Article 7 — Whether these terms are said of God and creatures univocally or equivocally

The seventh point of inquiry is whether these terms are attributed to God and creatures univocally or equivocally. (Parallel texts: ST I.13.5; SCG I.32‒34; In I Sent., Prologue, 1.2, ad 2; 19.5.2, ad 1; 35.4; On Truth, q. 2, a. 2; Compendium theologiae, ch. 27.)

Obj. 1: And it seems univocally. For the measure and the thing measured must be of one account. Now, God’s goodness is the measure of all created goodness, and the same applies to his wisdom. Therefore, they are said of God and creatures univocally.

Obj. 2: Things are like which have a common form. Now, the creature can be likened to God, according to Genesis 1:26, let us make man to our own image and likeness. Therefore, there is a community of form between God and the creature. Now, something can be predicated univocally of things that have a common form. Therefore, something can be predicated univocally of God and the creature.

Obj. 3: More or less makes no difference within a species. Now, when God is called good and the creature also is called good, the difference seems to be that God is better than the creature. Therefore, goodness in God and the creature is of the same species and consequently is predicated univocally of both.

Obj. 4: There is no comparison possible between things of different genera, as the Philosopher proves; (Aristotle, Physics 7.4, 249a3–21.) thus, we cannot compare the speed of alteration with the speed of local movement. But we do compare God to the creature: for we say that God is supremely good and that the creature is good. Therefore, God and the creature are in the same genus, and consequently something can be predicated of them univocally.

Obj. 5: Nothing can be known except through a species of the same account; thus, the whiteness in a wall would not be known through the species that is in the eye unless the two were of one account. Now, God by his own goodness knows all beings, and so forth. Therefore, God’s goodness and the creature’s are of one account; and consequently, good is predicated univocally of God and the creature.

Obj. 6: The house that the builder has in his mind and the material house are of one account. Now, all creatures came from God as a work proceeds from the craftsman. Therefore, goodness that is in God is of one account with the goodness that is in the creature; therefore, we come to the same conclusion as before.

Obj. 7: Every equivocal agent is reduced to something univocal. Therefore, the first agent, which is God, must be univocal. Now, something is predicated univocally of a univocal agent and its proper effect. Therefore, something is predicated univocally of God and the creature.

On the contrary (1), the Philosopher says that nothing except in name is common to the eternal and the temporal. (Aristotle, Metaphysics 10.7, 1057a33–b2; cf. 10.10, 1058b35–1059a14.) Now, God is eternal and creatures temporal. Therefore, nothing but a name can be common to God and creatures; and consequently, these terms are predicated equivocally of God and the creature.

Furthermore (2), since the genus is the first part of a definition, a difference of genus causes equivocation, such that if a term be employed to signify something in a different genus, it will be equivocal. Now, wisdom as attributed to a creature is in the genus of quality; therefore, seeing that it is not a quality in God, as we have shown, it would seem that this word “wisdom,” is predicated equivocally of God and his creatures.

Furthermore (3), nothing can be predicated, except equivocally, of things that are in no way alike. Now, there is no likeness between creatures and God; for it is written: to whom then have you likened God? (Isa 40:18). Therefore, it seems that nothing can be predicated univocally of God and creatures.

But it will be replied (4) that although God cannot be said to be like a creature, a creature can be said to be like God.

On the contrary, it is written: O God, who shall be like to you? as if to say: none (Ps 82:2).

Furthermore (5), a thing cannot be like a substance in respect of an accident. Now, wisdom in a creature is an accident, and in God is the substance. Therefore, man cannot be like the divine wisdom by his own wisdom.

Furthermore (6), since in a creature being is distinct from form or nature, nothing can be like being itself by its form or nature. Now, these terms when predicated of a creature signify a form or nature, while God is his own very being. Therefore, a creature cannot be like God by these things that are predicated of a creature; and thus, the same conclusion follows as before.

Furthermore (7), God differs more from a creature than number from whiteness. But it is absurd to liken a number to whiteness, or vice versa. Therefore, still more absurd is it to liken a creature to God; and again, the same conclusion follows.

Furthermore (8), things that are like have some one thing in common, and things that have one thing in common have a common predicate. But nothing whatever can be predicated in common with God. Therefore, there can be no likeness between God and the creature.

I answer that it is impossible for anything to be predicated univocally of God and a creature; this is made plain as follows. Every effect of an univocal agent is adequate to the agent’s power, and no creature, being finite, can be adequate to the power of the first agent, which is infinite. Therefore, it is impossible for a creature to receive a likeness to God univocally.

Again, it is clear that, although the form in the agent and the form in the effect have one account, the fact that they have different modes of existence precludes their univocal predication; for although the material house is of the same account as the house in the mind of the builder—since the one is the account or type of the other—nevertheless, “house” cannot be univocally predicated of both, because the form of the house in the matter has a material being whereas in the builder’s mind it has an immaterial being.

Hence, granted the impossibility that goodness in God and in the creature be of the same account, nevertheless, “good” would not be predicated of God univocally, since that which exists in God immaterially and simply is in the creature materially and in a multiple way. Moreover, “being” is not predicated univocally of substance and accident, because a substance is a being as having existence through itself, while an accident is as that whose existence is to be-in something else. Therefore, it is evident that a different relation to existence precludes an univocal predication of being. Now, God’s relation to existence is different from that of any creature’s, for he is his own existence, which cannot be said of any creature. Therefore, in no way can it be predicated univocally of God and a creature, and consequently, neither can any of the other things that can be predicated, among which is included even the first being. For if there is diversity in the first, there must be diversity in the others; therefore, nothing is predicated univocally of substance and accident.

Certain others, however, took a different view and held that nothing is predicated of God and a creature by analogy, but by pure equivocation. This is the opinion of Rabbi Moses, as appears from his writings.

This opinion, however, is false because in all purely equivocal terms, which the Philosopher calls “equivocal by chance,” a term is predicated of a thing without any respect to something else, whereas all things predicated of God and creatures are predicated of God with a certain respect to creatures or vice versa, and this is clearly admitted in all the aforesaid explanations of the divine names. Therefore, they cannot be pure equivocations.

Again, since all our knowledge of God is taken from creatures, if the agreement were purely nominal, we should know nothing about God except empty expressions to which nothing corresponds in reality.

Moreover, it would follow that all the proofs advanced about God by philosophers were sophisms; for instance, if one were to argue that whatsoever is in potency is reduced to actuality by an actual being—and that therefore God is an actual being, since all things are brought into existence by him—there will be a fallacy of equivocation, and similarly in all other arguments. And again, the effect must in some way be like its cause; whence nothing is predicated purely equivocally of cause and effect; for instance, health predicated of the medicine and the animal.

We must accordingly take a different view and hold that nothing is predicated univocally of God and the created thing, but that those things that are attributed to them in common are predicated not equivocally but analogically. Now, this kind of predication is of two sorts. The first is when one thing is predicated of two through relation to some third; thus, being is predicated of quantity and quality through their relation to substance. The other is when a thing is predicated of two through the relation of the one to the other; thus, being is predicated of substance and quantity.

In the first mode of predication, the two things must be preceded by something to which each of them bears some relation, just as substance has a relation to quantity and quality; whereas in the second mode, this is not necessary, but it is necessary that one of the two be prior to the other. Therefore, since nothing precedes God but he precedes the creature, the second mode of analogy is applicable in divine predication and not the first.

Reply Obj. 1: This argument avails in the case of a measure to which the thing measured can be equal or commensurate; but God is not a measure of this kind, since he infinitely surpasses all that is measured by him.

Reply Obj. 2: The likeness of the creature to God falls short of univocal likeness in two respects.

First, it does not arise from the participation of one form, the way two hot things are like by participation in one heat; because what is affirmed of God and created things is predicated of him essentially but of created things by participation, such that a creature’s likeness to God is as that of a hot thing to heat, not of a hot thing to one that is hotter.

Second, because this very form in which the creature participates falls short of the account of that which God is, just as the heat of fire falls short of the account of the sun’s power by which it produces heat.

Reply Obj. 3: More and less may be considered from three points of view and predicated accordingly.

First, when it is only a question of the quantity of the thing participated; thus, snow is said to be whiter than the wall because whiteness is more perfect in the snow than in the wall, and yet it is of the same account; and consequently, such a difference of more or less does not cause a difference of species.

Second, when the one is said by participation and the other by essence; thus, we might say that goodness is better than a good thing.

Third, when the one same term is ascribed to one thing in a more eminent degree than to another, for instance, heat to the sun than to fire.

These last two modes of more and less are incompatible with unity of species and univocal predication; and it is thus that a thing is predicated more and less of God and the created thing, as already explained.

Reply Obj. 4: When we say that God is better or that he is the highest good, we compare him to creatures not as though he participated in a nature of the same genus as creatures, like a species of some genus, but as the principle of the genus.

Reply Obj. 5: Inasmuch as an intelligible species in someone is more eminent, the knowledge arising therefrom is the more perfect: for instance, the knowledge arising from the species of a stone in the intellect is more perfect than that which results from the species in the senses. Hence, God is able to know things most perfectly by his own essence, inasmuch as in his essence is the supereminent but not proportionate likeness of things.

Reply Obj. 6: There is a twofold likeness between God and the created thing. One is the likeness of the created thing to the divine intellect, and thus the form understood by God and the reality understood are of one account, although they have not the same mode of being, since the form understood is only in the intellect whereas the form of the creature is also in the reality. There is another sort of likeness inasmuch as the divine essence itself is the supereminent likeness of all realities but not a likeness of one account with them. It is by reason of this latter mode of likeness that good and the like are predicated in common of God and created things; but this is not by reason of the first likeness, for when we say, “God is good,” this is not the account of God, since one is understanding the creature’s goodness; for it has already been observed that not even the house in the mind of the builder is called a house univocally with the house in matter.

Reply Obj. 7: The equivocal agent must precede the univocal because the latter’s causality does not extend to the whole species (else it would be its own cause) but only to an individual member of the species. But the equivocal agent’s causality extends to the entire species; and consequently, the first agent must be an equivocal agent.

Reply Sed Contra 1: The Philosopher refers to things that are common naturally and not logically. Now, things that have a different mode of existence have nothing in common in respect of that existence that is considered by the natural scientist; yet they may have some common intention that the logician considers. Moreover, even from the natural scientist’s point of view the elemental and the heavenly body are not in one genus, whereas in the view of the logician they are. However, the Philosopher does not mean to exclude analogical but only univocal community. For he wishes to prove that the corruptible and the incorruptible have no genus in common.

Reply Sed Contra 2: Difference of genus excludes univocation but not analogy. This is clear as follows. Healthy, insofar as it is said of urine, is in the genus of sign; but insofar as it is said of medicine, it is in the genus of cause.

Reply Sed Contra 3: In no sense is God said to be like the creature, but contrariwise, for as Dionysius says: likeness is not reciprocated between cause and effect, but only in coordinates; (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 9.6 (PG 3:914–16).) thus, a man is not said to be like his statue but vice versa, the reason being that the form wherein the likeness consists is in the man before it is in the statue. Hence, we do not say that God is like his creatures, but vice versa.

Reply Sed Contra 4: According to Dionysius, when it is said that no creature is like God, this is to be understood as referring to effects that hold less from their cause, falling short of it in an incomparable way, (Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names 9.4–7 (PG 3:911–16).) nor does this refer to the quantity of the thing participated in but to the other two modes, as explained above. (Q. 7, a. 7, ad 3.)

Reply Sed Contra 5: A thing cannot be like substance in respect of an accident such that the likeness regard a form of the same account, but nothing prevents there being the likeness that is between cause and effect, since the first substance must be the cause of all the accidents.

Reply Sed Contra 6: The sixth argument is answered in like manner.

Reply Sed Contra 7: Whiteness is not in the genus of number nor is it the principle of the genus; therefore, they do not admit of comparison. However, God is the principle of every genus and consequently all things are somewhat like him.

Reply Sed Contra 8: This argument refers to things that have a common genus or matter, which does not apply to God and the creature.