Analogies + aquinas

aquinas

• In response to the incomprehensible God of the via negativa, Aquinas developed the doctrine of analogy 

• Attempts to hold together two points: 

• Human knowledge is inadequate to express the divine 

• We do not have to assume that we can say nothing about God 

3 types of lang

univocal, equivocal and analogical

univocal lang

• By univocal language philosophers mean that a word is applied to two different things but it means the same when applied to both.  

• In other words, univocal language is when a word or phrase is used in the same way in two different sentences. 

• e.g. 'Agamemnon is the name of a Greek warrior' and 'The Lord is a warrior', we are using the word warrior to mean exactly the same thing.  

• Aquinas rejects this view precisely because God cannot be a warrior in the same way as a human being, because God is not a human being; nor does God have a body.  

• Religious language is clearly not like that - we do not use words about God in the way we use them about ourselves. 

• ANTHROPOMORPHISES GOD 

equivocal lang

• By equivocal language philosophers mean that you use the same word In different ways when applied to different things. 

•  e.g. 'There is a bat flying in the sky' and 'I have bought a new bat for cricket’ 

• the term 'bat' means something totally different in each sentence, and although the terms are the same, they are to be understood wholly differently.  

• For Aquinas, religious language cannot be like that. If any sentence about God had a wholly different meaning from any other usage, then we would not have religious language but silence. 

• PROBLEM OF ATTRIBUTION -> nothing is known/ demonstrated by God 

analogical lang

• An analogy is a comparison between two (or more) things in which the first, simpler thing that is understood is used to help explain the more complex thing that is in some way similar. 

• For example, you that the heart works like a could say pump for the body. In this case the analogy is the comparison between the heart and a pump.  

• Aquinas claims that when words such as good or just are used to describe God, they are being used analogically. 

significance of proportional similarities + dissimilarities

• Aquinas first argued that religious language is not univocal/ equivocal, but analogous 

• Aquinas was concerned by the problem of explaining God in human language; God is supposedly perfect and infinite, so he might defy description. 

• Since God is the cause of good things in humanity, we can use the description ‘good’ of both God and humans but, as the cause of human goodness, God’s goodness is greater. 

• To make an analogy we would be saying that God is not just like us, but nor is he nothing like us and our world. By finding appropriate language, Aquinas thought we could say broadly what God is like. This would give us partial but justifiable knowledge of God. 

• But Aquinas’ theory only works if we take God for granted – it assume God exists. 

analogy of attribution

• Based on Christian belief that God is creator and everything comes from him intentionally 

• God is the cause of all good things in humans; therefore, God’s attributes are simply a higher level of our own. If God made the world then we could expect the world to reflect God in some way, so we would be justified in drawing analogies between the world and God.  

• Certain effects flow from certain causes and are stamped with something of the character of their creation -> this means that we can attribute qualities to the creator of a thing that are analogous to those of its creation 

e.g. of analogy of attribution

• John Hick used upwards analogies: the faithfulness of a dog, the faithfulness of humans, the faithfulness of God. 

• Aquinas gave the example of bull urine -> used to inspect urine of the bull to see if bull was healthy; health of urine was diff to health of the bull, but the two were still related, since the latter was the source of the former 

analogy of proportion

• Aquinas considered that all species of creatures were created with their own natures 

• human beings have their own distinctive natures, with God having His own distinctive nature as well 

• What it means for a dog (for example) to be good, for a human to be good, and for God to be good is diff → Their goodness depends on the extent to which they fulfil their telos, or purpose 

• When we say God is good, we are saying that God is good in a divine way (in a more superior sense than the animal or human)] 

• In the case of all the finite creatures, they can fall short of perfection or what their telos is. God, however, being wholly simple, timeless, and spaceless, cannot be other than what it is to be God 

• God cannot fall short of His nature, of what he is meant to be, as he is pure act and no potentiality. God must, therefore, be perfectly good 

john hick on analogy of proportion

• Used the example of the faithful dog and the faithful human to explain the analogy of proportion 

• Both a man and a dog can be called faithful. There is a difference between canine and human faithfulness, though there must also be a similarity for us to make the comparison. We can understand faithfulness in ourselves so we can begin to comprehend the lesser form of faithfulness that is within a dog 

• By knowing a quality in ourselves, we can apply this downwards to a lesser being, but we can also apply this upwards to a more supreme being (such as God) 

• The purpose of the analogical  approach is not to tell us precisely what the terms we are using about God actually mean, for that we cannot know. But it does permit us to say something positive, limited though it will indeed be