Chapter 30 — What terms can be predicated of God

From these, we may also consider what can and what cannot be said of God, as well as what is said of him alone, and what is said of him together with other beings.

For, since every perfection of creatures is to be found in God, though in another and more eminent way, whatever terms denote perfection absolutely and without any defect whatever are predicated of God and of other things (for instance, goodness, wisdom, and so forth). But any term that denotes such perfections with a mode proper to creatures cannot be said of God except by similitude and metaphor, by which that which belongs to one thing is applied to another (as when a man is said to be a stone on account of the hardness of his intelligence). Such are all those terms employed to denote the species of a created thing, as “man” and “stone,” for its proper mode of perfection and being is due to each species. So it is with whatever terms signify those properties of things that are caused by the proper principles of the species. Hence they cannot be said of God, except metaphorically. But those which express these perfections together with the mode of supereminence in which they belong to God are said of God alone (for instance, “the highest good,” the “first being,” and the like).

Now, I say that some of the aforesaid terms denote perfection without defect as regards that which the term is employed to signify: for, as regards the mode of signification, every term is defective. For we express things by a term as we conceive them by the intellect. But our intellect, since its knowledge originates from the senses, does not surpass the mode which we find in sensible objects, in which the form is distinct from the subject of the form on account of the composition of form and matter. Now, in those things the form is found to be simple indeed, but imperfect, as being non-subsistent. But the subject of the form is found to be subsistent, but not simple—indeed, with concretion. Therefore, whatever our intellect signifies as subsistent, it signifies with concretion, and whatever it signifies as simple, it signifies not as subsisting, but as qualifying. Accordingly, in every term employed by us, there is imperfection as regards the mode of signification, and imperfection is unbecoming to God, although the thing signified is becoming to God in some eminent way (for example, in the term “goodness” or “the good”). For goodness signifies by way of non-subsistence, and the good signifies by way of concretion. In this respect no term is becomingly applied to God, but only in respect of that which the term is employed to signify. Therefore, as Dionysius teaches, (Pseudo-Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy, ch. 2, para. 3.) such terms can be either affirmed or denied of God: affirmed, on account of the signification of the term; denied, on account of the mode of signification.

Now the mode of supereminence in which the aforesaid perfections are found in God cannot be expressed in terms employed by us except either by negation—as when we say God is eternal or infinite—or by referring him to other things—as when we say that he is the first cause or the highest good. For we are able to grasp not what God is, but what he is not, and the relations of other things to him, as explained above. (Ch. 14.)