Summa I, q.13, aa.8–10: What the Name 'God' Signifies, Whether It Can Be Shared, and How It Is Said Analogously

Orientation #

He says he has “been asked to go back over eight and nine and ten” because of a malfunction in the recording. He notes that in aa. 8–11 Thomas descends to actual names of God: three articles on the name “God”, then one on the name God gave Moses, “I am who am”. The previous class treated a. 7 (relative names said of God in time); the next continues a. 10’s replies and moves into aa. 11–12.

The class, in order #

1. Article 8, the objections and sed contra (“God is said from theein, which is to run”) #

Point: the first objection derives “God” from operations, so the name would signify what God does, not his nature.

• Damascene’s three etymologies: theein, to run (to foster all things); aithein, to burn (“our God is a consuming fire”); theasthai, to consider all things, the one Thomas “usually tends to favor”. All pertain to operation.
• Students compare editions on the Latin for “to run” (currere vs. curare, “to care”); he likes “care” too, but leaves it: “Anyway.”
• Sed contra: Ambrose, first book on faith, God is a nomen naturae. Aside: today is Ambrose’s feast, “appropriate”, one of the four or five great Western doctors.

2. Article 8 body: that from which a name is taken vs. what it signifies (“the etymology of the name”) #

Point: Thomas’s distinction between id a quo nomen imponitur (etymology) and what the name is imposed to signify (its meaning).

• Example, philosophy: asked “what is philosophy?”, even philosophers say “love of wisdom”; but Aristotle (and, he thinks, Plato) use the word for the knowledge the lover of wisdom pursues; in the 14 books of wisdom Aristotle calls it sometimes wisdom, sometimes philosophy. So love of wisdom is what the name is taken from, not its meaning; the Latin gives sapientia, not amor sapientiae.
• Aside from the seventh book of wisdom: a definition is always a logos, a compositio nominum, never one name; sometimes we merely give a more familiar synonym (a student’s “desiccation” = “drying out”), which is not a definition.
• We know substance from properties and operations (dog: four-footed, barks; cat: meows, but that is not what separates them as kinds), so we sometimes name substance from operation: lapis from laedit pedem, hurts the foot. Whether the etymology is true or false (“a good Isidorian etymology”), the name signifies the substance apt to do this, not the action.
• Aside on impositio nominis: a word equivocal by reason gets a new imposition; a metaphor does not (calling a glutton “pig” or a nasty fellow “rat” is “kind of in passing”, not a new meaning). Thomas explains impositio/positus from Paul’s being placed in his position: someone else places you, there is firmness, and it leads to something. Same in the definition of syllogism, statements “laid down” (positis): “I’m going to lay down the law” — the law doesn’t lay itself down, it is firm, a course of action follows. Premises must be laid down together and firm in the mind or one could not syllogize.
• Aside: “you can tell a man’s understanding by the examples he chooses”; a modern philosopher’s example is interesting in itself but doesn’t illustrate; Aristotle and Thomas pick simple, clear ones, often reused; this one is Thomas’s own.
• Things known secundum se (hot, cold, whiteness, per se sensibles) are not named from others; there the source and the meaning coincide.
• Application: God is not known in his nature but from operations and effects, so “God” is a name of operation as to its source: universal providence (all who speak of God intend one with providence over all; Dionysius, Divine Names ch. 12, the deity sees all by perfect providence and goodness), but imposed to signify the divine nature.
• Reply 1: all Damascene lists pertains to providence, the source of the name.
• Reply 2 (how name what we don’t know): we signify a nature as far as we know it from properties and effects. “Stone” signifies the definition of stone, since we know what a stone is (the ratio a name signifies is a definition, fourth book of wisdom) — “I’m not sure we do know what a stone is.” From effects we do not know the divine nature as it is, but in three other ways: eminence (summum bonum), causality (first cause), negation (bodyless, not composed). The name signifies the divine nature as above all things, beginning of all, removed from all.

3. Article 9, whether “God” is communicable: the objections (“Partakers of the divine nature”) #

Point: three reasons the name seems communicable, against Wisdom 14.

• Obj. 1: 2 Peter 1:4, partakers of the divine nature — a text Photinus used to argue Christ was not God by birth.
• Obj. 2: proper names are incommunicable, but “God” is appellative (a student offers “nickname”; he settles on “appellation”), as its plural shows: “I have said that you are gods” — another Photinus text.
• Obj. 3: names taken from operation (good, wise) are communicable.
• Sed contra: Wisdom 14, “they placed the incommunicable name upon wood and stones.”

4. Article 9 body: communicable properly or by likeness; suppositum and form (“every form existing in a singular suppositum”) #

Point: a name is communicable properly when its whole meaning is shared; by likeness when only some property is.

• Properly: “man” of each one here — you have the whole meaning, “two-footed animal with reason, and no feathers.” “Lion” of all with the lion nature; by likeness, of the audacious or brave, “lion-hearted”, kings called lions. Aside: Irving’s Abbotsford, Walter Scott’s cat sitting on a chair putting its paw on each dog as it came in — the regal authority of even the little cat.
• Suppositum: no exact English; an individual in the genus of substance, more general than person (a suppositum of rational nature). Student asks the contrast again; he repeats it, adding this matters in the Trinity, where some say two supposita and one person or vice versa without understanding the words.
• Every form in a singular suppositum is common to many either secundum rem or at least secundum rationem: human nature both ways; the sun’s nature (Thomas thought there was one sun) only secundum rationem, since one can understand it in many supposita. Examples: the only cube in the world — the cubical shape could be in many; the Pietà, if never imitated, the only marble with that shape, yet the shape could be in many pieces without contradiction (his son brought him a little copy, so now it is common secundum rem too). Thomas is thinking of material things where matter individuates.
• Reason: understanding grasps the nature by separation from the singular, so being in one or many supposita is outside the nature’s understanding. But the singular as singular is divided from all others; a name for what separates me from everyone (“this flesh and this bone”) is incommunicable in re et ratione; a plurality of this individual cannot fall in apprehension (even if someone thought exactly as I do, it would not be my thinking). Such names are communicable only by likeness: someone called an Achilles for his fortitude.
• Subsisting forms, individuated to themselves, understood as they are, are communicable neither in reality nor understanding; but since we understand them as composites, we impose concrete names signifying nature in a suppositum, so as to meaning the reasoning is the same as for composed things.
• Application: “God” signifies the divine nature, which cannot be multiplied (even in the Trinity it remains one), so incommunicable secundum rem; communicable secundum opinionem, as “Son” would be for those positing many sons; Galatians 4:8, “those who by nature are not gods”, gloss: gods by opinion of men. Communicable by likeness, not in the whole meaning: “I have said, you are gods” (Psalm 81; he thinks Christ cites it when accused).
• A name imposed from the suppositum, God as this something, would be incommunicable in every way: perhaps the Tetragrammaton (he asks the Father about his Hebrew; four letters). Aside: strict Jews say Adonai instead, and, out of reverence, even Adonai only in prayer; otherwise Hashem, “the name” — “a name for the name.”

5. Article 9, replies (“not according to its whole meaning”) #

Point: each objection turns on a sense in which sharing is possible or not.

• Reply 1: the divine nature is communicable only by partaking of likeness, and that likeness is very distant — the Fourth Lateran Council (he first says “Vatican” and corrects): no likeness of creature to God without a greater unlikeness. A student raises Christ’s prayer in John that we be one as he and the Father are one; he answers: tremendous distance — bring the Trinity’s unity down to ours and you destroy the Trinity; bring ours up to it and you make you and me one man, which we cannot be. Though Scripture says “one soul” (Acts, he thinks).
• Reply 2: “God” is nomen appellativum (to be called), not proper, because it signifies the nature as in one having it; God in reality is neither universal nor particular, but names follow the mode of being in our knowledge, not in things; in truth incommunicable, like “Son”.
• Reply 3: good, wise are imposed from perfections proceeding from God into creatures, signifying the perfections absolutely, so truly communicable; “God” from the operation proper to God, experienced continuously, to signify the nature. His gloss: “goodness” absolutely applies to God or creatures; add a restriction — summum bonum — and it is only of God; add the creature’s way of having it — virtuous, a habit; health of the body — and only of creatures.

6. Article 10, the objections (“the idol is God”) #

Point: whether “God” said of God by nature, by participation, by opinion is univocal.

• Presupposes a. 9’s three ways. Aside (garbled): the crowd at Ephesus and Paul stopping them sacrificing to him as Zeus.
• Obj. 1: with diverse meanings there is no contradiction (equivocation impedes contradiction: one affirms in one meaning, the other denies in another); but the Catholic’s “the idol is not God” contradicts the pagan’s “the idol is God”; so univocal.
• Obj. 2: carnal delights are called happiness by opinion, yet “beatitude” is said univocally of opined and true beatitude — “Is that so? We’ll see.”
• Obj. 3: univocals have the same ratio; the Catholic means by “God” something omnipotent, to be venerated above all; so does the Gentile of the idol.
• Sed contra 1: what is in the understanding is a likeness of the thing (Peri Hermeneias I, the book on the statement); “animal” of a true and a painted animal is equivocal.
• Sed contra 2: no one signifies what he does not know; the Gentile does not know the divine nature.
• Thomas replies to both sets — “maybe a sign” the truth lies between univocal and purely equivocal (“by chance”).

7. Article 10 body: univocal, equivocal, analogous (“does it mean the same thing”) #

Point: “God” in the three meanings is said analogously.

• Univocal: exactly the same meaning of all. He asks students whether “animal” means the same of dog and cat; some say no because dog and cat differ — but “animal” signifies only what they share, “a living body that has sensation. Period.” A student asks what the “air”/error is: they put the differences of the subjects into the meaning of the predicate, or mix up the meaning of a word with what it’s said of. Student: are those the same? No — though “bat” (baseball wood vs. belfry creature) tempts one to think meaning just depends on what it’s said of.
• Understanding said of man and angel: sometimes Thomas says both have understanding; sometimes reserves it for the angel and gives man reason, “a kind of overshadowed understanding”, defective — so the word is said of man, and denied of him, in different meanings. Test: “man” said of each of you, exactly one meaning; “are you a man or a mouse?” perhaps another.
• Definitions: univocal, omnino the same ratio; equivocal, omnino diverse; analogous, the name in one meaning must be placed in the definition of the same name in other meanings.
• Example from Thomas’s Sentences: objection that prudence/foresight is placed in the definition of moral virtue, so cannot be divided against it. Thomas: things divided don’t enter one another’s definitions when the common term belongs to all equally (dog not in the definition of cat, animal said equally); but moral virtue is “a habit in the middle… as determined by foresight” (right reason); the good of man is to accord with reason, foresight as a virtue of reason has that good essentially, moral virtues (in emotions or will) by participation; what is said essentially defines what is so by participation.
• Applied: grace (sanctifying) is defined as a partaking of the divine nature (Peter’s divinae consortes naturae); we do not become God; “God” of us signifies partaking, defined by the divine nature — as foresight in the definition of moral virtue.
• Thomas’s example: being of substance in the definition of being of accident. Seventh book of wisdom: “definition” comes from “limits” (city limits of Worcester: all of Worcester inside, no part of Shrewsbury or Holden), yet defining an accident brings in something other — the subject: health is the good condition of the body, “something of another”. Likewise “it belongs to the wise to order”: wisdom is the highest perfection of reason, and reason (Shakespeare) is “the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after”, so it most knows and makes order — wisdom defined as something of reason, not a package that could be left outside the mind. Hence Aristotle: either no definition of accident, or in a lesser sense.
• Fourth book of wisdom: healthy of animal in the definition of healthy of urine (sign of health) and medicine (factivum, produces or maintains it); complexion as sign; a “sick diet” produces tooth rot. Aside: the “cokaholic” neighbour who had the national company make the truck deliver to his house; a high-school history teacher blaming bad teeth on factory coke; the loose tooth in a glass of coke.
• Application: “God” as taken for the true God is in the meaning of “God” by participation (something having a likeness of the true God, as Scripture itself names; “let us make man to our image and likeness”, Genesis) and by opinion (what men think is God). Meanings differ, but one is contained in the others, so not said purely equivocally; “there’s a connection among the meanings.” The class ends here, before the replies.

His words #

• id a quo nomen imponitur; that from which a name is taken, the etymology, vs. what it is imposed to signify, its meaning.
• “the 14 books of wisdom”; his name for Aristotle’s work [ed.: Metaphysics].
• compositio nominum; a definition is a putting together of names, never one name.
• impositio nominis; a placing of a name upon something, new in a word equivocal by reason, absent in metaphor; three notes of positus: placed by another, firmness, leads to something.
• secundum se; known by themselves, as per se sensibles.
• eminence, causality, negation; the three ways we know and name the divine nature from effects.
• appellation / nomen appellativum; a name “to be called”, not a proper name; student’s “nickname” not adopted.
• suppositum; an individual in the genus of substance; person is a suppositum of rational nature.
• secundum rem / secundum rationem; common in reality vs. in understanding.
• secundum opinionem; communicable by the opinion of men.
• Tetragrammaton; the four-letter divine name; Adonai, Hashem (“the name”).
• foresight; his rendering of prudentia [ed.: prudence].
• omnino; altogether, entirely, wholly (the same or diverse ratio).
• factivum; productive of (health, of medicine).
• overshadowed / defective understanding; reason in man as against the angel.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 13, a. 8 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 13, a. 9 (whole article)
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 13, a. 10 (objections, sed contra, body up to the application; replies not reached)

Mentioned

• Damascene, first book (on the faith), etymologies of “God”
• Ambrose, first book on faith: God a nomen naturae
• Dionysius, Divine Names, ch. 12
• Aristotle, fourth book of wisdom (the ratio a name signifies is a definition; healthy) and seventh book (definition as logos; definition of accident)
• Aristotle, Peri Hermeneias, first book
• Thomas, commentary on the Sentences (prudence divided against moral virtues)
• 2 Peter 1:4; Psalm 81 “I have said, you are gods”; Wisdom 14; Galatians 4:8 with gloss; Genesis “let us make man to our image”; John, Christ’s prayer for unity; Acts, “one soul”; Paul at Ephesus
• Fourth Lateran Council on likeness and greater unlikeness
• Irving, Abbotsford; Shakespeare on reason as “large discourse” (Hamlet, inferred)

His questions #

• What is philosophy — is it the love of wisdom? That is the etymology; in Aristotle the word names the knowledge the lover of wisdom pursues.
• Why does Thomas distinguish common secundum rem and secundum rationem? Because a form found in one thing (the sun, the only cube, the Pietà) can still be understood in many.
• What is a suppositum, as against a person? An individual in the genus of substance; person is a suppositum of rational nature.
• How is the name “God” said of all three — God by nature, by participation, by opinion? Not univocally, not equivocally, but analogously.
• Does “animal” mean the same thing when said of dog and cat? Yes; it signifies only what they share, a living body with sensation.
• Is the meaning of a word the same thing as what it’s said of? No, though the two are easily confused (bat; understanding of man and angel).
• Do you divide foresight against the moral virtues if it is in their definition? Yes: the good of reason is said essentially of foresight, by participation of the others.
• Is “beatitude” said univocally of true and opined happiness? Left open (“We’ll see what he says”).