside him or not in him, he would not be existence and
consequently not God. … “All things are in him” in such a way that nothing is
in the Father, nothing in the Son, except because the Father and the Son are what
the Holy Spirit is.51
48
Ibid., n. 29.
49
See, for example, Comm. Wis. (1:14), n. 34, and Comm. Ex., nn. 102-6.
50
51
Ibid., n. 24.
Statements like this—appearing throughout Eckhart’s work in a variety of

formulations—that “God would not be God,” sound more controversial than they
really are. Above, the underlying tenet, wholly in conformity with tradition, is that
the three divine Persons’ nature is essentially identical. Existence is proper to God
alone, and in the Trinity this existence is essentially indistinct—being neither this
nor that mode of existence, but pure existence. Significantly, however, Eckhart
does not discuss the divine nature separately from the creature’s existence.
Eckhart had earlier indicated that, because everything exists in God in a general
way, the three terms (from, through, and in) are, in actuality, the same. Within the
scriptural context of creation, which provides the interior content for the doctrine
of the Trinity, the creatures’ existence in God (before being created in the world)
is formless existence. This manner of existence is also indistinct.
Through the master metaphor of indistinction, Eckhart takes an analogical turn
by reflexively extending the divine mode of existence to creatures:
when we say that all things are in God [that means that] just as he is indistinct in
his nature and nevertheless most distinct from all things, so in him all things in
a most distinct way are also at the same time indistinct. … Further, just as God
is ineffable and incomprehensible, so all things are in him in an ineffable way.52
Like the German grunt, indistinction is free from creaturely form while conveying
the idea of identity: two things that are identical are indistinct, because there is
nothing, no single feature, by which to distinguish one from the other. Eckhart’s
dialectical attribution of distinct and indistinct existence seems to be an example
of what Zum Brunn calls the dual status of the creature: in the world (borrowed
existence) and in God (liberated existence).53 In the world, the creature is separated
from other creatures and from the Creator by virtue of its form; but in God, the
creature is one with other creatures and with the Creator by virtue of its indistinction
with the divine existence.54
This dual mode of existence creates a linguistic space for articulating God’s
transcendence as well as the creature’s total dependence on the Creator, while
at the same time expressing God’s immanence and the creature’s freedom from
the constrictions of its created form—language-use Zum Brum calls “dialectical
analogy.” However, led by indistinction as master metaphor, the dual ontology
of the creature (distinct and indistinct) passes beyond dialectically balancing
God’s transcendence and immanence, or the creature’s borrowed and liberated
existence vis-à-vis the Creator: indistinction expresses a non-contrastive
relationship where the creature shares a radical identity with the Creator more
profound than any likeness between creatures, and furthermore, creatures share
a radical identity with each other not perceived through ordinary awareness, but
52
Ibid., n. 28.
53
See Zum Brunn and de Libera, Maître Eckhart, 90.
54
See Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 92-3.
only through a transformed awareness. Eckhart is careful to note that creatures

are indistinct with each other and with the Creator in a distinct and unique
manner. Distinct and indistinct existence are not really dialectical, because they
are not opposed to each other, but rather non-contrastive. Yet this indistinction,
this radical identity in creation, is everywhere present, just as God is everywhere
present, since it is an inextricable part of common existence. Through their
existence, which at its core is indistinct, creatures carry within themselves
God’s inexhaustible intelligibility; thus, ordinary creatures manifest the Divine
in the world.
Moreover, indistinction for the human creature is soteriologically significant.
Like other creatures, the human bears within itself divine intelligibility
(incomprehensibility), and in addition was made to image its divine Creator.
However, as the scriptural narrative unfolds, unlike the rest of creation the human
creature was given the freedom—and made the choice—to turn away from its
divine image and cling to created images, which are nothing more than fleeting
forms. In religious terms, our stubborn attachment to forms is sinful, because
awareness of our indistinction with God is obscured, hindering us from fully
manifesting our divine image and, consequently, keeping us from fulfilling our
divine telos.
Redemption is freedom from this sinful state of alienation from realizing our
indistinction, or total union with God. Liberated existence is one of identification
with the divine ground; therefore, to be saved is to become deified—realizing
and actualizing divine indistinction. In Christian terms, deification takes form
(to use this term improperly) particularly in the second Person of the Trinity, who
as incarnate provides the interconnection between human and divine: one in nature
with the divine Father and Spirit and one in nature with humanity—like us in
all things except sin, that is, except attachment to forms. Jesus Christ, as Word
incarnate, is the divine image because through his life, death, and resurrection he
manifests the complete human identification with the divine. As exemplar, Jesus
remained detached from the fleeting concerns of created forms, thereby providing
a living model, and revelation, of divine imaging for others to follow.
2. Adopted Sonship as Analogy
Surprisingly, Eckhart does not exploit the language of the hypostatic union. The
doctrine of the hypostatic union protects God’s distinction by positioning Jesus
as the absolutely unique human example of divine transcendence-in-immanence.
Often, the hypostatic formula is understood contrastively, where as divine,
Jesus wholly transcends creation and as human is wholly immanent to creation,
especially to other human beings. However, this assumes that to be divine is the
opposite of being human, and this would not do justice to the profound intimacy
God has to humanity through the incarnation.
In his German works, Eckhart employs exitus/reditus language in his
explication of the birth of the Word in the soul, a development earning him official
condemnation for seeming to blur the distinction between Creator and creature.
In his Latin works, however—notably his commentary on John’s Gospel—Eckhart
appeals to the Pauline notion that, through Jesus Christ believers become adopted
heirs of God. For Eckhart, the hypostatic formula does not provide as much
linguistic space for articulating the return of the believer to God as the language of
“adoption.” Subtly directed by the master metaphor of indistinction, the doctrine
that through Christ believers become adopted heirs of God passes from traditional
formula to dynamic analogy.
In his Latin Commentary on John’s Gospel, Eckhart quotes: “‘The Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us,’” continuing: “the first fruit of the Incarnation
of the Word, who is the natural Son of God, is that we should be God’s sons
through adoption.” Eckhart borrows Paul’s adoption language from Galatians and
Romans, where Paul writes, “‘you have received the spirit of adoption of the sons
of God.’ … ‘If we are sons, we are heirs also: Heirs indeed of God and joint heirs
with Christ.’”55 Eckhart explains, “it would be of little value for me that ‘the Word
was made flesh’ for man in Christ as a person distinct from me unless he was also
made flesh in me personally so that I too might be God’s son.”56
Eckhart maintains Christ’s unique distinction from creatures, because he alone
naturally exists both as human and divine (divine here understood as “immanent-
yet-transcendent”). Additionally, adoption language shows that the believer,
returned to the Creator, exists divinely through adoption; therefore, adoption
language yields more than does that of hypostatic union. However, Eckhart’s use of
“adoption” goes beyond conventional understanding, which distinguishes natural
sonship from adoption in a way that opposes human and divine. Conventionally
understood, the idea that believers become by adoption—or through grace—what
Jesus was by nature, God’s son, preserves Jesus’ unique status as both fully
human and divine and preserves Jesus’ unique status as uncreated, unlike any
other human person. Although we can become heirs of God, we can never be both
human and divine in the same sense Jesus was; we can become sons of God, but
not THE Son of God. Eckhart, however, is not satisfied with this discrimination
because it presumes an unbridgeable separation between human and divine, and
does not convey the intimacy between Creator and human creature made in the
divine image.
Rather, for Eckhart, adoption must be extended beyond its ordinary meaning,
becoming a dynamic analogy. To become adopted means Jesus is made flesh in the
believer personally, indicating a profound transformation—or con-formation—within
the human creature. He goes on to draw this out more explicitly:
“The Word was made flesh” in Christ who is outside us. He does not make
us perfect by being outside us; but afterwards, through the fact that “he dwelt
among us,” he gives us his name and perfects us “so that we are called and truly
55
Gal 4:7 and Rom 8:15-17.
56
Comm. Jn., n. 117.
are God’s son.” (1 Jn.3:1)57 For then the Son of God, “The Word made flesh,”
dwells in us, that is, in our very selves—behold God’s dwelling with man …
[Isaiah] says, “He dwelt among use,” that is, he made man his dwelling.58 Again,
“He dwelt among us” because we have him in us. … “We are being transformed
into the same image from glory to glory, as through the Spirit of the Lord.”
We should not falsely suppose that it is by one son or image that Christ is the
Son of God and by some other that the just and godlike man is a son of God, for
he says, “We are being transformed into the same image.”59
Statements like this mark one of the most controversial aspects of Eckhart’s work,
because it appears that, in identifying the believer with Jesus Christ, Eckhart erases
the line between divine and human—and between nature and grace—effectively
the only thing setting Jesus apart from other humans.60 His German works articulate
this even more boldly, for example his sermon on the Book of Wisdom 5:16,
where Eckhart asserts, “The Father gives birth to the Son without ceasing, and I
say more: he gives me birth, me, his son and the same son.”61
In his Johannine commentary, as in some Latin sermons,62 the believer’s
adoption as God’s son through conformity to Jesus Christ relies on Eckhart’s
understanding of “image.” Driven by the master metaphor of indistinction,
conformity to Christ dynamically analogizes Christ’s imaging of the Father as
the Word of God. In his Commentary on John, “The Word was with God, and the
Word was God,” Eckhart explains how Jesus Christ is the image of the Father:
the image and that of which it is an image, insofar as they are such, are one.
“The Father and I are one” (Jn 10:30). He says “we are” insofar as there is
an exemplar that is expressive and begets and an image that is expressed or
begotten; he says “one” insofar as the whole existence of the one is in the
other and there is nothing alien to it there. … The image and the exemplar
are coeval, and this is what is said here, that “the Word,” that is, the image,
“was in the beginning with God” in such a way that the exemplar cannot be
understood without the image and vice versa. “He who sees me also sees my
Father” (Jn 14:9).63
Emphasis mine.
57
Eckhart’s wordplay between habitavit and habituavit cannot be conveyed in

58
English. See Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, fn. 217.

59
Eckhart borrows from 2 Cor. 3:18. Comm. Jn., n. 118.
60
For more on Eckhart’s notion of grace, see McGinn, Mystical Thought, 127-31.
61
German Sermon 6 (Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons). Three excerpts
relating to the birth of the Son in the soul were included in the bull “In agro dominico.”
See Colledge and McGinn, Essential Sermons, fn. 218.
62
For example, Latin Sermons XXV and XLIX (McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt,
Teacher and Preacher).
63
Comm. Jn., n. 24.
The imaging between Son and Father is so profound that it goes beyond any
shared form to their existence; in God, image is an expression of identity rather
than likeness, and therefore the Son’s imaging of the Father indicates indistinction
with regard to divine existence. Furthermore, since “[t]he principles of knowing
and of existence are the same,”64 knowing and existence in God are also indistinct,
for “nothing is known through what is alien to it.” Borrowing from Matthew’s
Gospel, Eckhart concludes, “[n]o one knows the Son except the Father, nor does
anyone know the Father except the Son.”65
So far, image understood as indistinction is limited to the Divine Persons;
however, true to form, Eckhart quickly turns from immanent Trinity to economic
Trinity. The relationship between indistinction and image has profound
soteriological implications for human creatures. Indistinction does not appear
often in Eckhart’s commentary on John, but operates tacitly throughout the text
as he continues to develop the notion of adoption, moving from how the Word
images the Father to how, as believers become conformed to the Word incarnate,
they too image God and consequently become deified heirs.
“[I]ndistinct existence is proper to God, and he is distinguished by his
indistinction alone, while distinct existence is proper to a creature,”66 asserts
Eckhart, maintaining the orthodox position of the Creator’s unique distinction
from creature. More importantly, though, he sets the stage for the formula of
adoption to become a dynamic analogy expressing the human creature’s reunion
and identification with its Source. Even early in the commentary Eckhart begins
to extend God’s indistinction to human beings, following Augustine that “we are
made to the image of the whole Trinity.”67 Humanity’s creation in the image of the
Trinity is significant to Eckhart because, according to Christian tradition, the God
of Scripture is the triune God proclaimed by the Church. Therefore it is the Trinity’s
role in creation that concerns Eckhart—particularly, in his Johannine commentary,
of the second Person’s role in the creation of humanity. The human creature has
a special relatedness to the second Divine Person because it is endowed with
intellect, which directs it back to its Source through the Word’s incarnation.
Explaining John’s opening declaration, “in the beginning was the Word,”
Eckhart borrows from Augustine on the various meanings of the Greek Logos.
The Greek Logos means the same as the Latin “idea” and “word.” In this passage
we translate it more correctly as “Word” to signify not only the relation to the
Father, but also the relation to the things that are made through the Word by
means of operative power. “Idea” is a term rightly used even if nothing is made
through it.68
64
Comm. Jn., n. 26.
65
Mt 11:27.
66
Comm. Jn., n. 99.
67
Ibid., n. 123, following Augustine, Trin. 7.6.12.
68
Ibid., n. 28, quoting Augustine’s Book of Eighty-Three Questions.
Eckhart discerns that even from the beginning of the gospel, John’s focus is
soteriological rather than speculative, and concrete rather than abstract. He takes
John’s highly symbolic language as an opportunity to extend divine existence to
redeemed humanity: through God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, believers are able
to realize their indistinct existence through imitation.
Becoming “heirs” or “adopted sons” means revealing God just as Jesus Christ
reveals the Father. He was able to reveal the Father by virtue of his divine nature,
which is indistinct from the Father. Human creatures are capable of revealing
God insofar as they image Jesus, who, as exemplar (Word or Logos) has a proper
role bringing creatures into existence from nothing. Although distinct among
themselves, creatures are indistinct in God because all they possess comes from
God and from nothing else, and continued existence depends on God. “The image
is in its exemplar, for there it receives its whole existence. On the other hand,
the exemplar insofar as it is an exemplar is in its image because the image has
the whole existence of the exemplar in itself.”69 Indistinction extends to creatures
because, as Eckhart continues, “the Word itself, the exemplar of created things,
is not something outside God towards which he looks … but the Word is in the
Father himself.” Since the Word is in the Father, and the Word is the exemplar of
creatures, creatures are in God and are indistinct.
Indistinction operates here as master metaphor, albeit tacitly. The term “image”
indicates indistinction, because it goes beyond formal definition. The Son does not
image the Father through any particular form or feature, divine or otherwise, but
through existence. Jesus Christ manifested his divine (fully actualized) existence
by living in such a way that he did not cling to created forms, but treated everything
as it was in itself and in God. As Eckhart puts it, he lived “without a why,”70
foregoing self-interest for the sake of others, especially those who—by all outward
appearances, or in other words, through their created forms—did not seem to merit
such attention. Likewise, insofar as we become detached from created forms and
live “without a why,” we manifest the divine existence by becoming conformed to
the formless image of Jesus Christ, and are transformed into one and the same Son.
The capacity to be transformed into the Son is inbuilt into the human creature’s
telos by virtue of its intellect. Eckhart begins establishing the association between
human intellect and divine Intellect—just as he does everything else—with the
Creator as prime analogate. The human intellect is not discussed until divine
Intellect is considered, thereby preserving proper linguistic order of Creator to
creature. Eckhart toggles back and forth between divine Knowledge and human
knowledge of God throughout the Johannine commentary. Speaking first of John’s
text, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God,” Eckhart explains, whatever is produced from something is “universally its
word.” By “word,” Eckhart means that it “speaks, announces and discloses whence
Ibid., n. 20.
69
See, for example, German Sermons 5b, 6, 52 (Colledge and McGinn,

70
Essential Sermons).
it comes.”71 The Word reveals the divine Source. Creation manifests the divine
because it reflects its Creator, and especially the Word, through whom creatures
are brought into being. The purpose of the incarnation is to make God known to
creatures through the highest worldly creation, humanity, who images its Creator’s
existence through being, through life, and most specifically, through intellect.
The question of why the Word’s incarnation was necessary and appropriate is
answered in terms of redemption: drawing the believer back to its source—for the
end of all creatures is in their divine Source—especially the human creature, made
in God’s image but manifesting its Source like a reflection in a dark glass, because
it tends to attach itself to created forms. “[T]he intellect, which begins in the senses,
is clouded by the [created] images through which and in which it knows.”72 Because
of this weakness, we need an exemplar to which we can cling and which we can
imitate who images God purely. Jesus Christ as Word incarnate is divine exemplar
and pure image of God. Because he existed corporeally, he communicated the
divine physically, and related himself to others through the senses.
However, in becoming conformed, believers must also become detached from
the human image of Jesus Christ, for even clinging to the Word incarnate will
keep the believer from wholly identifying with and knowing God. “[T]ake good
heed of Christ’s words, when he spoke about his human nature and said to his
disciples ‘It is expedient for you that I go from you, for if I do not go, the Holy
Spirit cannot come to you,’” Eckhart quotes from John’s Gospel in his German
work On Detachment: “This is just as if he were to say, ‘you have taken too much
delight in my present image, so that the perfect delight of the Holy Spirit cannot
be yours.’”73 The faithful must come to know everything, including Jesus Christ,
as indistinct from God—and not through the forms that define them. Eckhart
often calls this transformed way of knowing, which images the divine Intellect,
“unknowing” or “detached intellection,” because to know something by seeing
through its created form to its indistinct existence—knowing personally—is
different than our ordinary way of obtaining knowledge; it is, therefore, preferable
not to use the same designation as for ordinary knowledge in speaking about divine
knowledge, lest it is taken in the ordinary sense obtained through created forms.
In order to guide audiences non-contrastively in detaching from “formal”
knowledge towards appreciating the depth, immediacy, and intimacy of things as
they are in themselves and in God, Eckhart develops the analogical implications
of the Creator–creature relationship, which he does here first by securing the
Word’s equality and identity with the Principle of creation, as well as the Word’s
distinction from creatures:
In things that are analogical what is produced is always … less perfect and unequal
to its source. In things that are univocal what is produced is always equal to the
71
Comm. Jn., n. 4.
72
Ibid., n. 83.
73
Jn 16:7.
source. It does not just participate in the same nature, but it receives the total nature
from its source in a simple, whole and equal manner. … [W]hat proceeds is the son
of its source. A son is one who is other in person but not other in nature.74
The Son as Word of God is equal to the Principle (the Father) and distinct from
creatures. Whatever is produced in terms of being created derives from the source
and as such is “beneath” it (metaphorically speaking). However, without delay
Eckhart moves in reverse, extending the Son’s indistinct existence with the Father
to creatures:
Still, insofar as it is in the principle, it is not other in nature or other in supposit.

A chest in its maker’s mind is not a chest, but is the life and understanding of
the maker, his living conception. On this account I would say that what it says
here about the procession of the divine Persons holds true and is found in the
procession and production of every being of nature and art.75
Assuming a dialectical mode, Eckhart qualifies the indistinction of creatures in

God and reaffirms the equality of the Word with God, but now includes the Word’s
proper role in the divine act of creation:
note that it is proper to the intellect to receive its object, that is, the intelligible,
not in itself, insofar as it is complete, perfect and good, but to receive it in its
principles. This is what is meant here: “In the principle was the Word.” And
again, “This Word was in the principle with God. … [T]he word, that is, the
mind’s concept … is that through which the maker makes all that he does and
without which he does nothing as a maker. Hence there follows: “All things
were made through him, and without him nothing was made.”76
Created things are indistinct by virtue of their pure potency to become a particular
thing solely from the artistry of the triune Creator. Thus, Creator and creature are
distinctly indistinct: creatures are indistinct because of their no-thingness, while
the Word is indistinct because of its existence as pure act, by which it derives its
divine creative power to inform all things.
The creature’s indistinction, neither univocal nor equivocal with the Word’s
indistinction, lends the creature the capacity to manifest the Word, insofar as its
“idea” is conveyed by the creature—the idea constituting its particular place in the
order of creation: being, living, or intellect. “[I]n the case of created things, only
their ideas shine,” Eckhart deduces from Aristotle, for “[t]he idea of a thing which
the name signifies is its definition,” and, at least from the creaturely perspective,
in defining something knowledge about it is revealed.
74
Comm. Jn., n. 5.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid., n. 9.
Explicating John’s text, “the light shines in the darkness,” however, Eckhart
reverses Aristotle’s tenet, that knowledge of something is revealed through the
ideas—that is, through the forms—by which is it defined, concluding, nothing
shines in creatures except their idea, which, although distinct with regard to the
order of creation, is indistinct in God since its origin is the divine Word. “Shining”
is a metaphor for the disclosure of divine knowledge. To distinguish the creature’s
divinely originated idea, one must paradoxically move beyond the apparent or
created forms of the creature—that which defines it outwardly, but which tends
to obscure its inward reality—to the formless image within, its divine idea,
which “remains immobile and intact, even if the creature is changed, moved, or
destroyed.” Insofar as the “idea” of a creature shines forth through its created
forms, it reveals and manifests the Creator. To know a creature truly, what-it-is
in itself, is to perceive it indistinctly in God, consequently to know the Creator:
personally, immediately, and intimately. There is no distance between Creator and
creature in personal knowing, and no distinction between the human creature’s
knowing and its existence in God. Instead of being defined by their created forms,
creatures as they are in themselves are therefore defined by how they reflect and
reveal the Creator.
Humanity has the special capacity to know and disclose God personally
through its intellect, suggesting the potency for transformation and identification
with the divine Intellect. Of course, by intellect, Eckhart means more than rational
faculty. Certainly, though, reason is not disregarded. “Corporeal nature as such
does not distinguish between the thing and the idea, because it does not know
the idea, which only a rational and intellectual nature grasps and knows.”77 The
power of reason allows us to organize thoughts, prioritize experiences, and
most significantly, to derive the idea of something apart from its existence as a
particular “what it is.” But intellect goes beyond reason in its capacity to transform
the human being, which it does by perceiving things in themselves as well as their
indistinction in the divine Source. Consequently, the human creature is able to
pass beyond its own assumed identity to recognize its indistinction in God and
its potency for manifesting its divine image through detachment—or, scripturally
speaking, through disinterested piety.
According to John, the Word incarnate was life, and “the life was the light of
men.” For Eckhart, John’s use of “light,” synonymous with “idea,” is symbolic
of divine self-knowledge revealed to the human intellect, ordered to God as a
capacity to receive and to respond to divine communication. God’s revelation
through the incarnation of the Word is an appropriate expression of divine
self-communication because of the correlation between divine knowledge
and existence:
The intellect’s effect in itself is … word and idea … The Idea in the proper
sense is certainly in the First intellect. It is also “with God” in every neighboring
77
Ibid., n. 1:31.
intellectual being that is its image, or made according to its image as “God’s
offspring.” Furthermore, reality and intellect are the same in [God].78
From the divine perspective, the Word, or Logos, is the divine Idea, deriving its
power to inform creation by virtue of its indistinct existence as pure act; from
the creaturely perspective, intellect—which allows the human creature to discern
the existence of something apart from its form, and thus respond to it as it is
actually—is the highest form of creaturely existence. Humanity, endowed not only
with reason but with its whole intellect as its telos guiding it to full existence
(full actualization) in its Source, is thus ordered to the divine Intellect. It is
therefore fitting for the Word of God to assume human nature, so that humanity
could assume divine nature. Eckhart begins with the formula of adoption and draws
his readers to its redemptive implications, of which the ultimate end is deification.
“The Father gives birth to his Son in eternity, equal to himself,” Eckhart
reminds his readers in his German Sermon on Wisdom 5:16, where he refers again
to John’s opening passage, “The Word was with God, and God was the Word.”
He reasons, “it was the same in the same nature.” But here in this German work,
Eckhart abandons adoption language, and moves his identification between the
Word and the human creature further than in his Latin works:
Yet I say more: He has given birth to him in my soul. Not only is the soul with
him, and he equal with it, but he is in it, and the Father gives his Son birth in the
soul in the same way as he gives him birth in eternity, and not otherwise. … The
Father gives birth to his Son without ceasing; and I say more: He gives me birth,
me, his Son and the same Son.79
Eckhart breaks his audiences out of their comfort zone to extend the birth in the
soul to the divine nature itself:
I say more: He gives birth not only to me, his Son, but he gives birth to me as
himself and himself as me and to me as his being and nature. In the innermost
source, there I spring out in the Holy Spirit, where there is one life and one being
and one work. Everything God performs is one; therefore he gives me, his Son,
birth without any distinction [underscheit].80
Not only does Eckhart seemingly blur the Son and human creature’s distinction,
but he clarifies that, in giving birth to the Son unceasingly, the Son’s divine nature
and the human creature’s nature are one and the same. Arguing from Second
Corinthians, Eckhart declares: “We shall be completely transformed and changed
into God.”
78
Ibid., n. 37.
79
German Sermon 6.
80
Ibid.
While Eckhart seems to drift dangerously close to—if not actually into
the terrain of—the heretical, we must investigate the analogical, and therefore
metaphorical, dimensions of this language. In speaking of the identity between
human creature and Creator, Eckhart employs the “soul” throughout his German
works, without, however, giving it a single consistent definition or description.
This should come as no surprise, for to give a fixed interpretation might allow
audiences to cling to the concept of the soul without exploring its metaphorical
depths. The metaphor of “soul” is driven by the master metaphor of grunt, the
“place” (metaphorically speaking, of course) where indistinction, and therefore
identity, between Creator and creature may be found.
The birth of the Word in the soul, understood through the master metaphor
of ground, develops a non-contrastive interpretation falling well within the
confines of Christian orthodoxy, because it protects the Creator’s uniqueness
while expressing the total dependence and potency of the human creature. Indeed,
Eckhart’s “birth” motif should be considered radically orthodox, because it is
more likely to succeed where conventional Christian formulas, such as hypostatic
union, are less likely to: first, in detaching believers from superficial identification
as individual creatures privileged by virtue of their God-given superior rational
nature—set apart and above other creatures—and second, in revealing to believers
their potential identities as divine creatures accountable to God and to other
creatures by virtue of their union and indistinction with them.
In Christian terms, Jesus exemplified this in sacrificing his life, thereby
identifying completely with the human condition. Jesus was able to identify
completely with humanity because he lived a life of disinterested piety, allowing
him to see others as they were in themselves indistinct from God. His self-sacrifice
on the cross is considered an act of God’s love for humanity. In actuality, detached
intellection and love are one and the same, because to know something in itself
is to identify completely with it, and to identify completely with something is to
give yourself completely to it. In giving birth to the Son in the soul, God identifies
so completely with the human creature that any distinction is extinguished.
Eckhart does, therefore, dissolve the distinction between Creator and creature;
however it is well justified by the Christian imperative of love and is in this sense
radically orthodox.
While Eckhart is daring enough in his German works to risk conflation between
the human soul and the divine nature in order to pull his congregations out of their
doctrinal complacency, it is important to note he was no less intent on detaching
his Dominican students from reliance on formulaic interpretations of doctrine,
since they were someday to preach to their own congregations and to teach their
own students. In his Latin works, Eckhart’s use of insofar, deemed the “inquantum
principle” by scholars like Tobin,81 allows Eckhart to remain within the confines
of orthodoxy while carrying audiences beyond conventional (mis)understandings
of the Creator–creature relationship, which might blur the divine and the created.
81
See Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 49-61, 90-94.
The indistinction of the Creator, existing always everywhere in fully actualized

existence, establishes the unique distinction between Creator and creature, whose
existence is indistinct because it totally depends on the Creator. No comparison
or contrast between Creator and creature is possible, because there is no other
existence, and no other source of existence, with which such a correlation or
differentiation could be made. The creature is, strictly speaking, no-thing by its
own power. But since God is the source of its being any-thing at all, insofar as
it has existence, or insofar as it imitates the Word incarnate, or insofar as it acts
justly, and so forth, it is in God and indistinct from God and is God. The inquantum
principle establishes the Creator–creature relationship as dynamically analogical,
because it speaks not of the creature’s formal resemblance or dissimilarity to the
Creator, but rather of its potency to identify with its Creator who is its source
of existence.
The “birth of the Word in the soul” presents Eckhart’s German audiences
with the same linguistic possibility, but with a more personal and evocative
articulation from which to draw their spiritual reflections and direct their moral
actions. “As truly as the Father in his simple nature gives his Son birth naturally,
so truly does he give him birth in the most inward part of the soul, and that is the
inner world,” Eckhart writes in his German Sermon on 1 John 4:9, “In this God’s
love for us has been revealed and has appeared to us, because God has sent his
Only-Begotten Son into the world, so that we live with the Son and in the Son and
through the Son.” Eckhart continues, invoking his master metaphor of ground to
explain the immediacy and intimacy between the believer and God:
Where the Father gives birth to his Son in the innermost ground, there this nature
is suspended [or hovers – German: însweben]. This nature is one and simple. …
Here God’s ground is my ground, and my ground is God’s ground. Here I live
from what is my own, as God lives from what is his own. … Whoever seeks for
God without ways will find him as he is in himself, and that man will live with
the Son, and he is life itself.82
Eckhart’s identification of the “most inward part of the soul” and God’s ground
has elicited much controversy because it seems to give something “uncreated”
to the human creature, obscuring the essential distinction between Creator
and creature.83 But Eckhart is intent on preserving the correct analogical order
between the two: the soul receives the uncreated because it is ordered to it, not
because it is of itself uncreated; the human creature must have the capacity to
receive, respond to, and identify with the divine if it is to manifest it rather
German Sermon 5b. See Peter Reiter, Der Seele Grund: Meister Eckhart und die
82
Tradition der Seelenlehre (Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen and Neumann, 1993) for more
on Eckhart’s relationship between the soul and the divine ground.
83
See, for example, McGinn and Colledge, Essential Sermons, pertaining to Eckhart’s
condemnation, 12-15, and Tobin, Meister Eckhart, 132.
than just reflect it like an image in a mirror. “Uncreated” and “created” are
not in opposition, but are non-contrastive. The identification of the soul with
the divine ground bespeaks of its pure potency, and in this sense it should be
called uncreated: “All things are created from nothing; therefore their true
origin is nothing,” Eckhart exhorts, in a cunning word-play suggesting several
simultaneous levels of interpretation: the creature’s being brought forth out of
nothing, or the not-yet-something specific, or the not-yet-created; the creature’s
being created by and from the one who is no-thing and uncreated, the Creator
who is distinct from creation by virtue of its indistinction, divine no-thingness.
Even nothingness is not outside of God. Therefore the creature’s true origin and
end is as no-thing, or, as in God, uncreated.
When Eckhart declares there is no distinction whatever between the soul giving
birth to the Word and the divine nature, he means no distinction exists between
God and the soul which can be compared to any kind of distinction found among
creatures. This dynamic moment, uncreated and indistinct, conveys a relation
between Creator and human creature that is singularly unique or, more personally,
a love so strong that Lover and beloved are one and the same in a complete mutual
self-presence drawing all things into itself:
The man who has God essentially present to him grasps God divinely, and to
him God shines in all things, for everything tastes to him of God, and God forms
himself for the man out of all things. God always shines out in him, in him
there is a detachment and a turning away, and a forming of his God whom he
loves and who is present to him. … Truly, wherever he is, whomever he is with,
whatever he may undertake, whatever he does, what he so loves never passes
from his mind, and he finds the image of what he loves in everything and it is the
more present to him the more his love grows and grows.84
This person, detached from the distinction of created forms, just as the Jesus Christ
was detached from such distractions, “does not seek rest,” Eckhart affirms,
“because no unrest hinders him.” He has passed beyond affirmations, beyond
negations, and beyond comparisons and contrasts—to silence.
C. Analogy as Silence
“‘[The light] shines in the darkness,’ that is, in a silence and stillness apart from
the commotion of creatures,” Eckhart concludes his exegesis of John’s fifth verse.
Drawing from Augustine’s Confessions, he queries, “‘What is similar to your
Word … if the commotion of the flesh is silent to a person, images are silent …
84
Counsels on Discernment. Counsel 6, “Of Detachment and of the Possession
of God.”
and the soul is silent to itself and passes beyond itself by not thinking on itself?”85
And, meditating on Wisdom (18:14), he pauses, as if his thoughts drift off and
evaporate: “When a deep silence held all things.”
Eckhart reflects more extensively on the meaning of silence in his earlier
commentary on Wisdom, considering this same verse, and from his meditations
there the interconnection between speaking of and knowing God may be derived.
As he does in his later work, Eckhart turns to Augustine for inspiration: “‘Be not
foolish, my soul, and make not the ear of your heart deaf with the turmoil of your
folly. Hear the Word itself; there is the place of imperturbable rest.’”86 He concludes
by quoting from Book 9: ‘“if the soul be silent to itself and by not thinking of itself
transcend itself … he may speak alone through himself in order that we may hear
his Word.”87
God speaks to the silent soul immediately, without a medium, suggesting
both knowing and identification. But this is not supernatural revelation bypassing
human thought. Rather, it is an immediate “opening up” of thought, or a bursting
through thought—Eckhart sometimes uses the language of a “spark” in the
soul—causing a transformed awareness of God manifest in all things. “[T]he very
idea of a medium [must] be removed, given up, be silent and at rest so that the
soul can rest in God. … [J]ust as many things and all things are one in the One
and in God … ‘[w]e have all things in you, the One,’ and … ‘God will be one in
all.’”88 The metaphor of “silence” in these passages does not refer to the cessation
of thought or speech—as it does for the beatified in their union with God after
death—but to an awareness of the silence permeating and lying at the center of
each word, each thought, and each creature.
This silence, unrecognized, lies hidden beneath the veil of the created image,
whether a fellow creature, a work of art, a rock, or a word; and because hidden,
it causes the soul to be restless after its purpose and meaning. Once perceived,
however, the Source—the Word of God—speaks so loudly through the creature
or work of art, or rock, or word, you can barely distinguish where the word ends
and your ear begins. This is the apophatic way: to perceive things as they are in
themselves indistinct from God is to be dramatically transformed: the Word and
the hearer are one.89 This indicates that the value of apophasis, or the “negation
of negation” in Eckhart’s terms, does not lie in the cessation of speech, but in the
fulfillment of its soteriological purpose. The hearer who is transformed becomes
the Word who bears divine silence through itself, just as Jesus the incarnate
Word did during his human life—in every facet of his human life, word, and
85
Comm. Jn., n. 80.
86
Augustine, Confessions, 4.9.
87
Ibid., Book 9.
88
Comm. Wis. (18:1), 285, quoting from Tb 10:5 and 1 Cor 15:28, respectively.
89
See J.P. Williams, Denying Divinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
4-5; Louis Dupré, “Eckhart: From Silence to Speech,” International Catholic Review:
Communio 11 (1984): 28-34.
deed. Human discourse about and to God bearing the divine Silence within
transforms other hearers—“who have ears to hear,” Scripture qualifies—and
unites the speaker, the listener, and the Word as one in God. Those who are
transformed and bear the Silence within themselves are not rendered mute, but
on the contrary, are compelled to speak of God all the more, so that others may
be gathered into God. This is the Preacher’s soteriological calling, to gather
believers into Christ. Eckhart, through practical exercise of Aquinas’ analogy,
lends a new and dynamic meaning to Augustine’s repose of the restless heart.
The heart at rest in God is a silent heart, but not a speechless one, until it has
completed its last earthly beat.
Chapter 6
Conclusion: Living Without a Why
and the Christian Forms of Life
In today’s religious climate, far removed from medieval Europe where Church and
state were aligned, and—though already divided from the Eastern tradition—there
seemed but one dominant Christian voice, the Roman Church, theologians must
be sensitive to diversity and to the demands of pluralism, both undeniable and
irrevocable facts of life. However, Aquinas and Eckhart still have much to teach
contemporary students of faith in using language analogically to reflect upon
and to further deepen their experience of God, and additionally, to broaden the
experience of God across denominational and religious borders. If anything, their
lessons are more relevant and pressing than in their own time, for communicating
about the divine seems even more problematic in an atmosphere where any given
religious perspective is just one among many, and where the goal is union with
God, not through uniformity, but through unity-in-diversity, the effect of which
is mutual transformation. For Christians, spirituality and the forms of life it takes
must be consistent with this ultimate end.
A. The Lessons of Aquinas and Eckhart
Aquinas and Eckhart show us we must break through ordinary language-use in

expressing the relationship between the human creature and its Creator. Preserving
both God’s transcendence and God’s immanence is essential to this task. But this
is not the main goal; their mission is to engage the believer in the process of “faith
seeking understanding” for which more is required, because the understanding
to be realized is not factual knowledge, but personal knowing. Personal knowing
differs from factual knowledge in that it unites the knower and the object known.
In reality, there is no such thing as personal “knowledge.” Knowledge is a set
of data about the object of inquiry. God is not an object that can be studied; to
attribute to God any objective characteristic is to render God a creature and in so
doing “God would not be God”—at least, not the Creator God of Scripture.
The Creator God of Scripture is a personal God, who brings forth existence
freely, sustains that existence and—for the human creature—transforms it by
uniting it with its own divine life. The faith journey does not seek knowledge,
but redemption, necessary so that we may be reunited with the divine Source who
called us into being. Knowing God is not possessing facts or data, but continually
moving through self-transcendence, the conclusion of which is not a final, eternally
unchanging state of being, like “perfection” (conventionally understood), but

rather an active identification with God. Thus, redemption is not a state of being
but a relationship of mutual self-presence, of complete and dynamic actuality.
The Creator–creature relationship, and especially the believer’s journey of faith
to (and within) God cannot be described; first, how do you describe an identification
where there is no object with which to identify? All that can be described is the
believer’s self-transcendence, and there is no such thing as “a” believer; there
is this believer and that believer: particular believers. That is why narrative—as
Augustine found—is a more effective way to communicate the faith journey.
Even so, to be effective, narrative relies on the audience finding commonality
with the storyteller, some point of identification with which to connect and so
follow the teller’s journey as it unfolds. The language of the story, whether verbal
or non-verbal, must involve speaker and listener in such a way that they are
together part of the divine–human dialogue. This type of narrative engagement
is what analogical language-use is about for Aquinas and Eckhart. Describing
the Creator–creature relationship is inadequate for theology’s purpose; rather, the
significance is in the creature’s—particularly the human creature’s—return.
Aquinas develops his narrative by taking the reader on a journey where, at each
step, inherent presuppositions about certain so-called divine features are revealed
and shown to be deficient and misleading, ordinarily understood. Once detached
from conventional interpretations, each feature can properly be extended to God,
with the understanding that even those things which can be said of God “properly”
are still somewhat metaphorical, because they must be articulated using limited
creaturely language. Although the same basic steps are made with each divine
feature, Aquinas’ questions must be understood in the context of a narrative
journey, for two reasons: first, with each feature Aquinas guides us from an initial
notion of divine transcendence into an ever deepening sense of the Creator’s
immanence to creatures, and with each example the reader’s discernment of this
intimacy grows ever sharper. This discernment moves us away from contrastive
interpretations to a non-contrastive grasp of the Creator’s relationship with
creation. Second, Aquinas carefully and intently arranges the Summa following the
Scriptural narrative of the journey from creation through sanctification and finally
to redemption. As readers progress through the Summa’s narrative from beginning
to end, not only are they following the journey of Christian faith, but they are
in the process of self-transcendence, engaged in becoming increasingly aware of
God’s radical immanence to creation as they exercise their powers of discernment
and continually revise misleading presumptions inherent to the religious language
which surrounds them in their daily lives.
Eckhart’s approach to the Creator–creature relationship in his homilies and
vernacular works as well as in more academic works is no less rigorous, but certainly
more dramatic and immediate, presenting not one narrative at a time, but numerous
and often seemingly conflicting narratives replete with linguistic twists and turns,
at times interrupting one narrative with another within the same text only for it to
be taken up again later. He explains in his commentary on the Gospel of John that:
Conclusion 193
the preceding words have been interpreted in many ways so that the reader can
freely take now one and now the other as seems useful to him. I use the same
method of multiple exposition in my many commentaries.1
Like Aquinas, Eckhart is intent on detaching his audiences from clinging to

misleading and contrastive presuppositions about God and about divinity, which
presume divine transcendence in opposition with creation, and which are based
on creaturely understandings—even when taken as negations. Eckhart wants his
students to develop “detached intellection,” a non-contrastive discernment where,
free from depending on created forms deriving knowledge about something, the
believer comes to personal knowing: knowing things as they are in-themselves-in-
God. Seeing all things as they are in themselves—existing in God—rather than as
they exist through their created forms—distinct from God—the believer encounters
other creatures as fully present, since there is nothing standing between the knower
and the one known. In becoming aware of how others exist in themselves and in
God, the believer engages in self-transcendence through identification with the
divine ground manifest in all creation.
Detached intellection applies to language, just as it does to all other encounters
with creaturely things. Our verbal (spoken and written) utterances of God both
mirror and form our religious experiences, as do our non-verbal expressions
(actions). God-talk, or “theology,” Tanner asserts, “can be understood as called
forth by Christian practice to be a kind of reflection upon it.”2 Furthermore,
theological speculation returns to Christian practice to “recommend courses of
action, criticize or support the practice of the community, regulate the church’s
belief and action” and so forth.3 By constantly shifting narratives, Eckhart
exercises the ability to see through religious words to their effect—and to their
inarticulable divine source. This reveals a multitude of reflections, each of which
catches unique glimpses but fails to capture the entire reality. As we revise our
conceptions to account for this multiplicity, so too are we moved to align our faith
practices to better penetrate through formulas, images, and other conceptions of
God to the heart of the divine Word.
B. Christian Forms of Life as Analogical
We must never forget that Aquinas and Eckhart assume their linguistic exercises
are inseparable from the context of faith—or rather, from the practice of faith.
They expect their audiences to be actively engaged in Christian forms of life:
liturgy, personal prayer, silent contemplation, and especially the moral life, living
for others. It is the Christian life that lends significance to their works and is the
1
Comm. Jn., n. 39.
2
3
Ibid.
very purpose for their efforts. Divorced from the practice of faith, Aquinas’ Summa
and Eckhart’s vernacular and Latin works lack their full force, and in many cases
make for weak philosophical arguments or contrastive interpretations.
For example, as Chapter 4 explained, Aquinas’ Five Ways appears to depend
on teleological arguments, weak from the philosophical perspective because they
are tautological: in order to see creation as a reflection of divine ordering, one
must first assume the existence of God. Only when examined in light of his first
question, which asserts that the proper subject of theology is sacra doctrina rather
than metaphysics, does Aquinas’ Five Ways make sense: it is not the existence of
God that is demonstrated, but the necessity and relevance of the Creator God of
Scripture and tradition, who not only creates all things from nothing, but more
importantly draws all things back to their preordained End. From the Christian
perspective, this is particularly significant because, as revealed later in the
narrative of the Summa, the human creature, who being created in the divine image
is to be united with the triune God in an especially intimate and personal way, must
first become conformed to the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ. Viewed in this light,
the Five Ways go beyond philosophical argumentation to render soteriological
meaning. Because they draw attention to the immediacy and intimacy of God
as Creator and to the human creature’s telos of union with God, the Five Ways
provide an initial non-contrastive directive for the Christian life.
Eckhart sums up this Christian mandate in the phrase “living without a why,”
found abundantly throughout his Latin and German works. In German Sermon 29,
Eckhart remarks: “the person who … seeks nothing for himself in things and
performs all his works without a why and out of love, such a person … lives in
God and God in him.”4 Living without a why requires detached intellection, the
ability to look beyond created distinctions and discern God in all created things.
This is explained beautifully in his sermon on Sirach 14:22, “Happy the man who
dwells in wisdom,” which he correlates with Christ’s command to his disciples in
John 15:4, “stay in me”:
Now listen to what a person should have who is to dwell in him, that is, in
God. … The first is that he has renounced himself and all things and is not
dependent on things which hold on to the senses from within, nor should he
dwell in any creatures that exist in time or in eternity. The second is that he not
love this good or that good; he should love, rather, the good from which all good
flows. For a thing is only enjoyable or desirable insofar as God is in it. Hence
one should love something good only to the extent that one is loving God in
it; and one should, therefore, not love God because of heaven or because of
any other thing. … [I]f you want to stay in him, love him for nothing other than
himself. … And so, if a person were to take all things in this power, he would
4
German Sermon 29 on Acts 1:4 (McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and
Preacher, 288).
Conclusion 195
take them not as they are things, but as they are in God. … Thus a person would
dwell in all things alike and take them as they are all alike in God.5
Living without a why is self-transcending because it unites the believer not only
with other creatures encountered, but with the divine ground disclosed through
creation. The profound awareness of God’s radical intimacy and immediacy to
creation brings about self-identification with the divine. Eckhart equates living
without a why to love, and love to divine identification:
This is how the words of Augustine are to be understood when he says, ‘whatever
a person loves a person is. If he loves a stone, he is a stone, if he loves a human
being, he is a human being. If he loves God—I dare speak no further. If I were
to say that he was then God, you might stone me. But I refer you to Scripture.’
Therefore, in joining himself nakedly to God in loving, a person becomes
unformed, informed, and transformed in the divine uniformity in which he is
one with God.6
Loving without a why—without personal agendas—is the heart of the Christian

life. To love God in this manner is to see God in others and to treat them
accordingly. From the Christian perspective, Jesus exemplifies living without a
why, treating others, especially the poor, as if they were God, and in so doing
disclosing his own divinity through identifying with these least of his brothers and
sisters. Jesus’ miracles were signs of his divinity, not because they transcended the
laws of nature, but because they were directed towards the good and well-being of
others. If anything, the divine qualities Jesus revealed most through his miracles
were God’s intimate compassion, mercy and goodness rather than God’s power
and transcendence over nature. His miracles, breaking through ordinary ways
of accomplishing things—and often through unjust social norms—signified the
uniqueness and profound immediacy of the divine–human relationship. To those
who encounter and follow Jesus’ example, no created condition, natural or
otherwise, can come between them and God.
Eckhart often describes one who lives without a why as the “nobleman” or the
“just man,” who embodies Jesus by seeing and acting towards others as they are in
themselves and in God. While the Christian message of loving God and others as
Jesus did has remained constant throughout the Church’s history, many Christian
forms of life attempting to express it have changed over time. The dominant
spirituality directing Christian forms of life in Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s time, while
still lingering today, is vastly different than the spirituality—or spiritualities—of
the Western world today. It must be acknowledged, however, that Christian life
5
German Sermon 40 (McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher).
6
Ibid. Quoting Augustine’s On the Letter of John to the Parthians, 2:14, and in
Comm. Wis., 1:14, and “You are what you love,” from his Commentary on the Epistle of
John 2:14 (McGinn, Tobin, and Borgstadt, Teacher and Preacher, 303).
was by no means uniform in the Middle Ages, and so anything said about the
spirituality of Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s day must be considered generalization. But
if Aquinas’ and Eckhart’s theological lessons on analogical language are to be
used to inform as well as to reflect contemporary Christian forms of life, some
discriminations must be made about them in their historical context.
1. Christian Forms of Life in the Late Middle Ages
For Roman Catholics, the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) marked a great
reversal in the Church’s self-understanding and practice. From at least the
twelfth century, the Church’s spirituality could be characterized as increasingly
contrastive: as the centuries passed, the divine was understood ever more over and
against the fallen world. A great chasm developed between clergy and laity, and
correspondingly, a great distance was perceived between the believer and God,
who was mainly accessible through the clergy. The clergy were understood as
mediators between divine and human, as well as representatives of Christ charged
with administering sacraments to the faithful. This contrastive perspective of the
divine–human relationship was evidenced especially in the liturgy of the mass,
wherein the Eucharist became an object of adoration and awe, elevated high
in the air by the presiding priest or bishop (with his back to the assembly) at
the words of institution. Upon visual contact of the elevated host, many of the
faithful responded with “acclamations, bowing, kneeling or prostration.”7 Christ’s
“divinity,” understood in terms of his supernatural power—and thus God’s
transcendence—became emphasized well over his humanity and immanence.
In fact, Christ’s humanity was so far perfected above our own potential that Christ
has little to do with us, other than mysteriously saving us by “substituting” his
own humanity for our own. Substitution, or atonement theology, is inherently
contrastive because it opposes humanity with divinity such that there is no
intrinsic unity between Christ and the rest of humanity, except the word “human”
describing one of Christ’s two perfect natures.
The doctrine of “transubstantiation” was formulated, too, in the twelfth century.8
According to this formula, at the consecration the substance of the bread and
wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ, while the accidents—the
outward appearance—remain unchanged. Transubstantiation was adopted as the
official explanation of Christ’s “real presence” in the Eucharist, a point leading to
7
John K. Leonard and Nathan D. Mitchell, Postures of the Assembly during the
Eucharistic Prayer (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1994), 69. See also Theodor
Klauser, A Short History of the Western Liturgy: An Account and Some Reflections, trans.
John Halliburton, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979). Klauser traces many
other changes in the liturgy as well.
8
See, for example, Joseph Martos, Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to
Sacraments in the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1982).
Conclusion 197
serious controversy centuries later, when Martin Luther countered the formula to
correct certain abusive practices arising out of Eucharistic devotions.
Transubstantiation is not, in itself, contrastive, but lends itself to contrastive
interpretations that overplay divine transcendence when extracted from the context
of the liturgy. Indeed, to profess Christ’s substantial presence in the bread and
wine is to look beyond their created forms to their existence in and manifestation
of God, which discloses the Creator’s profound immanence to human creatures
through creation. However, the somewhat supernatural, or “magical,” view of
the consecration that many of the faithful began to hold—as in fact, many still
do—led to the opposite effect, of imposing divinity (that is, a concept of divinity)
onto the bread and wine, such that the “accidents” become merely an illusion.
The implications are akin to understanding Jesus’ humanity as an illusion, merely
accidental to his divinity, a view declared heretical by the early councils of
the Church.9
The magical view of the consecration was largely a consequence of the changes
in the Eucharistic liturgy throughout the Middle Ages, which emphasized Christ’s
supernatural divinity and separated the laity from the clergy. Some of the most
dramatic changes included: the movement of the altar so that the priest prayed
over the elements with his back to the assembly; the elevation of the altar area
several steps above the pews; the elevation of the host high above the presider’s
head at the consecration; kneeling of the assembly during the Eucharistic prayer;
and the exclusive use of Latin as the official liturgical language—giving the
impression that there can be a special language reserved for the divine exempt
from the limitations of ordinary human language. These changes effectively
divorced the act of consecration from the Scriptural context of the Passover meal
that instituted the Christian Eucharist, from Jesus’ ministry and life recounted in
the gospels, and from the communal nature of the liturgy. The focus of worship
became the moment of consecration and the adoration of the consecrated host
rather than the act of participating together in communion. Christ’s presence was
construed to be his concentrated divinity contained in the blessed wafer: this was
what most ordinary believers came to understand “transubstantiation” to articulate,
a misunderstanding still serious and widespread today.
The isolation of the doctrine of transubstantiation from the context of the
liturgy, and the limited understanding of real presence to the consecrated host, led
to devotional practices reinforcing contrastive understandings of the divine–human
relationship, a situation in no way lost on the great reformer Martin Luther.
Because, according to the doctrine of transubstantiation, the substance of the
bread and wine are transformed into the substance of Christ, as long as the bread
exists in the form of bread, it exists as Christ and therefore may be used as an
object of adoration. The practice of reserving the consecrated host began in order
9
See, for example, Marthaler, The Creed, 111-20 and Leo Davis, The First Seven
Ecumenical Councils (325-787): Their History and Theology (Wilmington, DE: Michael
Glazier, 1987), 170-76, 180-91.
to make the Eucharist available to those unable to come to mass due to illness
or some other disability. However, with the understanding that Christ’s presence
remains with the bread long after the consecration, the faithful could extend their
devotion to the blessed sacrament outside of mass.10 Luther sensed this divorce
of the consecrated bread from the liturgy was misguided, and so put forth his
own understanding, called “sacramental union,” wherein Christ is understood to
be substantially present in the consecrated Eucharist as long as it is used for its
intended purpose, that is, within the context of mass and in the act of communion,
or to take to the ill who could not be present during mass. The substance of the
bread and wine are not replaced by Christ’s substance, but are united to it.11
Luther’s understanding of Eucharistic real presence fit into his overall view
that the liturgy should be more accessible to the laity and that it should be more
scripturally-centered. While, of course, other theological issues were at stake which
keep the identity of Lutherans and Roman Catholics distinct, Luther’s insight into
the necessary unity between the Word of God and the Eucharistic celebration
proved him to be centuries ahead of his time, for when the Second Vatican Council
in 1962 considered liturgical reform, many changes envisioned by Luther were
enacted in the Roman Catholic Church. This signaled a great reversal from the
contrastive direction the Church had been travelling in for too many centuries, and
opened the way for a non-contrastive spirituality to develop from which Christian
forms of life may better reflect Eckhart’s “living without a why.”
2. The Contemporary Development of Christian Forms of Life
a) Liturgy
Vatican II and post-conciliar liturgical reforms retrieved the organic unity
between the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist, at both verbal
and non-verbal levels, allowing for a more non-contrastive experience of God
in one of the most obvious Christian forms of life: communal worship. This was
accomplished by moving the altar from the wall and turning the presider towards
the assembly as it was in the earliest centuries of the Church, and by returning to
the vernacular, allowing the laity—having heard the Word of God proclaimed—to
connect their own lives to the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures and especially
the life of Jesus directly. Now the words and actions of the Eucharistic prayer,
not only recalling the last supper narratives in the gospels, but also, as does the
Jewish sedar prayer, the divine creative and liberating actions of God narrated in
the books of Genesis and Exodus, became more clear. Furthermore, the dialogical
nature of the mass was recovered by giving active voice and active posture to
See, for example, Martos, Doors to the Sacred, 125-6.

10
Ibid., 113-14. Martos erroneously attributes the consubstantiation formula

11
to Luther. Luther resisted putting the Eucharist into any formula. See, for example,
Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann, 55 vols
(St. Louis: CPH and Fortress Press, 1955-86), 37:187.
Conclusion 199
the assembly.12 Rather than passively kneeling spectators of the great Eucharistic
drama unfolding on the altar, or silently involved in private meditation, each
member of the assembly—taking voice and standing with the presider—is drawn
into the divine–human conversation that takes place throughout the mass.
Finally, the re-admission of the Epiclesis in the three alternative Eucharistic
prayers recognizes the transformative power of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying the
bread and wine, as well as in the sanctification and communion of the gathered
assembly. Since the earliest centuries of the Church, the Holy Spirit has been
understood to be the divine Person responsible for sanctifying, unifying, and
bringing all things back to the divine Ground;13 therefore acknowledging the
transforming power of the Holy Spirit moves our Eucharistic expression from
remembering to analogy, articulating not only the immediacy of the Creator God
to creatures, but the movement of the human creature back to its divine Source
through communion with others and with God, as they become the body of Christ.
This dynamic analogy expresses itself not only through the Eucharistic prayer,
culminating in the consecratory words of institution, but through the participation
of the assembly in receiving communion, thereby uniting the Word and the act, the
verbal and the non-verbal.14
The formula of transubstantiation, put in the full context of the mass, regains
its non-contrastive meaning by articulating the unique presence of Christ as
transcendent yet profoundly immanent, because in dynamically experiencing
communion, we are able to penetrate through the forms of bread and wine—now
a part of our own bodies—to experience the consecrated elements, and ourselves,
as we exist together as one in God and God in us. The last movement of the liturgy
ushers us forth into the world to live and love as Jesus; for now we are Jesus, the
very body of Christ, who spreads the Word of God to others the same way that
Jesus did, by acting towards others “without a why,” without personal agendas but
12
Nicea (325) condemned kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer. P. Norman,
ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Sheed & Ward;
Georgetown University Press, 1990). However, as the Christology climbed ever higher
during the Middle Ages, laity began taking to their knees, a posture expressing the growing
popular Eucharistic devotionalism and reinforcing the distinction between clergy and laity.
In the 1975 revised Roman rite, the active posture of standing replaces kneeling during the
Eucharistic prayer, with the exception of brief genuflection during the words of institution,
in effect returning to the posture of the ancient Church. For more information on the
history of kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer, see Leonard and Mitchell, Postures of the
Assembly during the Eucharistic Prayer.
13
Meister Eckhart, drawing from centuries of tradition, writes often of the unifying
power of the Holy Spirit, in terms of both the immanent Trinity (uniting the Father and the
Son) and the economic Trinity (uniting creation to its divine end in God). See, for example,
German Sermon 15, On Detachment, Comm. Jn., n. 120, Latin Sermon IV, among many
other works.
14
See, for example, John H. McKenna, “Eucharistic Epiclesis: Myopia or
Microcosm?” Theological Studies 36 (1975): 265-84.
for love of God alone, who we see manifest in every creature, especially those most
vulnerable and in need.
As an extension of this, one of the most promising—and difficult—
developments arising from Vatican II is liturgical inculturation, that is, celebrating
the liturgy in such a way that recognizes the presence and experience of Christ
from within the cultural expressions of the particular community celebrating, as
opposed to receiving Christ through the cultural expressions conveyed and limited
to the Roman Rite. Section 37 of Sacrosanctum concilium took a first step by
calling for acculturation, the inclusion of some cultural expressions insofar as they
are not inconsistent with the essential form of the Roman Rite. The most obvious
examples of this are the celebration of the Eucharist in the vernacular—that is, in
the language of the people—and hymns sung in the native tongue in the musical
style of the native culture.
Including different cultural expressions in the liturgy moves non-contrastively
by presenting diverse narratives very much in line with Eckhart’s method of
presenting multiple interpretations and expositions within his work. However,
acculturation in itself poses potential problems. For example, if the translation of
the liturgy into the language of the people does not correspond to the actual lived
language, then it will not have the transformative power called forth by a truly
non-contrastive grasp of Christ’s presence. There will always be something “off”
or inauthentic to it. This is compounded by the current practice of the Vatican’s
“more literal” translations of the liturgy from Latin, which are only into the general
major languages of the people, not taking into account regional differences. For
example, people in the UK, the US and Canada speak English very differently
from each other; even people in different parts of the same country speak the
same language very differently, and no one speaks in the same manner as people
of the Middle Ages. Additionally problematic is the addition of certain cultural
elements into the main body of the liturgy which are of an imposed or alien culture
(that is, Rome), inevitably communicating a superiority of the received culture,
and its translation and control over the native one. These issues keep the liturgy
from realizing its true non-contrastive potential.
Liturgical inculturation (in its Christian context) is, rather, “[t]he incarnation of
Christian life and of the Christian message in a particular cultural context, in such
a way that this experience not only finds expression through elements proper to the
culture … but becomes a principle that animates, directs and unifies the culture,
transforming it and remaking it so as to bring about a ‘new creation.’”15 This
involves more than including certain native cultural elements into the Roman Rite;
it is re-interpreting the Roman Rite through the lens—in fact through all of the
senses, not just the eyes—of the people. In this way, Christ arises from within the
particularity of the community rather than being received by the community from
without, constituting the community into a concretely realized body of Christ.
15
Alyward Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 1988), 11. Here he is quoting Fr. Pedro Arrup.
Conclusion 201
Since the liturgy itself is an expression of Tradition, and more essentially, of the
Scripture upon which the liturgy is grounded, especially the narratives of Jesus’
life, death, and resurrection (already culturally determined), multiple narratives
emerge, but the “superior” or primary one is Scripture, the central theological
source for the whole religious faith. Thus, in identifying with Christ from within
the culture where the depth of life’s experience happens, in its joys but especially
in its brokenness, the worshiping community may penetrate to the Christ beyond
cultural forms who exists at the heart of all of them.16
b) Ecclesiology and analogy

The Second Vatican Council began to move the Roman Catholic Church in a
non-contrastive direction in other Christian forms of life as well, specifically
in social action and in relations with other Christian denominations and other
religions. This change of direction is a result of the struggle for self-understanding
in which the Council engaged as it attempted to bring the Church into the modern
world. Avery Dulles notes in the first chapter of his Models of the Church that the
Council’s rejection of the initial schema on the Church, in which the first chapter
was entitled “The Nature of the Church Militant,” became symptomatic of the
whole ecclesiology of Vatican II.17 Dulles goes on to explore a variety of images
employed by the early Christian Church that were retrieved by the Council and, since
Vatican II, adopted by theologians and Christian faith communities everywhere.
Some of these images, or models, have become “ecclesiologies” in their own
right. We now speak of the ecclesiology of “Institution,” and the ecclesiology
of “People of God,” of “Body of Christ,” of “Sacrament,” and of “Servant,” to
name the ones most commonly used in contemporary theology.18 In fact, many of
these models appear in the opening paragraphs of the Second Vatican Council’s
Dogmatic constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium):
since the Church, in Christ, is in the nature of sacrament—a sign and instrument,
that is, of communion with God and of unity among all men [sic]—she here
proposes, for the benefit of the faithful and of the whole world, to set forth,
as clearly as possible … her own nature and universal mission. … For by
communicating his Spirit, Christ mystically constitutes as his body those
brothers of his who are called together from every nation. … the one Christ is
mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the
16
Liturgical inculturation is still new and relatively undeveloped in practice
and in theology. The non-contrastive implications of inculturation warrant much more
consideration than this book can afford.
17
Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (New York: Doubleday, 1st ed., 1978;
expanded ed., 1987), 17.
18
Dulles includes a variety of other images, many of which fall into these main five
categories. Marthaler also discusses these main ecclesiologies in Ch. 19 of The Creed,
“From Community to Ecclesiology,” 277-91.
church. … The holy People of God shares also in Christ’s prophetic office. …
All … are called to belong to the new People of God.19
When drawn out, each of these ecclesiologies becomes its own narrative, telling
of the Christian believers’ journey towards their end in God within the context of
the worshiping faith community. For example, the Church as Servant explores
the implications of living out the life of Jesus concretely in the world, seeing
God in the lowly, poor, and marginalized, and ministering to them by working
against unjust institutions and inhumane conditions contrary to human dignity.
The resulting transformation, social action, is mutual and ever expanding. Not
only does the Servant Church empower the powerless, but in its self-sacrifice and
identification with the other, it transcends itself along the way, for to paraphrase
the prayer of St. Francis: “it is in giving that we receive, and in dying to ourselves
that we receive eternal [fully actualized] life.”20
The narrative of People of God reminds the Christian community of its
Hebrew roots in becoming the liberating God’s chosen people, re-visioned
now in light of the liberating event of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This
community of believers is characterized by its radical equality among members,
who all share in the prophetic office of Jesus Christ—in stark contrast to the
ecclesiology of the Institution, characterized by a rigid hierarchy separating the
clergy and laity, which, while by all means still quite operative, had dominated the
Church’s self-identification for centuries. Though in some instances seemingly
in contradiction with each other, all of these ecclesiological narratives are
interrelated, and mutually interdependent, because no single image or model can
adequately capture the divine existence, which the Christian Church is supposed
to manifest.
Following Eckhart’s method of presenting several intertwining narratives
at once, these ecclesiologies can be mutually transforming. This approach may
be especially valuable to ecumenism, an emerging Christian form of life which
may be extended to interfaith relations: in order to progress in dialogue and
communion with other faith perspectives, every partner in the conversation must
recognize the necessity of diversity and be willing to detach from their own
self-understandings and continually overturn the presuppositions embedded in
their own denominational and religious faith statements in order to enter into
each other’s ecclesiological narratives “without a why,” personally encountering
the other as existing in God. This understanding of ecumenism is by its nature
analogical, in the sense that Aquinas and Eckhart conceived analogy to be, because
See Austin Flannery, ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar
19
Documents (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1992), 350-58. Emphasis mine.
20
St. Francis was an exception to the contrastive spirituality of the Middle Ages,
seeing the presence of God so radically manifested in creation that it is reported he even
preached to birds.
Conclusion 203
it inevitably moves all involved from dialogue to transformation, pressing ever

towards its divinely intended end in God, as a dynamic unity-in-diversity.21
C. The Way of Analogy and the Future of Christian Forms of Life
The contemporary reality of religious diversity and pluralism naturally cultivates

the fear of uncertainty, provoking in us the desire to return to a past remembered
(perhaps inaccurately) as less complicated, more uniform—and more pure. While
preserving religious “Tradition” may require retrieving practices and images from
the past, Tradition in the deeper sense requires letting go of the past—letting go
of whatever you are clinging to in order to maintain an identity that once seemed
so comfortable. Complacency has no place in the Christian journey of faith. The
Christian life is about knowing God personally, identifying with the divine. This has
always been dangerous ground. The intimacy and immediacy involved in knowing
involve risk—and it practically guarantees the loss of your created identity.
The way of analogy developed by Aquinas and Eckhart allows us to retrieve
past images, rituals, practices, and expressions without becoming bound to the
superficial trappings of their created forms, because we are always engaged in
the process of self-revision, uncovering and discarding misleading preconceptions
of the divine carried along with them that keep us from encountering the divine
as it really is—without any limiting conceptions. Through the development of
narratives fashioned from processing such retrievals and the dynamic interplay
between a plurality of narratives, our Christian forms of life continually evolve as
ways of “living without a why,” leading us, if at times seemingly imperceptibly,
to God.
21
I have expanded further on this idea in my article, “Christian Dialog as Symphonic
Unity: Lessons on Non-Contrastive Language Use from Thomas Aquinas and Meister
Eckhart,” One in Christ 44, No. 2 (Winter 2010): 168-85.
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Index
adopted sonship, as analogy 176-87 Eckhart

adoption, Eckhart on 177-8, 179 comparison 8-10, 13, 27-8, 161
Aertsen, J.A. 9 influence on 60-62
Albert of Cologne exegetical style 45
Aristotle, dissemination of 41-2, 44 on human intellect 164
De divinis nominibus, lectures on 51 on knowing about God 4
master of theology 41 on knowledge 76-7
Albigensian Crusade 28 Platonism, appropriation of 51
Alexander of Hales 37 preaching
analogy contribution to 55
adopted sonship as 176-87 popularity 59
Aquinas Psalms, significance of 52
Eckhart, differences 10-11 science, understanding of 71-2, 77
in Summa theologiae 102, studies 44
147-51 teaching, San Domenico 52
art of 13 theology, negative approach to 101
Christian life as 193-203 Torrell on 63-4
and Creator-creature distinction 11, works
14-22, 17, 65, 157 Johannine commentary 46-7
dialectical 12 Scriptum super libros Sententiarum
doctrine as 168-87 37, 55
Eckhart’s use of 12-13, 17, 157-68, Super Isaiam 45, 46
181-2 see also Summa theologiae
meaning 147 Ardley, Gavin 148
of proportion 150 Aristotle
reverse 11 Albert of Cologne, dissemination by
as silence 187-9 41-2
Trinity as 172-6 first principles, notion 78
types of 11 influence on Dominican Order 40
see also language-use works
Ancelet-Hustache, Jeanne 56, 57-8, 58 De animalibus 41
Anselm, St Ethica 41
definition of God 107, 109 Atistotelianism, Aquinas 9
Meditationes 33 Augustine, St
Orationes 33 Confessions 1, 2, 4, 33
Proslogion 107 “restless heart” journey 3, 66
Aquinas, Thomas, St Rule 29-30, 45, 62, 63
Artistotelianism 9
first principles notion 78 Boyle, Leonard 47, 68
Dominican Order, influence on 44-56 Burrell, David viii, ix, 10, 13
Cantor, Peter 39 de Mello, Anthony

Cavalcanti, Aldobrandino 55 Sadhana, A Way to God vii
Chalcedon formula (hypostatic union) 145, The Way to Love vii
154, 176, 177, 185 detached intellection, Eckhart’s use of 7,
charity, and the will 88-9 157, 161, 172, 181, 185, 193, 194
Chenu, Marie-Dominique 74, 79 disputation (quaestio)
Christian life Dominican education 37-8, 63
as analogy 193-203 in Summa theologiae 38, 63
contemporary developments 198-201 doctrine
liturgy 198-201 as analogy 168-87
and knowing God 203 etymology 76
in late Middle Ages 196-8 purpose 168
Christian message Dominic, St 28, 30
protection of 153 Legenda 29
transmission 153 Dominican education 28, 30-32, 33-43
Christianity contemplation as study 45-6, 51, 56,
and Neoplatonism 154 62, 63, 67, 87
pagan religions, difference 16 conventual theological education
Colledge, Edmund 59, 60 36-43
Cologne curriculum 34
Heilige Kreuz convent 41 disputation (quaestio) 37-8, 63
studium generale 44, 57 preaching 36, 38-40, 62
Comestor, Peter, Historia scholastica 32 teaching of 39
contemplation repetition 63
notion of 67 schola 34, 36
as study 7, 45-6, 51, 56, 62, 63, 67, 87 repetition/review 38
Creator-creature relationship sensus moralis, development of 36-7
analogy 11, 14-22, 17, 65, 157 studia artium 42, 47
causality 21-2 studia generalia 35, 41, 48
distinction 11, 14-22, 148, 160 studia naturarum 35, 42, 48
Eckhart 11-12, 93-4, 158-9, 159-60, studia provincialia 34
181-2, 192-3 studium artium 34-5
efficient causality 131 Summa theologiae in 53-6
and existence of God 109-10 theology schools, foundation 41
goodness 133 Dominican Order 4
identification 93-4, 184-5, 192 Aquinas’ influence 44-56
inquantum principle 185-6 Aristotelian influence 40
likeness 132-3, 162 confession, importance of 39-40
metaphors establishment 28
master/exploding 169-71 mission 28-9, 63-4
ordinary 169 novices, formation of 32-3
non-contrastiveness 90, 97-8, 160 as preaching ministry 29, 30, 62
nothingness of creature 173-4, 180, theology, syllabus 32
186 Dulles, Avery, Models of the Church 201
proportioning 144, 146, 161, 162, 167
Creed, Nicene-Constantinople 153 ecclesiologies, Vatican II (1962-65) 201-2
Eckhart, Meister
de Libera, Alain 9, 12 on adoption 177-8, 179
Index 213
analogy 12-13, 17, 157-68 “unknowing” 157

and Creator-creature relationship Vicar, Thuringia house 57
157, 158-9, 159-60, 181-2 Vicar General of Bohemia 58
Aquinas Vicar General of Saxony 58
comparison 8-10, 13, 27-8, 161 on the Word 177-8
influence of 60-62 ecumenism, analogical nature of 202-3
background 56-60 Elders, Leo 104-5, 114, 120
Book of Sirach, commentary 157, 159, equivocation, and univocation 132, 149,
163, 165, 166-7, 167-8 151
Counsels on Discernment 7 eternity
Creator-creature relationship 11-12, concept, in Summa theologiae 139-40
93-4, 158-9, 159-60, 181-2, 192-3 and God 115-16, 123, 130, 139, 163
deification language 162 meaning 138
detached intellection, use of 7, 157, and time 20-21, 116, 139, 163
161, 172, 181, 185, 193, 194 of the Word 20
detachment, recommendation 5-6 The Eucharist
education 57 liturgy
emanation language, use 6 changes
exitus/reditus schema 52, 155, 156, contemporary 198-9
160, 172-3, 176-7 Middle Ages 197
Forman on 61-2 in the vernacular 200
on God as Intelligere 7 and transubstantiation 196-7
heresy evil, and existence of God 111
accusation of 59-60 exitus/reditus schema
defense 60-61 Aquinas 50, 51, 53, 68, 69, 70, 107,
on human intellect 163, 164, 183 122, 154
inquantum principle 185-6 Eckhart 52, 155, 156, 160, 172-3,
John’s Gospel, commentary on 177, 176-7
179-80, 180-81, 183
living without a why 194-5, 198, 203 faith
Master in Sacred Theology 57 belief, distinction 85
metaphor, use 170, 172-3 and certitude 83
metaphysics, metaphorical nature of and demonstration 86-7
169 in God 83-5
modes of speaking 12 and the intellect 93
Neoplatonism, use of 9, 155 journey of 191
“nothing” terminology, use of 156 use of narrative 192
On Detachment 181 Marthaler on 99
as preacher 8 and metaphor 99
prior, Erfurt house 57 nature of 81-2, 142
Provincial Minister of Saxony 58 and reason 81-91, 101
scholarship on 8 dichotomy 75-6, 81
sermons, on Ephesians 6-7 Forman, Robert, on Eckhart 61-2
on silence 187-9
on thinking about God 6 Gilby, Thomas 76
and The Trinity 21, 156, 172-6 Gnosticism 153
“universes of Discourse,” creation of God
154, 157 Anselm’s definition 107, 109
attributes 125-6 grace

creation of world 174 and God’s incomprehensibility 143
as Creator 21 and human intellect 164
see also Creator-creature
and eternity 115-16, 123, 130, 139, 163 Haas, Alois 169
existence 70, 71-100, 103-22, 104-5, Hankey, W.J. 106, 122
108, 174-5 Hugh of Fouilloy, De claustro animae 33
and Creator-creature relationship Hugh of St-Cher 45
109-10 Hugh of St-Victor 37
and evil 111 Didascalicon 33
and order of creation 120 human intellect
see also Summa theologiae, “Five Aquinas on 164
Ways” Eckhart on 163, 164, 183
faith in 83-5 and grace 164
immutability, and change 3-4, 112, 163 Humbert of Romans 29
incomprehensibility 19, 65, 102, 110, hypostatic union see Chalcedon formula
111, 128, 133-4, 141-51 (hypostatic union)
and grace 143
independence of the world 15-17 Jenkins, John 47
indistinction 173, 174, 175-6 Jesus Christ
image as 179, 180 human condition, identification with
knowing 143-7 185
Aquinas on 4 immanent-yet-transcendent 177
and Christian life 203 John of St Albans 36
and sacred doctrine 107 John of St Giles 36
nature of, and Scripture 68 John XXII, Pope, ‘In agro dominico’
Oneness 173 59-60
Scripture, author of 96-7
speaking about Kelley, Carl Franklin 9
analogy 147-51 Kenny, Anthony 105, 111-12, 113
anthropomorphism 124 Klubertanz, George 21
autobiographically 4 knowing, personal 191, 193
and Christian life forms 65-6 knowledge
and knowing God 22-6, 66 Aquinas on 76-7
intrinsic connection 142 nature of 76
and metaphor 99 as potential 77
and preaching 64 and sacred doctrine 93
purpose 2 Köbele, Susanne 169
and Scripture 91-100
and speaking to 1-2 LaCugna, Catherine Mowry viii
and knowing God 2 language-use
necessity for 3 analogical 14-15
thinking about, Eckhart on 6 non-contrastive 15, 17-22, 65, 102,
transcendence-in-immanence 17-18, 127
21, 25, 102-3, 127, 129, 153-4, role 141
159, 160, 175 Scripture 95-6
Wisdom of 164-5 in Summa theologiae 99-100, 102
see also Creator-creature relationship see also analogy
Index 215
living, without a why, Eckhart 194-5, 198, pagan religions, Christianity, difference 16
203 Paris University, St Jacques school 32, 34,
Logos see Word 36
Lohr, C.H. 42, 43 theological pre-eminence 30
Lombard, Peter philosophy
Sentences 32, 36, 44 sacred doctrine, distinction 75
Aquinas theology, split 43
commentary on 37, 48, preaching
50-51 Aquinas’ contribution to 55
dissatisfaction with 53 in Dominican education 36, 38-40, 62
organization 37 Dominicans as preaching ministry 29,
as textbook 37 30, 62
Lossky, Vladimir 12 and faith 1
Luther, Martin 197, 197-8 new way of 55-6
salvation through 27-8, 29, 33, 49, 64, 67
McGinn, Bernard 12, 13, 169 and speaking about God 64
Maimonides 110 training for 39
God’s attributes 125-6 Preller, Victor 75-6, 89, 105, 106, 114, 121
negative theology 123-6 Proclus
Marthaler, Berard 84-5, 89 Elementatio theologica 49
on faith 99 Liber de causis 51
Merton, Thomas, Zen and the Birds of Pseudo-Dionysius
Appetite vii Aquinas’ borrowings from 101
metaphor De divinis nominibus 49-50, 50-51
Creator-creature relationship 169-71 Albert of Cologne’s lectures on 51
Eckhart’s use 170, 172-3
and faith 99 reason, and faith 81-91, 101
and God, speaking about, and knowing dichotomy 75-6, 81
99 Rogers, Eugene 78, 79, 80
potential 98, 99 Roland of Cremona 31, 35
purpose 98, 168-9
and Scripture 92, 93, 94 sacred doctrine
Summa theologiae 92, 93, 94 aim 107
metaphysics first principles 79
sacred doctrine, distinction 101 revealed 81
Summa theologiae as 71, 82, 104 undemonstrability of 80
Moevs, Christian viii, ix and knowing about God 107
Mojsisch, Burkhard 11 and knowledge 93
Mulchahey, M. Michèle 35, 50, 53 metaphysics, distinction 101
“First the Bow is Bent in Study” 28 philosophy, distinction 75
on preacher training 39 purpose 93
and Revelation 86
Naples, studium generale 44 and salvation 103
Neoplatonism 153 as science 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 81
Aquinas’ appropriation of 51 scope of 73
and Christianity 154 Summa theologiae 75
Eckhart’s use 9, 155 theology as 73, 194
participation notion 161 and wisdom 85, 85-6, 88
salvation faith
and sacred doctrine 103 and certitude 83
through preaching 27-8, 29, 33, 49, 64 and demonstration 86-7
and Scripture 67 and the intellect 93
Sansedoni, Ambrogio 55 and reason 81-91
science (scientia) the “Five Ways” 104, 106, 110-22, 194
Aquinas’ understanding of 71-2, 77 act and potency 112
Aristotelian, and Revelation 72 cause and effect 112-14
meaning 69 design 105
sacred doctrine as 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, governance of the world 120-21
81 gradation 116-20
theology as 73, 74-81 and inquiry about God 121
as way of knowing 77 motion 111-12
Scripture possibility and necessity 115-16
and contemplation as study 67 God’s existence 70, 71-100, 103-22,
God as author of 96-7 104-5, 108
literal sense 97, 98-9 as Creator 109
mediating role 5 and essence 106, 107, 108, 132,
and metaphor 92, 93, 94, 167 163
narrative 67-9 goodness 129, 130
and nature of God 68 immutability 123, 138-9, 140
and speaking about God 91-100 limitlessness 123, 134-6, 139
theology, source of 67, 70, 71-100, 73, manner of 123-41
91-2, 96, 107 measure of all things 129
Second Vatican Council (1962-65) vii, 196, oneness 140-41
198 perfection 123, 129, 130-31, 132,
Dogmatic constitution on the Church 147
201-2 simplicity 123, 126
ecclesiologies 201-2 unity 123, 126
silence language-use 99-100, 102
analogy as 187-9 as metaphysics 71, 82, 104
Eckhart on 187-9 narrative, use of 192
Sokolowski, Robert 14, 15-16, 17, 18, non-contrastiveness 69-71, 74, 82, 87,
141 156, 161, 192
Soskice, Janet Martin 97-8, 98, 99 as pedagogical work 71
Staensby, Alexander 36 as philosophical treatise 71
study, contemplation as 45-6, 51, 56, 62, prima pars 31, 44, 48, 50, 69, 70
63, 67, 87 prima secundae 146
and Scripture 67 purpose 53
Summa theologiae (Aquinas) viii, 4, 5, 21, sacred doctrine
28, 33, 37, 43, 47 metaphysics, distinction 101
analogy, use of 102, 147-51 and Revelation 86
audience, intended 47, 68 and salvation 103
disputation 38, 63 as science 75, 77, 81, 103
in Dominican curriculum 53-6 and wisdom 85-6, 88
eternity, concept 139-40 Scripture
exitus/reditus schema 50, 51, 53, 68, language-use 95-6
69, 70, 107, 122, 154 and metaphor 92, 93, 94
Index 217
narrative 67-9 The Trinity 145, 154

source of theology 70, 71-100, 107 as analogy 172-6
secunda pars 48 and Eckhart 21, 156, 172-6
secunda secundae 40, 48 economic 156, 163, 172, 179
sources 49-50, 71 Turner, Denys 151
structure 49, 50, 51, 70, 192
tertia pars 52 universities, medieval 42-3
theology as science 74-8 univocation, and equivocation 132, 149, 151
Tanner, Kathryn 18, 18-19, 20, 25, 101, Vatican II see Second Vatican Council
141, 160, 193 (1962-65)
Te Velde, Rudi 119
teaching, medieval method 76 Weisheipl, James 46
theology White, Victor 71, 77
atonement, contrastiveness 196 the will, and charity 88-9
etymology 91 William of Moerbeke, translation
nature of 72-3 Aristotelian corpus 40-41
negative 167 Elementatio theologica (Proclus) 49
of Maimonides 123-6 William of Tournai, De instructione
philosophy, split 43 puerorum 32
purpose of 4-5, 23-4, 63-4, 73, 92, 101, wisdom
141 dwelling in 194
as sacred doctrine 73, 194 meditating on 188
as science 73, 74-81 and sacred doctrine 85, 88
Scriptural source 67, 70, 73, 91-2, 96 Wolfson, Harry Austryn 125
time, and eternity 20-21, 116, 139, 139-40, The Word (Logos)
163 creation, role in 182
Tobin, Frank 9 Eckhart on 177-8, 182
Torrell, Jean-Pierre 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 51 eternity of 20
on Aquinas 63-4 incarnate
Toscanella, Aldobrandino da 55 and God’s Idea 184
transubstantiation and God’s revelation 183
contrastive interpretations 197 and redemption 181
and The Eucharist 196-7 meaning 179, 180-81
non-contrastiveness 199-200
origins 196 Zum Brunn, Emilie 11, 12, 175

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Speaking of God in

Thomas Aquinas and

Medieval masters Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart considered problems

Other Recently Published Titles in the Series:

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Printed in the United Kingdom by Henry Ling Limited,

1 Introduction: The Problems and Possibilities of Speaking

2 Study as Contemplation: The Mutual Contexts of Aquinas

3 Thomas Aquinas: A Pedagogy for Speaking About God  65

4 Thomas Aquinas: From “Proof” to Analogy  101

5 Meister Eckhart: From Analogy to Silence  153

6 Conclusion: Living Without a Why and the Christian Forms

Undoubtedly, Thomas Aquinas—as thankfully reinterpreted through great minds

to theology as a graduate student, through my doctoral work on the relationship

See David’s impressive biographical information, at http://www3.nd.edu/~dburrell/

(accessed July 31, 2013).

Excerpts from Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises,

Excerpts from Mulchahey, M. Michèle, “First the Bow is Bent in Study”:

In this well-known reflection from the Confessions, Saint Augustine penetrates to

the knowledge necessary for salvation.9 So we begin to glimpse a subtle

[I]f you love God as he is God, as he is spirit, as he is person and as he is

In his Counsels on Discernment, he advises:

A. Current Scholarly Research on Eckhart and Aquinas

Augustine, Confessions, I.1.

A helpful timeline of Eckhart’s condemnation and efforts to get it rescinded can

be found on the Eckhart Society’s website, http://www.eckhartsociety.org/eckhart/eckhart-

More to the heart of the matter, however, is an apparent difference detected

logique et métaphysique de l’analogie (Lausanne: Cahiers de la Revue de Théologie et de

Still others believe Eckhart in fact misunderstood Aquinas and, rather,

to Burrell’s Excercises in Religious Understanding (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre

and théologie négative (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), 90.

of language-use must not be viewed as positive knowledge about God allowing us

B. Articulating the “Distinction” Between Creator and Creatures

Often scholars speak of analogy between Creator and creature as if “analogy” is

attempting to articulate God as Creator, we should focus on analogical language-use,

1. God is Not Part of the World

Sokolowski asserts one basic and inviolable characteristic of Christianity: God

Christian theology is differentiated from pagan religious and philosophical

the world, they had no meaning or identity. Christianity, however, perceives a

Ultimately, because there is no other example within the world to use as a

2. Analogical Language-Use is Non-Contrastive

Scholars who refer to Eckhart’s use of analogy as “reverse” or “inverse” analogy56

as transcendent, is beyond those relations of identity or opposition, and is therefore

as such God is uniquely distinct. So when considering scholars who present

emphasize … a radical transcendence of God that is non-contrastive: God

The previous section asserted that, because of the underlying presumption of

A contrastive definition is not radical enough to allow a direct creative

Tanner’s use of the word “transcendence” here simultaneously implies God’s

cannot also be immanently present to it without compromising some divine

Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology, 45-6.

C. Summary: Speaking about God and Knowing God

3 Thomas Aquinas: A Pedagogy for Speaking About God 65

4 Thomas Aquinas: From “Proof” to Analogy 101

5 Meister Eckhart: From Analogy to Silence 153