HeyJ LI (2010), pp.

110

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2265.2010.00626.x

DOES AQUINAS NOTION OF ANALOGY

VIOLATE THE LAW OF
NON-CONTRADICTION?
ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

University of Nottingham

Why wait any longer for the world to begin

You can have your cake and eat it too . . .
(Bob Dylan, Lay, Lady Layr 1969 by Big Sky Music; renewed 1997 by Big Sky Music)

Can God have his cake and eat it too? Catherine Pickstock implies an afrmative answer in
her essay on Duns Scotus in The Radical Orthodoxy Reader in which she makes the
contentious claim that in logic, Aquinas notion of analogy violates the law of noncontradiction.1 She argues that Thomas violation set a precedent for German mystic,
Nicholas De Cusa to question the law of identity in his own coincidence of opposites.2
Pickstock regards this as a legitimate theological move because the classical law of noncontradiction as formulated by Aristotle is founded on being and therefore, in her view,
loses its eld of application in respect of God because of ontological difference.3 In this
paper I aim to structure my response under the headings of what I see as three related
questions:
1. Did Aquinas intend that his notion of analogy be understood as violating the law of noncontradiction?
2. Is it true that analogy must break the law of non-contradiction?
3. Is the contention, that the law of non-contradiction does not apply to God itself a
meaningful statement?

1. DID AQUINAS INTEND THAT HIS NOTION OF ANALOGY BE UNDERSTOOD AS

VIOLATING THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION?

Firstly, it seems an obvious mistake to read Aquinas as if he believed that analogy violates
the principle of non-contradiction, because according to Aristotle, this law is the rmest
of all the rst principles (axioma) of knowledge, the starting point upon which all
knowledge is built.4 This is self-evident for Aristotle because: Contradiction is an
opposition which by its very nature allows no middle ground.5 Aquinas concurs that this
is the most certain principle.6 In Summa Theologiae he explains:
. . . the rst indemonstrable principle is that the same thing cannot be afrmed and denied at the
same time, which is based on the notion of being and not-being: and on this principle all others
are based, as is stated in Metaph. iv, text. 9.7
r 2010 The Author. The Heythrop Journal r 2010 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600
Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

According to Aquinas epistemology, since the principle of non-contradiction is based on

the notion of being, it is grasped by both the rst operation of the intellect, (a knowledge
of quiddities) and also the second operation (the forming of judgements).8 Pickstock might
respond that this epistemology supports her view that the law has created being alone as its
the restricted eld of application, but this is not how Aquinas understands it.
An explicit reference of the law in relation to Uncreated Being occurs in Summa Contra
Gentiles Book II, in the section How the Omnipotent God is said to be incapable of certain
things. Points 11 and 12 of this section deal with the law of non-contradiction in
Aristotelian terms:
11. First of all that which destroys the nature of being is contrary to it. Now, the nature of being is
destroyed by its opposite, just as the nature of man is destroyed by things opposite in nature to him
or to his parts. But the opposite of being is non-being, with respect to which God is inoperative, so
that he cannot make one and the same thing to be and not to be; he can not make contradictories to
exist simultaneously. (my italics).
12. Contradiction, moreover, is implied in contraries and privative opposites: to be white and black
is to be white and not white; to be seeing and blind is to be seeing and not seeing. For the same
reason, God is unable to make opposites exist in the same subject at the same time and in the same
respect. (my italics).9

Thomas furnishes a number of examples of this point: God who is Being cannot make
himself not-Being. He is unable to make himself not exist. He is unable to make the past
not to have been as this would mean that something could be and not be at the same time.
God is unable to create God, because the Creator by denition is not a creature. A
contingent being cannot at the same time and in the same way be a necessary being and an
effect cannot simultaneously be its own cause. According to Aquinas, even Omnipotence
cannot do the self-contradictory.10 The view that God could do any of these things may
not strictly count as heretical, but, according to Thomas, it is in my opinion false.11
Radical Orthodoxy, following Chenu, Gilson and De-Lubac, has tended to privilege the
neo-Platonic, mystical elements of Thomas thought at the expense of the more analytic,
Aristotelian aspects,12 but this approach can only be justied by largely dismissing
Thomas commentaries on Aristotle as unrepresentative of his own thought,13 a
contentious interpretation which runs into problems in the parallel cases of his
commentaries on Scripture or on the neo-Platonic texts such as the Book of Causes or
the Divine Names of Dionysius which are clearly interpreted in the light of Aristotle.14 One
must question why Thomas would bother to write a commentary on a book unless he
thought it had authority, so it seems safer to assume that he agrees with the authority
unless there is clear textual evidence to the contrary. Thomas tells us in the Summa that
philosophers may produce probable arguments and doctors of the church may have
received some sort of revelation but only the authority of the scriptures provide
incontrovertible proof15 because they are without error16 and its principles come
immediately from God, by revelation.17
So, in a signicant departure from the neo-Platonic Pseudo-Dionysius, for whom the
supreme Cause of all falls neither within the predicate of non-being nor of being18 or the
Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, for whom even the term existence is applied to
him. . .. only by way of pure homonymity.,19 Aquinas, following Exodus 3:14 predicates
the term Being (esse), which is the Pure Act of Existence to God literally and in a preeminent sense.20 He agrees with the author of the Book of Causes that God is Pure
Being21 against the Platonists who use the predicate being only of creatures and not of

DOES AQUINAS NOTION OF ANALOGY VIOLATE THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION?

the Good or the One.22 Creatures derive their being from participation in the uncreated
Being of God.23
Aquinas can make this claim that God is literally Being (Esse or to Be) by
distinguishing the res signicata, from the modus signicandi.24 The signiers we use may
be tainted by nite creaturely limitations, but they are literally true as far as the perfections
to which they refer in the Divine. It is this important distinction which allows Aquinas to
acquit the Aereopagite of teaching the existence of true contradictions in passages such as
the following from The Divine Names:
the divine unity is beyond being . . . the indivisible Trinity holds within a shared undifferentiated
unity. . . . . . ..the assertion of all things, the denial of all things, that which is beyond every assertion
and denial.25

Out of respect for his presumed apostolic authority, Aquinas avoids openly disagreeing
with Dionysius, yet in order to maintain agreement with Aristotle that Afrmation and
denial cannot be simultaneously true, which he has elsewhere defended,26 Aquinas
interprets the assertions in Dionysius to be the meaning of the name and the denials to
be the mode of signication.27
This may seem somewhat contrived, but there is some evidence within the text of The
Divine Names to suggest that even Dionysius drew back from discounting the applicability
of the law of non-contradiction to God. Like Aquinas28, Dionysius has a section of his
book dealing with the question of Omnipotence. He responds to an objection from the
(pseudo!) Elymas, who cites the appropriate Pauline text that God cannot deny
himself. (2 Tim 2:13) to try to disprove Gods omnipotence. Accepting the Scripture,
Dionysius shows that it is entirely compatible with omnipotence properly understood.
God can do anything consistent with His nature. For God to deny himself would entail
falling from truth and since (in language reminiscent of Aristotle), truth is being, (on
estin) this would also entail falling from being which is impossible even for God. God
cannot fall from being.29 The Greek text adds kai to mZ eiuai onk estin30 literally and
therefore is not not to be),31 which implies, in its context of a discussion on omnipotence,
that He cannot be and not be at the same time. Dionysius further explains that this is
because of his perfect power: God cannot lack anything, including truth, knowledge or
being. In this passage, at least, Denys sees no conict between God as transcendently
beyond everything he has made, including the power to be and the fact that he cannot fall
from truth or fall from being. This is a surprising text which is difcult to square with his
other assertions regarding God as beyond being.32 He must uncharacteristically mean
that God cannot fall from uncreated Being (i.e. Himself). But ORourke concludes that it
is an exception in which Dionysius appeals to an evidence to which, on his own terms, he
is not entitled.33 Although it could be utilised to vindicate Aquinas apparent gloss of
agnostic statements in Dionysius, it better serves to highlight the impossible tensions
within the Dionysian system and its modern counterparts. Dionysius can only deny the
language of being by using the language of being, which silently witnesses to the
superiority of Aquinas metaphysics of Absolute Being. Aquinas commentary on this
passage is illuminating on this point:
And he says that, since God is truth itself, for God to deny himself is nothing other than for God to
fall away from the truth. But since the true is the same as being, it follows that to fall completely
away from truth is to fall completely away from being. Therefore, what he says that God cannot
deny himself is the same as if he were to say: God is not able to fall short of being. But this not to
fall short of being is the same as if he were to say that God is not non-being; by which is meant rather

ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

being itself [or that he himself is]. Just as if it should be said that God is not able to be unable, this
does not show that he is powerless, but that he is supremely powerful; and similarly, if it should be
said that he does not know that he does not know, and therefore that he has privation of
knowledge, this is the very having of perfect knowledge [or that he has perfect knowledge]. Through
this, therefore, that God cannot deny himself, nothing is detracted from his power by the
impossible, but it is the same as if it were said that God cannot not be true and being and powerful.
(italics mine)34

If Being is not equivocal in God, then it follows that the law of non-contradiction, which
derives from being, (according to Aristotle and acknowledged by Pickstock) is not out of the
eld of application for God, but rather applies to him literally and supremely. In fact, if it
were equivocal, God would not be able to know his own creatures by knowing his own
essence since this depends on participatory likeness.35 We would agree with Pickstock that
Gods being is not univocal to created being, but there is still as we shall see later, a common
core of meaning (ratio), per prius et posterius because of analogy. The principle of noncontradiction is grounded upon the Primary Name of God, He Who Is,36 by which He
cannot not Be. Similarly, the law of identity (A A), which depends on the law of noncontradiction37 is the creaturely analogue of the Tetragrammaton, I AM THAT I AM.
(Exodus 3:14). To avoid being impaled on the horns of a Euthyphro-type dilemma, it would
be more exact to say that the laws of identity and non-contradiction are dependent on Gods
own integrity, or, granting a moderate version of Divine simplicity, identical with his own
nature. This way of speaking is consistent with the way Thomas explains natural law:
all that is attributed to the divine essence or nature does not fall under the eternal law, in reality
they are the eternal law.38

For further clarity, we could interpret the law of non-contradiction by reference to

Thomas understanding of the term Truth. Truth is analogically predicated of the human
intellect,39 but is found in its proper nature (ratio propria) in the Divine intellect.40 If this
were not the case there could be no true judgments about God based on a correspondence
(adequatio) between propositions and reality.41 In both there is a relationship per prius et
posterius.

2. IS IT TRUE THAT ANALOGY MUST BREAK THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION?

If my argument is so far correct that Aquinas did not understand his analogy of Divine
names as contravening Aristotles principle of non-contradiction does it unintentionally
lead to this conclusion?
Catherine Pickstock thinks that Duns Scotus showed that it did. Scotus dened a
univocal concept as that which, possesses sufcient unity in itself, so that to afrm and
deny it of one and the same thing would be a contradiction.42 He further adds that a
univocal concept must have sufcient unity to serve as the middle term of a syllogism
without reducing to an equivocation.43 Thus he concludes that being must be a univocal
concept since it is impossible for something to both be and not be in the same way and at
the same time.
There is a clear rejection of the appropriateness of univocal speech about God in
Thomas major works the Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles.44 Some of the
reasons for this rejection include the fact that God and creatures have a different mode of
being. As a result the denition of what is said of the creature is different from the

DOES AQUINAS NOTION OF ANALOGY VIOLATE THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION?

denition of what is said of God. There is always an excess of meaning in God. Creatures
are unequal effects of an innite Cause who is unparticipated and uncircumscribed within
any genus or quality.45
In spite of this prima facie incompatibility between the statements of Scotus and
Aquinas, Norman Geisler maintains that their respective positions on univocity and
analogy can be reconciled.46 This is because Scotus is not teaching the univocity of being,
but only the univocity of Being. In other words, he is not teaching that being itself is
univocal, but only that the concept of being is univocal.47 The intellect forms a
propositional judgement in which the univocal term must be applied analogically to God
who transcends the empirical world from which language arises.
For generic concepts are univocal when abstracted but analogical when asserted of
different things, as man and dog are equally animal but are not equal animals. That is,
animal is dened the same way (say, as a sentient being), but animality is predicated
differently of Fido and of Socrates. Socrates possesses animality in a higher sense than
Fido does.48
The concept then is univocal, only because it is a vicious abstraction which is
subsequently applied analogically. Geislers interpretation has the attractive advantage
that concepts of the Divine are subject to the principle of non-contradiction and can serve
as middle terms in a syllogism, thus saving theistic analytic philosophy.49 This view is
supported by the fact that Scotus does not directly attack the position of Aquinas himself
but only that of Henry of Ghent.50
Further support for this view is found in Maurers study of the neglected analogy of
inequality in In 1 Sentences. d. 19, q. 5, a.2, ad 151 In this passage the analogical
predication of the metaphysician is contrasted with the univocal predication of the logician
because, Thomas argues, the former is speaking of actually existing things, whereas the
latter is only speaking of intentions or concepts.52 One example is the logical genus of
body which could refer to either an earthly or a celestial body, even though in reality the
celestial is more perfect than the terrestrial (according to medieval cosmology). Another
example is substance which can refer to both a material and an immaterial substance.
Two different realities share a common logical genus. In such cases, univocity obtains in
the order of logic but analogy applies to different things in the order of reality.53
There are problems with this reading however. One is that the text is chronologically
early and may not therefore account for any development in Thomas thinking. Secondly,
the context is not referring to language about God since God is not in a genus. Cajetan had
agreed that this passage speaks of a form of analogy based on a univocal denition, but for
this very reason disqualied it from being a real analogy.54 Klubertanz similarly dismisses
it, because in his view it has a sui generis application to an outdated Medieval
understanding of cosmology.55 However, the late commentary Peri Hermeneias (1269
1272) does refer to simple conceptions of the intellect rst signied by speech which are
the same in everyone.56 These simple conceptions equate with Aristotles univocal
denition in Metaphysics 4. and could be relevant for defending univocal terms in
analogy.
Ralph McInerny also sees a continuity of thought in Aquinas doctrine of analogy from
the time of the Sentences, which he understands as a logical rather than an ontological
method.57 However, he follows this view more consistently than Geisler in that if
analogical naming, like equivocal naming, is a second intention (i.e. in the order of
knowing rather than the order of being), then the same must be true of univocal naming.
This means that not only is Aquinas attacking univocity of Being but also univocity of

ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

Being. Hence McInerny does not accept that Thomas analogy of Divine names is based
on a common univocal term. Taking the chief example of health, there is no univocal core
of meaning which is applied equally to animal, medicine and urine. We can see this by
observing that Fido is healthy is intelligible as a stand alone statement, whereas urine is
healthy and medicine is healthy only make sense in relation to their primary meaning in
the animal. Therefore rather than a univocal abstraction being applied to three things
equally, what Aquinas has instead is one primary term applied unequally and derivatively
in the analogates.58
What then of the charge that unless we have a univocal term there can be no logical
speech about God which reduces to agnosticism? McInerny agrees with Scotus that two
necessary conditions for a term to be univocal are that it contains sufcient unity to be
unable to both afrm and deny it at the same time and sufcient unity to serve as the
middle term of a syllogism. But he disagrees that these conditions are sufcient conditions.
Analogical terms are also sufciently determinate to meet these conditions. That is why
Aquinas can say that in demonstrating the existence of God from His effects, we may take
for the middle term the meaning of the word God.59 Analogous terms contain a common
meaning (ratio communis), but not a univocal one, which is based on the primary sense
(ratio propria).60 Hence the analogous term being has the primary sense of substance and
a secondary sense of accident. Theologically Being refers primarily to God as ipse esse
subsistens and to creatures by derivation and participation.
On this latter point Pickstock introduces another argument against the compatibility of
analogy with the logical laws. She contends that if created being participates in the innite
this must mean that it enters into identity and non-identity and thus the nite becomes
both nite and innite simultaneously. This she argues is resolved in a higher harmony
beyond logical opposition.61
Aquinas deals with this question in his commentary on proposition 4 of the Book of
Causes where the author claims that being is composed of the nite and the innite.62
Aquinas responds in harmony with our previous discussion on being as an analogous term
by saying that created being participates in pure subsistent being.63 But it does not follow
from this, as Pickstock suggests, that the creature enters into nite and innite at the same
time and in the same way. Aquinas makes it clear that only Uncreated Being is actually
innite. Created being is potentially innite, but is limited by its form, that is by its capacity
to receive innity. Hence the very being that it receives is nite.64
In concluding this section, then we have two plausible alternative readings on analogy:
one sees analogy as based on a univocal common term; the other sees analogy based on a
common (but not univocal) ratio which nevertheless has sufcient unity to maintain the
law of contradiction and the law of excluded middle. Either reading provides a preferable
option to that of Pickstock because they are able to harmonise Thomas doctrine of
analogy with his other teachings on Divine omnipotence and his commentaries on
Aristotle. On either reading the Subtle doctor, is in fact closer to the Angelic doctor than
Pickstocks position allows.

3. IS THE CONTENTION, THAT THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION DOES NOT APPLY

TO GOD A MEANINGFUL STATEMENT?

If God, as according to Aquinas, lies beyond limited substance, then the law (of excluded
middle) loses its eld of application. (Pickstock, Duns Scotus, p.130).

DOES AQUINAS NOTION OF ANALOGY VIOLATE THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION?

Logic is primarily a matter of conceptual coherence. Does it make any sense then to say
that in any possible world the law of non-contradiction does not apply? If it did this would
entail that there is a possible world in which true contradictions are possible and therefore
a possible world in which the law of non-contradiction both applies and does not apply at
the same time and in the same respect, which is self-refuting. In his Commentary on the
Metaphysics, Aquinas agrees with Aristotle that:
If someone were to think that two contradictories are true at the same time by thinking that the
same thing both is and is not at the same time, (s)he will have contrary opinions at the same time;
and thus contraries will belong to the same thing at the same time. But this is impossible.65

Therefore there is no possible world where this can happen. C.S. Lewis remarked that a
meaningless statement does not acquire meaning simply by inserting the subject God in
front of it.66 It follows therefore that it is semantically nonsense to say or even think that
God is beyond the eld of the law of non-contradiction.
Pickstock concedes that in her position language has taken a very long vacation
indeed67 Unsurprisingly, Pickstock seeks refuge in a non-rational, sacramental mysticism.68 But mysticism cannot be self-interpreting. It requires rational categories in order to
discuss it. Hence Pickstock appeals to other aporias to try to justify it: for example that
God is omnipresent at the same time as the world not being God. Humans are nothing in
themselves apart from God and yet are not God. Human freedom is entirely determined
yet existentially free.
We will focus on just one of her aporias, namely a strong doctrine of simplicity.
According to this doctrine, the Deity contains no parts not only in the self-evident respect
of being corporeal or even in the sense that in him essence and existence are one, but also in
that all of his (really non-existent) attributes are identical with each other.69 It is true that
Aquinas accepted this view, inherited from neo-Platonism and it does pose logical
problems since Gods goodness appears to be identical with something which is not his
goodness at the same time and in the same way. Aquinas struggled to reconcile this with his
teaching on naming God because it suggests a conclusion that all names are synonyms.70
Thomas answer that they are not synonyms in respect of the human minds complex mode
of knowing sidesteps the conclusion arising from strong simplicity that they are
synonymous as far as God is concerned.71 A parallel dilemma arises in his discussion of
whether there are real relations in God, except that here the same answer, viz, that they are
only real in the ratio of human thought72 invites charges of Sabellianism, so Aquinas
is forced to simultaneously afrm that relations exist in God really,73 a manifestly
incoherent position.
So the strong doctrine of simplicity does create problems for Thomas, and by presenting
an illogical doctrine which Aquinas clearly taught, prima facie appears to support
Pickstocks position on non-contradiction, but it is not relevant to the current question of
whether or not it makes sense to justify nonsense statements. The fact that Aquinas
position on Divine simplicity is unintelligible does not in itself invalidate his doctrine of
analogy because it is not necessarily dependant on his view on Divine simplicity, (except
that it adds force to the arguments against univocity).
Pickstocks position is philosophically akin to that of Graham Priest who embraces
dialetheism (the belief in true contradictions) as a solution to logical paradoxes such as
the liar paradox.74 Edward Zalta, however, writing in defence of the law of noncontradiction, demonstrates how many such paradoxes can be resolved by using a
particular mode of logic known as encoded logic. This logic rejects the existence of

ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

objects that exemplify contradictory properties and replaces them with objects that encode
the relevant properties.75 This he says safeguards the normal language use and
intelligibility of terms like exemplication, for example that if an object exemplies a
certain property, say redness, it is not the case that it also fails to exemplify redness.
Whatever the truth on these and similar paradoxes, Aquinas himself would agree that it
is epistemologically unsound to derive the rst principles of knowledge from uncertain
aporias.
Perfect knowledge requires certitude, and this is why we cannot be said to know unless
we know what cannot be otherwise.76
Following Aristotle, he insists that the immediate, higher principles (axioma) must be
better known than any conclusions arising from an argument.77 Contrary to Quine and
other postmodern philosophers this refutes a circular, coherence theory of truth and
demands some form of foundationalism. Accordingly, this means that Aquinas would
expect us to apply these foundational tests on his own teachings, which is why he always
writes in a dialectical style, and if, as in the case of Divine simplicity or soft determinism
some of his teachings do not measure up, they should be abandoned or modied
accordingly.78

CONCLUSION

In this paper, we have examined strong evidence from Aquinas himself to indicate that he
regarded the principle of non-contradiction as an inviolable rst principle of knowledge. It
is absurd to imagine that he would have understood his own notion of analogy as
transgressing this principle. (B)ut it is in my opinion false.79 wrote Aquinas that an
omnipotent God can do the self-contradictory. Therefore, in spite of Thomas
inconsistencies, we disagree with Pickstocks reading that in Thomas opinion the principle
of non-contradiction does not apply to God.
Pickstocks position that such inconsistencies in Aquinas are in fact all true,
(dialetheism) is self-refuting in that, assuming her own premisses, the proposition that
the law of non-contradiction does not apply to God is a meaningless statement since it
could be both true and not true at the same time and in the same way.
We have argued that a better interpretation is to understand the law of noncontradiction, not as outside of Gods eld, but literally and pre-eminently applicable. The
law of identity and non-contradiction nds its ontological basis in the very nature of the
Trinitarian God who cannot deny himself (2 Tim 2.13) and calls himself the Truth (John
14:6). He is Pure Subsistent Being which the law of non-contradiction participates. We
could say that the law of non-contradiction is analogously predicated of the Deity, but
that, following McInernys understanding of analogy, this still leaves a common core of
meaning sufciently determinate to legitimate the adequacy of propositional statements
about God by maintaining the law of excluded middle and a denial of true contradictions.
Notes
1 Catherine Pickstock, Duns Scotus, in Milbank and Oliver (ed), The Radical Orthodoxy Reader, (Routledge,
2009), p.130.
2 See Nicholas De Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings, trans H. Lawrence Bond, (Paulist Press, 1997).
3 Catherine Pickstock, Duns Scotus, in Milbank and Oliver (ed), The Radical Orthodoxy Reader, (Routledge,
2009), p.130.

DOES AQUINAS NOTION OF ANALOGY VIOLATE THE LAW OF NON-CONTRADICTION?

4 Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book IV, Chs 3 & 4: 1005b 81006a 18. in Commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics, trans
John P. Rowan, Preface by Ralph McInerny, (Dumb Ox Books, 1995), Book 4, lesson 6, p. 220.
5 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 2.72a7, text on p.25 of Richard Berquists transl of St Thomas Aquinas,
Commentary on Aristotles Posterior Analytics, (Dumb Ox Books, 2007).
6 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics, trans John P. Rowan, Preface by Ralph McInerny,
(Dumb Ox Books, 1995), Book 4, lesson 6, chapter 4, 597, p. 221.
7 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Second and Revised Edition, 1920 trans Kevin Knight, Fathers of the English
Dominican Province Online Edition 2008, 1a 2ae, q 94, a 2 resp.
8. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics, trans John P. Rowan, Preface by Ralph McInerny,
(Dumb Ox Books, 1995), Book 4, lesson 6, chapter 4, 605, p. 221.
9 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II, ch 25, par 1112; see also a parallel list in Summa Theologiae, 1a, q.
25, arts 3- 5.
10 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II, ch 25, pars 1321.
11 Aquinas, On the Eternity of the World, trans. Mcinerny, (1998), p. 712.
12 See Kerr, Fergus, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism, (Blackwell, 2008), 5556, Twentieth Century Catholic
Theologians, (Blackwell, 2008), chs 1,2, and 5; also Hankey, Dionysian hierarchy in Thomas Aquinas, in Andia Ysabel
de, (ed), Denys LAreopagite et sa postrite en orient et en occident, (Institut dEtudes Augustinienned, Paris 1997).
13 Eg E. Gilson, A History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, His commentaries on Aristotle are so many
expositions of the doctrine of Aristotle, not of what we might call his own philosophy. Cited in Ralph McInerny, Being
and Predication, (Catholic University Press of America, 1986), p. 67 n.2.
14 See for example Aquinas treatment of proposition 4 of the Book of Causes, Commentary on the Book of Causes,
trans Vincent A. Guaglianrdo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C. Taylor, (Catholic University of America
Press, 1996), p. 2836.
15 ST 1a, 1, 8, ad 2.
16 ST 1a, 1, 8, ad 2.
17 ST 1a, 1, 5, ad 2.
18 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology, ch 5. 1048A.
19 Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, ch52, p. 71.
20 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a, q.13, art 11.
21 Commentary on the Book of Causes, trans Vincent A. Guaglianrdo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C.
Taylor, (Catholic University of America Press, 1996), p. 32.
22 Commentary on the Book of Causes, trans Vincent A. Guaglianrdo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C.
Taylor, (Catholic University of America Press, 1996), p. 31.
23 The to be of created things however, has drawn out from the divine to be according to a certain sort of
incomplete assimilation. Thus therefore, because of this, whatever similitude there is of created things to God, the
names which we use are able to be said to be names of God not as they would be of creatures, but through a certain
projection Commentary on the Divine Names: trans Matthew N. Petersen, http://www.in-librum-dionysii.blogspot.
com/Chapter 1, Lecture 1, J.
24 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 13, a 3 sed contra, resp.
25 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, ch 2, par 641A. p. 61. See also The Mystical Theology ch 1, par 1000B,
p. 136.
26 Commentary on Aristotles Posterior Analytics, trans Richard Berquist, preface by Ralph McInerny, (Dumb Ox
Books, 2007), Book 1, lesson 5, b, p. 25.
27 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles Bk 1, ch 30, par 3.
28 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II, ch 25; Summa Theologiae, 1a, q.25, arts 3- 5;.
29 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, ch8 par 6, line 893B.
30 In librum beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus expositio. ed C. Pera, (Marietti, Taurini, 1950), p. 287.
31 God cannot fall from Being since it is not possible for him not to be. (ORourkes translation, op cit p. 202.
32 Eg The Divine Names, ch 2, par 641A. p. 61; The Mystical Theology ch 1, par 1000B, p.136; ch 5. 1048A, p. 141).
33 ORourke (2005), p. 202.
34 I am grateful to Father Joseph Vnuk in personal correspondence for this literal translation of the Latin
in In librum beati Dionysii De divinis nominibus expositio. ed C. Pera, (Marietti, Taurini, 1950), ch VIII, 1, 111,
p. 288.
et dicit quod, cum Deus sit ipsa veritas, Deum negare seipsum, nihil aliud est quam Deum decidere a veritate. Cum
autem verum idem sit quod ens, sequitur quod excidere a veritate, idem sit quod excidere ab esse. Quod ergo dicit Deum
non posse negare seipsum, idem est ac si diceretur: Deum non posse decere ab essendo. Hoc autem quod est non
decere ab essendo, idem est ac si diceretur quod Deus non est non ens; quo quidem magis signicatur ipsum esse; sicut
et si dicatur quod Deus non potest non posse, non ostendit quod sit impotens, sed quod sit maxime potens; et similiter, si
dicatur quod non cognoscit se nescire ita quod habet scientiae privationem, hoc est ipsum habere perfectam scientiam.
Per hoc ergo quod Deus non potest negare seipsum, nihil detrahitur Eius potentiae ab impossibili, sed idem est ac si
diceretur, quod Deus non potest non esse verus et ens et potens.
35 De Veritate 2.11.122-34 cited in Gregory P. Rocco, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, (Catholic University of
America Press, 2004). p. 179.
36 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 13, art. 11.

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ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

37 (at least as far as judgements are concerned) see Geisler, N, Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal, (Baker,
1991), p. 75.
38 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 12, q.93, art 4.
39 ST 1a, Q.16, a 6, resp.
40 In the order of knowing, truth begins rst in the human intellect as an abstraction and is applied analogically to
other things and to the Divine intellect.
41 ST 1a, q.16, a.2 resp De Veritate 1,3 which of course is precisely what anti-realists following Heidegger do want to
say!.
42 Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings, transl Allan Wolter, (Hackett, 1987), p. 20.
43 Op cit, p. 20.
44 Eg Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk 1, ch 32; ST 1a, q. 13, a 5.
45 Many of these reasons are distilled from Gregory P. Rocco, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, (Catholic
University of America Press, 2004), p 173176.
46 Geisler, N, Thomas Aquinas: An Evangelical Appraisal, (Baker, 1991), p. 137138.
47 It is highly questionable whether anything in the empirical world is strictly univocal, because as the ancient
Heraclitus showed, You cannot step into the same river twice..
48 Geisler, N, Philosophy of Religion, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974), p. 281.
49 This is why Richard Cross defends Scotus view in Deconstructing Radical Orthodoxy, ed Hankey and Hedley,
(Ashgate, 2005), p. 6581.
50 Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings, transl Allan Wolter, (Hackett, 1987), p. 1719.
51 Maurer, Armand, St Thomas and the Analogy of Genus, (The New Scholasticism, Volume XXIX, April 1955,
Number 2), p. 129131 commenting on In 1 Sent. d. 19, q. 5, a.2, ad 1.
52 Aquinas, In I Sent., d.19, q.5, a. 2, ad 1;.
53 Maurer, Armand, St Thomas and the Analogy of Genus, (The New Scholasticism, Volume XXIX, April 1955,
Number 2), p. 129131.
54 Cajetan, De Nominum Analogia, cited in Batista Mondin, The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic
Theology, (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1968), p. 40.
55 Klubertanz, G, St Thomas Aquinas on Analogy, (Loyola University Press, Chicago, 1960 p. 103,108.
56 Commentary on Aristotles On Interpretation (PeriHermenias), trans Ralph McInerny, Thomas Aquinas:
Selected Writings, (Penguin, 1998). 2,9,10, p. 463.
57 McInerny, R, The Logic of Analogy, (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), and his later works Being and
Predication.(Catholic University of America Press, 1986) and Aquinas and analogy,(Catholic University of America
Press, 1996).
58 Scotus and univocity in McInerny, Being and Predication. (Catholic University of America Press, 1986), p. 162
163.
59 ST 1a, q.2, a.2, ad 2, cited in Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His existence and His nature: A Thomistic solution to
certain agnostic antinomies (B. Herder Book Co, 1939), p. 224227.
60 Being and Predication, p. 161162.
61 Catherine Pickstock, Duns Scotus, in Milbank and Oliver (ed), The Radical Orthodoxy Reader, (Routledge,
2009), p. 130.
62 Commentary on the Book of Causes, trans Vincent A. Guaglianrdo, O.P., Charles R. Hess, O.P., and Richard C.
Taylor, (Catholic University of America Press, 1996), text p. 29.
63 Op cit, section 29, p. 32.
64 Op cit, Section 30, p. 33 See also ST1a, q.14, a.1, resp.
65 Commentary on Aristotles Metaphysics, trans John P. Rowan, Preface by Ralph McInerny, (Dumb Ox Books,
1995), Book 4, lesson 6, chapter 4, 603, p. 222.
66 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (Centenary Press, 1942), p. 16.
67 Pickstock, ibid, p. 130.
68 Pickstock, op cit, p. 131.
69 Pickstock, op cit, p. 131.
70 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 13, a 4.
71 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 13, a 4 resp.
72 Aquinas, ST, 1a, q. 28, art 2.
73 Aquinas, ST, 1a, q. 28, a 1.
74 Graham Priest, Whats so bad about contradictions? in Priest, Graham, Beall, J.C., Armour-Garb, Bradley (eds),
The Law of non-contradiction: New Philosophical Essays, (Oxford, 2004), p. 23f.
75 Edward N. Zalta, Defence of the Law of non-contradiction, in Priest, Graham, Beall, J.C., Armour-Garb, Bradley
(eds), The Law of non-contradiction: New Philosophical Essays, (Oxford, 2004), p. 418 f.
76 Comm on Peri Hermeneais, I, lect 8 cited in Geisler (1991), p. 71.
77 St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotles Posterior Analytics, (Dumb Ox Books, 2007). transl Richard
Berquist, 2.72a7, a, p. 24.
78 There may be other doctrines of Thomas which are inconsistent with his opinion on the law of non-contradiction
eg his understanding of accidents in the eucharist. See Kenny (1980), p. 36.
79 Aquinas, On the Eternity of the World, trans. Mcinerny, (1998), p. 712.