Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas On The Analogy Between God and Creatures

ALBERTUS MAGNUS AND THOMAS AQUINAS
ON THE
ANALOGY BETWEEN GOD AND CREATURES
Victor Salas
I
N his study on Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of analogy, George Klubertanz
tells us that "St. Thomas speaks of analogy in almost every one of his
works, in a variety of contexts, yet he nowhere gives a thorough ex professo
treatment of the problem."' To determine Thomas's doctrine of analogy it is
therefore necessary to reconstruct it, and in doing so one quickly discovers
that, for Thomas, analogy is usually deployed in one of two major forms,
namely, in terms of "reference"what Cajetan and Francisco Surez would
later refer to as "attribution"^^or in terms of "proper proportionality." Gener-
ally speaking, for Thomas, an analogy of reference holds when one or several
things are related to some other thing as, for instance, "food" and "medicine"
are both called "healthy" on account of their relation to some living organism,
the subject of health.^ An analogy of proper proportionality, in contrast, in-
volves a proportion of two terms to two other terms, for example, as "tran-
quility" is to the "sea" so is "serenity" to the "air.'"*
' George P. Klubertanz, St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy: A Textual Analysis and System-
atic Synthesis (Chicago, 1960), 3. The texts in which Thomas employs or appeals to analogy
are legion, but Klubertanz collects and reproduces a significant number of them in an appendix
to his St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy, 157-293.
^ Cf Cajetan, De nominum analogia 2.8 (ed. N. Zammit [Rome, 1934], 11): "Analoga au-
tem secundum attributionem sunt, quorum nomen commune est, ratio autem secundum illud
nomen est eadem secundum terminum, et diversa secundum habitudines ad ilium..."; and
Francisco Surez, Disputationes metaphysicae 28.3.4 (ed. Vives, Opera omnia [Paris, 1856-
77], 26:13): "Tertio id amplius declaratur ex distinctione analogiae; duplex enim communiter
distinguitur: una vocatur a multis analogia proportionalitatis, et alia proportionis; alii vero prio-
rem vocant analogiam proportionis, et posteriorem attributionis, quod solum adverto propter
aequivocationem terminorum, res enim eadem est. Quam Aristot. aperte docuit, lib. 1 Ethic,
cap. 6, ubi analogiam attributionis vocat ab uno, vel ad unum, aliam autem comparationem ra-
tionum appellat."
^ Cf Thomas Aquinas, In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio 4.1
nn.535-39 (Marietti edition).
" Ibid. 5.8 n.879.
Mediaeval Studies 72 (2010): 283-312. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.
284 V. SALAS
Thomas's account of analogy becomes murky, however, when he uses it to
describe the relationship between God and creation. God and creature are re-
lated analogously, Aquinas tells us consistently enough, and in his early
Commentary on the Sentences he describes that analogical relationship in
terms of reference. Yet, a few years later in his De veritate Aquinas's position
shifts such that he then considers reference ill-suited to the intended task of
articulating the creator-creature relationship and tums instead to proper pro-
portionality. Finally, in his mature works (e.g.. Summa contra gentiles and
Summa theologiae) Thomas abandons proper proportionality and retums once
again to an analogy of reference. This leaves one with the difficult task of at-
tempting to discem a coherent account of analogy as it pertains to God and
creatures in Thomas's works. As a means of resolving this difficulty, inter-
preters have, more often than not, taken either proper proportionality or refer-
ence as normative and then argued away the competing account. Cajetan
famously identifies analogy in its "tmest sense" with proper proportionality.
Attribution (i.e., reference) is a form of analogy, he tells us, but only functions
in terms of extrinsic denomination.^ Proper proportionality, in contrast, predi-
cates perfections that are the intrinsic to each analogate and is, as Cajetan sees
it, indispensable to metaphysical inquiry.^ In direct and deliberate opposition
to Cajetan, the Jesuit Surez argues that in reality all true analogies of proper
proportionality involve some element of metaphor or "impropriety," while at-
' See Cajetan, De nominum analogia 1.3 (ed. Zammit, 4-6): "Ad tres ergo modos analo-
giae omnia anloga reducuntur: scilicet ad analogiam inaequalitatis, et analogiam attributionis,
et analogiam proportionalitatis. Quamvis secundum veram vocabuli proprietatem et usum
Aristotelis, ultimus modum tantum analogiam constitut, primus autem alienus ab analogia
omnio sit"; and ibid. 2.21 (ed. Zammit, 21), where Cajetan describes attribution as extrinsic:
"Hanc analogiam [i.e., attribution] S. Thomas in I Sent., dist. 19, q. 5, a. 2, ad 1 vocat analo-
giam secundum intentionem, et non secundum esse: eo quod, nomen analogum non sit hie
commune secundum esse, idest formaliter; sed secundum intentionem, idest secundum de-
nominationem. Ut enim ex dictis patet, in hac analogia nomen commune non salvatur for-
maliter nisi in primo; de caeteris autem extrinseca denominatione dicitur".
* See ibid. 3.27 (ed. Zammit, 27): "Praeponitur autem analogia haec [i.e., proper pro-
portionality] caeteris antedictis dignitate et nomine. Dignitate quidem, quia haec fit secundum
genus causae formalis inhaerentis: quoniam praedicat ea, quae singulis inhaerent. Altera vero
secundum extrinsecam denominationem fit"; and ibid. 3.29 (ed. Zammit, 29): "Scimus quidem
secundum hanc analogiam [i.e., proper proportionality], rerum intrinsecas entitates, bonitates,
veritates etc., quod ex priori analogia non scitur. Unde sine huius analogiae notitia, processus
metaphysicales absque arte dicuntur." Cajetan's position would later receive support from an-
other equally famous Thomist, John of St. Thomas, who says, in his Cursus philosophicus
Thomisticus, Ars lgica 2.13.3 (ed. B. Reiser [Turin, 1930], 1:481), "Difficultates de analogia,
quae satis metaphysicae sunt, ita copise et subtiliter a Caietano disputatae sunt in opuse, de
Analogia nominum, ut nobis locum non reliquerit quidquam aliud excogitandi."
THE ANALOGY BETWEEN GOD AND CREATURES 285
tribution need not always be extrinsic but can also be intrinsic since, after all,
a creature is truly said, even by attribution, to possess its own being. ^ Against
such classical interpretations, in much more recent times Bemard Montagnes
has shown that these reductive interpretive strategies fail to recognize what is
really at issue in Aquinas's position(s) on analogy.^ As Montagnes sees it,
Thomas's vacillations denote a deeper shift in his conception of being: a shift
from a formalist ontology to an existential metaphysic that centers upon the
efficient communication of the act of being (actus essendi).^
In what follows, I attempt to offer an explanation for Thomas's initial shift
in analogy from reference to proper proportionality and argue that one cannot
fully appreciate this first phase of Aquinas's development without recognizing
the role that his master, Albertus Magnus, played in forming the younger
Dominican's early conception of the analogical relationship between God and
creatures.'" Building upon Montagnes's work, I argue that Thomas's initial
' See Surez Disputationes metaphysicae 28.3.11 (ed. Vives, 26:16): "Analogia pr[o]-
portionalitatis propria non est inter Deum et creaturas. - Ad hanc ergo analogiam necesse est
ut unum membmm sit absolute tale per suam formam, aliud vero non absolute, sed ut substat
tali proportioni vel comparationi ad aliud. At vero in praesenti hoc non intercedit, sive rem
ipsam, sive nominis impositionem consideremus. Creatura enim est ens ratione sui esse abso-
lute et sine tali proportionalitate considerati, quia nimirum per illud est extra nihil, et aliquid
actualitatis habet.... Denique omnis vera analogia proportionalitatis includit aliquid metapho-
rae et improprietatis, sicut ridere dicitur de prato per translationem metaphoricam; at vero in
hac analogia entis nulla est metaphora aut improprietas, nam creatura vere, proprie ac simpli-
citer est ens; non est ergo haec analogia proportionalitatis vel solius, vel simul cum analogia
attributionis; restt ergo, ut si est aliqua analogia, ilia sit alicujus attributionis; atque ita tandem
docuit D. Thom...." Surez, of course, is no mere interpreter of Thomas Aquinas and is per-
fectly willing to depart gracefully from Aquinas's doctrine when necessary. Yet, in offering his
own account of analogy in terms of attribution, Surez appeals to none other than Thomas, as
we see in the immediately preceding quote, to oppose what is basically Cajetan's own position.
* Bemard Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie de l'tre d'aprs Saint Thomas d'Aquin
(Paris and Louvain, 1963). Edward Macierowski has produced an English translation of Mon-
tagnes's work: The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being According to Thomas Aquinas (Milwau-
kee, 2004). When this work is cited, references to the English translation will be provided in
parentheses.
' While one can certainly discem along with Montagnes a noticeable shift in Thomas's
early reliance upon form and formal or exemplar causality to his mature preference for act and
efficient causality, one need not, however, conclude that Aquinas adopts an entirely new doc-
trine of being. Rather, it seems that if created being is, for Thomas, twofold in the sense of its
being composed of esse and essentia, then his emphases can shift while his understanding of
being remains stable.
'" In this article I shall focus chiefly upon the ontological dimension of analogy as found in
Albert and Thomas, and, when necessary, I shall touch upon its logical-semantic consequences.
Indeed, given the historical understanding and development of analogyespecially in Boethius
and a number of the Arabic thinkers (e.g., Al-Ghazl, Avicenna, and Averroes)as a logical
286 V. SALAS
rejection of an analogy of reference for proper proportionality represents his
decided dissatisfaction with Albert's own teaching on the analogical relation-
ship between God and creature. This dissatisfaction, as we shall see, ulti-
mately concems Albert's propensity towards a kind of noetic univocity. To
establish this claim, I first show that Thomas's early doctrine of analogy as
found primarily in his Commentary on the Sentences is virtually identical to
that of Albert. Second, I indicate how in his De veritate Thomas reconsiders
his position and cannot ultimately accept an analogy of reference because it
risks the conceptual confusion of God and creation in the consideration of one
and the same form. This form embraces, as it were, both the divine and crea-
ture and thus nullifies the Creator-creature distinction. Finally, to corroborate
this latter claim, I show how Albert himself understands that analogy admits a
certain univocity between God and creature. Proper proportionality, as it tums
out, was for Thomas an initial means of reasserting God's transcendence and
distinction from created being. ' '
Here I should point out that Montagnes himself makes the claim that Tho-
mas's doctrine of analogy as presented in the Commentary on the Sentences is
literally that of Albert;'^ yet Montagnesapart from alluding to a number of
Albert's works, the most crucial of which, the Super Dionysium de divinis
nominibus, was not yet available in its present critical editionfalls short of
(1) establishing his claim conceming the identity of Thomas's doctrine with
that of Albert and (2) never makes it clear how Albert's doctrine of analogy
median between univocity and pure equivocity, one cannot neatly sever analogy from its origi-
nal logical context. Still, analogy would evolve beyond a merely logical usage and would be
deployed to articulate the ordered (i.e., per prius et posterius), ontological relationship existing
between substance and accidents as well as that between Creator and creatures, which relation-
ships are neither purely equivocal nor univocal. Speaking of Albert's own philosophical de-
velopment, Alain de Libera notes, for instance "Pour des raisons videntes, c'est dans la
Mtaphysique d'Albert, non dans les paraphrases de VOrganon, que la notion d'analogia entis
apparat sous sa forme proprement ontologique et non plus seulment logique." (Mtaphysique
et notique: Albert le Grand [Paris, 2005], 116.) For discussions that focus specifically on the
logical or semantie dimensions of analogy in Albert or Thomas, see E. J. Ashworth, "Analogy
and Equivocation in Thirteenth-Century Logic: Aquinas in Context," Mediaeval Studies 54
(1992): 94-135, and "Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century Logic: A
Preface to Aquinas on Analogy," Medieval Philosophy and Theology 1 (1991): 39-67; Bruno
Tremblay, "A First Glane at Albert the Great's Teaching on Analogy of Words," Medieval
Philosophy and Theology 5 (1996): 265-96; and Ralph Mclnemy, Aquinas and Analogy
(Washington, D.C., 1996).
" Here I say "initial" beeause, as Montagnes has ably shown, proper proportionality would
serve Thomas until he could reformulate his doctrine of analogy from the perspective of a
metaphysics o esse, as occurs eventually in the Summa contra gentiles (hereafter SCG) 1.34.
'^ See Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 73 (68).
involves univocity. I suggest that Albert's commentaries on the corpus Diony-
siacum possess particular significance for two main reasons. First, in his Su-
per Dionysium de divinis nominibus Albert articulates his understanding of
the Creator-creature relationship in terms of univocity or more specifically a
"univocal analogy."'^ Second, Albert's commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius
are works with which Thomas quite literally had firsthand knowledge, having
personally transcribed Albert's lectures on the Pseudo-Areopagite in a manu-
script that survives today, Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale I.B.54.'''
THE TWO DOMAINS OF ANALOGY
In the prologue to his Commentary on the Sentences Thomas identifies two
ways in which analogy occurs, accepting only one as an adequate description
of the relationship between God and creatures. An analogous community can
occur in two ways:
Either from that in which some things participate in another thing according to
priority and posteriority, as potency and act [participate] in the character {ra-
tio) of being, and similarly substance and accident; or from that in which one
thing receives its being and character from another, and such is the analogy of
a creature to God; for a creature has being only insofar as it descends from the
first being, and it is called being only inasmuch as it imitates the first be-
ing....'^
' ' See Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus (hereaer DDAO 1 n.l (ed.
P. Simon, Opera omnia, Cologne edition 37.1 [Mnster, 1972], 1, lines 27-32): "De attributis
enim causae sciendum, quod non aequivoce, sed univoce dicuntur de causatis, sed tali uni-
vocatione qualis potest esse ibi, quae est analogiae, secundum quod dicit Origenes, quod deus
dieitur sciens et intelligens, quia scientia et intellectu nos implet." References are to the critical
edition of Albert's works produced by the Albertus-Magnus-Institut (the Cologne edition); for
works not available in the critical edition, I use the older Borgnet edition (Paris, 1890-99).
'' See P. Simon, "Prolegomena," in DDN (vi-vii); and Jean-Pierre Torrell, Saint Thomas
Aquinas, vol. 1 : The Person and His Work, trans. Robert Royal (Washington, D.C., 1996), 21.
Leonard Boyle argues that the manuscript we have of Albert's Dionysian eommentary written
in Thomas's hand was only a eopy of a preexisting manuscript or manuscripts and thus not Al-
bert's original dictation. Even so, Thomas's intimate familiarity with Albert's text cannot be
denied. See Boyle, "An Autograph of St. Thomas at Salerno," in Littera, Sensus, Sententia,
Studi in onore del Prof. Clemente J. Vansteenkiste, ed. A. Lobato (Milan, 1991 ), 117-34.
'^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent., prol., 1.2 ad 2 (ed. P. Mandonnet, Scriptum super libros
Sententiarum, vol. 1 [Paris, 1929], 10): "Aut ex eo quod aliqua participant aliquid unum secun-
dum prius et posterius, sicut potentia et actus rationem entis, et similiter substantia et accidens;
aut ex eo quod unum esse et rationem ab altero recipit; et talis est analogia creaturae ad
288 V. SALAS
Here one observes two significant items of note. First, what Thomas describes
as "analogy" or a communitas analogiae has little, if anything, to do with the
classical Greek or Aristotelian sense o analoga. As a number of studies have
taken pains to show,'* for Aristotle, analoga involves at least a four-term pro-
portional relationship of such kind that "a" is to "b" as "c" is to "d."'^ While
Thomas says nothing in the text quoted above to dispute this facet of analoga
(indeed Aquinas's enumeration of analogies here is not exhaustive since he
would come to embrace the Greek sense of analoga in the De veritate and
already accepts it as a form of analogy in what is perhaps his earliest work,
the Deprncps naturae^^), his descriptions of analogy do not identify them-
selves as forms of Greek analoga. Rather, by "analogy" Thomas has in mind
something much more akin to what Aristotle famously describes in Meta-
physics 4.2 as a pros hen relation; that is, a relation of one or more terms to
"some one thing" {man tina phusin).^'^ And so, in the first mode of analogy
mentioned, what, for convenience's sake, we might call an analogy of "many
to one,"^ two terms are related to some other third. Here Aquinas notes that
the ratio entis in relation to substance and accident expresses such an analogi-
cal community, since substance and accident are both called "being" insofar
as each participatesalbeit unequally (i.e., secundum prius et posterius)in
the ratio entis.^^ In contrast, the second form of analogy mentioned is not
Creatorem: creatura enim non habet esse nisi secundum quod a primo ente descendit, nee nomi-
natur ens nisi inquantum ens primum imitatur "
'* See Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics: A Study in
the Greek Background of Mediaeval Thought, 3d ed. (Toronto, 1978), 123-25, and "Analogy as
a Thomistic Approach to Being," Mediaeval Studies 24 (1962): 302-22; Hampus Lyttkens, The
Analogy Between God and the World: An Investigation of Its Background and Interpretation of
its Use by Thomas of Aquino (Uppsala, 1952), esp. chap. 1; Pierre Aubenque, "The Origins of
the Doctrine of the Analogy of Being," Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 11.1 (1986): 35-
46; and Alain de Libera, "Les sources grco-arabes de la thorie mdivale de l'analogie de
l'tre," Les tudes philosophiques (1989/3-4): 319^5.
'^ Cf Aristotle, Metaphysics 5.6 (1016b31-1017a3); Physics 1.7 (191a7-12); Nico-
macheanEthics 1.5.3 (1131a30-b4); waPoeticsl (1457bl6-18).
'* Thomas Aquinas, De principiis naturae 6 (Leonine edition 43:46-47). Though the dat-
ing of this work remains uncertain, we can be fairly certain that it is a youthftil work given that
it offers mostly a summary of Averroes's teaching; see Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, 48-49.
" For Aristotle, see Metaphysics 4.2 (1003a32-1003b20).
^^ Montagnes employs this same terminology; see La doctrine de l'analogie, 80 (71).
^' Thomas later revises his understanding of the relationship among being, substance, and
accident, describing various accidents (e.g., quantity and quality) as related not to the ratio
entis but to substance itself as the primary instance of being on account of which diverse acci-
dents are denominated "being." See SCG 1.34 and De potentia Dei 7.7. In his Commentary on
the Sentences, however, even substance itselftogether with its accidentsis posterior to the
ratio entis. See Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 72-73 (67-68).
realized through the participation of two things in a third but in the direct rela-
tionship that two terms have to one another. One term is posterior to the other
because, as Thomas says, it depends upon the prior for both its being {esse)
and ratio.^^ In contrast to an analogy of "many to one," we might label this
latter form of analogy as "one to another."^'
Second, one observes from the passage quoted above that in opting for an
analogy of "one to another" and rejecting "many to one" Thomas, decidedly
dismisses the notion that being forms a super-category or genus, as it were,
under which everything, even God, would be located. ^'' It is clear from his ini-
tial approach to analogy that Thomas is anxious to avoid making the claim
that God is one being among others; indeed, according to Thomas, God would
not even seem to be a being but is subsisting Being itself {ipsum esse subsis-
tens)}^ The rejection of an analogy of "many to one" reaffirms and insists
upon the irreducible distinction between Creator and creature.^* In fact, as we
shall see, it is Thomas's concem to maintain this radical distinction between
Creator and creature that eventually propels him toward proper proportional-
ity in the De veritate.
The passage cited above from Aquinas's commentary is brief and paltry on
detail, yet it contains in germ everything essential to the doctrine of analogy
that he unfolds more fully throughout his Commentary on the Sentences}^
^^ Because of the notoriously varied meanings of ratio, henceforth I follow Norman Kretz-
mann's example of leaving it untranslated; he is right to note that "theoretical account" or
"intelligible nature" comes closest to an accurate rendering (The Metaphysics of Theism: Aqui-
nas 's Natural Theology in Summa contra gentiles I [Oxford, 1997], 147, 148).
^' Again, see Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 80 (71) for this same terminology.
^'' How the two forms of analogy relate to one another (if at all) remains unclear through-
out the Sentences, and if Montagnes is correct, Thomas actually fails to offer a "unified theory"
of the analogy of being in this early text (La doctrine de l'analogie, 73 [68]).
" Cf Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 8.1.1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:195): "In Deo . . . ipsum esse
suum est sua quidditas"; SCG 1.22; and Summa theologiae (hereafter 57) 1.3.4.
^* Robert Sokolowski has made much of this distinction or, as he calls it, the "Christian
distinction," and has argued that it is precisely what distinguishes Christian thought from its pa-
gan, Greek predecessors. See his The God of Faith and Reason: Foundations of Christian
Theology (Washington, D.C., 1995), esp. chap. 5. Furthermore, in making this distinction,
Thomas seems to evade the issue of onto-theology which is of such concem to many post-
modem thinkers. Jean-Luc Marion, in particular, reevaluating his interpretation of Thomas as
found in the first edition of his Dieu sans l'tre, has gradually come to recognize Aquinas's
escape from onto-theology since Thomas neither (1) "chains" God to being (ens) nor (2)
"chains" God to metaphysics (God Without Being, trans. Thomas A. Carlson [Chicago, 1995],
xxii-xxiv). See also Marion, "Thomas Aquinas and Onto-theology," in Mystics: Presence and
Aporia, ed. Michael Kessler and Christian Sheppard (Chicago, 2003), 38-74.
" See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 35.1.4. We shall discuss this particular text in
greater detail in what follows.
290 V. SALAS
What is more, the manner in which Thomas poses the problem and his initial
distinction between two analogies of reference are found firstindeed almost
verbatimthroughout the opera Alberti. Albert himself distinguishes between
an analogy where one and the same thing is shared in common among several
("many to one") and an analogy constituted through one thing's having
through participation what another is essentially ("one to another"). On Al-
bert's view, both forms of analogy are articulated in terms of priority and
posteriority. With respect to the Creator-creature relationship, Albert consis-
tently rejects an analogy of "one to many" and accepts that of "one to
another." This is what we find, for instance, in an early passage from his
Commentary on the Sentences. Addressing the question whether things are
well divided into the "delightful" and the "useftil,"^^ Albert faces the objec-
tion that, were there such a division, a uni vocal community between Creator
and creature would be implied. The reason is that in all divisions that which is
divided is common to the things that result from the division (i.e., dividentia),
standing above them, so to speak, as a genus or species. Here, however, God
and creature would constitute the dividentia and thus stand below the division,
forming, so it would seem, a univocal community, which, the objection in-
sists, is false.^'
For Albert, the answer to the question tums upon determining the kind of
community admitted between God and creature. As the objections make clear,
Albert is alert to the necessity of safeguarding the irreducible distinction be-
tween God and creation. If God and creature were to enter into any commu-
nity, it could only be an analogical one, but even here Albert cautions that not
just any form of analogy will suffice. An analogy wherein the same thing is
unequally participated by two or more things"many to one"is rejected
since, as Albert explains, "the Creator has nothing by participation," but en-
joys perfections "through his own essence and substance."^" Albert, as would
Thomas after him, refuses to subordinate God to a prior super-category of
being. The analogical community that is admitted between Creator and crea-
ture, however, consists in a "community of proportion to one [thing]" (com-
munitas proportionis ad unum). As with the text of Thomas considered above,
2* Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 1.8 (Borgnet edition 25:24): "An res bene dividantur in
froiibiles, et utibiles?"
^' Cf ibid. arg. 2 (Borgnet edition 25:24): "In omni divisione divisum commune est divi-
dentibus: dividentia autem sunt Creator et creatura: ergo aliquid est univocum Creatori et crea-
turae, quod falsum est."
^ Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 1.8 (Borgnet edition 25:25): "... Creator nihil habet per
participationem, sed per essentiam et substantiam." Cf DDN 1 n.57 (Cologne edition 37.1:35,
lines 49-55) and 13 n.22 (445, lines 50-66).
Albert's text also makes it clear that Aristotle's notion of apros hen relation
not the Greek analogiaforms, for Albert, the logical stmcture of analogy. A
relation of multiple proportions is not operative (i.e., proportionality), but
rather aproportio ad unum (i.e., an analogy of reference).^' God, inasmuch as
he possesses all perfections substantially {substantialiter) or essentially, is
that "one thing" to whom all creatures are related in terms of participation and
from whom their being and perfections are derived. ^^
The passage cited here does not afford an exhaustive account of analogy,
yet it contains seminally Albert's doctrine of analogy in toto. Furthermore,
despite its brevity, the passage does indicate that Albert has a basic twofold
understanding of analogy: there is, on the one hand, what some have called
"philosophical" analogy and, on the other, a "theological" analogy." In brief,
"philosophical" analogy govems the relationships obtaining among beings
within the categories, chiefly between substances and accidents; it is not un-
like what Fabro has termed "predicamental analogy" with respect to Thomas
Aquinas's own teaching.'''* "Theological" analogy, in contrast, describes Al-
bert's effort to address the Creator-creature relationship and, again, is akin to
Thomas's "transcendental analogy," as Fabro has named it. Albert goes into
greater detail about the distinction between these two kinds of analogy, usu-
ally to explain why philosophical analogy is insufficient in accounting for the
Creator-creature relationship.^^ His descriptions of philosophical analogy
largely follow the Boethian and Arabic accounts of equivocis.
Albert explains that "analogy" or "proportion"what the "Arabs call con-
venientia"is a median between univocity and pure equivocity. ^^ But, then,
^' Cf Albertus Magnus, DDN A n.51 (Cologne edition 37.1:158, lines 38-46) and n.l42
(231, lines 10-27).
^^ Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 1.8 (Borgnet edition 25:25): "Dicendum, quod Creatori et
creaturae nihil est commune univoee: nee etiam per analogiam talem, quod idem participetur
per prius et posterius a Creatore et creatura Sed est ibi communitas proportionis ad unum,
quod substantialiter primo convenit Creatori: ab illo autem, et posterius sub illo, et ad illud
convenit creaturae "
^^ Cf De Libera, Mtaphysique et notique, 103-27; and Montagnes, La doctrine de l'ana-
logie, 73 n. 138.
^'' Comelio Fabro, Participation et causalit selon S. Thomas d'Aquin (Paris and Louvain,
1961), 510.
'^ See, e.g., Albertus Magnus, In ISent. 8.7; and Summa theologiae 1.6.26.1.
^^ See Albertus Magnus, Super Porphyrium de V universalibus 1.5 (ed. M. S. Noya, Co-
logne edition 1.1:10, lines 55-56); cf also Al-Ghazl, Lgica 1.5.5 (ed. Charles H. Lohr,
"Lgica Algazalis: Introduction and Critical Text," Traditio 21 [1965]: 246): "Convenientia
sunt media inter univoca et aequivoca, ut 'ens,' quod dieitur de substantia et accidente. Non
enim est sicut haee dictio 'canis.' Ea enim quae appellantur 'canis' non conveniunt in aliqua
significatione canis. Esse vero convenit substantiae et accidenti. Nee sunt sicut univoca. Ani-
292 V. SALAS
he goes on to note that convenientia can be imposed on diverse things per re-
spectum ad unum subiectum, ad unum efficiens actum, and ad unum finem.^^
One recognizes these same equivocal relationships in Aristotle's Metaphysics
4.2, where the Stagirite attempts to unify the various modes of being so as to
assure a properly unified subject for the science of metaphysics. Many things
are called "healthy" because they refer to the health of the animal {ad unum
^^ many things are called "medical" because they fiow from the art of
medicine {ad unum efficiens actum);^^ and, finally, as Albert understands it,
many things are called "being" because of their dependence upon one subject
{ad unum subiectum), which is true being, namely, substance.""*
Analogy, so understood, would be unable to accommodate the exigencies
proper to the Creator-creature relationship since such analogy either involves
a purely extrinsic relationship (e.g., as in the cases of "health" or "medical")
that cannot account for the intrinsic ontological relationship between God and
creature, or it would go too far in identifying God as the subject of being.
Here Alain de Libera helpfully explains that philosophical analogy does not
"permit one to pose the problem of the relation existent between creatures and
God. God is not the subject of created being, but its cause. The problem of
analogy is displaced therefore from the point of view of the unification of be-
ings in substance . . . towards another mode of unification: causal unification,
which allows one to consider the relation of uncreated to created being."'*' We
malitas enim aeque eonvenit equo et homini indifferenter et eodem modo. Esse vero prius habet
substantia; deinde accidens, mediante alio. Ergo est eis esse seeundum prius et posterius. Hoc
dieitur ambiguum, eo quod aptatur ad hoc et ad hoc." Cf De Libera, "Les sourees grco-arabes
de la thorie mdivale de l'analogie de l'tre," 319-45.
^' Albertus Magnus, Super Porphyrium de V universalibus 1.5 (Cologne edition LIA
[2004], 11, lines 11-33).
'* Aristotle, Metaphysics 4.2 (1003a34-1003bl); cf Albertus Magnus, Super Porphyrium
1.5 (Cologne edition 1.1:11, lines 29-33).
^' Aristotle, Metaphysics 4.2 (1003bl-5); cf Albertus Magnus, Super Porphyrium 1.5
(Cologne edition 1.1:11, lines 21-29)
'"' See Albertus Magnus, Super Porphyrium (Cologne edition 1.1:11, lines 19-21); idem,
Metaphysica 4.1.3 (ed. B. Geyer, Cologne edition 16.1 [I960], 164, lines 52-63): "Omnibus
igitur dictis modis dieitur ens per dependentiam ad subiectum unum, quod est vere ens, cui alia
vel inferunt passionem vel sunt transmutationes eius vel transmutantia ens verum vel ad ipsum
dicta sunt dispositiones vel mensurae vel respectus vel habitus vel actiones vere entis vel
intentiones secundae acceptae circa ipsum esse vere entis vel alicuius quod dieitur ad ipsum ut
accidens non ens, sed esse quoddam esse et significare. Omnia igitur diversis modis dicuntur ad
unum."
"" See De Libera, Mtaphysique et notique, 122: "Chez Albert, elle [i.e. analogie tho-
logique] signifie que la triad secundum causam efflcientem {ab uno), secundum causam finalem
{ad unum), secundum subiectum, qui permet de formuler les conditions, les limites et la struc-
ture d'une science une de l'tre cr, ne permet pas de poser le problme de la relation existant
must therefore give further consideration to Albert's so-called "theological
analogy."
THEOLOGICAL (IMITATIVE) ANALOGY: ALBERTUS MAGNUS
Already from only a cursory glance at the passages that treat the issue of
the analogy, one can discern both a procedural and structural overlap between
Albert's and Thomas's accounts of analogy. We must now determine whether
there is a deeper doctrinal congruence between the two. Turning to a key ele-
ment encountered in both accounts of analogy, namely, "imitation," a positive
answer to our question presents itself immediately.
"Imitation" provides Albert a means of establishing a bond of similarity be-
tween God and creature, a bond that is based upon the communication of
"form." Indeed, a strong formalistic emphasis courses throughout much of
Albert's ontology wherein the exigencies of exemplar causality determine his
discussions of analogy. For Albert, a creature's relationship to God is ex-
plained according to the imitative relationship that an image has to its exem-
plar. Since no creature can re-present the divine being perfectly in its
imitation but only produces an inadequate representation, there remains a
deep and abiding formal dissimilarity between the two. Thus, when Albert
speaks explicitly of what he terms an "analogy of imitation" (analoga mta-
tons), he does so only after having first stressed the disparity between God
and creature, insisting that they can enter into neither a generic, specific, nor
even an analogical community."*^ Of course, here by "analogy" Albert simply
understands "philosophical analogy" where one and the same thing is prior to
and shared in common by two or more other things. To accept such a com-
munity between God and creature would problematically posit something
prior to God. Still, the absolute irreducibility of God and creature to some
prior third term does not impede all community whatsoever, if that com-
munity be one of imitation. In several places throughout his opera Albert
clarifies the dynamics involved in imitation, but one passage in particular
deserves attention {In I Sent. 35.1) since it provides a direct point of com-
entre les cratures et Dieu. Dieu n 'est pas le sujet de l'tre cr, mais la cause de l'tre cr.
Le problme de l'analogie se dplace donc du point de vue unificateur de la substance ... vers
un autre mode d'unification: l'unification causale, qui permet de penser la relation de l'tre
incr a l'tre cr."
"^ Cf Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysii Mysticam theologiam (hereafter MT) 1 (ed. P
Simon, Cologne edition 37.2 [1978], 459, lines 27-31) and 2 (467, lines 53-57); DDN 1 n.56
(Cologne edition 37.1:35, lines 30-34), 1.57 (35, lines 49-51), and 13.22 (445, lines 50-58).
294 V. SALAS
parison between Albert and his Dominican confrere, who, in his own Com-
mentary on the Sentences,'^^ addresses the same question Albert poses here
and, what is more, likewise offers a solution spelled out in terms of an
analogy of imitation.
In In I Sent. 35.1 Albert raises the question whether scientia is univocal to
God and creatures.'*'' He argues thatowing to the vastly diverse manners in
which God, angels, and humans knowscientia is not univocal among them.
God's knowledge is unique in that, knowing himself as the cause of all things,
God knows both himself and everything else.'*^ Angels, in contrast, do not
enjoy such creative knowledge,'** although like God they know free of any
material conditions. Finally, humans, taking their knowledge from material
and diverse things, possess knowledge in yet a weaker fashion that pales in
comparison with angelic knowledge and is certainly far removed from
God's.'*'
Still, granting Albert that each attains or possesses scientia in different
ways, why could one not hold that scientia stands as a genus under which are
located various species: divine, angelic, human? What is cmcial to Albert's
argument here is its ability to make a principled distinction between, on the
one hand, a multiplicity of species located under one common genus in which
each enjoys one and the same generic ratio and, on the other, an essential di-
versity of modes whereby any generic (i.e., univocal) unity would be tran-
scended. In other words, Albert has to demonstrate that the distinction among
divine, angelic, and human knowledge constitutes three diverse rationes. Al-
bert tums to "imitation" as a solution. Human and angelic knowledge are not
"^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 35.1.4.
* Albert's question is actually broader in scope than Thomas's since it inquires into an-
gelic knowledge as well, whereas Thomas concems himself only with human knowledge vis--
vis divine knowledge.
^^ Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 35.1 (Borgnet edition 26:176-77): "... scientia Dei est de re-
bus ut substantificatrix et sapientia et causa omnium de quibus est, sive illud sit totum vel uni-
versale, sive pars sive particulare. Ergo patet, quod sciendo se ut est causa omnium, novit et se
et omnia alia universaliter vel particulariter existentia." Cf De causis et processu universitatis
a prima causa (hereafter DCPU) 1.2.7 (ed. W. Fauser, Cologne edition 17.2 [1993], 32,
line 29- p. 33, line 37), where Albert argues the same point.
""* Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 35.1 (Borgnet edition 26:177): "Sed tamen scientia ilia (i.e.,
angelica) non est causa entis, neque cognoscit per hoc quod sit causa, cum nullius causa creans
sit ngelus."
"" Ibid. "De hominis autem scientia dicit ibidem, sic: 'Animae rationale habent diffusive
quidem et circulo circa existentium veritatem circumeuntes, et divisibili et largissimo varietatis
deficientes ab unitivis virtutibus.' Sensus hujus est, quod anima rationalis accipit scientiam:
rationale autem collativum est: et ideo incipit a multis in quibus conferendo difHinditur, et cir-
culo circumducitur circa veritatem existentium."
species (along with divine knowledge) of some prior genus; rather they are
mere imitations of the divine knowledge itself The divine knowledge is that
"one thing" to which created knowledge refers, which reference Albert spells
out in terms of an imitative similitude.''^ That is, creatures, one might say, ex-
hibit only a diminished likeness or possess only a partial share, as it were, of
the full and preeminent perfection found first and foremost in God. As Albert
explains, God possesses his perfections substantially (substantialiter) or es-
sentiallyand therefore per priuswhile those same perfections are found
within creation only in a derivative fashion, per posterius, stemming from
God himself'
Albert further expands his account of "imitation" in his replies to the objec-
tions within the same passage (In I Sent. 35.1). There Albert reveals that the
entire dynamic of theological analogy tums upon the manner in which "form"
is communicated.^" Arguing for univocity, the first objection maintains that as
an agent cause (causa agens) acts according to its form, so it communicates
that form to its effect, and thereby produces an effect univocal to itself Fire,
for example, by its own proper form produces fire, and likewise a human,
acting through the form of his or her nature, begets another human. Since each
effect possesses the same form as its cause, the two enjoy a univocal simili-
tude. The objection then argues that, as God's knowledge is the cause of cre-
ated knowledge, God must, in causing, produce created knowledge by means
of his own form. If God produces knowledge according to his own form, then
that form must itself be communicated to creation, giving rise to a univocal
similitude.^'
In light of this objection Albert introduces a distinction between two kinds
of similarity that arise between an effect and its cause. He concedes to the
objection that the form of a cause can indeed be reproduced in an effect on
account of which a univocal similarity arises, but he interjects that such a uni-
vocal likeness results only when the matter of the effect is "proportioned" to
"** Ibid.: "... neutra scientiarum creaturarum univoca est scientiae Creatods: sed utraque
imitatur eam quantum potest: et ideo est per prius et posterius dicta, eo modo quod dictum est
supra, quod primo est in Deo, et ab ipso, et ad ipsum, quantum possibile est in Angelo et in
homine."
Ibid.
^^ Cf Francis Ruello, Les "noms divins" et leur "raisons" selon Saint Albert le Grand
commentateur du "De divinis nominibus" (Paris, 1963), 75-85.
' ' Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 35.1 arg. 1 (Borgnet edition 26:176): "Causa efficiens agens
secundum formam efficientis, producit effectum univocum causae, ut ignis ignem, homo
hominem, et hujusmodi: sed scientia Dei est causa efficiens nostrae scientiae, et agens secun-
dum formam: ergo videtur, quod nostra scientia quae est effecta a sua, suae scientiae sit uni-
voca."
2 9 6 V. SALAS
the agency of the cause.^^ By "proportioned" I take Albert to be referring to
an effect's ability to receive entirely (and not just imitatively) the form of its
cause according to the same degree and thereby ratio. So, for example, fire
produces fire and humans other humans and in each case the effect fully re-
ceives the form of its cause to the same degree, resulting in a univocal com-
munity based on an identity of ratio. When the agent is God, however,
univocal similitude is out of the question since, as Albert puts it, "no receiving
matter can be proportionate to the divine essence."^^ Put simply, no creature
can receive the formal reality of God according to the same ratio as it exists in
God. One and the same form is communicated, but it can only be received in a
limited fashion within creatures. This limitation, as it were, produces a differ-
ence in ratio as the form exists essentially in God and only by participation or
imitation in creatures.
Albert then notes that there are, in addition to univocal agents, certain
agents that are disproportionate to their effects. The sun, for example, in rela-
tion to illuminated air or some other diaphanous body is precisely such a dis-
proportionate agent. Drawing upon his understanding of medieval astronomy,
Albert explains that the light of an illuminated body is not of the same char-
acter {ratio) as it is in the sun, for the former is illuminated by receiving light
whereas the latter does not receive but is its own illumination.^'' The light re-
ceived in an illuminated body, as Albert puts it, undergoes a diminishment or
lessening; it becomes less brilliant, more diffuse, and obscurer as it is received
in and mixed with the matter of its diaphanous subject. The result is that the
received light is not of the same ratio as the sun's light. The diversity of ra-
tiones between light as it is in the sun and in an illuminated body is key here
for Albert in overcoming univocity, since univocity involves one and the
same thing existing in several under the same ratio. Analogy, in contrast, in-
volves one thing existing in many but according to diverse modes or ratio-
nes.^^ Thus, Albert's argument is that as an agent disproportionate to its
effects, God's own divine perfection cannot be fully received in any creature
^^ Ibid, ad 1 (Borgnet edition 26:177): "Dicendum ergo ad primum, quod est causa agens
seeundum speciem duobus modis, scilicet ad materiam proportionatam eidem speciei, ut agens
et generans univoee, sicut ignis ignem, et homo hominem: et sic non caust Deus: quia essen-
tiae divinae nulla materia recipiens potest esse proportionata."
" Ibid.
^'' Ibid.: "Est etiam causa agens secundum formam et speciem ad naturam non proportio-
natam eidem speeiei, ut sol agit in aerem, vel aliud diaphanum receptivum luminis: et tamen
lumen receptum non est ejusdem rationis in sole, et in aere, sed ignobilius et dilisius et obseu-
rius est in aere quam in sole "
'^ Cf De Libera, Mtaphysique et notique, 124.
according to the same ratio, but some likeness of God is received to the de-
gree that the creature is capable of imitating God. What the objection fails to
recognize, then, is that while it is entirely tme to say that God acts or creates
according to his form, that divine form exists in creatures not according to the
same ratio but only by means of an imitative similitude.'*
As is clear from his discussion of analogy in the passage just considered,
what is cmcial for Albert's understanding of analogy is the manner in which
one and the same form is shared in common. In one salient passage from his
Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus, Albert, when dealing with the ques-
tion whether all goods proceed from the first good, revisits the way in which
the possession of one and the same form can lead to either a univocal or ana-
logical community." Form is twofold, he tells us. The first kind is exemplary
and is held in common, not by predication, but by means of what proceeds
from it, as the form of a shoemaker is in all the shoes he produces. Here it is
not necessary that the exemplary form be participated univocally by alljust
as shoes, to use Albert's example, do not possess the form of the shoemaker
univocally, although that form is common to all of thembut only according
to the degree that the exemplary form can be imitated.'^ In contrast, there is
also form common by predication which is simply the form of a genus or a
species.'^ Those proceeding from this latter kind of form are themselves of
one genus or species, on account of which they enjoy a univocal community.
Those things, however, proceeding from an exemplary form, which form is
participated in according to diverse modes, do not attain a generic or specific
unity, but only an analogical unity. ^ Thus, retuming to the question whether
all goods proceed from the first good, Albert answers that the first good is the
universal exemplar form of all goods and is not participated univocallyafter
5* Cf Albertus Magnus, MT 1 (Cologne edition 37.2:459, lines 26-31) and 2 (467, lines
53-58); DDN 1 nn.56-57 (Cologne edition 37.1:35, lines 10-68) and 4 n.9 (119, hnes 18-31).
" Albertus Magnus, DDN 2 nn.83-84 (Cologne edition 37.1:96, line 46- p. 98, line 74).
Cf Jan Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and The Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas
(Leiden, 1996), 58-60.
5* Albertus Magnus, DDN 2 n.83 (Cologne edition 37.1:97, lines 20-26): ". . . est duplex
forma: quaedam exemplaris, et haec quidem communis est non per predicationem, sed per
processum ab ipsa exemplatorum, sicut forma calcificis omnibus calcis, et ideo non oportet,
quod univoce participetur ab omnibus, sed ab unoquoque secundum suam possibilitatem "
^' Ibid. (lines 26-29): "... est etiam quaedam forma communis pluribus per praedica-
tionem, quae est forma generis vel speciei, et a tali una forma procedunt plura univoce."
*" Ibid. (98, lines 21-27): "... ea quae procedunt a forma una, quae est generis vel speciei,
sunt unum genere vel specie, quae autem procedunt ab una forma exemplari, quae diversimode
participatur, non oportet sic vel sic esse unum, sed tantum analogice "
298 V. SALAS
the fashion of a generic or specific formbut analogously, secundum prius et
posterius according to diverse modes of reception.*'
Here the exigencies of form command Albert's thinking such that creatures
are understood as images of God's exemplar (formal) causality. With imita-
tion, creatures re-present, though only imperfectly, the absolute plenitude of
the formal perfection proper to God, a perfection that can never be reproduced
entirely;*^ no creature is its own essential perfection but enjoys its perfections
as received or, what is the same, as participated.*^ This is, of course, not to
say that in a creature's participation in God the divine being is commingled
{commiscetur) or mixed with creation.*^ Rather, Albert simply means that a
creature's participation consists in its partial or incomplete reception of some
perfection that exists without limit in God. A creature's imitation of God is
thus the source of both its similarity and dissimilarity.
ANALOGA IMITATIONIS: THOMAS AQUINAS
"Imitation" would provide a means of expressing the analogical relation-
ship obtaining between God and creature not only for Albert but also for
Thomas early in his intellectual career. We have already seen in the prologue
to his Commentary on the Sentences some allusion to "imitation." A creature
is called a being {ens), we read, only inasmuch as it "imitates" the first being
{ens primum) to the extent possible.*^ Later in In Sent. 35.1.4 Thomas further
discusses imitation's role in analogy but only after first making a distinction
between two forms of an analogy of reference, namely, "many to one" and
"one to another." Rejecting the first for reasons that are by now familiar (i.e.,
it places something prior to God), Thomas turns to the latter and explains that
this mode of analogy results when one thing "imitates" another as much as it
*' Ibid, (lines 49): ". . . primum bonum est exemplar universale omnium bonorum, non
praedicatum de eis nec participatum ab eis univoce, sed secundum prius et posterius, secundum
diversitatem recipientium, et est idem exemplar et effectivum." Cf. De Libera, Mtaphysique et
notique, 125.
" See Albertus Magnus, DCPU 1.3.6 (Cologne edition 17.2:41, lines 64-71).
" Cf Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 35.1; DDN 4 n.9 (Cologne edition 37.1:119, line 21),
n.64 (173, line 17) and n.l92 (274, line 87-p. 275, line 16).
*'' Albertus Magnus, DDN 4 n.51 (Cologne edition 37.1:158, lines 38-46): "Ad tertium
dieendum, quod quaedam anloga sunt quorum est respectus ad unum, quod recipitur in eis
secundum diversos modos essentiales . . . ; sic autem non est respectus rerum ad unum, quod est
deus, qui non commiscetur cum eis, sed habent respectum ad ipsum participando aliquid quod
est ab ipso "
^^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent., prol., 1.2 ad 2 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:10). For the text see n. 15
above.
can although an equality or identity of ratio between creature and Creator is
never achieved.** Thomas says nothing norther about imitation within the cor-
pus of the article, suggesting perhaps that he already has a working theory of
imitation in mind.*^ Elements of that theory do emerge, however, in
Aquinas's treatments of the objections that introduce the article.
In his replies to those objections, Thomas clearly reveals that he is operat-
ing from the same formalistic perspective as his master since here analogy is
treated in terms of exemplar causality. The centerpiece of Thomas's replies to
the objections is his account of the manner in which an agent's form is com-
municated to its effects by means of exemplar causality through which there
results an imitative similitude. An agent and its effect are similar because of a
formal resemblance, but what is the nature of that similitude? Arguing for a
univocal similitude, the first objection repeats the same strategy found earlier
in Albert's parallel text {In I Sent. 35.1 arg. 1). Since an agent acts through its
own form, that form must itself be communicated to its effect, much like fire,
through its form of "heat," induces its form into the heated thing. Thus, since
through his own wisdom and knowledge God effects created wisdom, the di-
vine form itself must be reproduced within creation. The objection then con-
cludes that since one and the same form is shared in common between Creator
and creature, the resulting community is univocal.*^
Arguing from a different direction and toward the opposite conclusion, the
sixth objection stands against univocity and in favor of equivocity. Whenever
things are univocally similar they admit of some comparison. But comparison
between and among similar things is not possible unless they agree in some
common nature (i.e., "form") in virtue of which they are univocally similar. In
the case of God and creature, however, no such agreement is possible since
that common feature would then be prior to God, which cannot be admitted.
Consequently, nothing whatsoever can be said univocally of God and crea-
ture.*'
** Ibid. 35.1.4 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:820): "Alia analogia est, secundum quod unum imitatur
aliud quantum potest, nee perfecte ipsum assequitur; et haec analogia est creaturae ad Deum."
' ' Cf Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 70 n. 132 (93-94).
** Thomas Aquinas,//5en?. 35.1.4 arg. 1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:818): "Videtur quod scientia
Dei sit univoca scientiae nostrae. Agens enim secundum formam producit effectum sibi uni-
vocum, sicut ignis per calorem inducit calorem univocum suo calori. Sed sicut dicit Origenes
. . . et Dionysius . . . , Deus dicitur sapiens, inquantum nos sapientia implet per suam sapientiam.
Ergo videtur quod sapientia sua sit nostrae univoca."
*' Ibid. arg. 6 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:819): "...quaecumque univocantur in aliquo, horum est
similitudo aliqua. Sed omnium similium est aliqua comparatio; comparatio autem non est nisi
convenientium in natura aliqua. Cum igitur nulla creatura cum Deo conveniat in aliqua natura
communi, quia illa esset utroque prius, videtur quod nihil univoce de Deo et creatura dicatur."
300 V. SALAS
With respect to the first objection, the fundamental question facing Tho-
masone already put to Albertis how can creatures be similar to God
without that similarity consisting in the same ratio as the divine being? What
forms the basis for similitude? As had been the case with Albert, Thomas
does not dispute the objection's basic premise, namely, that an agent produces
its like through the communication of form, and, in fact, elsewhere Thomas
acknowledges that God "produces similar effects through his own form."^
The issue here, however, is to what extent effects are capable of receiving
their agent's form.^' Like Albert, Aquinas notes that a univocal effect is pro-
duced by an agent according to its form only when the recipient is proportion-
ate to receive the total "power of the agent" or (when the recipient is
proportioned to receive the agent's form) according to the same ratio. Such a
proportion is out of the question when it comes to the Creator-creature rela-
tionship since no creature is ever proportioned to receive any perfection ac-
cording to the same mode by which it exists in God. Tuming to medieval as-
tronomy for an illustration, again as Albert had, Thomas explains that just as
no lower body can receive heat from the sun according to the same mode as it
exists in the suneven though the sun acts and produces heat through its own
formso likewise no creature is able to receive any perfection according to
the same degree as it exists in God; there remains, then, an essential diversity
of rationes.^^
Still, how does an essential diversity of rationes not destroy all similitude
between creature and God? Thomas's introduction of dissimilarity into the
similitude that exists between God and creature, while navigating around the
Scylla of univocity, could, if left undisciplined, fall prey to the Charybdis of
equivocity. Thomas therefore draws a distinction between two kinds of si-
militude. The similarity that creatures have to God does not consist in their
agreement in one thing shared in common butThomas tells us, even if
Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 2.1.2 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:62): "... [Deus] secundum formam
suam producat effectus similes "
" The imperfect reception of God's formal perfection is no failure on God's part, Thomas
points out, but a consequence of a creature's being made from nothing (ibid): ". . . imperfectio
autem non est ab ipso [Deo], sed accidit ex parte creaturarum, inquantum sunt ex nihilo." Cf
Albertus Magnus, DDN 5 n.9 (Cologne edition 37.1:308, lines 43-67).
'^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 35.1.4 ad 1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:820): "Ad primum ergo
dicendum, quod ab agente secundum formam non producitur effectus univocus, nisi quando re-
cipiens est proportionatus ad recipiendum totam virtutem agentis, vel secundum eamdem ra-
tionem: et sic nulla creatura est proportionata ad recipiendum scientiam a Deo per modum quo
in ipso est; sicut nec corpora inferiora possunt recipere calorem univoce a sole, quamvis per
formam suam agit."
somewhat laconicallyin "imitation." Both similitude and dissimilitude are
disciplined by "imitation."
Though he offers only slightly more detail about "imitation" in his reply to
the sixth objection than he had in the corpus, Thomas does nonetheless reveal
that he has in mind something akin to Boethius's understanding of aequivoca
secundum similitudinem. Indeed, it is likely that Thomas thinks he does not
need to go into detail because centuries before him Boethius had already
clearly distinguished, on the one hand, between univocis and equivocis and,
on the other hand, among various kinds of equivocis themselves.^^
Regarding the division among equivocis, Boethius first distinguishes chance
equivocis {aequivoca casu) from aequivoca consilio; he further subdivides
the latter aequivoca consilio into aequivoca secundum similitudinem,
aequivoca secundum proportionem, aequivoca ab uno, ad unum, etc. The
account given of aequivoca secundum similitudinemthose equivocis that
share some agreement among themselvesseems to capture what Thomas
has in mind with respect to imitation. As Boethius explains, both a picture of
a man and a true man {homo verus) are called "man" because of the similitude
that obtains between the picture and its exemplar.^'' But an asymmetrical
relationship results between the two, for while the painting is said to be like
the true man, the man is not said to be like the painting." Accordingly,
"imitation," on Thomas's reckoning, is in fact a kind of similitude, but unlike
a univocal similitude it results in a non-reciprocal relationship between the
similar things. Within the context of the God-creature relationship, Thomas
follows Pseudo-Dionysius and tells us that while creatures are similar to God,
God is in no way similar to creation.'''
Later in In I Sent. 44.1.1, Thomas offers further detail conceming the
distinction between univocal and imitative (i.e., analogical) similitude. It
should be noted that this passage itself mirrors closely a similar passage from
'' Boethius, In Categorias Aristotelis libri quatuor 1 (PL 64:166B). For the historical con-
text surrounding the logic of predication during Thomas's time, see E. J. Ashworth's artieles
mentioned in n. 10 above.
''' Ibid.: "... alia [aequivoca] sunt secundum similitudinem, ut homo pietus et homo verus,
quo nunc utitur Aristoteles exempio..."; cf Aristotle, Categories 1 (l al -5). Joseph Owens
notes that the Greek word zion as used in the Categories' example for equivocis is itself in-
definite since it can mean both "animal" and "painting" (The Doctrine of Being in the Aristote-
lian Metaphysics, 111 n. 15).
'^ Thomas Aquinas,//Se?. 48.1.1 ad 4 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:1081): ". . . non enim dieimus
quod homo sit similis suae imagini, sed e converso "
'* Ibid. 35.1.4 ad 6 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:821): "Ad sextum dicendum, quod inter Deum et
creaturam non est similitudo per convenientiam in aliquo uno communi, sed per imitationem;
unde creatura similis Deo dieitur, sed non convertitur, ut dicit Dionysius "
302 V. SALAS
Albert's Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus.^^ As we have seen in his
Dionysian commentary, Albert had identified a twofold formal similitude that
follows upon the manner in which one and the same form is shared. Thomas
follows suit and explains that sometimes things are similar when they
participate in a common formwhat Albert identified as a generic or specific
formas, for instance, two white things participate in "whiteness."'^ Since
both possess one and the same form according to the same ratio, their
similitude is one of univocity.^' Here one recognizes immediately that kind of
(univocal) similitude that Thomas rejects consistently with respect to God and
creatures, but, as had been the case in his response to the sixth objection,
Aquinas introduces another mode of similarity: imitation. This time he de-
velops "imitation" against the background of his metaphysics of participation.
"Imitation" occurs, Thomas says, when one thing has some form through
participation that another enjoys essentially.^"
Thomas's metaphysics of participationitself subject to various interpreta-
tions^'is far too complex for us to treat illy here, but we might highlight
just a few of its more essenfial elements, beginning with Aquinas's claim that
imitative similitude involves composition on the part of the thing that partici-
pates and simplicity on the part ofthat which is imitated. ^^ As Thomas main-
tains consistently throughout his work (both within the Commentary on the
Sentences and beyond),^^ God is absolutely simple enjoying his perfections
essentially according to his very nature. Creatures, in contrast, receive their
perfections, most fundamentally being {esse), and enter into composition with
them such that everything proceeding from God falls short of the absolute
" Cf Albertus Magnus, DDN2 nn.83-84 (Cologne edition 37.1:97, line 20-p. 98, line 21).
'^ In I Sent. 48.1.1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:1080): "Contingit autem aliqua dici similia duplici-
ter. Vel ex eo quod participant unam formam, sicut duo albi albedinem "
" Cf Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 45 (35).
'^^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 48.1.1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:1080): "... unum quod participa-
tive habet formam, imitatur illud quod essentialiter habet. Sicut si corpus album diceretur si-
mile albedini separatae, vel corpus mixtum igneitate ipsi igni."
*' For frill treatments of Thomas on the subject of participation, see Louis-Bertrand Geiger,
La participation dans la philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin (Paris, 1942); Fabro, La participa-
tion et causalit selon S. Thomas d'Aquin; and, more recently, Rudi te Velde, Participation and
Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden, 1995); and John Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought
of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite to Uncreated Being (Washington, D.C., 2000), chap. 4.
^^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 48.1.1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:1080): "Et talis similitudo quae
ponit compositionem in uno et simplicitatem in alio, potest esse creaturae ad Deum participan-
tis bonitatem vel sapientiam, vel aliquid hujusmodi, quorum unumquodque in Deo est essentia
ejus "
^^ See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, 5r 1.3.7; ibid. 1.4.2.
divine simplicity.^'' This ontological disparity between God's simplicity and a
creature's metaphysical composition impedes the latter's ever attaining to
equality with the former: "no creature is able to receive any perfection from
God according to the mode by which it is. in God, whence it falls short of a
perfect representation of the exemplar according to its mode of receiving."**^
Because each creature is able to receive being {esse) from God only to the
extent that its nature allows, there arises a graded hierarchy of being wherein
some creatures enjoy a greater share in the divine perfection than do others.^*
Each creature participates in Godagain, not in such a way that a part of the
divine being enters into the creature's metaphysical constitution^'but be-
cause the creature is finite, the unlimited and infinite divine perfection cannot
be fully or perfectly received but only imitated. On such a view, a creature's
imitation of God in terms of participation by similitude ultimately results in a
formal inequality between Creator and creature, since the former enjoys its
perfection preeminently without any limitation (i.e., essentially), whereas that
which participates possesses that same form but deficiently according to the
capacity of its ^^
A PARTING OF THE WAYS
As his account of analogy within the Commentary on the Sentences reveals,
Thomas is initially content to embrace virtually the same doctrine as Albert.
For both Albert and Thomas, analogy has the logical structure of reference to
some one thing, and the metaphysic supporting that structure is one of form or
exemplarism. This is not to say that Thomas and Albert deny or are oblivious
to the role of efficient causality;^' both remain attuned to efficiency but sub-
^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 8.5.1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:226): ". . . omne quod procedit a
Deo in diversitate essentiae, deficit a simplicitate ejus."
*' Ibid. 22.1.2 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:535): ". . . nulla tamen creatura potest recipere illam per-
fectionem secundum ilium modum quo in Deo est. Unde secundum modum recipiendi deficit a
perfecta repraesentatione exemplaris."
** Ibid.: ". . . in creaturis est quidam gradus, secundum quod quaedam quibusdam plures
perfectiones et nobiliores a Deo consequuntur, et plenius participant."
^' Cf Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent. 17.1.1 ad 6 (ed. P. Mandonnet, Scriptum super libros
Sententiarum, vol. 2 [Paris, 1929], 415): ". . . creaturae non dicuntur divinam bonitatem partici-
pare quasi partem essentiae suae, sed quia similitudine divinae bonitatis in esse constituuntur,
secundum quam non perfecte divinam bonitatem imitantur, sed ex parte."
*^ Ibid. 15.1.2 ad 4 (ed. Mandonnet, 2:373): "[Forma] est in uno defcienter, in altero est
eminenter."
^' Cf, e.g., Albertus Magnus, DDNl n.49 (Cologne edition 37.1:76, lines 53-54): ". . . om-
nia causata participant exemplariter et effective primo principio ..."; ibid. 5 n.lO (309, lines 50-
304 V. SALAS
Ordinate it to a more dominant exemplarism.^" The imitative relationship aris-
ing from the exemplar communication of one and the same form secundum
prius et posterius is enough, Thomas thinks, to stave off equivocity. But can
an analogy so constmed sufficiently ward off univocity?
The De veritate betrays the presence of a real but unstated concem in Tho-
mas's otherwise confident deployment of an analogy of reference. Thomas
never makes the reason for his concem explicit, and one would search in vain
for a direct rejection of an analogy of reference as constitutive of the Creator-
creature relationship. Nevertheless, some traces of Thomas's underlying con-
cem surface in De veritate 2.11, where he poses a question sufficiently similar
to the one raised in In I Sent. 35.1.4 that the answer offered in the De veritate
will directly bear upon the doctrine espoused in the Commentary on the Sen-
tences. Thomas asks whether scientia is said of God and humans in a purely
equivocal fashion.^' What becomes obvious in his exposition of the problem
is that Aquinas is concemed about positing a "determinate relationship or
distance" between Creator and creature and avoids asserting such a relation at
all costs. God's infinite transcendence over creation and his irreducible dis-
tinctness from the same must be preserved; any "determinate relationship," as
Thomas sees it, compromises that distinction for reasons we shall presently
see. It is also significant to note that Thomas's understanding of reference as
found in the De veritate always introduces a "determinate relationship" be-
tween its terms. Consequently, if an analogical relationship between God and
creation is to be preserved, an altemate means of establishing that community
will be required. To establish that community Thomas tums to proper propor-
tionality, which consists not in the direct relation of two terms to one another
(i.e., a proportion) but in a proportion related to at least one other proportion
(e.g., a:b::c:d). Since proper proportionality does not imply a determinate re-
lationship or distance between its terms, it will be capable of accommodating
the demands specific to the Creator-creature relationship.'^
Much as was the case with the Commentary on the Sentences, the De veri-
tate passage goes through the perfunctory measures of first rejecting univocity
53): ". . . ens primum est causa omnis entis effectiva et formalis-exemplaris ..."; Thomas Aqui-
nas, In I Sent. 8.1.2 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:198): ". . . divinum esse producit esse creaturae in
similitudine sui imperfecta: et ideo esse divinum dicitur esse omnium rerum, a quo omne esse
creatum effective et exemplariter manat."
' " Cf Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 59-60 (42^3).
" Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de veritate (hereafter De ver.) 2.11 (Leonine
edition 22.1:77, lines 1-2): "Undcimo quaeritur utrum scientia aequivoce pure dicatur de Deo
et nobis."
'2 Ibid. (79, lines 172-77).
and then equivocity before settling upon analogy as characterizing the
Creator-creature relationship.'^ Also, as had been the case in the Commentary
on the Sentences, Thomas's De veritate account draws a distinction between
two kinds of analogy; the similarities, however, end there. For now Aquinas
distinguishes not between two kinds of analogy of reference but between ref-
erence (or, as he calls it here, proportio) and proper porportionality (propor-
tionalitas). Conspicuously absent from Thomas's account is any mention of
imitation. Regarding proportio, Thomas explains that it involves some "de-
terminate relationship" between the analogates, as, for instance, the determi-
nate relation of "double" interposes itself between "two" and "one" or "four"
and "two."''' Proportionality, in contrast, does not involve a relationship of
two things to one another, but a relation of two proportions to one another, for
example, "six" is said to be analogous to "four" because "six" is the double of
"three" just as "four" is the double of "two."'^
Thomas extends his account of proportion and proportionality beyond these
mathematical applications. Substance and accident are related to "being" by
proportion and so likewise urine and animal with respect to "health." An acci-
dent is called "being" insofar as it refers to a substance, the primary instance
of being,'^ and urine is called "healthy" inasmuch as it is a sign of health rela-
tive to its subject, the animal.'^ In each of these instances of proportion or
analogies of reference, "some determinate relationship" among the terms is
involved; this determinate relationship, Thomas insists, cannot be admitted
between God and creature. Were there such a relationship, the nature of the
divine perfection could be "determined" from a consideration of its created
analogate.'" This last claim requires further explanation.
" Ibid. (78, line 74- p. 79, line 134).
''' I discuss what Thomas means by "determinate relationship" in what follows.
'^ Thomas Aquinas, De ver. 2.11 (Leonine edition 22.1:79, lines 135-53). Here Thomas is
simply articulating the definition of "proportion" as traditionally understood since Euclid. See
in particular Euclid's account of "proportion" in his Elements, book 5, definitions 5 and 6; book
7, definition 20.
" Thomas seems to have reconsidered his understanding of substance and accident vis--
vis being, for now they are no longer viewed as referring to some common form of being in
which both participate unequally. Instead, substance is called "being" because it enjoys being
per se, whereas accidents have being only insofar as they refer to substance.
" Thomas Aquinas, De ver. 2.11 (Leonine edition 22.1:79, lines 153-61): "Unde et secun-
dum modum primae convenientiae invenimus aliquid analogice dictum de duobus quorum
unum ad alterum habitudinem habet, sicut ens dicitur de substantia et accidente ex habitudine
quam accidens ad substantiam habet, et sanum dicitur de urina et animali ex eo quod urina ha-
bet aliquam habitudinem ad sanitatem animalis "
'* Ibid, (lines 165-72): "Quia ergo in his quae primo modo analogice dicuntur oportet esse
aliquam determinatam habitudinem inter ea quibus est aliquid per analogiam commune, impos-
306 V. SALAS
In a mathematical context when the value of one term of a given relation
double, triple, quadruple, etc.is known, the value of the other can be deter-
mined, such that beginning with "two," for example, one can determine its
double, "four," its triple, "six," its quadruple "eight," so on and so forth. The
proportion between the two numbers indicates a (de-)finite numerical distance
between them. In an ontological setting where the Creator-creature relation-
ship is at issue, Thomas's concem seems to be that, beginning from some
created perfection, a similar determination could be made regarding the cor-
responding divine perfection. The infinite distance between God and creature
would be traversed, meaning that the "distance" is actually finite. Montagnes
helpfully explains Thomas's use of "distance" within an ontological context:
"To speak of distance between creatures and creator is a metaphorical fashion
of translating the diversity that opposes beings to God and affirming that the
divine names are not univocal One can speak of distance . . . as an expres-
sion of dissimilarity."''
Where the distance between two terms is anything less than infinite, the
terms ultimately risk confusion and become circumscribed by the parameters
of their goveming relationship. To give yet another example from a mathe-
matical context, in a relationship of "double" it makes no difference whether
the terms involved are "two" and "four" or "two hundred" and "four hun-
dred"; each term is subsumed under and taken up into the relation of
"double." Retuming to an ontological context, more specifically one func-
tioning according to the demands of exemplarity, an analogy of reference
places God and creature in danger of being confused within the same form,
even if that form is qualified as "exemplary." Thus, despite Thomas's effort to
introduce ontological difference between God and creature by means of imi-
tation, noetically their relationship is apprehended according to an overarch-
ing form that abolishes the difference between them.'"" Put another way, the
formal perfection held in common between God and creature, despite its
realization/?er essentiam in the former and per participationem in the latter, is
grasped by means of a single concept that is univocal to both.""
sibile est aliquid per hunc modum analogice dici de Deo et creatura quia nulla creatura habet
talem habitudinem ad Deum per quam possit divina perfeetio determinari " Cf Montagnes,
La doctrine de l'analogie, 11 (69).
" Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 88-89: "Parler de distance entre les cratures et
leur crateur, c'est une faon mtaphorique de traduire la diversit qui oppose les tres Dieu
et d'affirmer que les noms divins ne sont pas univoques On peut continuer parler de dis-
tance . . . simplement eomme une expression de la dissemblance."
""> Ibid., 91 (77-78).
"" For this reason Duns Scotus can then say that the concept of being, as a conceptus
The De veritate indicates that Thomas harbors severe reservations about the
ability of referencespelled out in terms of imitation^to preserve the
Creator-creature distinction. Already present in the corpus of De veritate 2.11,
these reservations are clear in the objections and Thomas's replies in the same
question. Many of the objections posed are similar if not identical to the ones
found in In I Sent. 35.1.4; but, whereas "imitation" originally safisfied Thomas
with respect to evading univocity, that solution is no longer deemed ade-
quate. '^ For instance, in the third objection we find the familiar argument that
where there is comparison there must be some common form shared either to
a greater or lesser degree among many. '"^ Instead of appealing to imitative
similitude as he had in the Commentary on the Sentences,^^ Thomas tums
instead to a similitude based on proportionality. Time and again throughout
his replies to the objections, Thomas, while making a distinction between two
kinds of similitude, does not draw that distinction between two kinds of
analogy of reference as he had in the Commentary on the Sentences. Rather,
the distinction now is between a similitude of proportion (i.e., reference) and a
similitude of proportionality. Reference is always rejected and proportionality
accepted for one persistent reason: an analogy of reference implies a determi-
nate relation or distance; proportionality does not."*^ This is the procedure one
finds in Thomas's reply to the fourth objection:
A similitude that occurs because two things participate in one [thing] or be-
cause one thing has a determinate relationship to another such that from the
one the other can be comprehended by the intellect[this similitude] di-
minishes distance; however, a similitude that occurs because of an agreement
of proportion does not; for such similitude is found in things of great distance
or similarly of little [distance]: for there is no greater similitude of proportio-
simpliciter simplex, is univocal, all the while reeognizing the absolute and intrinsic differenee
between infinite and finite being. Similarly, Francisco Surez holds that the conceptus obiecti-
vus entis is of itself one inasmuch as it prescinds from all differentiation with respect to infini-
tude or finitude. While Surez does in fact argue that the concept of being is analogical, he will
only be able to make his case after great difficulty in establishing just how that eoncept
descends unequally {per prius et posterius) to its inferiors, that is, to God and to creatures. For
Scotus, see, e.g., Ordinatio I, d. 3, nn. 26-29, 58-60, 137-39, 149-51. For Surez, see, e.g.,
Dipsutationes metaphysicae 2.2.36 and 28.3.21. Along these lines, Gilson insightfully notes in
his Jean Duns Scot: Introduction ses positions fondamentales (Paris, 1952), 102: ". . . dans
une doctrine o l'tre est dfini par le concept, il est ncessairement univoque dans les limites
de ce concept, puisque autrement il n'y aurait pas de concept."
'"^ Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 84 (74).
'"' Thomas Aquinas, De ver. 2.11 arg. 3 (Leonine edition 22.1:77, lines 19-26).
"" See Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent. 35.1.4 ad 6.
'"5 See Thomas Aquinas, De ver. 2.11 ad 2, 4, 6.
308 V. SALAS
nality betweeti two and one and six and three than between two and one and
one hundred and fifty. Therefore, the infinite distance of creature to God does
not remove such similitude [i.e., proportionality].'"^
It is difficult to deny that the De veritate represents a decidedly new approach
to the analogy between God and creatures, an approach in which reference
spelled out in terms of imitation has been abandoned. As suggested, Thomas's
unstated but real concern pertains to the fact that reference ultimately risks the
noetic confusion of God and creature within the conceptual apprehension of
the form that governs the analogical relationship of imitation. What Thomas
leaves unsaid with respect to an analogia imitationis, Albert himself seems to
acknowledge. In the opening passage of his Super Dionysium de divinis no-
minibus, where Albert determines the subject matter of the book in question,
he writes, "It must be known regarding the attributes of a cause [i.e., God]
that they are said of the caused univocally, not equivocally, but by such a uni-
vocity that is one of analogy."'"^
Albert's notion of a univocatio quae est analogiae or "univocal analogy,"
the "theoretical monster" as Alain de Libera calls it,'"* is a perplexing one.
Many scholars, most especially Francis Ruello and de Libera himself, have
associated it with a kind of "univocal causality" that Albert seems to attribute
to God in a number of passages running throughout the Super Dionysium de
divinis nominibus. '"' But is Albert really suggesting, as Ruello and de Libera
maintain, that Godwhom Albert usually identifies as an analogical cause
functions with some kind of "univocal" efficacy? At first sight, the opening
passage of Albert's Dionysian commentary would seem to imply as much, for
there Albert speaks of God and creation in terms of a univocal cause-effect
relationship through which the former can be known through the latter.
Despite what Albert says, however, I do not think he means to suggest that
there is an instance of univocal causality at work in the relationship between
God and creature. Rather, I suggest that what is at issue is Albert's recogni-
"" Ibid, ad 4 (Leonine edition 22.1:80, lines 231-44): ". . . similitudo quae attenditur ex eo
quod aliqua duo participant unum vel ex eo quod unum habet habitudinem determinatam ad
aliud, ex qua scilicet ex uno alterum comprehendi possit per intellectum, diminuit distantiam,
non autem similitudo quae est secundum convenientiam proportionum; talis enim similitudo
similiter invenitur in multum vel parum distantibus: non enim est maior similitudo proportio-
nalitatis inter duo et unum et sex et tria quam inter duo et unum et centum et quinquaginta; et
ideo infinita distantia creaturae ad Deum similitudinem praedictam non tollit."
"" Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.l (Cologne edition, 37.1:1, lines 27-30). See n. 13 above.
'* De Libera, Mtaphysiqe et notique, 123.
"" See Francis Ruello, Les "noms divins " et leurs "raisons" selon saint Albert le Grand;
Jan Aertsen, Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendental: The Case of Thomas Aquinas
(Leiden, 1996), 58-60; and De Libera, Mtaphysique et notique, 122-25.
tion of a certain tendency in our conceptualizing activities to apprehend the
formal relationship between Creator and creature in terms of a single concept
that approximates univocity.
We must first note that Albert consistently rejects any univocal community
between God and creature throughout his Dionysian commentary and be-
yond;"" thus, unless he is content to contradict himself in an obvious manner,
"univocal" as attributed to God's causal relationship to creation is likely being
used in a peculiar fashion. Moreover, despite Albert's description of the
Creator-creature relationship in the Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus as
"univocal," the nature ofthat relationship really manifests no difference from
what Albert calls "analogical" (i.e., a "theological analogy") elsewhere in the
same text. When discussing the Creator-creature relationship in a number of
other passages throughout the Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus, Albert
affirms the analogical character of that relationship but only after first distin-
guishing philosophical from theological analogy and rejecting the former in
favor of the latter.'" Here we may also take note of the fact that within the
very passage in which Albert first introduces the notion of "univocal
analogy," he makes reference to Origen's claim that God is called "knowing"
or "understanding" because God causes knowledge and understanding in us.
Albert made this same reference to Origen much earlier in his Commentary
on the Sentences,^^^ and, though Albert's reference to Origen occurs in the ob-
jections, what is clear is that the same issuenamely, the Creator-creature
relationshipis being treated in both works. The Origen reference simply
highlights the causal relationship obtaining between God and creatures, and it
is the task of the passages in question to clarify further the nature ofthat rela-
tionship. Despite the novel introduction of "univocal" within the Super Dio-
nysium de divinis nominibus, Albert does not contradict or reject any element
"" See, e.g., Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.5l (Cologne edition 37.1:32, line 16), n.53 (33,
lines 62, 65), n.56 (35, line 26), and n.57 (lines 47^8) ; In I Sent. 8.7 (Borgnet edition 25:228-
29) and 35.1 (26:176-77); MT 1 (Cologne edition 37.2:459, lines 27-31) and 2 (467, lines 53-
57).
' " Cf, e.g., Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.57 (Cologne edition 37.1:35, lines 47-68), 4 n.51
(158, lines 25-30), and 13 n.22 (445, lines 50-66).
"2 Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.l (Cologne edition 37.1:1, lines 29-33); for the text, see n.
13 above; cf Albertus Magnus, In I Sent. 35.1 arg. 1 (Borgnet edition 26:176): "Causa efficiens
agens secundum formam efficientis, producit effectum univocum causae [P]robatur per
auctoritatem Origenis dicentis: 'Deus sapiens et sciens dicitur, secundum quod nos sapientia et
scientia implet.'" Aquinas also makes this same reference to Origen in his own Commentary
on the Sentences, In I Sent. 35.1.4 arg. 1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:818): "Videtur quod scientia Dei sit
univocal scientiae nostrae [S]icut dicit Origenes . . . Deus dicitur sapiens, inquantum nos
sapientia implet per suam sapientiam."
310 V. SALAS
of his previous teaching on theological analogy and seems instead to sustain
it. One is thus led to suspect that one and the same doctrine is being proposed
here, except in two different manners.
The reason for Albert's introduction of "univocity" into his doctrine of
analogy is made clearer in his discussion of the exact subject matter of the De
divinis nominibus. Not all divine names are the subject of this book, he says,
only those which are said properly of God. "^ Here Albert has in mind the dis-
tinction between symbolic (or metaphorical) and mystical names. He points
out that whereas symbolic names do not designate any reality intrinsic to the
divine being, mystical names do, and thus the latter names are said "properly"
of God. Accordingly, God can be known and named from those attributes
within creation (i.e., effects) that emanate from the divine being "as if from a
univocal cause" (sicut a causa univoca).^^^ Albert's appeal to "causality" in
this context is simply meant to establish a distinction between mystical and
symbolic names. But again how are we to understand the added qualification
"univocal"? As I read him, Albert does not here mean to suggest that God is
really a univocal cause. Indeed, on those occasions throughout his Super Dio-
nysium de divinis nominibus where Albert speaks of God in terms of a "uni-
vocal cause," he does so only after first adding the qualification "as i f or
"just as" (/cM)-"' Albert cannot literally mean that God functions as a uni-
vocal cause since he consistently rejects any univocal community between
God and creature. Here Albert can only be speaking figuratively and not tech-
nically or precisely about the causal relationship between God and creatures.
Creatures fiow from God "as i f from a univocal cause.
Albert appears to introduce the notion of "univocal" not as a claim regard-
ing the character of God's causality itself but in order to indicate how the
causal or ontological disparity between Creator and creature bears certain
noetic and semantic consequences. These consequences are felt especially in
the relation between the res significata and modus significandi.^^^ That which
' " Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.3 (Cologne edition 37.1:2, lines 23-28): "Dicimus, quod
nomen divinum secundum suam communitatem non est subiectum huius libri, sed aliquo modo
restrictum. Non enim hie agitur de nominibus symbolicis, quae non proprie dicuntur de deo,
sed per quandam similitudinem, sed de illis quae proprie nominant ipsum " Cf In I Sent.
2.17 (Borgnet edition 25:73).
"'' Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.3 (Cologne edition 37.1:2, lines 27-30).
"5 See ibid. 1 n.l (Cologne edition 37.1:1, line 33), n.3 (2, line 30), n.4 (3, line 15), and 4
n.74(184, Iine54).
"* For a treatment of this distinction as found in Albert, see Francis Catania, "'Knowable'
and 'Nameable' in Albert the Great's Commentary on the Divine Names," in Albert the Great:
Commemorative Essays, ed. Francis J. Kovach and Robert W. Shahan (Norman, Okla., 1980),
124-27.
THE ANALOGY BETWEEN GOD AND CREATURES 3 1 1
is signified (the res significata) by a mystical name is found tmly and abso-
lutely in God and only secondarily ox per participationem in creatures. Since
the way in which the perfections signified by mystical names are encountered
is colored and conditioned by our creatureliness, however, the mode of their
signification falls short of representing the divine mode of perfection as it is in
itself."^ A certain dissonance arises then between the res significata and the
modus significandi in the case of divine predication, a dissonance which is
unprecedented, since in our ordinary experience of the causal relations be-
tween and among creatures the res significata and modus significandi co-
incide. That is, the semantic coincidence of the res significata and modus
signifiandi results from an underlying ontological univocity within creation.
According to Albert, causality within creation is always univocal, occurring
between things that either are univocal or can be traced back to an instance of
univocal causation, which is simply to say that within the created order cause
and effect are always fundamentally proportionate to each other."^ Both the
cause and the effect share the same form, although, as Albert acknowledges,
they may not agree according to the same mode of being {esse). So, for in-
stance, the form in the seed agrees with the form of the generated thing but
not according to the same mode of being, since one form is actually realized
and the other is only virtual.'"
In the case of God and creature, however, the ontological disproportion
produces different semantic consequences, since the res significata can be
attributed to God but the modus signifandi cannot.'^" For Albert, one cannot
simply denude the res significata of the modus significandi and then apply the
former to God. The mode of signification always stems from the manner in
which the res is encountered within creation and is imposed accordingly.'^'
" ' Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.3 (Cologne edition 37.1:2, lines 30-34): "...participantes
per posterius illud ipsum quod in eo est ver et absolute, quantum ad rem significatam per no-
men, quamvis modus significandi deficiat a repraesentatione eius, secundum quod est in
deo "
"* See, e.g., Albertus Magnus, Metaphysica 11.1.8 (Cologne edition 16.2:470, lines 53-
56): ". . . omne quod educitur de potentia ad actum, extrahitur per aliquod movens, quod aut ge-
nerato est univocum aut reducitur ad univocum." Cf Philipp W. Rosemann, Omne agens agit
sibi simile: A "Repetition" of Scholastic Metaphysics {henwtn, 1996), 19495.
' " Albertus Magnus, Metaphysica 11.1.8 (Cologne edition 16.2:471, lines 51-56): "Non
enim dicitur hie univocum pure univocum, sed id quod in forma convenit, licet non conveniat
in esse illius formae; sicut forma, quae est in semine, convenit cum fonna generata non in esse,
sed in virtute et actu et essentia eonflisa "
Cf Albertus Magnus, DDN 1 n.62 (Cologne edition 37.1:39, line 50) 2 n.56 (81, lines
47-50), 2 n.66 (86, lines 31-36), and 5 n.31 (321, lines 31-35).
'^' Catania, "'Knowable' and 'Nameable' in Albert the Great," 121. See Albertus Magnus,
DDN 1 n.29 (Cologne edition 37.1:358, lines 72-86); ibid. 1 n.3 (2, lines 34-36): ". . . relin-
312 V. SALAS
Nevertheless, Albert's introduction of univocity suggests that the res signifi-
cata possesses in itself a certain noetic unity that transcends or even prescinds
from the differences in the corresponding divine and created modes of signifi-
cation.
When understood against the background of Albert's formalistic ontology,
the res signified is ultimately that of a form. To be sure, Albert attempts to
preserve difference within the possession of the same form through describing
the form as exemplary rather than generic or specific.'^^ Nevertheless, Albert
himself is aware of the same tendency to univocity towards which our con-
ceptualization processes incline usWhence the univocatio quae est analogiae.
He attempts to keep that inclination at bay through deploying the distinction
between the res significata and modus significandi. Yet, again, when de-
ployed within a formalistic ontology that ultimately yields to the univocaliz-
ing tendencies of one's conceptualizing powers, serious concems arise
whether the res significata/modus significandi distinction will be sufficient to
avoid univocity. Thomas, for one, seems to be unconvincedthus the reason
for his initial shift in doctrine towards proper proportionality. Ultimately,
from a noetic perspective, form transcends and engulfs the distinction be-
tween Creator and creature. It would take Thomas's dramatic shift to an exis-
tential emphasis for him to regain confidence in an analogy of reference.'^^
Operating from the perspective of an existential metaphysics, where what is at
issue is mainly the communication of existential act {actus essendi), analogy
now occurs at the level of judgment through which existence is originally
known. '^'' This later existential account of analogy constitutes the final doc-
trine of analogy which Thomas offers in his mature works: Summa contra
gentiles. De potentia Dei, and Summa theologiae.
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit.
quens illud in occulto propter hoc quod significat secundum modum, quo ilia res est in nobis, a
quibus est impositum nomen."
'22 Cf Albertus Magnus, DDN 2 nn.83-84 (Cologne edition 37.1:96, Iine46-p. 98, line
74).
'25 Cf Montanges, La doctrine de l'analogie, 87-93 (75-80).
'2'' Cf Jean-Franois Courtine, Surez et le systme de la mtaphysique (Paris, 1990), 526:
"II nous semble enfin lgitime . . . de soulinger que le point de depart de l'laboration thomiste
de la question de l'analogie est l'exprience, non pas de l'univocit, mais de l'quivocit que
l'Aquinate cherchera corriger ou modrer travers une rflexion sur \e jugement, sur la
forme du jugement, beaucoup plus que sur les concepts ou mieux sur l'usage de certains con-
cepts." Cf also Gilson, Jean Duns Scot, 101, 102; and Joseph Owens, "Aquinas on Knowing
Existence," in St. Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God, ed. John R. Catan (Albany, N.Y.,
1980), 20-33.

Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas On The Analogy Between God and Creatures

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