Trinity, Question 39, Article 4: Can 'God' Stand for a Person? (Meaning vs. Supposition, 'God from God', Metaphor and Irony)

Orientation #

He opens straight on “Article Four here” and says the Father’s generating power “from divine nature, but through him as one having the divine nature” is something “I will get into in another question”; no explicit reference to last time. The previous class treated a.3 (plural predication of essential names) and the next continues with a.5–6 (abstract essential names standing for a person).

The class, in order #

1. The question and the five objections (“essential concrete names are not able to stand for a person”) #

Point: he reads the five objections against “God generates God” as a genuine question about what “God” stands for.

1. Obj. 1 — “as the sophists say” (aside: the sophists “started grammar”), a singular term signifies the same thing it stands for; “God” is singular since it has no plural; it signifies the essence; so it stands for the nature, not a person.
2. Obj. 2 — a subject term is not restricted by the predicate by reason of signification, only by reason of the time co-signified (as a verb does); “God creates” stands for the essence, so “God generates” cannot make “God” stand for a person by reason of a notional/relative predicate — “it’s like you’re changing the meaning of it”.
3. Obj. 3 — if “God generates” is true because the Father generates, then “God does not generate” is true because the Son does not; “what’s affirmed of one is denied the other”, so two gods.
4. Obj. 4 — God generates either himself (no: Augustine, “no thing generates itself”) or another God (no: there is only one God).
5. Obj. 5 — either the God who is God the Father (then the Father is generated) or a God who is not God the Father (then there is a God who is not God the Father, which is false). Aside: this recalls doing “the formal syllogism” in college — “it gets a little bit complicated”.

2. Sed contra and the two opinions (“God from God, light from light”) #

• Sed contra: the Creed (“the symbol”) says “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” — “the God who is from God is the Son”; the Creed says it, so “God” must stand for a person.
• First opinion: “God” and like names, by their very nature, stand for the essence, and are “drawn to” standing for a person only by the addition of something notional; this comes from divine simplicity, where “the one having and what is had” are the same, so “the one having deity” = God.
• Thomas comes in “with a distinction” (aside: a Dominican’s teacher’s rule, “never affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish” — “exaggeration, but a little truth”): one must note not only the thing signified but the way of signifying.
• Better opinion: “God” signifies the divine nature “as in the one having it”, just as “man” signifies human nature in the underlying subject; so from its way of signifying it can properly stand for a person.
• Three uses: “God creates” — stands for the nature, because the predicate belongs by reason of the form signified; “God generates” — one person (Father); “God agrees” [ASR; the predicate here is the one the Father and Son share, ed.: likely “spirates”] — two persons; “King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God” — three.
• Student: “am I a man from a man?” — yes; the generator and generated are the same in nature. He: in “a man generates a man” the first “man” stands for the father, the second for the son; the difference from God is that human nature is multiplied there, whereas in “God generates God” the divine nature “means one”.

3. Replies 1 and 2: standing for what it does not signify (“stand for something that it doesn’t what signify”) #

• Ad 1: “God” agrees with singular terms in that the form signified is not multiplied, but with common terms in that the form is found in many subjects (persons); so it need not always stand for the essence it signifies. He flags this: “it sounds a little strange” that a name stands for something it does not signify — but it signifies as having the divine nature, and that is true of a person.
• Would you say “the divine nature generates”? No. But “one who has the divine nature can generate”, and “another who has the divine nature can be generated” — hence “God is born”. Aside: the old Christmas-day masses, one on the divine birth, a later one on the human birth.
• The Father’s power of generating “is from divine nature, but through him as one having the divine nature” — deferred to “another question”.
• Ad 2: the objection only tells against those who deny that “God” has a natural supposition for a person; since it signifies what has the divine nature and each person has it, the verb shows which person it stands for: “God is born” → the Son; “God generates” → the Father.

4. Reply 3: why “man” and “God” differ in supposition (“in another way the name God stands for a person”) #

Point: the long reply turns on whether the common nature is one in things or only in the mind.

• Translation aside: “stands for” is “probably the best way of putting it” for suppositio; the supposition of a name is not the same as its meaning.

1. “Man”: human nature is divided among diverse individual subjects, so by itself “man” stands for a person (an individual), even with nothing added; the unity/community of human nature is not secundum rem but only in the mind (“out here in the real world it’s all individual, your human nature and my human nature”); so “man” stands for the common nature only when something added requires it — “man is a species”, one of Porphyry’s five predicables.
2. “God”: the divine nature is one in common secundum rem, so by itself “God” stands for the common nature; only an addition determines it to a person.
3. Hence “God generates” (notional act) → the Father; but in “God does not generate” nothing determines it to the Son, so it would mean generation is repugnant to the divine nature — false; add something of the Son (“the generated God does not generate”) and it is true.
4. So “God generating / God not generating” does not follow unless persons are placed: “the Father is God generating, the Son is God not generating” — and no many gods, since Father and Son are one God. Aside on Porphyry: “very anti-Christian” (Thomas somewhere says Augustine gave pride as what kept them out of the faith), yet the Isagoge is accepted by all — Albert’s paraphrase, Cajetan’s commentary, Thomas’s constant use, the “Mohammedans” — “it’s marvelous”. Aside: “read that in the quiet of your cell” — the letter of advice attributed to Thomas; Moses the Ethiopian, “stay in your cell, and your cell will teach you all things.”

5. Replies 4 and 5: “himself”, “another God”, “the God who is the Father” (“the pronoun self, since it’s reciprocal”) #

• Ad 4: “the Father generates himself God” is false, because the reciprocal “self” refers to the same subject (“I generated myself”). Augustine (Contra Maximinum), “the Father generates another self”: either ablative (someone other than himself), or a simple relation — then improper/emphatic speech meaning “another most like himself”. “He generates another God” is also false: though the Son is alius (masculine), “another God” would put the distinction around the substantial thing, signifying a distinction of nature. Some concede it, taking alius as substantive with “God” construed with it — improper, to be avoided lest it give occasion of [error]. “I won’t try to unfold it anymore.”
• Ad 5: “he generates a God who is God the Father” is false: “Father” construed with “God” restricts it to the person, so the Father would be generated; hence the negative (“a God who is not God the Father”) is true. If the construction is not “appositive” (he and students grope for the grammarians’ word) but something is “interjected”, the affirmative is true and the negative false, but that is a “stretched, extorted” exposition; better simply deny the affirmative and concede the negative.
• Praepositinus says both are false, since the relative “who” refers to the subject in the affirmative but to the signified nature in the negative; Thomas: unreasonable, because “according to the philosopher”, of the same thing of which there is affirmation there can be negation. “Put in your pipe and smoke it for a while.”

6. The basic thing: meaning vs. what a word stands for (“kind of subtle distinction there between the meaning”) #

Point: he restates the body and then makes the distinction “more known to us” with human examples.

• “God is good”, “God creates”: stands for the divine nature, by reason of the predicate; “God generates”: stands for the Father, because “God” signifies what has the divine nature and the Father has it; which one is clear from the predicate.
• “A man generates a man”: if “man” meant the same and stood for the same, generator and generated would be the same, and nothing generates itself. Not equivocation (“it’s not two different meanings of a man”); same meaning, but the first stands for the father, the second for the son.
• “Man is a species; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is a species” (a sophistical argument): same meaning, different supposition — in “man is a species” it stands for something in our mind (it is in the mind that something is universal), in “Socrates is a man” for something in the real world. Student asks whether that is the same as “the way it’s signified”; he: “no, I don’t think it’s the way it’s signified”, it is a difference in supposition.
• “A man teaches a man”: if the same man, he would be both knowing and ignorant, like “giving birth to yourself” — so it seems impossible; yet “sometimes, rarely, a man teaches a man” is true. Student: “man as teacher teaches a man as student” — he: but “teacher” and “student” are not in the sentence; better to say the first “a man” stands for the teacher, the second for the student, than that “man” has two meanings; “a teacher and a student are both a man in the same sense”.
• Against the temptation to multiply meanings: students say “animal” differs in “a dog is an animal” and “a cat is an animal” — that would make dog and cat two meanings of “animal”; like square and rhombus as two meanings of “quadrilateral”, tragedy and comedy of “drama”, two and three of “number” — “no, they’re one and the same meaning”.
• “A man kicks a man” (you can kick yourself “in some sense, but it’s kind of hard”); “man’s inhumanity to man” (student). Conclusion: “it takes a while to get thinking about this supposition, but there is something there” — similar problems arise even with things other than God.

7. Digression: is metaphor “improper supposition”? (“the meaning of his words is not the meaning of the speaker”) #

Point: he rejects the definition of metaphor he met early in philosophy and gives Thomas’s account of figurative speech.

• Beginners said a metaphor is “improper supposition”: “you’re a pig” — “pig” stands for a glutton, which it shouldn’t. He doesn’t think so: “pig” stands for the four-footed animal.
• Thomas, defending St Paul’s irony (in the Pauline commentary, “I think it’s in Galatians”) from lying: in figurative speech the meaning of the words and the meaning of the speaker are not the same — “kind of a strange thing to be doing” — but what you mean can be understood from what you say. Two figures: metaphor, by a distant likeness (pig/glutton; “you rat”; Boethius on the man departing from reason becoming like a beast — fox, hawks, doves); irony, by the opposite (the drunk student, “what a fine example”; “gee, you’re nice” to someone mean).
• Figurative speech vs. mistake vs. lie: Romeo calling Juliet “Rosalind” is a mistake; calling her “honey” is figurative; lying is a third thing. Hyperbole: “I told you a million times” is not a lie.
• Why metaphor: in daily life and fiction, to express emotions; in Scripture, “for the reasons Thomas gives in the beginning of the book” — the great distance of the things, to hide the truth somewhat, and so that “the whole of us should be subject to God”: genuflecting subjects the legs, metaphor subjects the imagination — “more important… than your feet”.
• Where Thomas treats metaphor: student asks; “don’t worry about that”, the Pauline passage is the key one for him. Asides: the imagination “always leading us astray, as Jane Austen would say”; politicians’ images (Kennedy “cold as ice”; Humphrey genuinely nice, Freeman not; Reagan nice in private); the moment of truth in Austen and in All’s Well That Ends Well — Parolles (“words” in French) captured by disguised comrades, “who cannot be betrayed by the plot?”; a film where CIA candidates are secretly tested during a two-week “delay”; the “every man has his price” joke (“we already know what you are, just haggling about the price”); “an offer you couldn’t refuse”.

His words #

• “stand for” — his and the translators’ rendering of suppositio; not the same as the meaning of the name [ed.: supposition].
• “the sophists” — the Latin sophistae of obj. 1, “the guys who started grammar”.
• “notional” / “relative” predicate — a predicate such as “generates” that pertains to a person.
• “the way of signifying” — what must be noted besides the thing signified; “God” signifies the nature “as in the one having it”.
• secundum rem — “in things”, as opposed to in the mind / “according to consideration”.
• “five predicables” — Porphyry’s universals; “species” is one.
• “another self” — his reading of alius se in Augustine; ablative or simple relation; “improper or emphatic speech”.
• “appositive” — the grammarians’ term for the construction in ad 5, groped for in class [ed.: appositive]; “interjected” = placed in between.
• “stretched, extorted exposition” — of the alternative reading in ad 5.
• “improper supposition” — the beginners’ (rejected) definition of metaphor.
• “figurative speech” — where the meaning of the words and of the speaker differ; metaphor (distant likeness) vs. irony (opposite); distinct from mistake, lie, hyperbole.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 39, a. 4: objections 1–5, sed contra, body, ad 1–5 (verified).
• Nicene Creed: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God” (as sed contra).
• Augustine, Contra Maximinum: “the Father generates another self” (as cited in ad 4).
• 1 Tim 1:17 (inferred): “King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God” (as cited in the body).

Mentioned

• Porphyry, Isagoge; Albert the Great’s paraphrase; Cajetan’s commentary.
• Augustine on pride keeping the Platonists out of the faith (“Thomas said somewhere”).
• Praepositinus (in ad 5); “the philosopher” on affirmation and negation of the same thing.
• Thomas, letter of advice to a student (“quiet of your cell”); Moses the Ethiopian’s saying.
• Thomas, commentary on St Paul (Galatians, “I think”) on irony; Thomas “in the beginning of the book” on why Scripture uses metaphor.
• Boethius on the man who departs from reason becoming like a beast.
• Jane Austen’s novels; Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well (Parolles); Romeo and Juliet (Rosalind).

His questions #

• “You say God from God. What does God stand for?” The God who is from God is the Son.
• “If God signifies the divine nature, would you say the divine nature generates?” No; but one who has the divine nature can generate, and another can be generated.
• “Am I a man from a man?” (student) Yes; the first “man” stands for the father, the second for the son, but human nature is multiplied, the divine is one.
• “Can you say a man generates a man? It’s not equivocation?” Same meaning, different supposition; not two meanings of “man”.
• “Man is a species; Socrates is a man — does man mean the same thing?” Yes; it stands once for what is in the mind, once for what is in reality.
• “Is that the same as saying it’s the way it’s signified?” (student) No — it is a difference in supposition.
• “Can a man teach a man?” Sometimes, rarely; the first “a man” stands for the teacher, the second for the student.
• “Does animal mean the same thing in ‘a dog is an animal’ and ‘a cat is an animal’?” Yes, as square and rhombus are not two meanings of “quadrilateral”.
• “Is that really what a metaphor is — improper supposition?” He doesn’t think so: the word means the pig; what the speaker means is understood by a distant likeness.
• “Where does Thomas talk about metaphor?” (student) “Don’t worry about that”; key passage for him is the commentary on St Paul on irony.