Of God and His Creatures
That the several Names predicated of God are not synonymous
THOUGH the names predicated of God signify the same thing, still they
are not synonymous, because they do not signify the same point of view.
For just as divers realities are by divers forms assimilated to the one
simple reality, which is God, so our understanding by divers concepts
is in some sort assimilated to Him, inasmuch as, by several different
points of view, taken from the perfections of creatures, it is brought
to the knowledge of Him. And therefore our understanding is not at
fault in forming many concepts of one thing; because that simple divine
being is such that things can be assimilated to it in many divers
forms. According to these divers conceptions the understanding invents
divers names, an assigns them to God-names which, though they denote
one and the same thing, yet clearly are not synonymous, since they are
not assigned from the same point of view. The same meaning does not
attach to the name in all these cases, seeing that the name signifies
the concept of the understanding before it signifies the thing
understood.
1.34 : That the Things that are said of God and of Creatures are said analogously
1.36 : That the Propositions which our Understanding forms of God are not void of Meaning