Chapter 27 — That names given to God and creatures are not said altogether univocally nor altogether equivocally

The third point is that names applied to God and to other beings are not predicated either altogether univocally or altogether equivocally. They cannot be predicated univocally, because the definition of what is said of a creature is not a definition of what is said of God. But things predicated univocally must have the same definition.

Nor are these names altogether equivocal. For in the case of a chance equivocation, the same name is attached to one object with no regard to the other object. Hence through the one we cannot reason about the other. But the names predicated of God and of other things are attributed to God according to some relation he has to those things in which the intellect considers the names’ significations. This is why we can reason about God through other things. Therefore, such terms are not predicated altogether equivocally about God and about other things, as happens in a chance equivocation.

Consequently they are predicated according to analogy; that is, according to their proportion to one thing. For we attribute to God such names as signify perfections in other things based on the fact that we compare other things to God as to their first origin. This clearly brings out the truth that, as regards the assigning of the names, such names are primarily predicated of creatures, inasmuch as the intellect that assigns the names ascends from creatures to God. But as regards the thing signified by the name, they are primarily predicated of God, from whom the perfections descend to other beings.