Summa Theologiae I, Q.13, Article 7: Are "Lord" and "Creator" Said of God in Time or from Eternity?

Orientation #

He opens with “I guess we’re up to Article Seven now” and ends with a break after the article; he does not name last time or next time. The previous class treated articles 5–6 (analogy in divine naming) and the next revisits articles 8–10 on the name “God”.

The class, in order #

1. Why article 7 is hard: three kinds of relation (“a particularly difficult part of the teaching”) #

Point: the article depends on Aristotle’s teaching on relatives, which is difficult because some relations are real, some of reason only, and there is a “mixed” one, real on one side and of reason on the other — the kind involved in names said of God. He says you must meet this many times before it fits together.

2. The six objections and the sed contra (“It seems that the names which imply”) #

He reads and paraphrases each objection against the thesis that names implying relation to creatures are said of God ex tempore:

1. Ambrose: “Dominus” is a name of power, and God’s power is His substance; “Creator” signifies His action, which is His essence; the divine substance is eternal. (He notes Thomas uses substantia and essentia as synonyms here.)
2. Whatever belongs to something in time can be said to have been made (what becomes white in time has become white); God cannot be made.
3. If relation to creatures made a name temporal, all such names would be temporal; but God knew and loved the creature from eternity — Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with a perpetual charity”. Aside forecasting the reply: the ninth book of Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics IX] distinguishes activity remaining in the doer from activity with an external product, and this may separate God’s knowing and loving us from His being our Creator or Lord.
4. The relation is either in God or in the creature only; not in the creature only, since nothing is denominated from its opposite; so it is in God — but nothing can be in God from time.
5. Something is said relatively by a relation, as white by whiteness; if lordship is not in God secundum rem but only secundum rationem, God is not really Lord — “clearly false”. He flags this as the one that touches the real difficulty.
6. In relatives not simul natura one can exist without the other: the knowable exists without knowledge (Categories, “in Latin they call it Predicamenta”); God and creature are not together by nature; so “Lord” and “Creator” are said of God from eternity.

Sed contra: Augustine, “perhaps his greatest book”, De Trinitate V: the relative name “Dominus” belongs to God ex tempore. This lines up against all six and makes us suspect our minds have been taken in.

Asides: Aristotle in the Proemium to Wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics I]: the philomuthos is in a way philosophos because philosophy begins in wonder — but muthos is also “plot” in the Poetics, and a plot ties knots and unties them, as Thomas does here “like Houdini”; Chesterton loved detective stories and the Fr. Brown mysteries; C. S. Lewis: “let us look for the loose end”. Voltaire reportedly collected the Summa’s objections without the answers; some Fathers held the faith without answering objections — no scandal, since even the obvious (walking out the door) has objections most cannot answer, e.g. Zeno’s paradoxes, which Aristotle answers in book six “in a way” and really only in the last books of the Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics].

3. The thesis, and why relation barely exists (“relation is not at all a thing of nature”) #

Point: Thomas answers that such names are said of God from time, not eternity, and first summarises the teaching on relation, which is obscure “like trying to understand motion and time”.

• Time: past gone, future not yet, no time in the present — yet a chair would not exist if its legs, seat and back did not; motion: part of my walk across the room is gone, part remains, and none is there all at once, else I’d be in two places. Such things “barely exist”, and the difficulty is in them, not in us; likewise relation.
• Some say relation is only of reason, a comparison our mind makes. Thomas: false, since things have a natural order to each other. Examples: the family cat Tabitha, carried down to the basement — because he was much bigger, his whole relation to her was different than if he were a toy soldier to be chomped on; the man who gets off the bar stool and towers over you (size makes a real relation); generating or teaching someone gives a real relation on both sides.

4. The threefold division; relations of reason on both sides (“the same thing is the same as itself”) #

Point: for a relation two extremes are required, and in three ways one can be a thing of nature or of reason: real on both sides, of reason on both, mixed (a student asks whether that makes “one of your boxes”; he says it is a division into three, with two extremes and the mixed case). Relations of reason on both sides, three groups:

1. When the order can only be by reason’s grasping: “Socrates is Socrates” — one Socrates in reality, taken twice by the mind as subject and predicate. Example: De Koninck refuted Bertrand Russell’s argument that the part equals the whole (pair each number with its double; even numbers equal all numbers) by noting that the same two is multiplied only in the mind — “I can do this with just two”; in reality there are not two twos. Also “I know that I know what a triangle is”, and so on forever. Boethius: nothing is more true than that something is itself (“a dog is a dog”).
2. Relations between being and non-being: nothing is really nothing, but the mind takes it as something, so “nothing is nothing”; recalls the fifth book chapter on being [ed.: Metaphysics V], being as true, which extends to non-real beings.
3. Relations following the act of reason: genus and species, as Porphyry takes them together in the Isagoge (genus said of many differing in species in answer to “what is it?”); universality is only in the mind. Hence logic is a science of relations of reason, and can be very exact, though not “in things”.

5. Relations real on both sides (“all relations which follow quantity”) #

Point: real on both sides when the having-itself is according to something really in both, the two kinds Aristotle distinguishes in the fifth book of Wisdom:

• following quantity: taller/shorter, large/small, double/half — if four is really double two, two is really half of four, for quantity is in both;
• following acting and undergoing: mover/mobile, father/son — he really generated his son, so the relation is in both, based on the act of generation.

6. The mixed case: real on one side, of reason on the other (“two extremes are not of one order”) #

Point: this happens whenever the extremes are not of one order; “Aristotle discovered this. He’s an awfully smart guy.”

• Sense and science are referred to the sensible and knowable, which exist in their natural being outside the order of sensible and understandable being; so the real relation is in the sense and knowledge, not in the things.
• Love and Friendship course example: you know and like someone who does not know you know them — a real relation in you, nothing in them.
• The tree in his backyard: his knowledge is really related to the tree, something is added to him; is anything added to the tree by being known? No — so “known by me” is a relation of reason in the tree. Yet “can you say the tree is really known by me? Yeah” — because he really knows it. “That’s kind of a subtle thing.”
• Aristotle in the fifth book: measure and measured — the measured is really measured, the measure unaffected; the thing known measures my knowing; God is the measure of all things.
• Thomas elsewhere: reason cannot think this towards that without thinking that towards this, but here it invents a relation not really in the other thing.
• Aristotle, fifth book of Wisdom: such things are not relative because they are referred to others, but because others are referred to them. Easy example: dextrum, “right”, is said of the column only because it is placed to the right of the animal; right and left are really different in me (one side more powerful), not in the column. Aside: “the Philosopher” with capital P is antonomasia (he capitalises it when transcribing; the Navarro website does not); other cases: “the book” for the Bible; Christ “the way, the truth, the life” — there is truth elsewhere (Pythagorean theorem), virtue is the road to happiness, but He is the road; Latin lacks the article, so scholastics insert “ly” or even the Greek to.

7. Application to God (“God is outside the whole order of the creature”) #

Point: since God is outside the whole order of creatures and all creatures are ordered to Him and not conversely, creatures are really referred to God, but in God the relation is of reason only, as creatures are referred to Him — He is my Lord because I really depend on Him, my Creator because I was really brought into existence by Him. So nothing prevents these names being said of God in time, not by any change in Him but by change in the creature: the column becomes “on the right” with no change in it, the animal having moved. “Very subtle this teaching” — “you see why Thomas has an article just on this”.

8. Reply 1: relativa secundum esse and secundum dici (“relatives are placed upon things to signify”) #

Point: a second famous distinction, from the Categories.

• Aristotle starts from Plato’s definition (whatever is said of another or towards another is relative), then sees the problem — my arm is “arm of me”, my knowledge “knowledge of something”, so even parts of substance would be relations — and distinguishes: things whose whole nature is to be towards another (double is no amount in itself: twice four, six, eight) = relativa secundum esse; things fundamentally something else, e.g. knowledge a quality of the mind, upon which a relation follows = relativa secundum dici.
• Thomas: names imposed to signify the very having-itself towards another (lord/servant, father/son) are secundum esse (“Aristotle’s nasty habit” of calling a thing’s nature its being); names imposed to signify something upon which a relation follows (mover/moved, head/headed) are secundum dici.
• “Don’t confuse these two distinctions” — real vs. of reason, and secundum esse vs. secundum dici; he has seen objections in Thomas that mix them up. A real relation can be either: taller/shorter is real and secundum esse; knowledge of the known is real (knowledge is a habit or disposition, species of quality, with a real relation following) but secundum dici. A relation of reason can be secundum esse: the whole meaning of genus is to be towards another. The body of the article used the first distinction; the reply uses the second.
• Applied to divine names: some signify the very having-itself towards the creature (Lord) and signify the substance only indirectly, as dominion presupposes power, which is the substance; others (Saviour, Creator) signify the essence directly — God’s action, which is His essence — and imply a relation consequently. Both are said of God in time as regards the relation they imply, chiefly or consequently, not as regards signifying the essence directly or indirectly. So Ambrose is right about the presupposition; but being Lord over us begins to be said when we begin to be subject.
• Why the objections bite: what cannot be is something really added to God; He would have changed. Asides: Aristotle, ninth book of Wisdom, motion is the act most known to us, hence seems most real; asked at a seminary whether angels really exist, he said “more real than you are”; young people “go where the action is”; Hegel, Marx, Communists — what is real is motion, hence the emphasis on history; existentialists, “man has no nature, only history”; Marx has bourgeois man, proletarian man, slave man, but no man; Max Born, The Restless Universe: “we have a name for what doesn’t exist: rest.”

9. Replies 2 and 3 (“neither coming to be nor has been made”) #

• Reply 2: as these relations are in God only secundum rationem, so “coming to be” or “has been made” is said of God only according to reason, no change in Him: “the Lord has been made a refuge for us” — no real making in Him.
• Reply 3: the operation of understanding and will is in the one doing it, so names signifying relations following on them are said of God ab aeterno (the Jeremiah text, “I love you with eternal love”); names following actions proceeding to an exterior effect (“transitive actions, to call it in grammar”) — Creator, Saviour — are said in time. God always loved us but did not always create us; God knew us before He made us (“I suppose the moderns would think” otherwise).

10. Reply 4: denominated from the creature’s real relation (“from relations really existing in a thing”) #

Point: the relations signified by these names are in God by reason only, the opposite relations in creatures really; it is not unfitting that God is denominated from relations really in the creature, the opposite relations in God being understood together by our understanding — the necessity of our mind to think the converse, though “in some cases that other thing isn’t really towards you”. “Realize how independent God is of us.” Aristotle, fifth book of Wisdom: the knowable is said relatively not because it is referred to knowledge but because knowledge is referred to it. Aside: De Koninck’s teachers said the way to learn these things is to memorise the Summa.

11. Reply 5: God is really Lord (“God, not by reason only, but really is Lord”) #

Point: God is referred to the creature by the same relation by which creatures refer to Him; since subjection is really in the creature, God is really Lord, “in that way in which the creature is such to Him” — not because something is added to Him but because I really depend on Him. Parallel: the tree is really known by him, though nothing is added to the tree (he is improved, not the tree). The old saying “he doesn’t even know I exist”: maybe he does, but nothing in him towards her, only her towards him. “That’s kind of a subtle thing to see.”

12. Reply 6: together by nature judged by meanings (“knowable is said according to ability”) #

Point: whether relatives are simul natura is judged not from the order of the things but from the meanings of the relatives.

• If each includes the understanding of the other e converso, they are together by nature: double/half, father/son (can’t be a father before someone is your son; can’t become double without something becoming half; can’t be taller without the other being at the same time shorter).
• If one includes the other and not conversely, not together: knowledge and the knowable, since knowable is said according to ability and knowledge by habit or act, so the knowable pre-exists knowledge in its way of signifying. But the knowable in act, the known, is together with knowledge in act — “the strict relation” (a student asks which; he answers the strict one, the known to knowledge).
• Though God is before creatures, “Lord” includes in its meaning having a servant, and e converso, so Lord and servant are together by nature; God was not Lord before He had a creature subject to Him — and acquired nothing. He recalls Thomas calling himself indignum famulum tuum in the communion prayer. Then a break.

His words #

• ex tempore / “from time”, “in time”: said of God starting in time, opposed to ab aeterno.
• substantia / essentia: used as synonyms by Thomas here.
• knot-tying and untying: his image for objections and replies (muthos as plot; philomuthos, philosophos).
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics]; “the fifth/ninth book of Wisdom”, “Proemium to Wisdom” [ed.: Metaphysics].
• Predicamenta: Latin name for the Categories.
• relation of reason vs. real relation (secundum rationem / secundum rem; res naturae, “in rerum natura”).
• “having itself” (habitudo): his rendering of the relative order between extremes.
• antonomasia: “the Philosopher”, “the book”, Christ “the road”.
• relativa secundum esse vs. relativa secundum dici: names whose whole meaning is towards another vs. names of something else upon which a relation follows.
• “ability” [ed.: potency]: the knowable is said according to ability, not act.
• simul natura: “together by nature”, “same time together”.
• transitive action: grammar’s term for an action proceeding to an exterior effect, vs. the operation remaining in the doer.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 13, a. 7: objections 1–6, sed contra, body, replies 1–6 (translated and commented throughout).
• Jeremiah 31:3 (quoted in obj. 3 and reply 3).
• Augustine, De Trinitate V (sed contra).

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Metaphysics I (“Proemium to Wisdom”, philomuthos); Metaphysics V (chapter on being; relatives following quantity and action; measure/measured; column to the right; knowable said relatively); Metaphysics IX (immanent vs. transitive activity; motion most known).
• Aristotle, Poetics (muthos as plot); Categories (relatives, Plato’s definition, knowable without knowledge); Physics IV/VI and later books (time, motion, Zeno) (inferred for book of time).
• Porphyry, Isagoge (genus and species).
• Boethius (nothing more true than something is itself).
• Bertrand Russell’s part-equals-whole argument, De Koninck’s refutation.
• Max Born, The Restless Universe.
• The communion prayer, indignum famulum tuum.
• Psalm “the Lord has been made a refuge for us” (reply 2; locus not given).

His questions #

• How can something truly be said of God starting in time, when God is eternal? Because of a change in the creature, not in Him: the relation is of reason on His side, real on ours.
• Is “Socrates is Socrates” a real relation? No; in reality there is only one Socrates, the mind takes him twice.
• Does my knowing the tree affect the tree, add something to it? No; so “known by me” is a relation of reason in the tree, though the tree is really known because I really know it.
• Is the column being on my right based on something in the column? No; the relation is really in me, and the column is named from me.
• Any change in the column when it goes from my right to my left? No, the change is in me — as the creature changes, not God.
• If lordship is not in God really, is God not really Lord? He really is Lord, because the creature is really subject to Him, not because anything is added to Him.
• Did God always love us? Did He always create us? He always loved and knew us (immanent operation); creation had a beginning (exterior effect).
• Can I be taller than something without it at the same time being shorter? No; such relatives are together by nature, judged by their meanings.
• Which relation is the strict one, knowable–knowledge or known–knowledge? The known in act to knowledge in act.