CAN GOD BE NAMED BY US? PROLEGOMENA TO THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION

RALPH MCINERNY

IN asking whether God can be named by us, whether he comes within the reach, i f not the grasp, of our language, Thomas Aquinas is posing a question, the answer to which is surely decisive for theol-ogy, both philosophical and scriptural. 1 Of course, the very asking of the question seems to beg i t , unless such referring to God as the question appears to do falls short of naming him or unless the context in which the question occurs minimizes its apparently mendicant nature.

The context is the first part of the Summa theologiae, and i t is question 13 of that part which takes up the topic of the names of God. Since God has been the subject of discussion throughout the preceding twelve questions, we might think that the concerns of ques-tion 13 are tardily introduced. Should not problems associated wi th talking about God preface the Summal Does not my subtitle, by suggesting that we are concerned wi th matters on the threshold of philosophy of religion, implicitly criticize the order of the Summal Surely to establish, i f i t can be done, that God can indeed be spoken of by us, is to issue a charter for a discipline rather than to accomplish one of its internal and subsequent tasks.

I t is only wi th trepidation that one casts doubt on the order of the Summa theologiae. I t has long been regarded as the very par-adigm of a well-ordered set of problems and questions ranging over a unified subject matter. Such works as the Isagoge of John of St. Thomas display the interlocking architecture of the work, an archi-tecture so transparent that, though the Summa was left unfinished by Thomas, i t was easily completed by cannibalizing other writings

1 The very first question the Summa theologiae asks is whether, over and above what philosophy can tell us about God, there is need for another doctrine. See ST, la. 1. 1. (This will be our mode of citation: Summa theologiae, part one, question 1, article 1.) Another and thorough compari-son of the two theologies is found in Thomas's exposition of the De Trinitate of Boethius, question 5, article 4. Translation in Armand Maurer, The Division and Methods of the Sciences (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1953).

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of the saint for discussions of the remaining topics. 2 Not that there is any real need for a work such as John of St. Thomas's. The Summa itself wears the structure of its bones very near the skin, and Thomas is at pains to connect discussions and to indicate why this problem is taken up before that, and so on. What justification does Thomas offer for the apparent postponement of an issue that seems to demand settlement prior to doing theology? Let us glance at what goes on prior to the discussion of the divine names.

Question 1 of the first part is methodological, concerning itself wi th the nature and scope of sacred doctrine. Indeed, articles 9 and 10 discuss aspects of the language of Scripture, its largely symbolic, or metaphorical, character, and the fact that, in interpreting i t , we must recognize a plurality of senses of the narrative. Question 2 is the well-known discussion of the existence of God, wi th its elabora-tion of the quinque viae.3

Once we know that something exists, there remains to consider how i t exists, with an eye to knowing what it is. Because we are unable to know what God is, but can only know what he is not, we can consider not how he is but how he is not. First then we must consider how he is not; second, how he is known by us; third, how he is named.

This is the prologue to question 3 and i t suggests that questions 3-11 form a unit, since question 12 asks how God can be known by us and question 13 asks how he is named. The suite of questions (3-11) Thomas depicts as concerned wi th the way God does not exist takes up the following attributes: God's simplicity, his perfection, his goodness, his infinity, the way he exists in creatures, his im-mutability, eternity, and unity.

2 The supplementum of the Summa contains this posthumous comple-tion of its plan. John of St. Thomas, a 17th Century Spaniard, has been a great influence on Thomists of our time, notably Jacques Maritain and Charles DeKoninck. His Isagoge ad D. Thomae theologiam, a remarkable precis of the Summa, is found in Cursus theologicus, (Paris: Desclee 1931), 1: 143-219. There is a French translation, Introduction la theologie de saint Thomas (Paris: Andre Blot 1928), by M.-Benoit Lavaud.

3 As a believer, Thomas accepts as true the proposition "God exists." What need is there then of proof? Is such a proof the giving of a founda-tion to faith? I f one knows God exists, can he still believe it? These and allied questions are much discussed in Thomas. See my Saint Thomas Aquinas (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976), pp. 145-69 and "The Continu-ing Significance of St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas," in Bonaventure & Aquinas, ed. Robert Shahan and Francis Kovach (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), pp. 117-32.

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When Thomas turns from all this to ask how God can be known and named by us, i t might be said that he is now intent on raising questions as to what the earlier considerations involved, that these earlier considerations provide him wi th a body of data to which he can refer for concrete examples in undertaking to discuss the general problems of God's knowability and nameability. I n short, we could say that, on Thomistic principles, we must first know something before we can reflect on the nature of knowledge. 4 From that per-spective, we would seek in questions 12 and 13, not some establish-ment of the transcendental possibility of knowing and naming God, but the relatively more modest effort to reflect on acknowledged instances of knowing and naming, wi th an eye to characterizing them generally.

This possible explanation for the place of questions 12 and 13, while not without merit, is nonetheless not what we find Thomas offering.

Because in the foregoing we have considered how God is in himself, it remains to ask how he is in our knowledge, that is, how he is known from creatures.5

I t is as i f the discussion is moving f rom how God is not to how God is (not) known by us and, thus, f rom a discussion of negations which, however much they depend on reference to things other than God for their meaningas immutability requires mutability for its meaningpoint to how i t is wi th God, whether or not there are any creaturesmoving from that to a discussion of negations which bear on created activity, namely our knowing. I f this contrast seems ob-scure, i t is one to which we shall be returning.

What now of our opening difficulties? There are 119 questions in the first part of the Summa theologiae, and question 13 can thus be called early. Nonetheless, when we consider its contentscan God be talked about by us?it seems to be a question that should have been posed at the outset. Now one reason i t might have been postponed is that theology, in the more-than-philosophical sense of the term, presupposes faith, and the theologian, as believer, accepts as true what God has revealed of himself, and this entails that he accept the meaningfulness of Scripture. Beyond that, the proofs of God's existence in question 2, tracing the way God can come to be known

4 See ST, la. 54. 3. 5 This is the prologue to question 12.

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(as opposed to believed) to exist, as well as the subsequent discussion of negative divine attributes, are a necessary prelude to discussing our knowing and naming God. I t is as i f we must first know and name God i f our knowing and naming God are to constitute a thematic subject. Use precedes mention, and that seems reasonable. Taxo-nomically, God's knowability and nameability are not divine attributes in the same way that immutability, eternity, unity, etc. are. 6

I

Since the philosophy of religion, in recent years and in countries where English is the native tongue, has turned on the question whether meaningful language about God is possible, we find what might be called the charter of this discipline in its Thomistic form in the following passage.

In reply I say that, as Aristotle said, vocal sounds are signs of con-cepts and concepts are likenesses of things and thus it is clear that vocal sounds are referred to the things to be signified by way of the mind's conception of them. Thus it is that, to the degree a thing can be intellectually known by us, it can be named by us. But it has been shown earlier that in this life God cannot be seen by us in his essence but rather is known by us from creatures, according to the relation of principle and by way of excellence and remotion. So it is, then, that he can be named by us from creatures.7

This passage, the body of the article, 8 is a fair sample of Thomas's style in the Summa, and perhaps i t wi l l no longer be considered exigu-ous simply because its syllogistic structure leaps to the eye. The basic argument is this:

6 See John of St. Thomas, p. 152. 7 ST la. 13. 1. 8 The structure of an article of the Summa mimics more or less as

closet drama the public exchanges that were the medieval quodlibetal and disputed questions. A thesis is proposed as answer to a question and fol-lowed by a numbered series of supporting arguments, after which the sed contra est turns the discussion by citing an authority to the contrary. The body of the article, ritualistically begun with Respondeo dicendum quod, argues for the contrary of the initial thesis and is followed by num-bered replies to the arguments introduced in support of the initial thesis. Thomas's own view is to be found in the body of the article and the replies to objectionsthose initial supporting arguments now seen as threatening the answer Thomas favors.

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(1) We name things as we know them. (2) God is known from creatures. (3) God is named from creatures.

Brooding over this argument is a theory of meaning borrowed from Aristotle. I propose to say something of this Aristotelian background in order to cast light on the first premise and, in the light of this, having discussed the second premise briefly, to examine anew the conclusion, drawing on points made in subsequent articles of question 13.

The portion of the quoted text that recalls the Aristotelian theory of meaning reads as follows.

Voces sunt signa intellectuum, et intellectus sunt rerum similitudines. Et sic patet quod voces referentur ad res significandas mediante con-ceptione intellectus.

Vocal sounds are signs of concepts and concepts are likenesses of things. Thus it is clear that vocal sounds are referred to the things to be sig-nified through the medium of an in-tellectual conception.

The passage of Aristotle to which reference is made is found in On Interpretation; here i t is in the Latin version Thomas used in commenting on that work.

Sunt ergo ea quae sunt in voce earum quae sunt in anima passio-num notae: et ea quae scribuntur, eorum quae sunt in voce. Et quem-admodum nec litterae eaedem om-nibus, sic nec eaedem voces: quorum autem hae primorum primo notae sunt, eaedem passiones animae sunt; et quorum hae similitudines, res etiam eaedem.9

Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the image.

That Aristotle distinguishes vocal sounds from script is not an idle complication, since i t enables him to set up a proportionality. As wri t ing is to speech, so speech is to thought. The similar relation is that of being a symbol of. English translators render the Greek symbola as "symbols"; the Lat in text has notae, and Thomas's para-phrase in the Summa employs signa. A sign is something which leads on to knowledge of something other than itself; in that sense,

9 On Interpretation 16a3-8. The English is from the Oxford transla-tion by Edgehill.

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knowledge by signs is discursive and, Thomas adds, our signs are perceptible because our knowledge is discursive, taking its rise f rom sensible things. 1 0 Thus, wr i t ing perceived as wr i t ing brings to mind the spoken language. Similarly, speech makes known what is in the speaker's mind.

I t is just here, of course, that this account of meaningful vocal sounds comes under criticism. Is i t in fact true that speech draws our attention to the speaker's ideas? The term in question is, in the Greek, pathemata tes psyches, in Latin, passiones animae, in English, affection of the soul. Thomas, in the Summa, uses intel-lectus, not in the sense of the faculty of the soul (that sense occurs at the very end of la . 13. l c ) , but in the sense of what is under-stood. Now this we have rendered by 'concept'. What is understood, concepts, are said to be likenesses of things. We have, then, a triad: voxintellectusres. The vocal sound is the sign of the concept, and the concept is a likeness of things. Is i t the fact that the concept is a likeness of, representative of, some thing or things that prevents the discourse initiated by the vocal sound f rom ter-minating in the mind of the speaker? Is there some reason why the concept is not called a sign of reality? I f i t were, the propor-tionality could become a veritable parlay.

Script: speech:: speech: concept:: concept: thing. And, the rela-tion of signifying being transitive, the detour through the mind, as i t would then be, might not attract the same kind of criticism as is attracted by the suggestion that signification terminates in the thought of the speaker. The familiar criticism springs f rom the the-ory's suggestion that meanings are mine, personal, private, and this does not square wi th the public and common character of language.

Needless to say, were one to t r y to drop out any mention of mental activity in explaining significant vocal sound, offering perhaps the view that a vocal sound has meaning insofar as i t refers to some thing, he would be confronted wi th the equally familiar difficulty that words like 'centaur' and 'nothing' and 'and' do not seem to have any thing or object to which they refer . 1 1 Indeed, such a view of significant speech encounters difficulties as soon as i t is applied to anything other than proper names.

10 Quaestio disputata de veritate 9. 4. 4m; ST 3a. 60. 4. 1 1 See Mortimer Adler, Some Questions About Language (LaSalle,

111.: Onen Court. 1976).

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But the fact that other accounts of the meaning of significant speech encounter difficulties is no defense of the theory Thomas ac-cepts. Nowadays, both of the views mentioned, dubbed the idea-tional and referential views, have been put aside in favor of a fresh start, and there have been attempts to read Thomas on naming God in the light of these latter-day developments. 1 2 Laudable as such ef-forts are, my intention here is to proceed on a more historical and pedestrian plane. Does Thomas hold that vocal sounds signify con-cepts and not things, concepts and things, things and not concepts? The last can be ruled out, though what he has to say of proper names comes closest to realizing that option. What Thomas does hold is that vocal sounds signify concepts immediately and things mediately. A first reason for holding this is drawn from common nouns.

For it is not possible that they should signify things immediately, as is evident from their very mode of signifying; for this name 'man' signifies human nature in abstraction from singulars. Hence it cannot be that it signifies a singular man immediately, which is why Platonists held that it signified the separate Idea of man. But since for Aristotle this does not really subsist as abstract, but is only in the human mind, it was necessary for Aristotle to say that vocal sounds signify the conceptions of the mind immediately and, via them, things.1 3

A second reason, drawn from the context of naming God, is the fact that while many divine attributes signify the absolutely simple God, they are nonetheless not synonyms. How can they fail to be synony-mous i f they mean or signify the same thing? 'Horse' and 'man' can be said to be nonsynonymous because they signify different things, but the divine attributes 'merciful' and 'just' cannot fail of synonymy because they signify different things. I t is because divine attributes refer to the divine substance by way of diverse concep-tions that they are not synonymous. 1 4

Of these two arguments on behalf of the claim that a word does not directly signify an existent thing, the first, that drawn from uni-

1 2 See William P. Alston, Philosophy of Language (Englewood Cliffs, N . J.: Prentice Hall, 1964). On less historical discussions of such matters, see Patrick J. Sherry, "Analogy Today," Philosophy 51 (October 1976): 431-46, as well as his "Analogy Reviewed," Philosophy 51 (July 1976): 337-45.

13 In 1 periherm., lect. 2, n. 5. This has been translated by Jean Oesterle, On Interpretation, Commentary by St. Thomas and Cajetan, (Milwaukee, Wise: Marquette University Press, 1962).

14 Quaestio disputata de potentia Dei, 7. 6.

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versality, is the more accessible. Moreover, i t suggests a way of avoiding misunderstandings about the way concepts are likenesses of things. The concept cannot be thought of as a sort of snapshot of a thing, since things are singular and the concept does not include singular notes. This is clear enough in the case of the accounts of com-mon nouns. 'Man' does not receive an account that mentions what is peculiar to Democritus or Plato. That is what Thomas meant when he called our intellectual knowledge abstractive. He does not at all mean that the mind plucks f rom reality what is given there as i t is plucked, a point Geach has made. 1 5 But are there not concepts answering to such definite descriptions as "the cup I am holding in my hand now" and "the one and only heavyweight champion of the world"? We could express the meaning of 'man' by "the animal endowed wi th reason" but that would not make i t a definite description in the sense intendeda phrase that picks out a singular as such. Definite descriptions cannot function as the meaning of any name except, of course, a proper name, and this does not provide an account of the common terms included in the description. 1 6 We need definite descriptions because there is nothing in the world, outside the mind, that answers to common names as common. But this seems to lock immediate signification even more firmly to existence in the mind. To say that our words mean things as they are understood would seem to entail that being-understood is a component of the meaning of any term, and this is absurd. While the terms 'concept' and 'think-ing' may plausibly be said to signify mental activity, i t is clearly ridicu-lous to suggest that 'horse' and 'avalanche' do.

Before seeing how Thomas avoids so silly a result, let us reflect on the significance he finds in the fact that, in On Interpretation, Aristotle calls the vocal sound the sign of the concept, whereas he says the concept is a likeness of the thing. Ackr i l l , in his scolding donnish manner, swift ly interprets this as i f i t were an utterance of the village idiot: "Aristotle probably calls them likenesses of things be-cause he is thinking of images and i t is natural to think of the (visual) image of a cat as a picture or likeness of a cat. But the inadequacy of this as an account or explanation of thought is notorious." 1 7 Later

1 5 Peter Geach, Mental Acts (New York: Humanities Press, 1957), pp. 130-31.

1 6 See Quaestio disputata de veritate, 2. 1. 11m. 17 Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretation, trans. J. L . Ackrill

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), p. 113.

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he sees that the point is that vocal sounds are conventionally, by human institution, signs of concepts, whereas concepts are naturally concepts of the things conceived. But he is apparently so out of sympathy wi th the text and its author that he gets lost in an irrelevant digression on the possible material for axe handles and ends by re-marking that one wi l l find in Plato's Cratylus a brilliant discussion of the question whether language is conventional or natural. His reader suspects that i f Ackr i l l is this unhelpful on the first pages of his commentary, he wi l l not prove a very illuminating guide in what follows. But surely the fact that vocal sounds differ among men, though their ability to think does not, is deserving of more attention. To say that thoughts are likenesses of things is a way of making the point that, while we come to expect a diversity of language among menit is said that there are four thousand different languages in use on earth nowwe persist in thinking that translation is possible, that men can make themselves understood. Furthermore, when we consider that a sign functions in a discursive fashionit being known, i t leads on to knowledge of something else 1 8the concept might be refused the appellation 'sign', at least initially, in order to draw at-tention to the fact that concepts are not first known and then draw the mind to something else. I f the concept is a sign, i t is a sign of a different sort than script and vocal sounds are. 1 9

I f the vocal sound signifies what is understood, i t wi l l be in discussions of the object of understanding that the answer to our ques-tion should be found, viz., does signification terminate in the thinking process as what is signified? Understanding, unlike the chopping done wi th Ackrill 's axe, is an immanent activity. I f i t does not terminate outside, what is its object? What is understanding an understanding of? Thomas lists four possibilities: the thing (res) understood, the intelligible species whereby the intellect is actualized, the act of understanding, and the conception of the intellect.

Quae quidem conceptio a tribus praedictis differt. A re quidem in-tellecta, quia res intellecta est in-ter dum extra intellectum, concep-tio autem intellectus non est nisi in intellectu; et iterum conceptio intel-

This conception differs from the for-going three. (1) From the thing un-derstood, because that is some-times outside the mind whereas the conception of the intellect is in the intellect; again, the conception of

18 ST 3. 60. 4. 1 9 See John of St. Thomas, Cursus philosophicus Thomisticus, ed.

P. B. Reiser, 3 vols. (Turin: Marietti 1930), 1: 646-722, esp. pp. 702-707.

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lectus ordinatur ad rem intellectam sicut ad finem: propter hoc enim in-tellectus conceptionem rei in se for-mat ut rem intellectam cognoscat. Differt autem a specie intelligibili: nam species intelligibilis, qua fit in-tellectus in actu, consideratur ut principium actionis intellectus, cum omne agens agat secundum quod est in actu; actu autem fit per ali-quam formam, quam oportet esse actionis principium. Differt autem ab actione intellectus: quia prae-dicta conceptio consideratur ut ter-minus actionis, et quasi quoddam per ipsam constitutum. Intellectus enim sua actione format rei defini-tionem, vel etiam propositionem af-firmativam seu negativam. Haec autem conceptio intellectus in nobis proprie verbum dicitur: hoc enim est quod verbo exteriori significa-tur: vox enim exterior neque signif-icat ipsum intellectum, neque spe-ciem intelligiblem, neque actum in-tellectus, sed intellectus concep-tionem qua mediante refertur ad rem. 2 0

the intellect is ordered to the thing understood as to its end: it is in order to know the thing understood that the intellect forms a concept of it. (2) I t differs from the intelligi-ble species, for the intelligible spe-cies, thanks to which the intellect is in act, is considered to be the principle of the intellect's action, since every agent acts insofar as it is in act; it is made to be in act thanks to form, the principle of ac-tion. (3) I t differs from the activity of intellect, because the concept is the term of activity and, as it were, constituted by it . For the intellect by its activity forms a definition of the thing, or affirmative or negative propositions. This conception of the intellect within us is properly called a word, and this it is that the external word signifies. The external word does not signify the intellect, nor the intelligible species nor the activity of intellect, but the conception of the intellect mediated by which it is referred to things.

This passage suggests the complexity of Thomas's account of the object of knowing. I t is clear that there can be no crude iden-tification of the meaning of the vocal sound and "affections of the soul," where that phrase might be taken to mean psychological ac-t iv i ty , let alone the individual's psychological activity. The distinc-tion between agent and passive intellect is in play here. The passive intellectthe tabula rasais a potency which is actuated by the intelligible species, sometimes called the impressed species, thanks to the agent intellect which illumines the sense image or phantasm. Actuated by the species as form, the intellect generates the activity of thinking which, as immanent act, terminates in the conception formed by i t . I t is this conception, exemplified by the definition formed by mind, that is signified by the exterior word, the vocal sound. Definitions are unlikely to be thought of as personal or pr i -vate. Definition can be understood as the account given when the meaning of the word is sought, the logos of the opening definitions

Quaestio disputata de pontentia Dei, 8. 1.

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of the Categories, the ratio nominis of Thomas. 2 1 When one gives an account of a word, he doubtless must have in mind what he is expressing, but he is not as such (at least always and necessarily) expressing what he has in mind. Very well. But is not Thomas committed to the view that the conception of intellect, as the im-manent term of the activity of understanding, exists in the mind, and is not the conception the meaning or significate of the spoken word, so that i t must follow that, for Thomas, the meaning of any word is something that exists in the mind?

The question is best considered by reverting to its association wi th universality. The meaning of a common noun cannot be a singu-lar as such. 'Man' does not mean Socrates or Plato. No more, we should say, does i t mean some mental existent. Hence, as Thomas observed, 2 2 the Platonic view that there must be something distinct f rom singulars and f rom the concepts of our mind which can serve as the meaning of the common name. I t is as i f such objects, Ideas, receive names common to singulars as their proper names. Thomas's view is developed wi th reference to the following.

(1) Man is white. (2) Man is rational. (3) Man is a species.

Human nature can be considered in three ways. I t can be con-sidered as suchnatura absolute considerataand when i t is, only that is t ruly predicated of i t which is a component part. Thus, in (2), 'rational' pertains to human nature as such because that nature is 'rational animal'. From this point of view, neither singularity nor plurality pertains to the nature: "Hence i f i t is asked whether this nature so considered is one or many neither should be granted because both are outside the concept of humanity although both can befall i t . " 2 3 I f uniqueness were of the nature of humanity, i t could not be multiplied in Socrates and Plato; i f plurality were of the essence of humanity, i t could not be one as i t is in Socrates. Now the same sort of distinction is invoked when i t is asked i f human nature exists.

2 1 See my The Logic of Analogy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961). 2 2 See note 13 above. 23 De ente et essentia, ed. Roland-Gosselin (Paris: J. Vrin 1948),

chap. 3, p. 24.10-13. There is an English translation and commentary by my colleague Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965).

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Existence is not of the essence of humanity, and when i t does exist, existence is an accidental predicate of the nature. And just as i t is the fact that the nature is sometimes many and sometimes one that leads to the recognition that unity and plurality are accidental to the nature, so the fact that the nature sometimes exists in the mind and sometimes in singulars leads to the recognition that existence of either kind is accidental to i t . Nor should we, as Adler appears to do, 2 4

speak of a thi rd kind of existence, that enjoyed by the nature as absolutely considered.

This nature, however, has a twofold existence, and following on either accidents befall the nature; it even has a manifold existence in singu-lars because of the diversity of singulars. And yet neither kind of existence should be said to pertain to the nature according to the first consideration of i t , namely, the absolute consideration. For it is false to say that the essence of man, as man, exists in this singular, since, i f to exist in this singular belonged to man as man, it would never exist except in that singular; so too if it were of the essence of man not to be in this singular it would never be in it . The truth is that man as man does not exist in this singular or that, or in the soul. Thus it is clear that the nature of man absolutely considered abstracts from both kinds of existence, although it does not make precision from them. 2 5

(1) and (3) above express truths which depend on one or the other kind of existence. I f (1) is true, this is because some man is white, while (3) is true because human nature is predicable of many numerically distinct things. "To be predicable of many" (uni-versality) is not part of the nature of man nor of the meaning of 'man' as i f f rom "Man is a species" and "Socrates is a man" we could infer "Socrates is a species." To be universal is something that happens to a nature as i t is known by us, just as to be white is something accidental to the nature as i t is found in such individuals as Socrates. The meanings of common nouns do not include, as a constituent or component, "existing in the mind." No more does the meaning of 'man' include the traits of singular existents. This prompts a further essential consideration.

When the common name is said to signify immediately the con-ception of the intellect and mediately the thing, this cannot be taken to say that thanks to its immediate meaning the common name names

2 4 Adler, pp. 92-97. 25 De ente et essentia, p. 25. 9-p. 26. 10.

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something. I f naming is taken to be the application of the common name to a singular (as in "Socrates is a man"), then of course for the name to have a meaning is not thereby for i t to name something. Indeed, i t was just to underscore this that the distinction between significatio and suppositio was made. The universal nature was said to be, following Aristotle, aptum natum praedicari de multis: to be predicable, to be applicable to singulars. But the application or pre-dication of the common name to/of the singulars which are placed un-der i t (supposita), is expressed in a proposition which is either true of false. The meaningful name is not of itself true or false except in an extended sense. The proper name, Thomas quotes others as saying, is such that its meaning and supposition are identical. 2 6 That does not mean, of course, that proper names are as such true or false.

A final word on similitude*. Things are said to be similar which share a form, though not in exactly the same way (if they did, we might call them equal). Now, the nature signified by the common name is found in singulars along wi th other things. The formal aspect of things, conceived by the mind in abstraction f rom material or in-dividuating characteristics, is predicable of those singulars as its supposits. I t is this formal link that may be taken to underlie talk of similitudo, assimilatio, and repraesentatio.27 To inquire after likeness in some crude sense between conception and thing is no more f ru i t f u l than to inquire after i t when the poem or dovecote are said to be expressions or likenesses of what their makers had in mind. The former claim is no more (or less) obscure than the latter, but he who looks for pictures in the poet's mind to correspond to the rhythms of his lines probably needs jokes explained to him too.

These few remarks about the theory of meaning invoked by Thomas at the outset of what we have called a charter text for phi-losophy of religion have been aimed at a single difficulty that has been found wi th i t , a difficulty which is perhaps losing some of its force as a philosophical dogma. 2 8 The reader wi l l not need to be told that the theory confronts a host of other difficulties. But, of

26 ST, 3a. 39. 1 and la. 39. 4. lm. 2 7 A recent discussion of this can be found in "Being and Being Known,"

in Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality (New York: Humanities Press, 1963), pp. 41-59.

2 8 See Zeno Vendler, Res Cogitans (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1972).

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course, difficulties are not refutations. Let us turn now to the argu-ment which presupposes the theory of meaning we have been dis-cussing.

I I

God's nameability is a problem for Thomas because of the follow-ing assumptions. First , human intellection, presupposing as i t does sense experience, has as its connatural object the nature or quiddity of sensible real i ty . 2 9 Second, the intellect's dependence on the senses is not merely genetic but constant. Natures which exist in material singulars are grasped intellectually in an immaterial way. By this is meant that the mind's concepts do not include singular and individuat-ing notes; the nature is conceived as formal, as apt to be found in many. But the nature of a material thing can only be grasped t ru ly and completely when i t is known as existing in particulars. Par-ticulars are grasped through sense and imagination. Thus there is a continuing reliance on the senses i f the intellect is to have adequate knowledge of its commensurate or connatural object. 3 0 Third, God is not a material object. 3 1 Fourth, obliquely and by extrapolation f rom its connatural object, the human mind can gain some knowledge of immaterial things. Finally, the obliquity and indirection of our knowledge of God wi l l be reflected in the way we talk about him, including the meaning of the names attributed to him.

Philosophy of religion continues to betray its origin (or rebirth) as a response to positivist attacks on the meaningfulness of religious language. Whatever the vagaries and ultimate fate of the principle of verification, the attack touched a nerve. I f there was in the attack an apparent confusion of meaning and t ru th , there was also a sense that the use of our language to talk about God distorts and stretches i t beyond its normal range. The agnostic or atheist, thinking him-self in possession of a standard and paradigmatic use of language, often the language of physical science, which is itself a language only in an extended sense of the term, easily finds human talk about God out of order. But the sense of inadequacy, of the poverty of human language, is felt far more acutely by the believer. Certainly Thomas

29 ST, la. 12. 4. 30 ST, la. 84. 7. 31 ST, la. 3. 1.

CAN GOD BE NAMED BY US? 67

Aquinas exhibits no tendency to suggest that everything is in order wi th our talk about God. Such talk is easily misunderstood; the believer may come to think of God as a thing among things, accessible and nameable much as anything else is. From the very outset of the Summa, Thomas reminds us again and again that we are unable to know what God is, that the divine nature so far exceeds the capacity of the human mind that we must settle for knowing what God is not rather than what he i s . 3 2

This conviction scarcely reduces him to silence, however. One might even find in the Summa a matter-of-factness in discussing things divine that seems presumptuous. Our topic, the nameability of God, would, i f pursued in its amplitude, lead beyond the con-siderations in the treatise on God as one, to those Thomas develops in discussing the manifestly theological topics of the Trini ty and In-carnation. 3 3 None of these treatments suggests to the casual reader, a wri ter in the grips of negative theology. However imperfect human language is to express the divine, Thomas does not counsel silence.

The second premise of the argument in our charter text is, in its entirety, this: " I t was shown above that God cannot in this life be seen in his essence but is known by us f rom creatures according to the relation of principle and by way of excellence and remotion." 3 4

The threefold distinction is an abiding feature of Thomas's thought and permits us to speak of three kinds of divine attribute: negative, relative, and affirmative. Our earlier remarks about the char-acterization of questions 3-11 suggests that in them Thomas is concerned with negative attributes. (Actually, this turns out to be not wholly true because of questions 5 and 6 which deal wi th the good in general and the goodness of God, respectively.) I t is certainly the case that articles 2-7 of question 13 turn on the other two kinds of divine attribute. When, in article 2, Thomas asks i f any name is said of God substantialiter, he is, in effect, asking i f there is not a kind of attribute which is neither negative nor relative. Having assured himself that there is, he asks in article 3 whether all such attributes are metaphorical and argues that they are not. Article

3 2 Thomas often confronts the following objection: we can know the existence of God insofar as we know that he exists; in God, nature and existence are identical; therefore, we can know the divine nature. See, e.g., ST, la. 3. 4. 2m.

3 3 See, e.g., ST, la. 39 and 3a. 16. 34 ST, la. 13. 1.

68 RALPH MclNERNY

4 argues that such attributes are many but not synonymous, for reasons we have touched on. Article 5 is the famous claim that the affirmative attributes are names analogically common to God and creatures, which (article 6) are said first of creatures, f rom one point of view, and first of God, f rom another. Article 7 discusses rela-tive attributes. Articles 8 and 9 discuss the name 'God' wi th particu-lar reference to the question whether i t is a proper name. Article 11 discusses 'He who is' as the most proper name of God and a final article asks whether, given the simplicity of God, i t is possible to form affirmative propositions (with their suggestion of complexity: "God is P") about God.

I mention the wider setting in order not to mislead the reader as to the adequency of the few remarks to follow. I t is the affirmative, as opposed to the negative and relative, divine attributes that are said to be analogically common to God and creature. We shall examine this doctrine which, while in many ways familiar, is not always under-stood, wi th a particular eye to seeing the role of negativity in the affirmative attributes.

I l l

I t is what I have called affirmative attributes that Thomas says may be predicated of God substantialiter, that is, may be taken to ex-press, not simply what he is not, by removing some characteristic f rom him, nor what he is in relation to something else or, more ac-curately, that something is related to him, but the divine nature or substance itself, however inadequately. The examples of this kind of attribute that Thomas gives are 'good' and 'wise'. When God is said to be wise, the sense of the claim is not simply that God is the cause of created wisdom or that he is unlike things which lack cogni-tion. Rather, 'wise' is taken to express, inadequately to be sure, what God is: "Therefore, i t must be said, on the contrary, that names of this sort signify the divine substance and are predicated of God substantially, but are deficient in the way they represent h im." 3 5

Now this claim seems to contradict his reiterated remark that i t is impossible to know what God is and that we can know only what God is not. I n explicating what he means, Thomas repeats that God is

35 ST, la. 13. 2.

CAN GOD BE NAMED BY US? 69

known f rom his creatures, and thus God is knowable only to the de-gree that creatures manifest or represent what he is. Some per-fections found in creatures are such that they can be thought of as in God, though in a manner that escapes our comprehension. The preexistence of perfections in God is grounded in (a) the fact that he is the cause of creatures and that the perfection of the effect must in some way preexist in the cause, and (b) that God is the summation of perfections. Names signifying perfections found in creatures can signify the divine nature insofar as those created perfections manifest or represent their source.

When therefore it is said, 'God is good', the sense is not, 'God is the cause of goodness', or, 'God is not evil', but the sense is 'that which we call goodness in creatures preexists in God' and this indeed in a higher way. 3 6

I n order to get some understanding of this, we must take into ac-count the distinction Thomas introduced in article 1 between a per-fection and its mode. There he exemplifies the contrast by noting the difference between such concrete and abstract terms as 'white' and 'whiteness'. Of these, he wants to say that they signify the same thing (res significata), that is, the same quality or accidental form, but in different ways (modi significandi). The concrete term signifies a quod, the perfection in a subsistent, so that the account of 'white' would be 'that which has whiteness' (Habens albedinem), whereas the account of 'whiteness' would be 'that whereby some-thing is white', in short, a quo. Now i f every name is either con-crete or abstract, no name seems appropriate to God. Names which signify a subsistent thing imply composition, and God is simple; names which signify the simple perfection do not signify i t as sub-sisting. As Thomas says elsewhere, "omne nomen cum defectu est quantum ad modum significandi," every name is defective wi th re-spect to its mode of signifying when applied to God. 3 7 When this realization is applied to the affirmative divine attributes, the three-fold viae deriving f rom Pseudo-Dionysius can be illustrated in the following way. 3 8

3 6 Ibid. 37 Summa contra gentiles, bk. 1, chap. 30. English translation by

Anton Pegis (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). 38 Scriptum super sententiis, 1, dist. 2, q. 1, a. 3 and dist. 3, q. 1, a. 3.

70 RALPH MclNERNY

(1) God is wise. (2) God is not wise. (3) God is wisdom.

The way of affirmation, (1), does not compare to the way of nega-tion, (2), as its contradictory, because what is affirmed is the per-fection (res significata) and what is denied is the mode (modus significandi). This same terminology is employed to express the doc-trine of the analogically common name.

The briefest comparison Thomas gives of univocal, equivocal, and analogous names is this: when things are named univocally, the same name signifies the same perfection in the same way; when things are named equivocally, the same name signifies quite differ-ent perfections; when things are named analogically, the same name signifies the same perfection in different ways. 3 9 That is, a name pre-dicated analogically of many has the same res significata but differ-ent modi significandi. The familiar example is 'healthy' as i t occurs in:

(4) Pluto is healthy. (5) Alpo is healthy. (6) Urine is healthy.

'Healthy', being a concrete term, wi l l have as its account 'that which has health'. As signifying that, i t is of course predicated uni-vocally of Pluto, Fido, and Bowser. Insofar as the name is predicated analogically, as in (4)-(6), we can take " health" as a mean-ing frame in which the res significata is given and the blank is to be filled in wi th different modi significandi.40 I n the example, the modes are, respectively, "subject of . . .", "cause of . . .", and "sign of. . . . " Fi l l ing in the blank wi th any of these gives us an account, meaning, or ratio of the term. I t can be seen why the ac-counts or rationes so constructed are said to be partly the same (same res significata) and partly diverse (diverse modi significandi).41

Beyond this, the doctrine of the analogous name requires that one account of the name be privileged, the ratio propria, which wi l l be found in only one of the analogates, of which accordingly the analogous

3 9 Ibid., dist. 22, q. 1, a. 3, ad 2m: "Ad secundum dicendum quod aliter dividitur aequivocum, analogum et univocum. Aequivocum enim dividitur secundum res significatas, univocum vero dividitur secundum diversas differentias, sed analogum dividitur secundum diversos modos."

4 0 The abstract form of the term enters into the account of the con-crete form and vice versa, underscoring the fact that the perfection is never grasped independently of these modes.

41 ST, la. 13. 5.

CAN GOD BE NAMED BY US? 71

name is said per prius: "When something is said analogically of many, i t is found according to its proper meaning in one of them alone from which the others are denominated." 4 2 I n short, there is an order of priority and posteriority among the many meanings of an analogous term such that one of its meanings is required in order to grasp the others. Thus, when urine is said to be healthy, what is meant is that i t is a sign of health in the subject of health. The analogous name not only has a plurality of meanings which are partly the same and partly different, but one of those meanings is primary and the other(s) secondary.

The second-order vocabulary that is generated by analyzing the example of 'healthy' (res significata, modus significandi, ratio propria, etc.) is what Thomas means by a logical vocabulary and to say that the doctrine of analogous names is a logical one means only that this second-order account of i t is logical; i t does not mean that analogous names signify accidents accruing to names as they are known by us. 4 3

When Thomas says that the affirmative divine attributes consist of names that are analogically common to God and creature, i t is the foregoing doctrine he has in mind, and we are meant to compare

(7) Socrates is wise and

(1) God is wise. in such a way that we see that the adjectival name 'wise' signifies the same perfection (res significata) but in different ways (modi significandi). Now Socrates has wisdom, meaning that the sub-sistent entity Socrates possesses an accidental quality whereby he grasps cognitively the order of things. The res significata here, awareness of order (sapientis est ordinre), is taken to be dis-tinguishable f rom the mode of having i t peculiar to humans, i.e., as

42 ST, la. 16. 6. 4 3 See Logic of Analogy, p. 166-69. For another view, see J. M.

Ramirez, Opera omnia, vol. 2: De analogia (Madrid: Vives, 1972), pp. 167588. The view of analogy presented in the text of this article is, however solidly grounded in the texts, not universally shared by students of Aquinas. Battista Mondin, The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963) accepts it . An excellent book, B. Montagnes, La doctrine de Vanalogie de Vetre dlapres saint Thomas dAquin Louvain: Nauwelaerts, 1963), pursues the matter chronologically and finds many of the most vexing texts to be early formula-tions later abandoned by Thomas. Even if true, this would not relieve us of the necessity of understanding the various formulations, not least in order to assess Montagnes's interpretation.

72 RALPH MclNERNY

an accident distinct f rom substance, something acquired that can be lost, and so for th. (2) above is the denial, in God, of this way of having wisdom, and the denials are familiar f rom question 3 where Thomas discussed the divine simplicity. I n the standard case of the analogous name, we should be able to produce another mode of signifying to replace the one being denied. As is notorious, we can-not do this in the case of the divine wisdom. A l l we can say, on the model of la . 13. 2, is 'that which we call wisdom in creatures pre-exists in God and in a higher way\ That higher way is expressible only by negating the lower, creaturely way, and the via eminentiae, (3), is, as i t were, the affirmation of this denial, or, better, a negatio negationis. To say that God is wisdom is also modally defective, as is clear f rom what was said earlier about concrete and abstract terms.

The key to the affirmative divine attributes lies in the intelli-gibili ty of the claim that perfections found in a limited way in crea-tures are thinkable while negating those creaturely limitations. 4 4 I f i t is not easy to grasp what is being affirmed when this is said to be possible, i t is hard to know why its possibility is so often swift ly denied. Thomas, on occasion suggests thought-experiments on qualities such as whiteness, arguing that, apart f rom its being re-ceived in and multiplied by subjects, we could imagine i t as unique. Are not the Platonic things-in-themselves products of such a projec-tion? For that matter, the difficulty is present in the contrast of 'white' and 'whiteness'. When the abstract and concrete term are said to signify the same perfection in different ways, that per-fection is never grasped independently of those modes. I n any case, the real problem of perfections themselves is one of t ru th rather than meaning.

A further feature of the deficiency of the affirmative divine at t r i -butes, one that underlies Thomas's query as to their possible synonymy, is precisely their plurality. When God is called good, wise, just, etc., these predicates are not synonymous, because different accounts are given of each, and the accounts differ because they are imposed f rom different perfections found in creatures. 4 5

But these many names do not refer to any plurality or complexity when affirmed of God, though how perfections which are diverse in creatures can be one simple thing we cannot know.

4 4 See Alistair McKinnon, Falsification and Belief, (The Hague: Mouton, 1970).

45 ST, la. 13. 4.

CAN GOD BE NAMED BY US? 73

This must suffice to show that Thomas's distinction of affirmative attributes f rom negative and relative ones does not mean that the emphasis is any less on deficiency and inadequacy on the part of our knowing and naming.

I V

While the short Thomistic answer to our titular question might seem to be, "Yes, but analogically," we have seen that analogy is invoked only in the discussion of affirmative attributes. The nega-tive and relative attributes have their own difficulties, to be sure. One might wonder i f the name 'God' itself is caught by one of the cate-gories of divine attribute. I n article 10 of question 13, Thomas dis-cusses univocal and analogical uses of the name 'God' and that al-ready makes i t clear that 'God' is not a proper name according to Thomas since, in order to be univocal or equivocal, a name must be shared, common. But while he holds that 'God' is an appellative rather than a proper name, Thomas, in discussing the Trini ty , indi-cates that in some ways 'God' is like a proper name. 4 6 I t is just be-cause any adequate discussion of whether 'God' is a proper name would necessitate introducing the philosophical distinctions made in the difficult context of Thomas's discussion of the Trini ty of Persons in God that I do not enter into i t here. One can appreciate the subtleties required to move intelligibly among predications true of the divine nature and those true of a divine person. Things get even more complicated in the discussion of the Incarnate God. I f Christ died for our sins, did God die? Indeed, was God born in Bethlehem? The ascription of predicates to Christ in virtue of his humanity or in virtue of his divinity calls for a niceness of distinction and precision of language that cannot fail to attract the interest of the philosopher. Of course, i t was not to titillate the philosophical mind that Thomas generated such linguistic precisions as he did, but in order to get as clear as he could about what God had revealed to man. There is perhaps no better way to realize the ineffability of God.

University of Notre Dame.

ST, la, 39. 4. lm.