Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

A clear title. – In the body, a single conclusion, responsive to the question in the affirmative, with a modification. The conclusion is: God can be named by us from creatures, but not as He is in Himself.

The conclusion is proved with respect to both parts at once. Words are signs of the intellect's conceptions, and the intellect's conceptions are likenesses of things: therefore words are referred to the things to be signified through the mediation of the intellect's conceptions. Therefore, in whatever way something is understood by us, in that same way can it be named by us. Therefore God can be named by us from creatures, and not as He is in Himself.

The antecedent is from the Philosopher, I Periherm. The consequences, both the first and the second, are left as known. But the last is proved, with respect to the first part of the consequent, because God is known by us through creatures in three ways, as was said; and with respect to the second part, because God in this life cannot be seen by us through essence. – And for clarity of the terms, there is added in the text an exemplary declaration from the opposite side, how names do not signify God according as He is in Himself. And he intends that to signify a thing according as it is, is to signify the term of its nature, as "man" (which is impossible here concerning God), since all names signify either terms of common things, or of negations, or of relations, etc., or of composites of these, as is clear inductively.

II. Concerning this part a doubt arises. Scotus, indeed, in I, distinction XXII, single question, discussing this proposition taken as assumed, as a thing is understood, so also is it named, distinguishes it: namely, with respect to the imposition of the name, or with respect to the use of the imposed name. And he says three things. First, that with respect to imposition it seems false. He proves this as follows. Substance is not understood by us distinctly in its own nature, and yet it is signified. Therefore we can impose names signifying more distinctly than we understand. But the consequence, and the antecedent as to its second part, is proved: because, for example, when the accidents and properties of a stone are known, we impose a name upon that substance of the stone, intending that it be signified by the name; and yet we do not know it distinctly. – Second, that with respect to use it is simply false. – Third, that the wayfarer can use many names expressing the divine essence under the aspect of the divine essence itself. These two are proved: because it is likely that in sacred

The writing of names of this kind, as the Jews say of the name tetragrammaton, etc., whether these names were imposed by God or by an angel.

III. To these objections, insofar as they do not accord with the truth, a reply must be given. And to the first indeed, namely that it is not possible to impose a name signifying more distinctly than what is conceived. The cause is given in the text: because words signify things only through the mediation of a conception of the intellect; therefore signification is caused by the conception; therefore distinct signification presupposes a distinct conception, and confused a confused one, and greater a greater, and lesser a lesser, etc. Why, then, should these be excepted from this most universal rule of cause and caused? – But its proof is worth nothing: both because the antecedent is false as to its first part, and because as to its second part it is badly proven. For I say—and we find this to be so by experience—that when accidents are known, we know that some thing underlies them, and that it exists and subsists in itself, etc.: and such a thing will never be signified more than it is known. For if it is known confusedly, as in the example given, it will never be signified except confusedly. From such a name no one will ever understand more than the one imposing it perfectly apprehended: although, by his own better natural ability, once he has come to know the meaning of some name in reality, he may come to know other things by discursive reasoning, just as we draw conclusions from principles. But this does not happen by the force of the name's signification. Hence Scotus himself, in that same place, seems finally to leave the first claim in doubt.

On the second point, however, Scotus speaks well: for we experience that we use many names with confused knowledge before we arrive at a distinct knowledge of those terms.

But concerning the third point: because, as experience testifies, we have no such divine name; and again, because such names would be given to men in vain, since we cannot know God in Himself; and because this novelty is asserted without sufficient authority; and because Dionysius says in Book I of the Celestial Hierarchy that it is impossible for us to be illumined by the divine ray in any other way than when it is hidden under a variety of sacred veils — it seems to me that Scotus's statement is simply false, and one must say, as the text states, that God in this life is not nameable by us except from creatures; and this both with respect to the imposition of names and their use.

IV. In response to the second objection, the novice might wonder how the abstract signifies in the manner of that-which, and not in the manner of a subsistent: since it is a substantive noun, as whiteness, yet it is proper to a substantive noun to signify in the manner of a substance.

To this it is briefly said that the fallacy of the Consequent occurs here, by affirming determinately from the mode of substance to this mode. For a substantive noun signifies in the manner of a substance, that is, as standing per se, that is, in isolation: and not in the manner of a subsistent being.

And if it is urged that snubness also signifies curvature in the nose, and consequently does not signify the form alone, but with its subject: the answer is that here there is no question of signification and what follows upon it, but of the mode of signifying. Now the abstract and the concrete agree in signification: for each signifies the pure form, as is said concerning the white in the Categories¹, and from the nature of the form signified it is necessary that each be conjoined to the subject of the form signified. But in their mode of signifying they differ: for the concrete imports the subject and the composite by its mode of signifying, as its first significate (in token whereof we say that snub is a curved nose, expressing the nose before the curvature); whereas the abstract either does not import the subject by its mode of signifying (but from the nature of the thing signified), or, if it does import it, it imports it not principally but last; hence conversely we say that snubness is the curvature of the nose.

It signifies, therefore, the abstract in the manner of a substance in this respect: because it signifies that thing per se, that is, not with another, by reason of its mode of signifying; and this either simply or principally. The concrete, however, by reason of its mode of signifying, principally signifies something else together with the thing first signified. — Hence the saying of Avicenna, censured by Averroes in Book V of the Metaphysics, commentary XIV, is true if it is understood with respect to the mode of signifying. Nor does Averroes's argument conclude the opposite: for it holds only in what is signified formally by the force of the signification itself.