“Thomas Aquinas taught what was later called an ‘analogy of being,’ which grounds his account of how human language can be used in talking of God. Analogy is the alternative to ‘univocal’ and ‘equivocal’ language. A word is used ‘univocally’ when it means exactly the same thing in several different contexts, and ‘equivocally’ when it means different things in different contexts. ‘Leaf’ is used equivocally in the sentences ‘Put the leaf in the table’ and ‘Don’t pull that leaf off the tree,’ and ‘man’ is used univocally in the sentences ‘Socrates is a man’ and ‘Duns is a man.’ When applied to theological language, each of these alternatives is an unhappy one. If theological language is equivocal, then we cannot say anything true about God, but if it s univocal, God is reduced to the creaturely level.
Thomas believed that the solution to this was to say that theological language is ‘analogical.’ When we say ‘God is wise’ and ‘Socrates is wise,’ ‘wise’ is used analogically. We are not using ‘wise’ in exactly the same way, but we are not using ‘wise’ in completely different senses, either. There is an ‘analogy’ or ‘similarity’ between the two uses. Thomas applied this to all the attributes of God, including the fundamental attribute of ‘existence’ (Being). God’s existence is his essence, but this is not true of other beings. Thus, in the sentences ‘God exists’ and ‘My toenail exists,’ the word ‘exists’ is being used in an analogical way.
By contrast, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308) defended the ‘univocity of being.’ Though it pertains to theological language, the dispute has much larger implications. Scotus did not deny analogy per se. Terms are not predicated of God and creatures in exactly the same way, and Scotus believed that analogy is necessary because ‘creatures are only imperfect representations of the divine. Yet, he said that without some univocity within the analogy, there can be no analogy. In brief, ‘analogy presupposes univocity.’ More fully, ‘If of two things one is the measure of the other, then they must have something in common that permits the first to be measured of the second, and the second to be measured of the first. If of two things one excess the other by some quantity or degree, however great, then they must have something in common with respect of which the first exceeds the second….
Scotus argued that similar points must be true of our language about God and creation. God is more perfect than man, but that raises the question; a more perfect what? What is the common term? God is more perfect in ‘wisdom’ and ‘justice.’ But if this is to make any sense at all, then ‘wise’ and ‘just’ must be used univocally. Unless we are able to form a concept ‘wisdom’ that will encompass both God’s and man’s wisdom, the analogy is impossible….
In some respects, his (Scotus) arguments in favor of univocity seem correct, yet his treatement has radical implications for the relationship of theology and philosophy. Richard Cross points out that God’s ineffability, his transcendence of all our concepts of him, is weakened in Scotus’s account, so that ‘we can know quite a lot about God.’ That seems to put the case to mildly…. As a result God is paled on a continuum with his creation, and the Creator-creature distinction is blurred….
By distinguishing God and man as ‘two degrees’ (finite and infinite) of a single concept (‘being’), he flattens out the Creator-creature distinction….”
Peter J. Leithart
Medieval Theology And The Roots Of Modernity
Revolutions in Worldview — pg. 169-171
I bring this forward because I believe we are still stumbling over this issue today. Leithart lays out the contours of the issue but he doesn’t answer how to navigate through this epistemological problem.
It is interesting that Gordon Clark argues in a very similar way in one of his books that Leithart reveals Duns Scotus argued on the issue of univocal and analogical language.
As I’ve thought about the Van Til, and Clark blowout (which really remains with us today) I think the issue is captured by how Leithart lays out the issue. It seems to me that the issue is whether or not there really is such a thing as analogical language in a pure sense. In my reading it seems that Van Til used “analogy” in a way that fell off the equivocal side of analogical whereas Clark, when he used the word “analogy” fell off the univocal side of analogical.
If I am reading this correctly then the problem for Van Til and his disciples is that the Creator creature distinction becomes a barrier that no language can get through. On the other hand the problem for Clark and his disciples is, as Leithart notes concerning Scotus, the Creator – creature distinction is flattened out and the mind of man and the mind of God become one at every point of univocity in analogy.
Obviously a Creator-creature distinction that cannot be overcome by language and a Creator-creature distinction that really isn’t a distinction because it is conquered by the univocal in the analogical are both fraught with serious problems. The former is going to lean towards a unwholesome rationalistic theology while the latter is going to lean towards a unwholesome mysticism in theology.
Hey, I don’t have the answers (and apparently Leithart didn’t either) I’m just trying to lay out the ideological topographical map.
I would say that you are correct about Van Til (but that it doesn’t apply as much to Bahsen), but that you are wrong about Clark (although correct about several of his followers).
Van Til was unclear, and perhaps mistaken. Bahnsen was clear and mistaken about Clark. Clark was clear and not mistaken (about the issue as he argued it). Clark’s students were clear, but wrong.
Here is the way I map it:
Van Til: equivocated by failing to distinguish in passages where he discussed analogical knowlege what exactly it was that humans could know truly that God also knew truly. If God’s knowledge of the truth “coincides at no point” with our knowledge of the truth, then there is no analogy.
Bahsen: sought to rescue Van Til from the above result by saying that Van Til distinguished the manner in which God knows from the manner in which we know, while the content of any true proposition was identical. In other words, we both know that “David was the king of Israel,” but the manner in which that knowledge is possessed differs between God and man.
Clark: saw Van Til’s ambiguity and called him out on it. Was most likely too arrogant about being accused of things he didn’t hold to (that God’s knowlege is the same as our knowledge in every aspect). Clark clearly distinguishes, as Bahnsen does, between what is known (the content of a proposition) and how it comes to be known (self-derived and ungenerated, or mediated and retained).
Some select Clark followers: seem to lose the distinction in the same way that Van Til did, and instead of following Clark in his precision of thought, only follow Clark in his arrogant stance toward his opponents.
It does not reduce the creature-Creator distinction to argue that God’s mind and our minds share the truth of any proposition. If we could not share truth with God, we could not be in communion with Him. Unless some aspect of knowledge is shared, there is no sharing, therefore no communion. Thus, it is the content of the proposition, i.e., it meaning that we share.
Some things we don’t share with God:
1) Comprehensive grasp of implications. We may know that “David is the king of Israel” as truly as God does, but we fail to grasp all that is implied by that truth in relation to all other truth.
2) Comprehensive grasp of true propositions. Not only do we lack the ability to draw out all the implications of any proposition, we do so because we lack a comprehensive knowledge of all the propositions that are true. Because we will never be omniscient, we will never accomplish 1 or 2.
3) Self-derived and ungenerated acquisition of truth. God is truth, and we are only beholders of truth. The content of God’s knowledge is self-derived. Truth does not come from some other source into God’s mind, but it is the nature of his mind. The truth we behold and possess is given from its source, God, and is not derived from our thinking in some autonomous manner. Truth is not generated of God toward himself, but our knowledge, when given, is generated in our minds where it otherwise was not. I might be saying the same thing here as in saying self-derived is different from imposed upon from another.
In many ways I think the problem of knowledge is similar to the problem of the Trinity. How can God the Father be the same as God the Son while also being different? Well, it is because God the Father is God and Father, but not Son or Spirit; and God the Son is God and Son, but not Father or Spirit; and God the Spirit is God and Spirit; but not Father or Son.
We have the mind of Christ, but we are not Christ. Jesus prays that we may be one with God as He is one with God, yet we are not thereby God. How are we one with God? We know the truth that is God, although we know it in a different manner than God knows it.
On the other hand the problem for Clark and his disciples is, as Leithart notes concerning Scotus, the Creator – creature distinction is flattened out and the mind of man and the mind of God become one at every point of univocity in analogy.
That is hardly Clark’s position. First Clark eschewed the term “analogical” in either its Thomistic or Van Tilian sense. He didn’t like it and it doesn’t really have a place in his epistemology. Clark’s position is quite simple. A proposition, rightly understood, has the same meaning for both man and God. “David was the King of Israel” means exactly that to both man and God. And if man knows anything truly it is only because God has revealed it.
Reymond does an excellent job with this in his Systematics.
Right Mark…
However how does this escape the problem that Leithart examines in reference to Scotus?
Thanks Joshua.
So is there any room for analogical in this arrangement?
Bret,
Scotus is only in error if he is asserting that our knowledge is identical with God on every point. It seems to me, from what Leithart is saying, that Scotus isn’t necessarily arguing that how we know is identical to how God knows, but rather that what God knows truly (i.e. the meaning of a proposition) we may also know truly.
I don’t like the term analogical. It leads to ambiguity as to what exactly is being identified in both objects.
Joshua,
When we know truly as God knows truly how is the Creator – creature distinction maintained?
Bret,
By the three difference between the Creator and creature that I distinguish above.
>When we know truly as God knows truly how is the Creator – creature distinction maintained?
Because man’s knowledge is derivative coming to him only via divine condescension. There is nothing in Clark’s epistemology suggesting any type of independence or non contingency. Indeed that is precisely Clark’s overarching point. Only that which is revealed can be called knowledge.
Ok … I think I get it …
At the point of intersection between God’s knowledge and the creature’s knowledge the Creator – creatures distinction is maintained because God’s knowledge is original and unmediated while the creatures knowledge is derivative and mediated.
See… I’m coming along.
Bret
Soon you’ll be calling yourself a BahnClarktillian
At the point of intersection between God’s knowledge and the creature’s knowledge the Creator – creature distinction is maintained because God’s knowledge is original and unmediated while the creatures knowledge is derivative and mediated.
Right. “What do you have that you have not been given?”
I just need a little help from my friends.
Mark,
How would have Van Til spoken differently from Clark on the issue of knowledge as it pertains to the Creator – creature distinction?
No profound insights to share, just want to say how thoroughly satisfying it is to stumble across a thread dealing with VT in pretty substantial depth. Nice to see so many people coming to grips with what Frame calls the “life-transforming and world-transforming” claims of Scripture that both Clark and Van Til worked so diligently to impress upon our culture.
Grace, all.
Ok, that was a little mindblowing to read during coffee, but you make a lot of good points. Thanks for posting.
The issue here is not a language barrier between creator and creature. It’s unobtainable knowledge through the lens of man that is governed by time. We can only theoretically (or analogously) speak about God’s “sovereignty”, “wisdom”, “omniscience”, and so on. We are in the restrictions of a time governed petri dish and he is in the vast expansion of eternal nature ungoverned by the expiration dated controlled environment of time. We can’t wrap our minds around “true wisdom” or “vast wisdom” because we are limited to the examples and definitions given to us by time governed errant men. The word wisdom is not the problem… the limitations of it’s definition is. In truth, God is all things “wisdom”. We think we must expand on our definition to capture the bigness of Him. But that’s limited. Instead… we must reduce the truth of the word “wisdom” to truly capture our state of being wise. It’s in the same order of truth regarding our sin. It’s not that “God is righteous because we are unrighteous”… it’s that “we are unrighteous because God is righteous”. He sets the standard… not us. But vocabulary and language is not the issue… The issue lies within our limitations. Analogy is the only bridge between the chasm of the limited definition of our verbiage and the truth in essence of God’s nature.
Example… North Korea is a country that regulates all media that comes to their citizens. They have no access to the truth of the american culture, therefore they view Americans by nature as ravenous monsters that are simply out to destroy them. They know we exist, they see the evidence that we exist, their authorities say we exist, but little to none of them have ever met an american… and even fewer have experienced what it’s like to walk in this beautiful country and to be accepted by us. Their fear and hatred of us is limited to the skewed view of their perspective. The interesting thing is, we can be and are often selfish and supremacist, but not how they view us. The true nature of our issues of supremacy and their understanding of our issues of supremacy are worlds apart. They simply can’t establish an opinion on anything but theory, perspective, proximity, and faith (of course being what the believe to be true in the face of a lack of tangible evidence). To them… what they believe to be true is absolutely true… to them. But we know its biased and limited at best, and complete lies at worst. It’s simply analogical to their understanding of the language they are using.
So in this case… our medium is language and is not the problem. It only represents the picture that is limited within the view of our minds. The proper language to describe God’s sovereign infinite wisdom does exist. It would be words like”sovereign”, “infinite”, and “wisdom”.
Our problem is not the lack of language to describe what those things mean, it’s the lack of knowledge of what they truly represent and mean.
Therefore it’s my full opinion that analogical description within the “tense” of univocity is the most accurate description of our discrepancy. What we know to be true doesn’t differ from what happens to be true… it’s simply petri dish perspective.
After all… Socrates was “wise”… but God is “wise”.
…st
Every analogy has a point of univocity. If it doesn’t then no contact is ever made between archetype and ectype.
And of course we have the promise that the Spirit will guide us into all truth.
It is true that that finite can not contain the infinite but what the infinite has made known, we can know truly because we know univocally at some point.
And whoever said Socrates was wise? Not me.
agreed. 100%.
And as for the one that says Socrates was wise, I was simply quoting Mr. Aquinas himself. I agree… although I don’t agree with most of Socrates’ philosophies… it’s undeniable how wise the man was.