Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas on the Analogy Between God and Creatures

ALBERTUS MAGNUS AND THOMAS AQUINASON THE

ANALOGY BETWEEN GOD AND CREATURES

Victor Salas

IN his study on Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of analogy, George Klubertanztells us that "St. Thomas speaks of analogy in almost every one of hisworks, in a variety of contexts, yet he nowhere gives a thorough ex professotreatment of the problem."' To determine Thomas's doctrine of analogy it istherefore necessary to reconstruct it, and in doing so one quickly discoversthat, for Thomas, analogy is usually deployed in one of two major forms,namely, in terms of "reference"what Cajetan and Francisco Surez wouldlater refer to as "attribution"^^or in terms of "proper proportionality." Gener-ally speaking, for Thomas, an analogy of reference holds when one or severalthings 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 analogyare legion, but Klubertanz collects and reproduces a significant number of them in an appendixto 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 illudnomen est eadem secundum terminum, et diversa secundum habitudines ad ilium..."; andFrancisco Surez, Disputationes metaphysicae 28.3.4 (ed. Vives, Opera omnia [Paris, 1856-77], 26:13): "Tertio id amplius declaratur ex distinctione analogiae; duplex enim communiterdistinguitur: una vocatur a multis analogia proportionalitatis, et alia proportionis; alii vero prio-rem vocant analogiam proportionis, et posteriorem attributionis, quod solum adverto propteraequivocationem 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 4.1nn.535-39 (Marietti edition).

" Ibid. 5.8 n.879.

Mediaeval Studies 72 (2010): 283-312. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

2 8 4 V. SALAS

Thomas's account of analogy becomes murky, however, when he uses it todescribe the relationship between God and creation. God and creature are re-lated analogously, Aquinas tells us consistently enough, and in his earlyCommentary on the Sentences he describes that analogical relationship interms of reference. Yet, a few years later in his De veritate Aquinas's positionshifts such that he then considers reference ill-suited to the intended task ofarticulating the creator-creature relationship and tums instead to proper pro-portionality. Finally, in his mature works (e.g.. Summa contra gentiles andSumma theologiae) Thomas abandons proper proportionality and retums onceagain 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 andcreatures 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. Cajetanfamously identifies analogy in its "tmest sense" with proper proportionality.Attribution (i.e., reference) is a form of analogy, he tells us, but only functionsin terms of extrinsic denomination.^ Proper proportionality, in contrast, predi-cates perfections that are the intrinsic to each analogate and is, as Cajetan seesit, indispensable to metaphysical inquiry.^ In direct and deliberate oppositionto Cajetan, the Jesuit Surez argues that in reality all true analogies of properproportionality 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 usumAristotelis, ultimus modum tantum analogiam constitut, primus autem alienus ab analogiaomnio 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 hiecommune 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 secundumgenus causae formalis inhaerentis: quoniam praedicat ea, quae singulis inhaerent. Altera verosecundum extrinsecam denominationem fit"; and ibid. 3.29 (ed. Zammit, 29): "Scimus quidemsecundum hanc analogiam [i.e., proper proportionality], rerum intrinsecas entitates, bonitates,veritates etc., quod ex priori analogia non scitur. Unde sine huius analogiae notitia, processusmetaphysicales 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 philosophicusThomisticus, 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, deAnalogia 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. ^ Againstsuch classical interpretations, in much more recent times Bemard Montagneshas shown that these reductive interpretive strategies fail to recognize what isreally 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 shiftfrom a formalist ontology to an existential metaphysic that centers upon theefficient communication of the act of being (actus essendi).^

In what follows, I attempt to offer an explanation for Thomas's initial shiftin analogy from reference to proper proportionality and argue that one cannotfully appreciate this first phase of Aquinas's development without recognizingthe role that his master, Albertus Magnus, played in forming the youngerDominican's early conception of the analogical relationship between God andcreatures.'" 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 estut unum membmm sit absolute tale per suam formam, aliud vero non absolute, sed ut substattali proportioni vel comparationi ad aliud. At vero in praesenti hoc non intercedit, sive remipsam, 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 aliquidactualitatis habet.... Denique omnis vera analogia proportionalitatis includit aliquid metapho-rae et improprietatis, sicut ridere dicitur de prato per translationem metaphoricam; at vero inhac 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 analogiaattributionis; restt ergo, ut si est aliqua analogia, ilia sit alicujus attributionis; atque ita tandemdocuit 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 hisown account of analogy in terms of attribution, Surez appeals to none other than Thomas, aswe 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 inparentheses.

' While one can certainly discem along with Montagnes a noticeable shift in Thomas'searly reliance upon form and formal or exemplar causality to his mature preference for act andefficient 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 itsbeing composed of esse and essentia, then his emphases can shift while his understanding ofbeing remains stable.

'" In this article I shall focus chiefly upon the ontological dimension of analogy as found inAlbert and Thomas, and, when necessary, I shall touch upon its logical-semantic consequences.Indeed, given the historical understanding and development of analogyespecially in Boethiusand a number of the Arabic thinkers (e.g., Al-Ghazl, Avicenna, and Averroes)as a logical

2 8 6 V. SALAS

rejection of an analogy of reference for proper proportionality represents hisdecided 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. Toestablish this claim, I first show that Thomas's early doctrine of analogy asfound primarily in his Commentary on the Sentences is virtually identical tothat of Albert. Second, I indicate how in his De veritate Thomas reconsidershis position and cannot ultimately accept an analogy of reference because itrisks the conceptual confusion of God and creation in the consideration of oneand the same form. This form embraces, as it were, both the divine and crea-ture and thus nullifies the Creator-creature distinction. Finally, to corroboratethis latter claim, I show how Albert himself understands that analogy admits acertain univocity between God and creature. Proper proportionality, as it tumsout, was for Thomas an initial means of reasserting God's transcendence anddistinction 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 isliterally that of Albert;'^ yet Montagnesapart from alluding to a number ofAlbert's works, the most crucial of which, the Super Dionysium de divinisnominibus, was not yet available in its present critical editionfalls short of(1) establishing his claim conceming the identity of Thomas's doctrine withthat 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 bedeployed to articulate the ordered (i.e., per prius et posterius), ontological relationship existingbetween 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 laMtaphysique d'Albert, non dans les paraphrases de VOrganon, que la notion d'analogia entisapparat sous sa forme proprement ontologique et non plus seulment logique." (Mtaphysiqueet notique: Albert le Grand [Paris, 2005], 116.) For discussions that focus specifically on thelogical or semantie dimensions of analogy in Albert or Thomas, see E. J. Ashworth, "Analogyand Equivocation in Thirteenth-Century Logic: Aquinas in Context," Mediaeval Studies 54(1992): 94-135, and "Signification and Modes of Signifying in Thirteenth-Century Logic: APreface to Aquinas on Analogy," Medieval Philosophy and Theology 1 (1991): 39-67; BrunoTremblay, "A First Glane at Albert the Great's Teaching on Analogy of Words," MedievalPhilosophy 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 wouldserve Thomas until he could reformulate his doctrine of analogy from the perspective of ametaphysics o esse, as occurs eventually in the Summa contra gentiles (hereafter SCG) 1.34.

'^ See Montagnes, La doctrine de l'analogie, 73 (68).

THE ANALOGY BETWEEN GOD AND CREATURES 2 8 7

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 ofthe Creator-creature relationship in terms of univocity or more specifically a"univocal analogy."'^ Second, Albert's commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysiusare works with which Thomas quite literally had firsthand knowledge, havingpersonally 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 twoways in which analogy occurs, accepting only one as an adequate descriptionof the relationship between God and creatures. An analogous community canoccur in two ways:

Either from that in which some things participate in another thing according topriority and posteriority, as potency and act [participate] in the character {ra-tio) of being, and similarly substance and accident; or from that in which onething receives its being and character from another, and such is the analogy ofa creature to God; for a creature has being only insofar as it descends from thefirst 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 attributisenim 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 deusdieitur sciens et intelligens, quia scientia et intellectu nos implet." References are to the criticaledition of Albert's works produced by the Albertus-Magnus-Institut (the Cologne edition); forworks 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 ThomasAquinas, 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 writtenin 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 bedenied. 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 librosSententiarum, 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 describesas "analogy" or a communitas analogiae has little, if anything, to do with theclassical Greek or Aristotelian sense o analoga. As a number of studies havetaken 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."'^ WhileThomas says nothing in the text quoted above to dispute this facet of analoga(indeed Aquinas's enumeration of analogies here is not exhaustive since hewould come to embrace the Greek sense of analoga in the De veritate andalready 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 mindsomething 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 analogymentioned, what, for convenience's sake, we might call an analogy of "manyto one,"^ two terms are related to some other third. Here Aquinas notes thatthe ratio entis in relation to substance and accident expresses such an analogi-cal community, since substance and accident are both called "being" insofaras each participatesalbeit unequally (i.e., secundum prius et posterius)inthe 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 inthe Greek Background of Mediaeval Thought, 3d ed. (Toronto, 1978), 123-25, and "Analogy asa Thomistic Approach to Being," Mediaeval Studies 24 (1962): 302-22; Hampus Lyttkens, TheAnalogy Between God and the World: An Investigation of Its Background and Interpretation ofits Use by Thomas of Aquino (Uppsala, 1952), esp. chap. 1; Pierre Aubenque, "The Origins ofthe 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 del'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 thatit 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 ratioentis 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 onthe Sentences, however, even substance itselftogether with its accidentsis posterior to theratio 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 otherbecause, 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 thislatter form of analogy as "one to another."^'

Second, one observes from the passage quoted above that in opting for ananalogy of "one to another" and rejecting "many to one" Thomas, decidedlydismisses 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 claimthat God is one being among others; indeed, according to Thomas, God wouldnot 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 insistsupon the irreducible distinction between Creator and creature.^* In fact, as weshall see, it is Thomas's concem to maintain this radical distinction betweenCreator 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 ondetail, yet it contains in germ everything essential to the doctrine of analogythat 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 essesuum 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 "Christiandistinction," 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 ChristianTheology (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 asfound in the first edition of his Dieu sans l'tre, has gradually come to recognize Aquinas'sescape 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 andAporia, 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 ingreater detail in what follows.

2 9 0 V. SALAS

What is more, the manner in which Thomas poses the problem and his initialdistinction between two analogies of reference are found firstindeed almostverbatimthroughout the opera Alberti. Albert himself distinguishes betweenan analogy where one and the same thing is shared in common among several("many to one") and an analogy constituted through one thing's havingthrough participation what another is essentially ("one to another"). On Al-bert's view, both forms of analogy are articulated in terms of priority andposteriority. With respect to the Creator-creature relationship, Albert consis-tently rejects an analogy of "one to many" and accepts that of "one toanother." This is what we find, for instance, in an early passage from hisCommentary on the Sentences. Addressing the question whether things arewell divided into the "delightful" and the "useftil,"^^ Albert faces the objec-tion that, were there such a division, a uni vocal community between Creatorand creature would be implied. The reason is that in all divisions that which isdivided 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, Godand 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 ofcommunity 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 notjust any form of analogy will suffice. An analogy wherein the same thing isunequally participated by two or more things"many to one"is rejectedsince, as Albert explains, "the Creator has nothing by participation," but en-joys perfections "through his own essence and substance."^" Albert, as wouldThomas after him, refuses to subordinate God to a prior super-category ofbeing. 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 infroiibiles, 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 perparticipationem, 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 relationnot the Greek analogiaforms, for Albert, the logical stmcture of analogy. Arelation of multiple proportions is not operative (i.e., proportionality), butrather aproportio ad unum (i.e., an analogy of reference).^' God, inasmuch ashe possesses all perfections substantially {substantialiter) or essentially, isthat "one thing" to whom all creatures are related in terms of participation andfrom 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 twofoldunderstanding 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 beingswithin the categories, chiefly between substances and accidents; it is not un-like what Fabro has termed "predicamental analogy" with respect to ThomasAquinas's own teaching.'''* "Theological" analogy, in contrast, describes Al-bert's effort to address the Creator-creature relationship and, again, is akin toThomas's "transcendental analogy," as Fabro has named it. Albert goes intogreater detail about the distinction between these two kinds of analogy, usu-ally to explain why philosophical analogy is insufficient in accounting for theCreator-creature relationship.^^ His descriptions of philosophical analogylargely 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 etcreaturae nihil est commune univoee: nee etiam per analogiam talem, quod idem participeturper 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 illudconvenit 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): "Convenientiasunt media inter univoca et aequivoca, ut 'ens,' quod dieitur de substantia et accidente. Nonenim est sicut haee dictio 'canis.' Ea enim quae appellantur 'canis' non conveniunt in aliquasignificatione canis. Esse vero convenit substantiae et accidenti. Nee sunt sicut univoca. Ani-

2 9 2 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 Metaphysics4.2, where the Stagirite attempts to unify the various modes of being so as toassure a properly unified subject for the science of metaphysics. Many thingsare called "healthy" because they refer to the health of the animal {ad unum

^^ many things are called "medical" because they fiow from the art ofmedicine {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 exigenciesproper to the Creator-creature relationship since such analogy either involvesa purely extrinsic relationship (e.g., as in the cases of "health" or "medical")that cannot account for the intrinsic ontological relationship between God andcreature, 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 andGod. God is not the subject of created being, but its cause. The problem ofanalogy 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 habetsubstantia; deinde accidens, mediante alio. Ergo est eis esse seeundum prius et posterius. Hocdieitur ambiguum, eo quod aptatur ad hoc et ad hoc." Cf De Libera, "Les sourees grco-arabesde 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 Porphyrium1.5 (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): "Omnibusigitur dictis modis dieitur ens per dependentiam ad subiectum unum, quod est vere ens, cui aliavel inferunt passionem vel sunt transmutationes eius vel transmutantia ens verum vel ad ipsumdicta sunt dispositiones vel mensurae vel respectus vel habitus vel actiones vere entis velintentiones secundae acceptae circa ipsum esse vere entis vel alicuius quod dieitur ad ipsum utaccidens non ens, sed esse quoddam esse et significare. Omnia igitur diversis modis dicuntur adunum."

"" 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 "theologicalanalogy."

THEOLOGICAL (IMITATIVE) ANALOGY: ALBERTUS MAGNUS

Already from only a cursory glance at the passages that treat the issue ofthe analogy, one can discern both a procedural and structural overlap betweenAlbert's and Thomas's accounts of analogy. We must now determine whetherthere is a deeper doctrinal congruence between the two. Turning to a key ele-ment encountered in both accounts of analogy, namely, "imitation," a positiveanswer 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 ofAlbert's ontology wherein the exigencies of exemplar causality determine hisdiscussions 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 itsimitation but only produces an inadequate representation, there remains adeep and abiding formal dissimilarity between the two. Thus, when Albertspeaks explicitly of what he terms an "analogy of imitation" (analoga mta-tons), he does so only after having first stressed the disparity between Godand creature, insisting that they can enter into neither a generic, specific, noreven an analogical community."*^ Of course, here by "analogy" Albert simplyunderstands "philosophical analogy" where one and the same thing is prior toand shared in common by two or more other things. To accept such a com-munity between God and creature would problematically posit somethingprior to God. Still, the absolute irreducibility of God and creature to someprior third term does not impede all community whatsoever, if that com-munity be one of imitation. In several places throughout his opera Albertclarifies the dynamics involved in imitation, but one passage in particulardeserves 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 ... versun autre mode d'unification: l'unification causale, qui permet de penser la relation de l'treincr a l'tre cr."

"^ Cf Albertus Magnus, Super Dionysii Mysticam theologiam (hereafter MT) 1 (ed. PSimon, 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).

2 9 4 V. SALAS

parison between Albert and his Dominican confrere, who, in his own Com-mentary on the Sentences,'^^ addresses the same question Albert poses hereand, what is more, likewise offers a solution spelled out in terms of ananalogy of imitation.

In In I Sent. 35.1 Albert raises the question whether scientia is univocal toGod and creatures.'*'' He argues thatowing to the vastly diverse manners inwhich 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 notenjoy such creative knowledge,'** although like God they know free of anymaterial conditions. Finally, humans, taking their knowledge from materialand diverse things, possess knowledge in yet a weaker fashion that pales incomparison with angelic knowledge and is certainly far removed fromGod's.'*'

Still, granting Albert that each attains or possesses scientia in differentways, why could one not hold that scientia stands as a genus under which arelocated various species: divine, angelic, human? What is cmcial to Albert'sargument here is its ability to make a principled distinction between, on theone hand, a multiplicity of species located under one common genus in whicheach 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 amongdivine, 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 seet omnia alia universaliter vel particulariter existentia." Cf De causis et processu universitatisa 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 creanssit ngelus."

"" Ibid. "De hominis autem scientia dicit ibidem, sic: 'Animae rationale habent diffusivequidem et circulo circa existentium veritatem circumeuntes, et divisibili et largissimo varietatisdeficientes 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 aremere imitations of the divine knowledge itself The divine knowledge is that"one thing" to which created knowledge refers, which reference Albert spellsout 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, ofthe full and preeminent perfection found first and foremost in God. As Albertexplains, God possesses his perfections substantially (substantialiter) or es-sentiallyand therefore per priuswhile those same perfections are foundwithin creation only in a derivative fashion, per posterius, stemming fromGod 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 theentire dynamic of theological analogy tums upon the manner in which "form"is communicated.^" Arguing for univocity, the first objection maintains that asan agent cause (causa agens) acts according to its form, so it communicatesthat 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 eacheffect 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 meansof his own form. If God produces knowledge according to his own form, thenthat form must itself be communicated to creation, giving rise to a univocalsimilitude.^'

In light of this objection Albert introduces a distinction between two kindsof similarity that arise between an effect and its cause. He concedes to theobjection that the form of a cause can indeed be reproduced in an effect onaccount 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 utraqueimitatur eam quantum potest: et ideo est per prius et posterius dicta, eo modo quod dictum estsupra, quod primo est in Deo, et ab ipso, et ad ipsum, quantum possibile est in Angelo et inhomine."

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, homohominem, 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 toan effect's ability to receive entirely (and not just imitatively) the form of itscause according to the same degree and thereby ratio. So, for example, fireproduces 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 receivingmatter can be proportionate to the divine essence."^^ Put simply, no creaturecan receive the formal reality of God according to the same ratio as it exists inGod. One and the same form is communicated, but it can only be received in alimited 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 orimitation in creatures.

Albert then notes that there are, in addition to univocal agents, certainagents 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 lightwhereas 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 orlessening; it becomes less brilliant, more diffuse, and obscurer as it is receivedin and mixed with the matter of its diaphanous subject. The result is that thereceived 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 herefor Albert in overcoming univocity, since univocity involves one and thesame 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 itseffects, 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 agensseeundum speciem duobus modis, scilicet ad materiam proportionatam eidem speciei, ut agenset 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 tamenlumen 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 torecognize, then, is that while it is entirely tme to say that God acts or createsaccording to his form, that divine form exists in creatures not according to thesame 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 whichone and the same form is shared in common. In one salient passage from hisSuper Dionysium de divinis nominibus, Albert, when dealing with the ques-tion whether all goods proceed from the first good, revisits the way in whichthe 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 exemplaryand is held in common, not by predication, but by means of what proceedsfrom it, as the form of a shoemaker is in all the shoes he produces. Here it isnot necessary that the exemplary form be participated univocally by alljustas shoes, to use Albert's example, do not possess the form of the shoemakerunivocally, although that form is common to all of thembut only accordingto the degree that the exemplary form can be imitated.'^ In contrast, there isalso form common by predication which is simply the form of a genus or aspecies.'^ Those proceeding from this latter kind of form are themselves ofone genus or species, on account of which they enjoy a univocal community.Those things, however, proceeding from an exemplary form, which form isparticipated in according to diverse modes, do not attain a generic or specificunity, but only an analogical unity. ^ Thus, retuming to the question whetherall goods proceed from the first good, Albert answers that the first good is theuniversal 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, lines53-58); 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 duplexforma: quaedam exemplaris, et haec quidem communis est non per predicationem, sed perprocessum 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 diversimodeparticipatur, non oportet sic vel sic esse unum, sed tantum analogice "

298 V. SALAS

the fashion of a generic or specific formbut analogously, secundum prius etposterius according to diverse modes of reception.*'

Here the exigencies of form command Albert's thinking such that creaturesare understood as images of God's exemplar (formal) causality. With imita-tion, creatures re-present, though only imperfectly, the absolute plenitude ofthe formal perfection proper to God, a perfection that can never be reproducedentirely;*^ no creature is its own essential perfection but enjoys its perfectionsas received or, what is the same, as participated.*^ This is, of course, not tosay that in a creature's participation in God the divine being is commingled{commiscetur) or mixed with creation.*^ Rather, Albert simply means that acreature's participation consists in its partial or incomplete reception of someperfection that exists without limit in God. A creature's imitation of God isthus 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 forThomas early in his intellectual career. We have already seen in the prologueto his Commentary on the Sentences some allusion to "imitation." A creatureis 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 furtherdiscusses imitation's role in analogy but only after first making a distinctionbetween 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 thatthis mode of analogy results when one thing "imitates" another as much as it

*' Ibid, (lines 49): "... primum bonum est exemplar universale omnium bonorum, nonpraedicatum de eis nec participatum ab eis univoce, sed secundum prius et posterius, secundumdiversitatem recipientium, et est idem exemplar et effectivum." Cf. De Libera, Mtaphysique etnotique, 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 eissecundum diversos modos essentiales .. . ; sic autem non est respectus rerum ad unum, quod estdeus, qui non commiscetur cum eis, sed habent respectum ad ipsum participando aliquid quodest ab ipso "

^^ Thomas Aquinas, In I Sent., prol., 1.2 ad 2 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:10). For the text see n. 15above.


can although an equality or identity of ratio between creature and Creator isnever achieved.** Thomas says nothing norther about imitation within the cor-pus of the article, suggesting perhaps that he already has a working theory ofimitation in mind.*^ Elements of that theory do emerge, however, inAquinas'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 istreated in terms of exemplar causality. The centerpiece of Thomas's replies tothe 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 thereresults an imitative similitude. An agent and its effect are similar because of aformal resemblance, but what is the nature of that similitude? Arguing for aunivocal similitude, the first objection repeats the same strategy found earlierin Albert's parallel text {In I Sent. 35.1 arg. 1). Since an agent acts through itsown 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, sincethrough 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 Creatorand creature, the resulting community is univocal.*^

Arguing from a different direction and toward the opposite conclusion, thesixth objection stands against univocity and in favor of equivocity. Wheneverthings are univocally similar they admit of some comparison. But comparisonbetween and among similar things is not possible unless they agree in somecommon nature (i.e., "form") in virtue of which they are univocally similar. Inthe case of God and creature, however, no such agreement is possible sincethat 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 imitaturaliud 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 estsimilitudo aliqua. Sed omnium similium est aliqua comparatio; comparatio autem non est nisiconvenientium in natura aliqua. Cum igitur nulla creatura cum Deo conveniat in aliqua naturacommuni, 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 Godwithout that similarity consisting in the same ratio as the divine being? Whatforms the basis for similitude? As had been the case with Albert, Thomasdoes not dispute the objection's basic premise, namely, that an agent producesits like through the communication of form, and, in fact, elsewhere Thomasacknowledges that God "produces similar effects through his own form."^The issue here, however, is to what extent effects are capable of receivingtheir 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 isproportioned to receive the agent's form) according to the same ratio. Such aproportion 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 asno lower body can receive heat from the sun according to the same mode as itexists in the suneven though the sun acts and produces heat through its ownformso likewise no creature is able to receive any perfection according tothe same degree as it exists in God; there remains, then, an essential diversityof rationes.^^

Still, how does an essential diversity of rationes not destroy all similitudebetween creature and God? Thomas's introduction of dissimilarity into thesimilitude that exists between God and creature, while navigating around theScylla of univocity, could, if left undisciplined, fall prey to the Charybdis ofequivocity. Thomas therefore draws a distinction between two kinds of si-militude. The similarity that creatures have to God does not consist in theiragreement 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 formamsuam producat effectus similes "

" The imperfect reception of God's formal perfection is no failure on God's part, Thomaspoints out, but a consequence of a creature's being made from nothing (ibid): "... imperfectioautem non est ab ipso [Deo], sed accidit ex parte creaturarum, inquantum sunt ex nihilo." CfAlbertus 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 ergodicendum, 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 quoin ipso est; sicut nec corpora inferiora possunt recipere calorem univoce a sole, quamvis performam suam agit."


somewhat laconicallyin "imitation." Both similitude and dissimilitude aredisciplined by "imitation."

Though he offers only slightly more detail about "imitation" in his reply tothe sixth objection than he had in the corpus, Thomas does nonetheless revealthat he has in mind something akin to Boethius's understanding of aequivocasecundum similitudinem. Indeed, it is likely that Thomas thinks he does notneed to go into detail because centuries before him Boethius had alreadyclearly 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 chanceequivocis {aequivoca casu) from aequivoca consilio; he further subdividesthe latter aequivoca consilio into aequivoca secundum similitudinem,aequivoca secundum proportionem, aequivoca ab uno, ad unum, etc. Theaccount given of aequivoca secundum similitudinemthose equivocis thatshare some agreement among themselvesseems to capture what Thomashas in mind with respect to imitation. As Boethius explains, both a picture ofa man and a true man {homo verus) are called "man" because of the similitudethat obtains between the picture and its exemplar.^'' But an asymmetricalrelationship results between the two, for while the painting is said to be likethe 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 unlikea univocal similitude it results in a non-reciprocal relationship between thesimilar things. Within the context of the God-creature relationship, Thomasfollows 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 thedistinction between univocal and imitative (i.e., analogical) similitude. Itshould 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 artielesmentioned 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 (lal-5). Joseph Owensnotes 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 dieimusquod homo sit similis suae imagini, sed e converso "

'* Ibid. 35.1.4 ad 6 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:821): "Ad sextum dicendum, quod inter Deum etcreaturam 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 hisDionysian commentary, Albert had identified a twofold formal similitude thatfollows upon the manner in which one and the same form is shared. Thomasfollows suit and explains that sometimes things are similar when theyparticipate in a common formwhat Albert identified as a generic or specificformas, for instance, two white things participate in "whiteness."'^ Sinceboth possess one and the same form according to the same ratio, theirsimilitude is one of univocity.^' Here one recognizes immediately that kind of(univocal) similitude that Thomas rejects consistently with respect to God andcreatures, 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 throughparticipation 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 highlightjust a few of its more essenfial elements, beginning with Aquinas's claim thatimitative 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 theSentences and beyond),^^ God is absolutely simple enjoying his perfectionsessentially according to his very nature. Creatures, in contrast, receive theirperfections, most fundamentally being {esse), and enter into composition withthem 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 andSubstantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden, 1995); and John Wippel, The Metaphysical Thoughtof 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 quaeponit 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 essentiaejus "

^^ See, e.g., Thomas Aquinas, 5 r 1.3.7; ibid. 1.4.2.


divine simplicity.^'' This ontological disparity between God's simplicity and acreature's metaphysical composition impedes the latter's ever attaining toequality with the former: "no creature is able to receive any perfection fromGod according to the mode by which it is. in God, whence it falls short of aperfect representation of the exemplar according to its mode of receiving."**^Because each creature is able to receive being {esse) from God only to theextent that its nature allows, there arises a graded hierarchy of being whereinsome 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 thedivine being enters into the creature's metaphysical constitution^'but be-cause the creature is finite, the unlimited and infinite divine perfection cannotbe fully or perfectly received but only imitated. On such a view, a creature'simitation of God in terms of participation by similitude ultimately results in aformal inequality between Creator and creature, since the former enjoys itsperfection preeminently without any limitation (i.e., essentially), whereas thatwhich participates possesses that same form but deficiently according to thecapacity 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 tosome one thing, and the metaphysic supporting that structure is one of form orexemplarism. This is not to say that Thomas and Albert deny or are obliviousto 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 aDeo 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 aperfecta repraesentatione exemplaris."

** Ibid.: ".. . in creaturis est quidam gradus, secundum quod quaedam quibusdam pluresperfectiones et nobiliores a Deo consequuntur, et plenius participant."

^' Cf Thomas Aquinas, In II Sent. 17.1.1 ad 6 (ed. P. Mandonnet, Scriptum super librosSententiarum, 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 esteminenter."

^' 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 secundumprius et posterius is enough, Thomas thinks, to stave off equivocity. But canan 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. Thomasnever makes the reason for his concem explicit, and one would search in vainfor 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 similarto the one raised in In I Sent. 35.1.4 that the answer offered in the De veritatewill 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 purelyequivocal fashion.^' What becomes obvious in his exposition of the problemis that Aquinas is concemed about positing a "determinate relationship ordistance" between Creator and creature and avoids asserting such a relation atall costs. God's infinite transcendence over creation and his irreducible dis-tinctness from the same must be preserved; any "determinate relationship," asThomas sees it, compromises that distinction for reasons we shall presentlysee. It is also significant to note that Thomas's understanding of reference asfound in the De veritate always introduces a "determinate relationship" be-tween its terms. Consequently, if an analogical relationship between God andcreation is to be preserved, an altemate means of establishing that communitywill 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 accommodatingthe 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 insimilitudine sui imperfecta: et ideo esse divinum dicitur esse omnium rerum, a quo omne essecreatum 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 Deoet nobis."

'2 Ibid. (79, lines 172-77).


and then equivocity before settling upon analogy as characterizing theCreator-creature relationship.'^ Also, as had been the case in the Commentaryon the Sentences, Thomas's De veritate account draws a distinction betweentwo kinds of analogy; the similarities, however, end there. For now Aquinasdistinguishes 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 ofimitation. 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 oftwo things to one another, but a relation of two proportions to one another, forexample, "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 thesemathematical applications. Substance and accident are related to "being" byproportion 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 instanceof 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 oranalogies of reference, "some determinate relationship" among the terms isinvolved; this determinate relationship, Thomas insists, cannot be admittedbetween God and creature. Were there such a relationship, the nature of thedivine perfection could be "determined" from a consideration of its createdanalogate.'" 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. Seein particular Euclid's account of "proportion" in his Elements, book 5, definitions 5 and 6; book7, 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 inwhich both participate unequally. Instead, substance is called "being" because it enjoys beingper 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 quorumunum ad alterum habitudinem habet, sicut ens dicitur de substantia et accidente ex habitudinequam 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 essealiquam 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 relationdouble, triple, quadruple, etc.is known, the value of the other can be deter-mined, such that beginning with "two," for example, one can determine itsdouble, "four," its triple, "six," its quadruple "eight," so on and so forth. Theproportion between the two numbers indicates a (de-)finite numerical distancebetween them. In an ontological setting where the Creator-creature relation-ship is at issue, Thomas's concem seems to be that, beginning from somecreated perfection, a similar determination could be made regarding the cor-responding divine perfection. The infinite distance between God and creaturewould be traversed, meaning that the "distance" is actually finite. Montagneshelpfully explains Thomas's use of "distance" within an ontological context:"To speak of distance between creatures and creator is a metaphorical fashionof translating the diversity that opposes beings to God and affirming that thedivine 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, theterms ultimately risk confusion and become circumscribed by the parametersof their goveming relationship. To give yet another example from a mathe-matical context, in a relationship of "double" it makes no difference whetherthe 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 referenceplaces 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 tointroduce 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, theformal perfection held in common between God and creature, despite itsrealization/?er essentiam in the former and per participationem in the latter, isgrasped 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 habettalem 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 etleur crateur, c'est une faon mtaphorique de traduire la diversit qui oppose les tres Dieuet 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 theability of referencespelled out in terms of imitation^to preserve theCreator-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 samequestion. Many of the objections posed are similar if not identical to the onesfound in In I Sent. 35.1.4; but, whereas "imitation" originally safisfied Thomaswith respect to evading univocity, that solution is no longer deemed ade-quate. '^ For instance, in the third objection we find the familiar argument thatwhere there is comparison there must be some common form shared either toa greater or lesser degree among many. '"^ Instead of appealing to imitativesimilitude as he had in the Commentary on the Sentences,^^ Thomas tumsinstead to a similitude based on proportionality. Time and again throughouthis replies to the objections, Thomas, while making a distinction between twokinds of similitude, does not draw that distinction between two kinds ofanalogy 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 asimilitude of proportionality. Reference is always rejected and proportionalityaccepted for one persistent reason: an analogy of reference implies a determi-nate relation or distance; proportionality does not."*^ This is the procedure onefinds 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 theone the other can be comprehended by the intellect[this similitude] di-minishes distance; however, a similitude that occurs because of an agreementof proportion does not; for such similitude is found in things of great distanceor similarly of little [distance]: for there is no greater similitude of proportio-

simpliciter simplex, is univocal, all the while reeognizing the absolute and intrinsic differeneebetween 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 willonly be able to make his case after great difficulty in establishing just how that eonceptdescends unequally {per prius et posterius) to its inferiors, that is, to God and to creatures. ForScotus, 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 inhis Jean Duns Scot: Introduction ses positions fondamentales (Paris, 1952), 102: "... dansune doctrine o l'tre est dfini par le concept, il est ncessairement univoque dans les limitesde 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 andone hundred and fifty. Therefore, the infinite distance of creature to God doesnot remove such similitude [i.e., proportionality].'"^

It is difficult to deny that the De veritate represents a decidedly new approachto the analogy between God and creatures, an approach in which referencespelled out in terms of imitation has been abandoned. As suggested, Thomas'sunstated but real concern pertains to the fact that reference ultimately risks thenoetic confusion of God and creature within the conceptual apprehension ofthe form that governs the analogical relationship of imitation. What Thomasleaves unsaid with respect to an analogia imitationis, Albert himself seems toacknowledge. 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, haveassociated it with a kind of "univocal causality" that Albert seems to attributeto God in a number of passages running throughout the Super Dionysium dedivinis nominibus. '"' But is Albert really suggesting, as Ruello and de Liberamaintain, that Godwhom Albert usually identifies as an analogical causefunctions with some kind of "univocal" efficacy? At first sight, the openingpassage of Albert's Dionysian commentary would seem to imply as much, forthere Albert speaks of God and creation in terms of a univocal cause-effectrelationship through which the former can be known through the latter.Despite what Albert says, however, I do not think he means to suggest thatthere is an instance of univocal causality at work in the relationship betweenGod 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 eoquod aliqua duo participant unum vel ex eo quod unum habet habitudinem determinatam adaliud, ex qua scilicet ex uno alterum comprehendi possit per intellectum, diminuit distantiam,non autem similitudo quae est secundum convenientiam proportionum; talis enim similitudosimiliter 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; etideo 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 theformal relationship between Creator and creature in terms of a single conceptthat approximates univocity.

We must first note that Albert consistently rejects any univocal communitybetween 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 beingused in a peculiar fashion. Moreover, despite Albert's description of theCreator-creature relationship in the Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus as"univocal," the nature ofthat relationship really manifests no difference fromwhat Albert calls "analogical" (i.e., a "theological analogy") elsewhere in thesame text. When discussing the Creator-creature relationship in a number ofother passages throughout the Super Dionysium de divinis nominibus, Albertaffirms the analogical character of that relationship but only after first distin-guishing philosophical from theological analogy and rejecting the former infavor of the latter.'" Here we may also take note of the fact that within thevery passage in which Albert first introduces the notion of "univocalanalogy," 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 Commentaryon the Sentences,^^^ and, though Albert's reference to Origen occurs in the ob-jections, what is clear is that the same issuenamely, the Creator-creaturerelationshipis being treated in both works. The Origen reference simplyhighlights the causal relationship obtaining between God and creatures, and itis 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 efficiensagens secundum formam efficientis, producit effectum univocum causae [P]robatur perauctoritatem Origenis dicentis: 'Deus sapiens et sciens dicitur, secundum quod nos sapientia etscientia implet.'" Aquinas also makes this same reference to Origen in his own Commentaryon the Sentences, In I Sent. 35.1.4 arg. 1 (ed. Mandonnet, 1:818): "Videtur quod scientia Dei situnivocal scientiae nostrae [S]icut dicit Origenes ... Deus dicitur sapiens, inquantum nossapientia implet per suam sapientiam."

310 V. SALAS

of his previous teaching on theological analogy and seems instead to sustainit. One is thus led to suspect that one and the same doctrine is being proposedhere, except in two different manners.

The reason for Albert's introduction of "univocity" into his doctrine ofanalogy is made clearer in his discussion of the exact subject matter of the Dedivinis 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 pointsout that whereas symbolic names do not designate any reality intrinsic to thedivine being, mystical names do, and thus the latter names are said "properly"of God. Accordingly, God can be known and named from those attributeswithin creation (i.e., effects) that emanate from the divine being "as if from aunivocal cause" (sicut a causa univoca).^^^ Albert's appeal to "causality" inthis context is simply meant to establish a distinction between mystical andsymbolic 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 isreally 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 betweenGod 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 thecausal or ontological disparity between Creator and creature bears certainnoetic and semantic consequences. These consequences are felt especially inthe 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, quodnomen divinum secundum suam communitatem non est subiectum huius libri, sed aliquo modorestrictum. 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.


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. Sincethe way in which the perfections signified by mystical names are encounteredis colored and conditioned by our creatureliness, however, the mode of theirsignification falls short of representing the divine mode of perfection as it is initself."^ A certain dissonance arises then between the res significata and themodus significandi in the case of divine predication, a dissonance which isunprecedented, 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 modussignifiandi results from an underlying ontological univocity within creation.According to Albert, causality within creation is always univocal, occurringbetween things that either are univocal or can be traced back to an instance ofunivocal causation, which is simply to say that within the created order causeand effect are always fundamentally proportionate to each other."^ Both thecause 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 butnot according to the same mode of being, since one form is actually rea

Documents

Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas on the Analogy Between God and Creatures