Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

The FIRST Conclusion: Names which are said of God through metaphor are said of creatures before they are said of God. The reason is: because, when said of God, they signify nothing else than likenesses.

Second Conclusion: Names which are properly predicated of God are said of God first, if we attend to the thing signified; but they are said of creatures first, if we attend to the imposition of the names.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING this article, there is a doubt about the first conclusion. It is proved to be false. First, from St. Thomas, q. 2 On Truth, art. 11, ad 6, where he says that it is not necessary for the principal analogate to be placed in the definition of the less principal analogate. Behold, St. Thomas openly contradicts himself. Second. Created wisdom is most excellently defined as the contemplation of things through the highest causes: therefore it is not necessary for uncreated wisdom, which is the more principal analogate, to be placed in its definition. And it is confirmed: the principal analogate does not have the character of genus or difference with respect to the less principal analogate: therefore it is not to be placed in its definition, since it would be an essential predicate. And it is confirmed secondly: because the quidditative definition of a thing consists only of genus and difference. To the first argument, he will answer from the doctrine of Cajetan, in the opusculum On Analogy, ch. 7, that the conclusion of this article holds true in analogates of proportion, which are said through metaphor, and in analogates of attribution, since such analogates are said of one analogate through order to another, which is the more principal one; e.g., laughing is said of the flowering meadow through order to the laughter of man. Being too is said of accident through order from substance. But in analogates of proportionality, which are properly said of all the analogates, it is not necessary for one analogate to be placed in the definition of another; e.g., principle is said analogically of the heart of an animal and of the foundation of a house, and yet one analogate is not placed in the definition of the other, since such analogates are not said of one through respect to another, but proportionally of both. And it is of these analogates that St. Thomas speaks in the place cited in the argument. To the second argument: St. Thomas in the cited q. 2 On Truth seems to teach that wisdom, and the other names which are properly said of God, are analogates by the analogy of proportionality, and not of attribution. Whence, according to the doctrine handed down in the preceding solution, it is not necessary for the principal analogate, e.g. uncreated wisdom, to be placed in the definition of the less principal analogate, namely created wisdom. But in this article and the preceding one he teaches most openly that such names are analogates of attribution. Which opinion is most true. Nor does the reason stand in the way which St. Thomas uses in that q. 2 On Truth, which consists in this: for the analogy of attribution a determinate distance is required between the analogates themselves; but between God and creatures there is no determinate distance, since God exceeds every creature to infinity: therefore. This reason, I say, does not stand in the way: for a finite distance on the side of the less principal analogate suffices for the analogy of attribution. And so it is in our case. For on the side of creatures there is a determinate distance with respect to God. For one creature is more distant from God than another by as much as it has a more imperfect nature; e.g., an ant is more distant from God than an angel by as much as the angelic nature is more perfect than the nature of the ant. This solution, therefore, having been rejected, it must be noted first that these names are said of God and creatures by a twofold analogy, as Master Soto notes in his Antepraedicamenta. One is that of proportionality, which consists in this, that as the divine perfection, e.g. wisdom, is related to God, so the created perfection is related to the creature. The other is that of attribution, through order to one exemplar, to one efficient cause, and to one end. Secondly, it must be noted that among analogates of attribution, some import formal relations to the one: as healthy, as said of urine and medicine, imports diverse relations formally to the health which is in the animal. But others do not import formal relations of one analogate to another, but fundamental ones; that is, they import a form which befits the less principal analogate through a relation to the more principal analogate. These analogates of the second kind are all those which are formally predicated of all the analogates, of which sort are all the names which are properly said of God and creatures.

These things supposed, let the first Conclusion to the argument be that these names, insofar as they are analogates by the analogy of proportionality, do not require the principal analogate to be placed in the definition of the less principal analogate. And in this sense proceeds the doctrine of St. Thomas in the cited q. 2 On Truth. Second Conclusion: among analogates which import a formal relation to the principal analogate, it is necessary for the principal analogate to be placed in the definition of the less principal analogate. And in this sense St. Thomas speaks in this article.

Third Conclusion: among analogates of attribution which do not import a formal relation to the one, but only a fundamental one, the principal analogate is not necessarily placed in the definition of the less principal analogate. And of this kind are all the names which are properly said of God and creatures. But it must be noted that this third statement must be limited to the definition which is given through the immediate genus and difference. For if these less principal analogates are defined most exactly from the first potency to the ultimate act, it is altogether necessary for the principal analogate to be placed in their definition. For example, one can define whiteness through its immediate genus, namely: it is a color disgregative of sight. In which definition substance is not placed. But if the whole nature of whiteness is explained, substance must necessarily be placed in its definition, up to the character of accident, which cannot be explained except through order to substance. So likewise must it be said of the other names of God. Ferr., bk. 1 Contra Gentiles, ch. 34, solves this argument otherwise; but our solution is that of Cajetan, on this article. To the confirmation it is answered that, just as one correlative is placed in the definition of another, not as genus or difference, but as a necessary addition: so in the definition of the less principal analogate the principal analogate is placed, not as genus or difference, but as a necessary addition, without which the nature of the less principal analogate cannot be perfectly explained.