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VI.A. The Doctrine of Analogy Thomas Aquinas
VI.A. The Doctrine of Analogy Thomas Aquinas
The theory of analogy plays an important role in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (1224-
1274). Misunderstood by some critics as an analogical strategy for arguing that God exists, this
scholastic doctrine really pertains to how it is possible to say anything meaningful about God
using human language. For Aquinas, it is a general theory about the way in which we actually
extend meaningful discourse from familiar circumstances to circumstances in which normal
experience no longer applies. Technically, the theory of analogy is a theory about how ordinary
predicates (e.g., "good" and "wise) apply to God. By means of this view, Aquinas is able to steer a
middle course between saying that such predicates have univocal meaning when applied to God
(Le., exactly the same meaning as when they are applied to creatures) and that they have
equivocal meaning (i.e., compktely different meaning as when they are applied to creatures). The
Angelic Doctor's middle course was to give an explication of how ordinary terms have
analogical meaning, replete with a number of technical rules. A confident realist, Aquinas was
trying to account for the fact that discourse about God has already been taking place in human
affairs in spite of various considerations that might seem to rule out the possibility. The implicit
claim throughout is that finite language is neither exhaustive nor complete in referring to God, but
that its capacity for analogical predication makes it adequate for this purpose.
t is impossible that anything should be predicated perfections which are found among creatures in
of both creatures and God univocally. Any effect diverse and various ways preexist in God as united in
that falls short of the power of its cause resembles its one.
cause inadequately because it differs from it. Thus, When we predicate of creatures some term which
what is found diversely and in various ways in the indicates a perfection, that term signifies the per-
effect exists simply and in a single way in the cause; fection as something distinct by its definition from
so, the sun by a single power produces many differ- every other perfection; for instance, when we predi-
ent kinds of lower things. In just that way, ... all the cate the term "wise" of some man, we signify some
From Summa le a, 1.135 and Disputed Questions: On Huth, 2.1 1, trans_ by James Ross. Used by permis.sion of James Ross.
391
392 RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE
real resemblance between the creature and God, His accident and of substance because of the relation-
essence would not be a likeness of creatures, and thus ship which accident has to substance; and "healthy" is
He could not understand creatures by understanding predicated of urine and of an animal because urine has
His essence. Similarly, we would not be able to come some relation to the health of the animal. Some-
to know God from created things either; nor would times something is predicated analogically in virtue of
it be that from among the terms which apply to crea- the second type of resemblance, as when the term
tures, one rather than another, ought to be predicated insight is predicated of bodily sight and of under-
of God; for with equivocal terms it makes no differ- standing} because sight is to the eye what under-
ence which is applied since the term does not imply standing is to the mind.
any real agreement among the things to which it There must be some determinate (definite) rela-
applies.. tionship between things to which something is
So we have to say that the term kn owledg e" is
44 common by analogy of the first sort; consequently, it
predicated of God's knowledge and of ours neither cannot be that anything is predicated of God and
wholly univocally nor purely equivocally. Instead it creatures by this type of analogy because no creature
is predicated analogously, which is the same as has such a determinate relationship to God. But the
proportionally. other type of analogy requires no determinate type of
Resemblance on account of a proportion (rela. relationship between the things in which something is
tion) can be of two kinds, and so two kinds of analo- common by analogy; and so nothing excludes some term's
gous community can be distinguished. There is a being predicated analogously of God and crea-
community between things of which one is related to tures in this manner.
another in virtue of their having a fixed distance or This can happen in two ways: sometimes the term
other determinate relationship to each other, as the implies that some-thing, which cannot be common to
number 2 to the number 1, in that the farmer is the God and a creature even in a proportionality, belongs
double of the latter. Sometimes there is a community to what it primarily designated. This is so of every-
(or resemblance) between two things, not accounted for thing which is predicated metaphorically of God as
because the one is a function of the other but when He is said to be a lion, the sun, and so forth,
rather, because of a likeness of two relations; for because the definitions include matter which cannot
instance, 6 resembles 4 in that as 6 is the double of 3, so be attributed to God. In other cases, a term which
is 4 the double of 2. The first kind of resemblance is one is used of God and creatures has no implications in
of proportion; the second is one of parity of its primary uses which preclude a resemblance of the
proportion or proportionality. kind described between God and creatures. To this
We find something said analogically of two things class belong all those predicates which do not imply
in virtue of the first type of resemblance when one a defect (limitation) and which do not depend upon
of them has a direct and determinate relationship to matter for their esse; for instance, "being," "good:' and
the other, as, for instance, "being" is predicated of so forth.
STUDY QUESTIONS
I. What does it mean to apply predicates to something? What is the relation between predicates (linguistic
elements) and attributes (ontological elements)?
2. According to Aquinas, in applying predicates to creatures and to God, what are the problems at each
extreme? What, according to Aquinas, is the middle way? Evaluate.