Article 6 — Whether these terms are synonymous

The sixth point of inquiry is whether these terms are synonymous. (Parallel texts: ST I.13.4; SCG I.35; In I Sent. 2.3; 22.3; Compendium theologiae, ch. 25.)

Obj. 1: And it seems that they are. For synonyms are terms that have exactly the same meaning. Now, all these terms, when applied to God, signify the same thing, for they denote the divine substance, which is altogether simple and one, as we have proved. Therefore, these terms are all synonymous.

Obj. 2: Damascene says that in God, all things are one except ungenerability, generation, and procession. (John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith 1.2 (PG 94:791–94).) Now, terms that signify the same are synonymous. Therefore, all the terms applied to God except those that signify personal properties are synonyms.

Obj. 3: Things that are identical with one and the same thing are identical with one another. Now, in God wisdom is identical with his substance, and so also are his will and his power. Therefore, in God wisdom, power, and will are absolutely the same thing, and thus these terms are synonymous.

Obj. 4: It will be replied that these terms signify one reality indeed but different accounts, and therefore are not synonyms.

On the contrary, an account to which nothing corresponds in the thing is false and pointless. But if there are many such accounts of these names and the reality itself is only one, it seems that these accounts are pointless and false.

Obj. 5: But someone will reply that these points of view are not pointless, since something in God corresponds to them.

On the contrary, created things are like God inasmuch as they were made by him in likeness to his idea. Now, the plurality of ideas or ideal accounts does not connote a plurality of relations in God to created things, since by his essence he is the idea of all things. Neither, then, does anything in the divine substance correspond to the accounts of the names that we say of God from his likeness to his creatures.

Obj. 6: That which is supremely one cannot be the root and foundation of multitude. Now, the divine essence is supremely one. Therefore, within the divine substance cannot be the root and foundation of the different accounts of these expressions.

Obj. 7: The distinction of the relations that are really in God constitutes the distinction of the persons. If, then, something in God corresponds to the common accounts of the attributes, there would be a number of persons corresponding to the number of attributes; and thus there would be more than three persons in God, which is heretical. Therefore, it seems that these expressions are altogether synonymous.

On the contrary (1), it is futile to put words together that are synonymous, for instance, “clothes” and “garments.” If, then, these words are synonymous, it will be futile to say both “God is good” and “God is wise”; but this is not so.

Furthermore (2), to deny one synonym about anything is to deny the others. Yet some have denied God’s power without denying his knowledge or goodness. Therefore, these words are not synonymous.

Furthermore (3), this is proved from the Commentator, on Metaphysics 11, who says that these expressions when applied to God are not synonymous. (Averroes, Commentary on the Metaphysics 11, comm. 39.)

I answer that all those who have considered the question are agreed in saying that these terms are not synonymous. This view offers no difficulty to those who held that these expressions signify not God’s substance but certain essential intentions added to it or modes of the divine action in its effects or even the denial of what they signify in creatures.

But given that they do signify the divine substance, as we have proved, (Q. 7, a. 5.) the question would seem to present considerable difficulty; for then we have all these terms with one simple signification, namely, the divine substance.

But it must be observed that the signification of a term does not refer to the reality immediately but only through the medium of the mind; for vocal words are the tokens of things that are within the soul’s impressions, and the conceptions of the mind themselves are likeness of the realities, as is clear from the Philosopher at the beginning of On Interpretation. (Aristotle, On Interpretation 1.1, 16a3–9.)

Now, terms may be hindered from being synonymous either by reason of the things signified or on the part of the accounts conveyed by the term and which the term is employed to signify. Therefore, the terms that are applied to God cannot be hindered from being synonymous by reason of their signifying different realities, according to what has been said above, but only by the various accounts consequent to the conceptions of intellects.

Hence, the Commentator says, on Metaphysics 11, that multiplicity in God is only according to differences in the intellect and not in being, which we call being according to the reality and many according to account. (Averroes, Commentary on the Metaphysics 11, comm. 39.) Now, these various accounts existing in our mind cannot be such that nothing corresponds to them on the part of the reality, since the things that these accounts regard our intellect attributes to God. Therefore, if there were nothing in God either in himself or in his effect corresponding to these accounts, the intellect would be in error in attributing them to him, and all propositions expressive of such attributions would be false, which is inadmissible.

Now, there are certain accounts to which nothing corresponds in the reality understood. But the things thus conceived the intellect does not attribute to the realities as they are in their very selves but only as they are understood; for example, the aspect of genus or species and other intellectual “intentions,” since in the things themselves that are outside the intellect there is nothing that is a likeness of the account of genus or species. And yet the intellect is not in error, for the things reflected by these accounts (namely, genus and species) are not attributed by the intellect to things as existing outside the intellect, but only as existing therein. For because just as the intellect understands realities existing outside the soul, so too does it, by reflecting on itself, understand them to have been understood; therefore, just as the intellect has a conception or account to which the reality itself as existing outside the soul corresponds, so too it has a conception or account to which the reality corresponds as understood. For instance, to the account or conception of a man there corresponds the thing outside the soul, while nothing but the reality as understood corresponds to the account or conception of the genus or species.

But, it is impossible that such be the meaning of these expressions that are applied to God. For in that case the intellect would not attribute them to him as he is in himself but as he is understood, and this is plainly false; for when we say, “God is good,” the sense would be that we understand him to be so but that he is not so in reality.

Accordingly, some hold that the accounts of these terms connote various corresponding divine effects; for they maintain that when we say, “God is good” we indicate God’s essence together with a connoted effect, the sense being “God is and causes goodness,” such that the difference in these accounts arises from the difference in his effects.

But this does not seem right, because seeing that an effect proceeds in likeness to its cause, we must understand a cause to be such before its effects are such. Therefore, God is not called wise because he is the cause of wisdom; rather, because he is wise, therefore does he cause wisdom. Hence, Augustine says that because God is good, therefore we exist, and inasmuch as we exist we are good. (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1.32 (PL 34:32).)

Moreover, according to this view, it would follow that these expressions are attributed to the creature before the Creator, just as health is attributed first to a healthy man and afterwards to that which gives health, since the latter is called healthy through being a cause of health. Again, if when we say, “God is good,” we mean nothing more than “God is and is the cause of goodness,” it would follow that we could equally predicate of him the names of all the divine effects, for instance, that “God is heaven,” since he is the cause of heaven.

Again, this is clearly false if it refers to actual causality, because then we could not say that God was good, wise, or the like from eternity, for he did not cause things actually from eternity. If, on the other hand, it refers to causality according to power, such that God is called “good” because he is and has the power to infuse goodness, then we shall have to say that the term “good” signifies that power. Now, that power is a supereminent likeness of its effect, just as is also the power of any equivocal agent. Thus, it would follow that the intellect, in conceiving goodness, becomes like that which is in God and that which is God. And thus something that is in God and is God corresponds to the account or conception of goodness.

We must say, then, that all these many and diverse accounts correspond to something in God of which they are likenesses. For it is plain that one form can have but one likeness according to species, that which is of the same account as it, while there can be many different imperfect likenesses, each one of which falls short of a perfect representation of the form. Since, then, as we have proved above, the ideas we conceive of the perfections found in created things are imperfect and not of the same account as the divine essence itself, nothing prevents the same one essence from corresponding to all these conceptions, as being imperfectly represented thereby. And in this way all these accounts are indeed in our intellect as their subject, but they are in God as the foundation rendering these conceptions true. For they would not be true conceptions that the intellect has of some real thing unless that thing corresponds to the conceptions by way of likeness.

Accordingly, the cause of difference or multiplicity in these expressions is on the part of the intellect that is unable to reach the vision of that divine essence as it is, but it sees it through many faulty likenesses thereof, which are reflected in created things as in a mirror. Therefore, if it saw that very essence, it would not need to use many terms, nor would it need many conceptions.

For this reason, God’s Word, which is his perfect concept, is but one; therefore, it is written: on that day there shall be one Lord, and his name will be one (Zech 14:9), when God’s very essence will be seen, and knowledge of God will not be gathered from created things.

Reply Obj. 1: These terms signify one thing indeed but under different accounts, as stated above; hence, they are not synonyms.

Reply Obj. 2: Damascene means that in God all things are one in reality except the personal properties, which constitute a real distinction of persons, but he does not deny that the things that are said of God differ in account.

Reply Obj. 3: The reply to the third objection is clear from what has just been said, because just as wisdom and goodness are in reality the same as the divine essence, so too are they identical with each other; yet the accounts of these names differ, as stated.

Reply Obj. 4: It has already been explained that, although God is absolutely one, still these many concepts or accounts are not false, because to all of them one and the same reality corresponds, imperfectly represented by them. But they would be false if nothing corresponded to them.

Reply Obj. 5: Since there is absolute unity in God and multiplicity in created things, just as in God’s understanding of created things there must be one form intelligible by its essence, and many references to the diverse created things, so too in our intellect which mounts up to God from the multiplicity of created things there must be many species having relations to the one God.

Reply Obj. 6: These different aspects are founded on the divine essence, not as their subject, but as on the source of truth, or as on that which is represented by all of them, and this is not in conflict with God’s simplicity.

Reply Obj. 7: Paternity and sonship are mutually opposed, so that they require a real distinction of supposits, while goodness and wisdom are not opposite to each other.