Of God and His Creatures
What Names can be predicated of God
WE may further consider what may be said or not said of God, or what may be
said of Him only, what again may be said of God and at the same time also of
other beings. Inasmuch as every perfection of the creature may be found in
God, although in another and a more excellent way, it follows that whatever
names absolutely denote perfection without defect, are predicated of God and
of other beings, as for instance, 'goodness,' 'wisdom,' 'being,' and the
like. But whatever names denote such perfection with the addition of a mode
proper to creatures, cannot be predicated of God except by way of similitude
and metaphor, whereby the attributes of one thing are wont to be adapted to
another, as when a man is called a 'block' for the denseness of his
understanding. Of this sort are all names imposed to denote the species of a
created thing, as 'man,' and 'stone': for to every species is due its own
proper mode of perfection and being. In like manner also whatever names
denote properties that are caused in things by their proper specific
principles,* cannot be predicated of God
otherwise than metaphorically. But the names that express such perfections
with that mode of supereminent excellence in which they appertain to God,
are predicated of God alone, as for instance, 'Sovereign Good,' 'First
Being,' and the like. I say that some of the aforesaid names imply
perfection without defect, if we consider that which the name was imposed to
signify. But if we consider the mode of signification, every name is
attended with defect: for by a name we express things as we conceive them in
our understanding: but our understanding, taking its beginning of knowledge
from sensible objects, does not transcend that mode which it finds in such
sensible objects. In them the form is one thing, and that which has the
form another. The form, to be sure, is simple, but imperfect, as not
subsisting by itself: while that which has the form subsists, but is not
simple -- nay, is concrete and composite. * Hence
whatever our understanding marks as subsisting, it marks in the concrete:
what it marks as simple, it marks, not as something that is, but as
that whereby something is.* And thus in
every name that we utter, if we consider the mode of signification, there is
found an imperfection that does not attach to God, although the thing
signified may attach to God in some eminent way, as appears in the name
'goodness' and 'good.' 'Goodness' denotes something as not subsisting by
itself: 'good,' something as concrete and composite. In this respect, then,
no name befits God suitably except in respect of that which the name is
imposed to signify. Such names therefore may be both affirmed and denied of
God, affirmed on account of the meaning of the name, denied on account of
the mode of signification. But the mode of supereminence, whereby the said
perfections are found in God, cannot be signified by the names imposed by
us, except either by negation, as when we call God 'eternal' or 'infinite,'
or by reference or comparison of Him to other things, as when He is called
the 'First Cause' or the 'Sovereign Good.' For we cannot take in
(capere)* of God what He is, but what He is
not, and how other beings stand related to Him.
1.29 : How Likeness to God may be found in Creatures
1.31 : That the Plurality of Divine Names is not inconsistent with the Simplicity of the Divine Being predicated of God and of other Beings