- Erich Przywara, Analogical Deliverer
- A Note from Class: Can We Say Anything About God?
- A Note from Class: Pilgrimage to Parnassus
- A Note from Class: We Are Made in God's Image
- Karl Jaspers on Creation
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According to [Thomas] Aquinas, when we speak about God we inevitably must use language originally developed for finite creatures. Such language cannot be used to apply to God precisly in its original sense.
When we speak about God, we do not speak univocally, which is to use the same term in precisely the same sense; nor do we speak equivocally, which is to use the same term in two unrelated senses, as when one uses the term race to refer to an athletic contest on one occasion and an ethnically related group of human beings on another. Rather, talk about God is analogical, which is to use the same term in a similar or related sense.[1] One might, for example, call both a dog and a person faithful. In this case there is a resemblance between a faithful person and a faithful dog; the termis not being used equivocally. Nevertheless, faithfulness in a person is not identical with faithfulness in a dog.
Aquinas defines two major types of analogy. The analogy of attribution uses a term originally employed for one thing for a second thing because of a causal relation between the two things. Thus, one calls a certain geographical location "healthy" because it causes the people who live there to be healthy, and one calls a rosy complexion "healthy" because it is the effect of a healthy body. Religious people use terms like "living" and "loving" to refer to God because he is the cause of life and love in his creation.
The other type of analogy is the analogy of proportionality. Here a term is employed to refer to something proportionately to the kind of reality the thing possesses. A dog is brave in the way dogs can be brave, in proportion to its reality as a dog. A human being's bravery is proportionately richer because her nature is richer. God is loving, holy, and powerful, but he possesses all these qualities in proportion to his infinite nature; human love, holiness, and power resemble but fall short of these qualities in God.
The analogy theory is often criticized on the grounds that one must be able to reformulate an analogy in literal, univocal language for the analogy to be meaningful. Unless we know precisely how God's love resembles human love, so the argument goes, we do not really know what it means to say God is loving. But to know how God's love resembles human love, we must know what that love is like and be able to describe it univocally.
Whether this objection is sound is controversial. But it seems to me that all this objection really establishes, if one is inclined to accept it, is that it must be possible in principle to replace analogous language with univocal language, not that this replacement must be actually carried out for analogous language to have meaning. If an analogy is valid, then a person who has sufficient knowledge and has a language sufficiently rich should be able to describe the analogous relationship in a direct fashion. However, it is surely too strong to claim that analogous language is meaningless unless it can be "cashed in" with univocal language. If that were the case, what need would we have for analogous language? Analogies would be proper in that case only where they were unnecessary. Surely the uses of analogy, metaphor, and other nonunivocal discourse in poetry, and even scientific model-building, show that such language is useful and meaningful, even where we are not yet able to dispense with such language, and perhaps even if we are not able to do this at all.
The objection may also presuppose an overly wooden view of "literal" language, and an overly sharp dichotomy between such language and the language of analogy. Many ordinary, literal terms began their careers as metaphors. It is hard to see how language could creatively develop and new concepts be originated if a nonliteral usage were always meaningless until it could be replaced by a more literal statement.
It is true that Aquinas's analogy theory implies that we lack a clear and precise understanding of God and his characteristics. We only know God as the being who resembles though surpasses what we humans know as "love," "power," "holiness" and so on. However, it is quite in keeping with ordinary religious belief to claim that God is in some way essentially mysterious. Our knowledge of God is not supposed to be theoretically and scientifically precise; it has an essentially practical purpose. It may be sufficient for human beings if they have enough of an understanding of God to know how to relate to him properly. If it turns out that humans, in this life at least, lack any knowledge of God's essence, as Aquinas claims, this will not faze the believer, so long as she has enough of an idea of God to know how to worship and serve him properly.
[1] Aquinas's theory is developed in part 1 question 13 of the Summa Theologica.
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