Commentaria in Summam contra Gentiles, Liber I

After the comparison of the divine names to the things signified, Saint Thomas treats of the comparison of the names among themselves¹.

I. And this conclusion is posited: Although names of this kind said of God signify the same thing, they are nevertheless not synonyms.

For the clarification of which it must be known, as Simplicius reports in the Categories, chapter on Univocals², that this word synonyma has a twofold signification among the Greeks.

For sometimes it signifies a plurality of names with unity of concept and of the thing signified, which Speusippus called polyonyms, and which are now also called by the Latins synonyms, as Paris and Alexander, which were the names of the son of Priam. — But sometimes it signifies the unity of one name said of many things with unity of concept as well: and these are now called univocals.

Aristotle used this word in different ways in different places. For where he treats of genera, or of words signifying genera, he used it in its second signification, as is clear in the Categories³, where what our authors call univocals he called synonyms. And this fittingly: for words of genera are synonyms in this second signification, but not in the first. — But where he wished to determine the multiplicity of words and their multiple signification as such, he used this word in its first signification, as is clear in his Poetics⁴ and in Book III of the Rhetoric⁵.

From this it is clear that, on the side of what is signified, synonyms are opposed in the first signification to homonyms, which we call equivocals: for these are things that agree in name and differ in account, while the former are things that agree in account and differ in names. — In the second signification, however, they are opposed to heteronyms, which we may call alteronyms: for these differ in both name and account, as man and horse; whereas the former agree in name and account, as Socrates and Plato agree in the name and account of man.

Here, therefore, synonyms are taken in the first signification, according as the Latin grammarians use this term.

II. But the conclusion is proved first; second, certain doubts are removed⁶.

As to the first, it is argued thus. These names do not signify the same ratio. Therefore they are not synonyms. — The consequence is evident, because synonyms must import entirely the same ratio. — But the antecedent is proved. Diverse things are assimilated to God through diverse forms. Therefore our intellect is also assimilated to him through diverse conceptions, because it is led to know him through diverse rationes or perfections of creatures. But according to diverse conceptions the intellect has devised diverse names which it attributes to God. Therefore such names do not say the same ratio.

III. As to the second, he removes two doubts. The first is this: — For someone might say: To conceive many things of one thing involves falsity or vanity. Therefore likewise concerning God, who is most simple.

But he responds that our intellect, conceiving many things of it, is neither false nor vain: because divine esse is of such a kind that certain things can be assimilated to it according to multiple forms.

The second doubt is this. These names have the same signification, because they signify one and the same thing. Therefore they are synonyms.

It responds that the signification is not the same in all of these: since a name signifies the conception of the intellect before it signifies the thing understood.

IV. For the declaration of the conclusion, it must be considered, according to the doctrine of Saint Thomas in Potentia Dei, q. VII, 5, and the Prima Parte, q. XIII, a. 4, that the intellectual forms of our intellect, caused by created things, are assimilated to God in some way, just as are the very perfections from which they are caused: for what is like one thing is assimilated also to that to which it is like, insofar as they are alike; if Socrates is like Plato in whiteness, and Plato in whiteness is like Socrates, it follows that Socrates is also like Socrates in whiteness. Since therefore the species of our intellect are likenesses of creatures, and these are certain deficient likenesses of God, it follows that those very species are also certain likenesses of God. But when the intellect is assimilated to some thing through an intelligible form, the conceptions formed according to that species are also certain likenesses of the thing and are truly attributed to the thing, either simply or proportionally. Thus, when the intellect forms a concept of a creature from a likeness existing within itself, that concept is in some way a concept of God, but imperfect, although adequate to the creature. From that concept of the creature, however, the intellect forms a concept of God which is not simply the same as the concept of the creature, but proportionally: just as the perfection of God and of the creature is the same proportionally.

This, then, is what Saint Thomas says: since from the fact that the intellect is led to know God from the perfections of creatures, it is assimilated to Him through diverse conceptions and in a certain manner: namely, because the intellect, informed by the species of creatures, forms concepts of God proportioned to its concepts of creatures, by which it is led by the hand into knowledge of God, while it considers that what is in creatures must be in God as in their cause, in a more eminent mode.

V. As to the solution of the first doubt ⁷, it must be known that the intellect is said to be false in conceiving when its concept cannot belong to the thing: as if I were to conceive of man that he is an irrational animal. It is said to be vain, however, when nothing in reality corresponds to its conception: as in conceiving a chimera, for there is no chimera in reality. Our intellect, therefore, is not false in forming many concepts of God, who exists as one and simple: because just as it does not conflict with his simplicity that diverse and multiple forms of creatures be assimilated to him, so it does not conflict with his unity that diverse conceptions, proportioned to the forms of creatures, be attributed to him. For since all intelligible forms, representing the perfections of creatures, are also in some way likenesses of God, the conceptions which the intellect forms of God from those species are truly attributed to him insofar as those species are his likenesses: for whatever the intellect conceives of a thing from its intelligible species is most truly attributed to that thing.

Likewise, it is not vain. For something in reality corresponds to such conceptions. Just as the divinity, existing as one and most simple, has it that all the perfections of creatures are assimilated to it, insofar as they are produced from it and patterned upon it; so it has it that diverse conceptions of it can be formed, though they represent its nature imperfectly and inadequately.

Hence, if it is asked whether the perfections signified by different names have any distinction of reason in God, it will be said that they do indeed have an actual distinction of reason in the intellect of a creature, because a conception is not formally and subjectively in the thing understood, but in the intellect; but in the very thing itself they have a distinction fundamentally and virtually, inasmuch as the thing itself is such that diverse concepts, imperfectly representing it, can be formed of it by a finite and limited intellect.

VI. As to the removal of the second doubt ⁸, it must be known that a name is said to signify the conception of the intellect prior to the thing understood, not because the conception itself is properly the thing signified—for it is clear that when we say Socrates is a man, we do not mean that Socrates is a conception of the intellect—but because it is that by which the intellect signifies the thing, for the intellect does not signify the thing except as conceived by it in this way. And therefore it follows that several names said of God are not synonymous: namely, because they do not signify entirely the same thing. For although the thing ultimately signified is entirely one in itself, since one simple divinity is signified through all those names; nevertheless the conceptions through which the thing is signified are many and manifold. This indeed makes them not synonymous.

But how the thing signified by all these names is altogether one, and why no actual distinction grounded in the nature of the thing should be posited, as Scotus held, I Sent., d. II, q. IV, and d. VIII, q. III, has been sufficiently disputed by others, especially by Capreolus, I Sent., d. VIII, q. IV. Therefore let this question be passed over for now.