HeyJ (2016), pp.

312–324

PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? WHAT IS

THE NATURE OF AQUINAS’ DOCTRINE OF
ANALOGY?
ALAN PHILIP DARLEY
University of Nottingham, UK

Many writers have recognised that Thomas does not present us with a theory of analogy1; what
we see in his numerous works is rather how Aquinas uses analogy. This creates ambiguity and
difficulties for scholars trying to reconstruct a systematic understanding of analogy in the mind
of Aquinas.
One fundamental question raised by Aquinas’ treatment of analogy I address in this paper is
whether analogy is primarily a grammatical or a metaphysical doctrine. Is it, to put it another
way, only a matter of predication, or also a matter of participation?
I propose to answer this question by firstly examining the metaphysical interpretation of
Cardinal Cajetan, followed by the ‘predication only’ view of Ralph McInerny; I discuss prob-
lems raised by both approaches. Next I discuss to what extent predication might depend on par-
ticipation in the metaphysical, and clarify the nature of this dependence. It will become evident
during this discussion that the issue of the nature of analogy hinges on the wider issue of how
far Aquinas is working within an Aristotelian or a Platonic framework of epistemology. Finally
I draw some tentative conclusions.

THE METAPHYSICAL INTERPRETATION OF CAJETAN

Cardinal Cajetan (146921534) in his De Nominum analogia (1498) was the first to divide anal-
ogy into various types. Using as his template Aquinas’ reply to an objection in his Commentary
on the Sentences2, Cajetan discerned three types of analogy: analogy of inequality, analogy of
attribution and analogy of proportionality. Analogy of inequality, he said, occurs for example
where celestial ‘bodies’ and terrestrial ‘bodies’ share the same term. From a metaphysical point
of view they are unequal and equivocal, yet from an abstract logical point of view they are univ-
ocal. He reasoned from this fact that the first type is not really an analogy at all.3
Similarly Cajetan thought that in the ‘analogy of attribution’ a univocal term shares a differ-
ent relationship with each of the analogates. The illustration of ‘health’4 illustrates this category.
According to Cajetan the common term ‘healthy’ has unequal relationships respectively with
the animal, the urine, and the medicine which share the predicate. This leads him to conclude
that an analogous term in this type can only be used extrinsically (since there is no univocality
as far as the res significata is concerned). Therefore, curiously, only the third ‘example’ of anal-
ogy, the ‘analogy of proportionality’, is really worthy of the name because, for Cajetan, it is the
only intrinsic analogy, the only one that transcends the merely semantic and tells us something
about real things. In the case of the Divine names, it is the only one that tells us anything meta-
physical about God himself: This third type is the ‘analogy of proportionality’ which occurs

C 2016 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350
V
Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
 PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? 313

when things have a common name and the notion expressed by the common name is proportion-
ally the same; for example, sight to the eye is proportionally the same as sight to the intellect, a
captain of a ship is proportionally the same as the ruler of a city etc. Cajetan tells us that: ‘by
means of analogy of (proper) proportionality we know indeed the intrinsic entity, goodness,
truth, etc. of things, which are known from the other analogies.’5
Modern neo-Cajetanians disagree on the particular nature of each type and of their relative
merit. Following first Suarez6 and more recently and influentially, Gilson7, few now regard attri-
bution as only extrinsic, nor do they accept that analogy of proper proportionality is the main, or
only ‘true’ type of analogy in Aquinas, since texts associated with this type are concentrated
almost entirely in his earlier works, and Aquinas seems to abandon it because it threatens God’s
transcendence through a hidden univocal correspondence. Nor do they think that for Aquinas
analogous names are predicated equally and intrinsically of each of the analogates in proper pro-
portionality. Nevertheless they share Cajetan’s position that there is such a thing as a division of
analogy into types and that the true nature of analogy is metaphysical.
One spokesman for this view is Bernard Montagnes. His main criticism of Cajetan is the
opposite to that of McInerny: for Montagnes, Cajetan is not metaphysical enough!8 In his The
Doctrine of the Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas9 Montagnes insists that ‘predic-
amental analogy’ is based on the ‘analogy of being’. By the latter he means the neo-Platonic
great chain of being, a hierarchical universe in which creatures participate in God, who is Being
by priority and posteriority. Like Cajetan, Montagnes regards the health illustration as extrinsic,
and therefore ‘does not apply’ to the real analogy of being.10 Montagnes uses the same proof
text as Cajetan from Aquinas’ Commentary on the Sentences to argue for the existence of three
types of analogy secundum intentionem, secundum esse and secundum intentionem et secundum
esse.11 The problem is that this text does not specifically say there are three types of analogy. It
is written in response to an objector, and Thomas is replying that inequalities can be spoken of
in three senses ‘according to analogy, ’ which is more ambiguous.12

PREDICATION ONLY

Ralph McInerny (1929–2010), on the other hand, spent his academic career arguing that
Cajetan’s reading of the Commentary on the Sentences represents a ‘Fall’ in Thomistic interpre-
tation of analogy. He insists that Cajetan’s division of analogy into ‘types’ is as muddle-headed
as (to create my own example) inventing a special class of nouns to refer to real animals and
another to refer to mythical animals. Grammatically speaking, a unicorn is just as much a noun
as ‘horse’. There are not two different types of nouns, depending on what we are speaking
about13 Such a division distracts commentators from the fact that a noun is a grammatical term
indifferent to the reality of the thing predicated. Similarly, for Mcinerny, analogy is a grammati-
cal term indifferent to the metaphysical reality of its referents.
Instead, analogy in McInerny’s definition is a mode of speech that orders several terms
unequally to one primary term.14 So, in McInerny’s interpretation of Aquinas’ ‘health’ example,
the term refers primarily to an animal and only derivatively (per prius et posterius) to medicine
(which causes health) and to urine (a sign of the animal’s health). Since this is the most common
illustration Thomas uses to explain analogy, it is a serious weakness of Cajetan and his followers
to disallow this illustration in order to defend their own system. The great strength of McI-
nerny’s position is that he regards this illustration as paradigmatic.15
Consequently analogy is an ‘unequal, ranked, ordered arrangement’, and this ranking can be
either real or intentional16 Contrary to Cajetan, McInerny argues that the common term is not
314 ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

found univocally in all the analogates; there is a common notion (ratio communis), but it exists
primarily in one, as the ratio propria and in the others only secondarily (per prius et posterior).
Coincidentally, analogy (especially in the case of divine names) may refer to real entities, but
this is not the basis on which an analogy is called analogy. A metaphysical referent is an acci-
dent of analogy; hence for McInerny there is no such thing as an ‘analogy of being.’
‘our ability to recognise a term as analogous is independent of any assertion as to whether or
not the res significata is intrinsic to all the analogates. Furthermore, it seems that when we do
judge that the res significata is an intrinsic form of only one of the analogates, we are not
thereby adding to what is meant by an analogous name. That is these further judgments do
not seem to me to be productive of type of analogous term.’17

Furthermore, McInerny’s thesis is that, while Aristotle could use the Greek term analogia to
refer to things arranged according to a priority of nature18, Aquinas uses analogia only in the
semantic sense of an order among the meanings of a common term, (except of course when he
is directly quoting Aristotle).19 Significantly Thomas never calls the real hierarchy of being an
analogia of being.20

SECOND INTENTIONS

At this point, in order to clarify McInerny’s argument, it is necessary to understand the scholas-
tic distinction between first and second intentions and the epistemology that lies beneath it. ‘Sec-
ond intentions’ is a scholastic term for properties of things as known rather than properties as
they exist in themselves (which are ‘first intentions’). The mind forms a second intention after
making an abstraction from particular real beings. For example a universal such as ‘animal’ is a
‘second intention’, abstracted from a particular cat and a particular man such as Socrates. In this
example, the second intention ‘animal’ is used univocally of both the cat and Socrates.
The role of signification for Aquinas is the same as that for Aristotle whose main objection to
Plato was their disagreement over ontological realism. Plato (at least as Aquinas understood
him) treated universals as actual entities. For Aristotle and for Thomas, names signify things as
they are known and not as they exist, whereas Plato turns a universal predication into metaphys-
ical participation. Commentating on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Thomas writes:
‘. . . to one who carefully examines Plato’s arguments it is evident that Plato’s opinion was
false, because he believed that the mode of being which the thing known has in reality is the
same as the one which it has in the act of being known. Therefore, since he found that our
intellect understands abstractions in two ways: in one way as we understand universals
abstracted from singulars, and in another way as we understand the objects of mathematics
abstracted from sensible things, he claimed that for each abstraction of the intellect there is a
corresponding abstraction in the essences of things. Hence he held that both the objects of
mathematics and the Forms are separate.’21

As far as Thomas is concerned, Aristotle had effectively demonstrated that it was not neces-
sary for a thing to have the same mode of being in the intellect as it does in reality. Since it is
obvious that the intellect knows material things in an immaterial way, it makes sense to say that
the intellect abstracts immaterial universals from particular material things, without those uni-
versals enjoying independent existence.
 PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? 315

‘The likeness of a thing is received into the intellect according to the mode of the intellect,
not according to the mode of the thing. Wherefore something on the part of the thing corre-
sponds to the composition and division of the intellect; but it does not exist in the same way
in the intellect and in the thing. For the proper object of the human intellect is the quiddity of
a material thing, which comes under the action of the senses and the imagination.’ 22
It follows from this process that intellectual understanding is not created complete, but is
formed progressively by drawing intelligible species out of things. The one exception is the
angelic intellect, which for Aquinas works similarly to Plato’s understanding of the human
intellect. Angels, as immaterial beings, do not acquire knowledge by abstraction from sense
experience, but by direct participation in the Divine ideas in whom their likenesses preexist.23
For Aquinas, angelic knowledge is therefore not progressive but fully-formed through ‘an
intelligible outpouring’ of the creaturely species directly from God. (Humans attain a similar,
but superior direct knowledge only in the Beatific vision).

Aquinas’s position on human epistemology should not be mistaken for later scholastic nomi-
nalism,24 since for Aquinas logical relations are still founded on real things; for example, the
abstraction ‘paternity’ is founded on real fathers. Therefore abstractions represent real knowl-
edge of the res significata, but this is filtered through our way of knowing (modus signifandi);
for example, material things are known in an immaterial mode. Aquinas’ position, known as
‘Moderate Realism’ represents a via media between ontological realism and later nominalism.
Analogy is listed amongst the mode of logical second intentions in V Metaphysics, lect 7,
n.848 because, like the univocal universal, it too is one thing that can be said of many:
‘First, he indicates the different senses in which the term one is used; and second (880), the
different senses in which the term many is used (“Moreover, it is evident”). In regard to the
first he does two things. First, he gives the different senses in which things are one from
the viewpoint of nature, i.e., according to the conditions found in reality; and second (876),
from the viewpoint of logic, i.e., according to the considerations of logic (“Further, some
things”).’

Thomas is indebted to Aristotle for drawing attention to a relation of ‘many-to-one’ (pros

hen), for example in lists of particular goods that are called good with reference to one idea25,
or in the many different categories (such as time, place, hardness, softness) that apply to sub-
stances by some mode of arrangement, or in the relation between similar parts in different ani-
mals that can be conceived as having one function. 26 Thomas takes this concept of a pros hen
relationship and deploys the term analogia27 to refer to it (though Aristotle distinguishes pros
hen from his own meaning of analogia in Nichomachean Ethics 1.6.1096b 25).
Aquinas sees the potential in this way of naming for the seemingly intractable problem of
how it can be possible for finite creatures to give true names to the infinite God, since we can
only name God as he is known, through his effects28. Aristotle’s strategy, which Aquinas calls
‘analogy’, becomes a way of accounting for how God and creatures can share the same names.
Properly speaking, it is only relevant for the affirmative perfections of God such as ‘wisdom,’
‘goodness,’ ‘life’ etc. since negative names or relations do not express what God is intrinsi-
cally.29 This device supplies a useful mean between the equivocal on the one hand, that leaves
God entirely unknown (and thus denies Christian revelation), and the univocal on the other,
which deprives God of being truly God.30
Analogical naming is routinely contrasted with univocal and equivocal naming from
Thomas’ very early De Principiis Naturae to the late Sentencia super Metaphysicum and Super
Libri Ethicorum.31 It becomes obvious that equivocal naming is not concerned with things in
themselves, but rather with things as known to the mind; equivocals are dicuntur, et non sunt.
316 ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

Things become univocal or equivocal to us through our mode of knowing and thus of naming:
‘If man with his distinctive mode of knowing did not exist, there would be no equivocals, that
is, things named equivocally.’32
Since analogy is sometimes placed under the general heading of ‘equivocation’ by Aquinas
(following Aristotle)33, i.e. a mode of speech in which things with a common name differ in the
definition of that name,34 it follows that analogical signification too refers to things as known
and named, rather than things independent of the mind. Hence the use of the phrase analogia
dicuntur in parallel with aequivoca dicuntur and univocal dicuntur.35
The difference between equivocal, univocal and analogical naming is that in equivocal nam-
ing only the name is the same, but the signification and the things signified are different; so for
example, the word ‘pen’ can mean a writing instrument or a fenced area for pigs. In univocal
naming, the name and its ratio are the same as predicated of more than one thing, for example
the word ‘animal’ can be predicated univocally of both man and sheep. In analogical naming,
however, the name refers principally to one thing, which, if taken separately would have been
understood as meaning that particular thing; the name can be used secondarily of other things,
however, in so far as they relate to the first thing. (per prius et posterius). ‘But when anything is
predicated of many things analogically, it is found in only one of them according to its proper
nature, and from this one the rest are denominated.’36
We see this clearly in Aquinas’ most common example of analogy, the use of the word
‘health.’ Here the primary meaning is (for medievals) ‘a proportion in the four humours’ and
refers first and foremost to an animal; nevertheless, health can be attributed to medicine second-
arily because this causes health, or to urine which can be a sign of health in an animal. The
example demonstrates a common meaning (ratio), but the meaning is not shared equally as in
univocal predication; it is divided into diverse modes.
Other examples used by Aquinas are ‘truth’ which has it’s primary sense (ratio propria) in
the intellect; but can be used secondarily of things, according as they are related to the divine
intellect38, and ‘being’ which is primarily used of substance; for example, Gordon is (being) a
man; but analogically used of accidents; for example, Gordon is (being) Scottish.39

PROBLEMS WITH THE ‘PREDICATION ONLY’ VIEW

There are problems in viewing analogy as ‘predication-only’, however. In his Aquinas, God and
action40, David Burrell follows McInerny’s semantic thesis, but takes it in a Wittgensteinian
direction.41 For Burrell Scientia divina is ‘the grammar of Divinity,’ a language game.42 Echo-
ing the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus of the early Wittgenstein, Burrell writes ‘. . .properly
speaking, nothing can be said of God.’43 This is because: ‘(A)ll statements formed of subject
and predicate – that is to say, all discourse – will falsify the reality which God is.’44
Burrell maintains the coherence dimension of religious language at the expense of real corre-
spondence.45 Consequently he sees in Aquinas affinities with William Blake46, and even with
Eastern pantheism.47 This turn to the East in Burrell alerts us to a hidden danger in McInerny’s
approach. It can be served up to meet the interests of agnosticism if the logic of the knowing
subject is radically sundered from ‘things in themselves.’
Historically we can trace a genealogy of agnosticism from the semantic abstraction of Duns
Scotus to the subjectivity of Wittgenstein via William of Occam, the empiricism of Hume and
the entirely human a priori of Kant. This leads John Milbank to argue that a purely analytic
meaning of analogy is ‘anachronistic,’ dictated by the terms of later analytic philosophy.48 It
 PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? 317

leads to his conclusion that: ‘Without ontological guarantee. . .(analogy). . .might be merely
equivocal save for human delusion.’49
For Aquinas, by contrast, if language about God were purely equivocal, it would be impossi-
ble for God to know creatures by knowing his own essence50, since there would be no likeness
with creatures. This is why Aquinas rejects the view of Maimonides (which seems close to
Burrell’s) that God is only named good extrinsically rather than intrinsically.51 In fact, God is
called Goodness and Life, not merely as cause of creaturely goodness and life, but intrinsically
by the way of supereminence.
However, it is strange that Milbank, having labelled McInerny’s position ‘anachronistic’, is
nevertheless happy (like Montagnes) to read Przywara’s (1889–1972) term ‘analogia entis’
back into the doctrine of Aquinas, though it is nowhere found in the Thomistic texts. Milbank
thinks that this ‘does not render it necessarily inappropriate’!52
Although Aquinas falls short of speaking of an ‘analogy of being,’ Milbank thinks he gives
grounds for being understood this way53 in his notion of causes spoken of ‘according to some
sort of analogy’54 in which the logic of analogy seems to be related to causation within the real
world. Agents of efficient causation are also divided as univocal, equivocal and analogical.55
Montagnes’ work supports Milbank in citing numerous further examples from the Sentences.56
One could respond to this argument from so called ‘analogous causes’ as McInerny does by an
appeal to coincidence between logical relations and real relations.57 Since it is clear that an
equivocal cause must be a logical category (as things are only equivocal according to how they
are named), must not the same be true for analogical causes? It is not that obvious, however,
because in Summa Theologiae 1a, q.13, a.5, ad 1 Aquinas draws attention to a correlation
between causal actions and predications, in that both are ‘reduced to one first non-univocal ana-
logical predication, which is being.’ This text at least indicates a close relationship between the
realms of logic and being, if not a dependence of one on the other.
Milbank further criticizes the semantic interpretation as ‘sundering analogy from sacra doc-
trina’ which is ‘a revealed descent of divine names in scripture.’58 However, this can be
explained through the distinction between the order of being and the order of knowing59. Some-
times there is a coincidence of logical relations with real relations that can mislead commenta-
tors into confusing the two.
On firmer ground, Milbank points to a strong contextual argument for the view that Aquinas’
doctrine of analogy is rooted in metaphysics. The discussion on the Divine names in both the
Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles is situated directly after Aquinas’ treatment of
the likeness of creatures to God. ‘God is known by natural knowledge through the images of
His effects.’ 60 These discussions themselves follow the foundational investigations of God’s
existence and nature at the beginning of these works.61 The same observation leads Te Velde to
conclude that:
‘Although it does not stand in itself as a metaphysical theory, its (i.e. the doctrine of ana-
logy’s) use is clearly embedded in a metaphysical account of the causal relationship between
creatures and God.’62

Predication Founded on Participation (Klubertanz, Rocca, Mondin, Te Velde)

The first scholar to attempt a systematic collection and analysis of the entire Thomistic corpus
on analogy was George Klubertanz (1961). While drawing a conclusion similar to McInerny
that ‘. . .analogy is primarily an affair of judgment rather than concept,’63 he too, like Milbank,
is persuaded by the contextual evidence that Aquinas is not concerned with the merely
318 ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

psychological or logical aspects of analogy; he presents a more subtle reading of Thomas that
interprets analogy as more than the logical without remainder: ‘it seems to be a more adequate
representation of St Thomas’ opinion to say that analogy arises only when the mind and things
both enter into the picture.’64
We must be cautious, however, not to set McInerny’s position up as a straw man, as it is
important to note that he also explicitly affirms Aquinas’ moderate realism, for example in this
passage from Being and Predication:
‘There is a real similarity between individual men, and this is the basis in reality for the for-
mation of the concept “man.” But it is only as conceived that the nature or essence is some-
thing one-over-many. Thomas’ position on universals is called moderate realism. He does not
think that natures exist apart from individuals (realism) or that there is no basis in individuals
for the formation of the concept (nominalism).’65

ONTOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ANALOGY

Yet what the above argument brings to light is that within Aquinas’ theology, analogy cannot
stand only as a mode of speech about the Divine; it comes with inalienable ontological presup-
positions. Battista Mondin helpfully identifies three of these as plurality of objects, dissimilarity
and similarity.66
Firstly, plurality of objects. In the case of an analogy such as ‘Fido is healthy’, ‘medicine is
healthy’, and ‘urine is healthy’, there is an obvious presupposition that Fido, medicine and urine
are three different things (otherwise these terms would be a tautology, rather than an analogy).
This does not entail that these three particular things necessarily exist extra-mentally, but it does
entail that diversity exists in the real world in order we may truly speak of it (contra Parme-
nides). Secondly, it follows that because there are different things, dissimilarity must also be
possible, and thirdly, by the law of non-vacuous contrast, dissimilarity is meaningless without
an opposite corollary of similarity — all of which together provide us with the three self-evident
prerequisites for analogy to exist.
Although a particular mode of similarity or dissimilarity may be only mental (for example,
the colour of urine and the health of a man), the remote foundation for this is that there are such
things as similarities and differences in the real world from which logical terms are abstracted,
for example in Summa Contra Gentiles, where secondary causes (which could include logical
causes) presuppose a relation of likeness to the First Cause of being, which is God.67 In greater
detail, Aquinas writes in his Commentary on the Metaphysics:
‘From this he (Aristotle) further concludes that sameness (identitas) is a unity or union.
For things which are said to be the same are either many in being, but are said to be
the same inasmuch as they agree in some respect, or they are one in being, but the
intellect uses this as many in order to understand a relationship; for a relationship can
be understood only between two extremes. This is what happens, for example, when we
say that something is the same as itself; for the intellect then uses something which is
one in reality as though it were two, otherwise it could not designate the relationship of
a thing to itself. Hence it is clear that, if a relationship always requires two extremes,
and in relations of this kind there are not two extremes in reality but only in the mind,
then the relationship of sameness according to which something is said to be absolutely
the same, will not be a real relation but only a conceptual relation. This is not the
case, however, when any two things are said to be the same either in genus or in
 PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? 319

species. For if the relationship of sameness were something in addition to what we des-
ignate by the term same, then since this reality, which is a relation, is the same as
itself, it would have to have for a like reason something that is also the same as itself;
and so on to infinity. Now while it is impossible to proceed to infinity in the case of
real beings, nothing prevents this from taking place in the case of things which have
being in the mind. For since the mind may reflect on its own act it can understand that
it understands; and it can also understand this act in turn, and so on to infinity.’68

Analogy forms part of the mind’s activity of forming propositions (judgments), but for Aqui-
nas, at least in his later writings69, true judgments are based on a correspondence (adequatio)
between propositions and reality70; thus, what is implied by the word ‘truth’ is ‘truth as known’
through the intellect71. In order for truth to be ‘known’ and not be an illusion, it must be founded
on an extra-mental reality, as Rocca points out: ‘. . .the actuality of the real, which the verb to be
primarily signifies, is always presented throughout his works as the foundation and cause of the
secondary meaning of to be, the truth of the proposition.’
This is consistent with Aristotle’s principle that logic itself is based on being; it is not merely
linguistic.73 Commenting on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Aquinas writes: ‘. . .the first indemonstra-
ble principle is that ‘the same thing cannot be affirmed 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.’74
Aquinas teaches that the intellect has two operations, one by which it knows the nature of
things (quiddities) and the other by which it forms propositions (‘the understanding of indivisi-
bles’). Under the first operation ‘being’ is the first conception of the intellect.75 ‘First’ means
not only temporally first, but logically first, as Bobik explains: ‘Thus, the meaning or concept of
the temporally first word we learn to use contains, though implicitly, the meaning or concept
which we attach later to the word “being.” When one’s intellect first begins to function, even in
a context which is conceivable as temporally prior to one’s learning to use his first word, what-
ever else it may grasp in conception about sensible things, it grasps that concept to which one
later on attaches the word “being.”’ 76
For this reason it is a first principle for Aquinas that words signify things. Te Velde con-
cludes: ‘Language is opened to being from the very outset.’77

We could say, then, that logic participates in being. Aquinas divides Aristotle’s Ten Catego-
ries according to ‘the diverse modes of being,’78 just as Aristotle himself saw the nine accidents
as ultimately dependent on ousia. The third of these categories is ‘relation’ which includes the
grammatical.79 Therefore we can agree with Mondin when he lists participation as his fourth
ontological presupposition of logical analogy.80 Universals participate in the subjects of which
they are predicated, which in turn participate in God who cannot be participated.81 The recovery
of the importance of participation for St Thomas’ thought has been one of the major break-
throughs in 20th century Thomistic scholarship.82 In this respect there is clear blue water
between Thomas and those followers of Heidegger83 or Blondel84 who regard truth as merely
conformity with human life, rather than with the res significata itself. ‘Truth is the equation of
thought and thing.’85
In the special case of the divine names, therefore, analogical predication, though formally a
second order intention, nevertheless presupposes an ontological likeness of the creature to the
Creator. Rocca notes that in the Commentary on the Sentences Aquinas calls this similarity a
‘community of analogy.’86 The same text qualifies our previous explanation of names as being
merely abstractions from effects, since he also says that names such as ‘being’ or ‘wisdom’
320 ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

derive from imitation of these names and qualities in God himself: ‘The creature does not pos-
sess being (esse) except insofar as it descends from the first being (ens), nor is it named a being
(ens) except insofar as it imitates the first being; and the case is similar with wisdom and all the
other things said of the creature.’87
Philosophically this position is reflected in the frequently quoted maxim: omne agens agit
simile sibi,88 signifying that a cause produces effects according to its nature. Effects pre-exist in
their cause (as for Pseudo-Dionysius89) because for Aquinas it is of the essence of efficient
causes to produce effects like themselves.90 In his Commentary on the Divine Names of Pseudo-
Dionysius, Thomas summarises his position: ‘The “to be” of created things however, has drawn
out from the divine “to be” according to a certain sort of incomplete assimilation. Thus there-
fore, 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 cer-
tain projection.’91
Scripturally this is grounded in the revelation that Man is already made in the image of God
as an imperfect likeness (Genesis 1:26), which in Christ is a perfect likeness, because of His
identical nature.92 Aquinas calls the human likeness ‘a certain diminished participation.’ 93 This
is so because man is defined as ‘a rational animal’ and therefore, it is primarily in his intellectual
nature, including its logical properties, that this likeness is to be found: ‘Since man is said to be
the image of God by reason of his intellectual nature, he is the most perfectly like God accord-
ing to that in which he can best imitate God in his intellectual nature. Now the intellectual nature
imitates God chiefly in this, that God understands and loves Himself. Wherefore we see that the
image of God is in man in three ways. First, inasmuch as man possesses a natural aptitude for
understanding and loving God; and this aptitude consists in the very nature of the mind, which
is common to all men. Secondly, inasmuch as man actually and habitually knows and loves
God, though imperfectly; and this image consists in the conformity of grace. Thirdly, inasmuch
as man knows and loves God perfectly.’94
Within God himself, according to Aquinas’ teaching on simplicity, logic and being are not
two separate things, for God is his own essence.95 Although in the present life human beings
may only know this simple God through a modus significandi that is composite and different
from the res significata of God himself96, and even though for human beings, existence and
essence will never be identical,97 nevertheless there remains for the believer the remarkable
epistemological hope that God will be known in his quiddity in the next life, according to Aqui-
nas’ understanding of scriptural passages such as 1 Cor 13:5, John 14:21, John 17:3, 1 John 3:2
and Matt 5;8 (in a surprising departure from Pseudo-Dionysius). This requires a full eschatologi-
cal climax to this participation in the Divine nature by which God so transforms and indwells
the intellect of the redeemed, that their knowledge becomes like his own: ‘When any created
intellect sees the essence of God, the essence of God itself becomes the intelligible form of the
intellect.’98

CONCLUSION

In our view, McInerny is correct to say that Aquinas does not use ‘types’ of analogy (such as
attribution and proportionality) the way Cajetan understood him to do. Neither does he employ
the Cajetanian term ‘analogous concept.’ The reason for this is, as Mondin99, Klubertanz100 and
Rocca101 have all argued, that analogy is primarily a matter of using concepts to make judg-
ments (i.e. true propositions). Analogy arises as a second intention of the mind.
 PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? 321

McInerny is also right in recognising that Aquinas nowhere deploys the term ‘analogy of being
(analogia entis)’. This suggests that in his mind there is a distinction between the order of knowing
and the order of being. Without this distinction there would be a contradiction between the onto-
logical descent of divine names from the res significata which apply to God literally and primarily,
and to creatures secondarily by participation, and the epistemological ascent from names taken
from creatures, as of things we know and name first, per prius et posterius that are abstracted and
applied analogically to God. Aquinas makes this distinction clear in 1 Summa Contra Gentiles ch
34: ‘In this second mode of analogical predication the order according to the name and according
to reality is sometimes found to be the same and sometimes not. . .(etc.)’102
In this respect Aquinas follows Aristotle’s epistemology over Plato. For Plato, true knowl-
edge is participation in the Ideas, whereas for Aristotle the universal is a predication, abstracted
by us from sense experience. Aristotle’s criticism was that his teacher had confused the two
orders. He could have made the same criticism of Cajetan.
Nevertheless, we believe that those who argue for analogy as participation recognise an
important relationship between the two orders. Names stand for concepts in the mind that refer
to things in the world. Human words (modus significandi) imperfectly signify real perfections in
God (res significata), even to the extent that the Divine perfections are exemplars that human
naming imitates. As Milbank puts it:
‘unless things themselves can be read as signs of God, names cannot be used analogically of
God. The limits or unlimits of grammar reflect the limits or unlimits of the created order.’103

Identifying of the two orders results in Platonism; divorcing the two results in Nominalism.
Aquinas with his moderate realism forges a middle path that opens an analogical order of know-
ing with a foundation in the order of being. We could perhaps describe this as an analogy of
meaning rather than an analogy of being; yet a meaning rooted in the reality of what it speaks
about. We have found Aquinas’ theological basis for this in the imago dei which results in a
true but imperfect correspondence (adequatio) between thought and reality. In other words, the
logic of analogy requires metaphysical presuppositions; in the special case of the divine perfec-
tions, Aquinas justifies analogical predication on the grounds of the ontological participation of
the creature in the Creator.

Notes

1 E.g. Klubertanz, G, St Thomas Aquinas on Analogy, (Loyola University Press, Chicago, 1960) p. 111;
McInerny, R, The Logic of Analogy, (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), Mondin, B, The principle of anal-
ogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology, (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1968). Burrell, D, Aquinas: God and
Action, (Routledge and Kegan, 1979) p. 57.
2 In 1 Sent. d. 19, q. 5, a.2, ad 1.
3 For a defence of this first type as a genuine form of analogy see Armand Maurer: St Thomas and the
Analogy of Genus, (The New Scholasticism, Volume XXIX, April 1955, Number 2). For a contrary view see
Klubertanz, St Thomas Aquinas on Analogy, (Loyola University Press, Chicago, 1960) p. 103,108.
4 Eg ST 1a, q.13, a.6; III, q.60, a.1.
5 De Nominum Analogia 3,4 cited in Mondin (1968), p. 40.
6 See Klubertanz (1960), p. 11–12.
7 Mondin (1968), p. 41.
8 Montagnes, Bernard, The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas, trans E.M.
Macierowski, (ed Tallon), (Marquette University Press, 2004), p. 21.
9 Montagnes, Bernard, The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas, trans E.M.
Macierowski, (ed Tallon), (Marquette University Press, 2004).
10 Montagnes (2004), p. 44.
322 ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

11 Montagnes (2004), p. 44 citing In 1 Sent d.19, q.5,a.2,ad 1.

12 Ad primum igitur dicendum, quod aliquid dicitur secundum analogiam tripliciter: vel secundum inten-
tionem tantum, et non secundum esse; et hoc est quando una intentio refertur ad plura per prius et posterius,
quae tamen non habet esse nisi in uno; sicut intentio sanitatis refertur ad animal, urinam et dietam diversimode,
secundum prius et posterius; non tamen secundum diversum esse, quia esse sanitatis non est nisi in animali.
Vel secundum esse et non secundum intentionem; et hoc contingit quando plura parificantur in intentione alicu-
jus communis, sed illud commune non habet esse unius rationis in omnibus, sicut omnia corpora parificantur
in intentione corporeitatis. Unde logicus, qui considerat intentiones tantum, dicit, hoc nomen corpus de omni-
bus corporibus univoce praedicari: sed esse hujus naturae non est ejusdem rationis in corporibus corruptibilibus
et incorruptibilibus. Unde quantum ad metaphysicum et naturalem, qui considerant res secundum suum esse,
nec hoc nomen corpus, nec aliquid aliud dicitur univoce de corruptibilibus et incorruptibilibus, ut patet 10
Metaphys., ex philosopho et Commentatore. Vel secundum intentionem et secundum esse; et hoc est quando
neque parificatur in intentione communi, neque in esse; sicut ens dicitur de substantia et accidente; et de talibus
oportet quod natura communis habeat aliquod esse in unoquoque eorum de quibus dicitur, sed differens secun-
dum rationem majoris vel minoris perfectionis. Et similiter dico, quod veritas et bonitas et omnia hujusmodi
dicuntur analogice de Deo et creaturis. Unde oportet quod secundum suum esse omnia haec in Deo sint, et in
creaturis secundum rationem majoris perfectionis et minoris; ex quo sequitur, cum non possint esse secundum
unum esse utrobique, quod sint diversae veritates. (Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 19 q. 5 a. 2 ad 1).
13 McInerny uses the illustration of the inappropriateness of distinguishing types of ‘genus’ such as a math-
ematical genus or a natural genus. Being and predication, p. 285.
14 Rocca (2004) concisely labels this definition ‘referential multivocity.’ p. 107–112.
15 ‘Any interpretation which must insist that the example does not illustrate what is being talked about is
to that degree suspect and unlikely to be in tune with the thought of St. Thomas.’ McInerny in Being and Pred-
ication (Catholic University Press, 1986), p. 286). Note for example the pivotal role of this illustration in ST
1a. q.16, a.6, resp. in response to the question of whether there is more than one ‘truth.’
16 McInerny, The Analogy of Names is a Logical Doctrine. in Being and Predication (Catholic University
Press, 1986), p. 281.
17 Ibid, p. 284.
18 E.g. Nichomachean Ethics 1.6.1096b25.
19 McInerny (1996), p. 154.
20 Ibid. McInerny cites In Boethius, De Trinitate,q.5, a.4 in evidence.
21 1 Metaphysics, lect 10, n.158.
22 ST 1a, q.85, a.5, ad 3. see also III Metaphysics, lect 9, n.446, ST 1a, q.12, a.4.
23 McInerny (1961), p. 48; ST 1a, q.55, a.2, ad 1; ST 1a, q.84, a.7.
24 A movement associated with William of Ockham.(1285–1349).
25 See also Nichomachean Ethics 1.6.1096b14–29.
26 See Lytkens, The Analogy between God and the world, (Uppsala Universities, 1953), p. 29–58.
27 amongst other terms such as proportio.
28 ST 1a, q.13, prol; 1 SCG ch 34, 6.
29 ST 1a, q.13, a.2.
30 E.g. 1 SCG, ch 34, 1.
31 Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, (Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 108–111.
32 McInerny (1961), p. 68.
33 ST 1a, Q.13, a. 10 ad 4.
34 Aristotle, Categories 1a 21.
35 McInerny (1961), p. 75 and 77 citing XI Metaphys, lect 3, n.2197.
36 ST 1a, Q.16, a 6, resp.
37 “. . .dicendum quod aliter dividitur aequivocum, analogum et univocum.Aequivocum enim dividitur
secundum res significatas, univocum vero dividitur secundum diversas differentias; sed analogum dividitur
secundum diversos modos. Unde cum ens praedicetur analogice de decem generibus, dividitur in ea secun-
dum diversos modos. Unde unicuique generi debetur proprius modus praedicandi.” (1 Sent d.22 q.1, a 3,
ad 2).
38 ST 1a, Q.16, a 6, resp.
39 E.g. 1 SCG ch 34, 3. Aristotle also uses this example in Nichomachean Ethics 1.6, 1096 a15–b 3.
40 Aquinas, God and action (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979).
41 Though according to Milbank (2002), Burrell has shifted position since writing Aquinas: God and
Action.
 PREDICATION OR PARTICIPATION? 323

42 Burrell (1979) p. 5, 17.

43 Ibid. p. 25.
44 Ibid. p. 25.
45 Ibid p. 25, 65.
46 Ibid p. 13.
47 Ibid xii, and 33.
48 Milbank and Pickstock (2002), p. 127, note 106.
49 Milbank and Pickstock (2002), p. 47.
50 De Veritate 2.11.122–34 cited in Rocca (2004), p. 179.
51 ST 1a, q.13, a.5; De Potentia, q.7, a.5.
52 Milbank and Pickstock (2002), p. 46.
53 Milbank and Pickstock (1996), p. 127, note 110.
54 ST 1a, q 4, a. 3.; and 1 SCG 29.
55 ST 1a, q.13, a.5, ad 1; 1a, q. 25, a.2, ad 2; 1a, q. 45, a. 8, ad 3; Sent 2.1.2; 4.1.1.4.1 ad 4;.
56 Montagnes (2004), 35–39.
57 McInerny deals with this question at length in The Logic of analogy, p. 130.
58 Milbank and Pickstock (2002), p. 46.
59 But see footnote 80 below and the main discussion below.
60 ST 1a, q.12, a. 12 ad 2; 1 SCG, ch 29.
61 ST 1a, qs. 3–11; 1 SCG chs 1–28.
62 Te Velde (2009), p. 109.
63 Klubertanz, G, (1960); p. 115–116.
64 Klubertanz (1960), p. 114.
65 McInery, Being and Predication (1986), p. 10.
66 Mondin (1968), ch 3.
67 E.g. 1 Sent, d.36, q. 2, a.3; II Sent, d.14, q.1, a.2, ad 3; also 2 SCG ch 21, 4–5.
68 Commentary on the Metaphysics, Book V, lect 11, n.912.
69 E.g. his late commentaries on Aristotle’s On Interpretation.(1270–1271) and Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
70 ST 1a, q.16, a.2 resp De Veritate 1,3.
71 ST 1a, q.16, a2 resp.
72 Rocca (2004), p. 164.
73 ‘Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle this is, let us proceed to say.
It is, that the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same
respect; we must presuppose, to guard against dialectical objections, any further qualifications which might be
added. This, then, is the most certain of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above. For it is
impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be’, (Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, part 3).
74 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a2ae, q 94, a 2 resp.
75 Commentary on the Metaphysics, Book IV, lect 6, 605.
76 Joseph Bobik, Aquinas on Being and Essence, (Notre Dame, 2004), p. 3.
77 Te Velde (2009), p. 99.
78 Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, 3.5.322.
79 Aristotle, Categories, The Internet Classics Archive.http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/categories.html.
80 Mondin (1968), p. 65–66.
81 1 SCG, ch 32, par 4; Klubertanz lists different kinds of participation from Thomas’ Commentary on
Boethius’ ‘De hebdomadibilus’ on p. 56 including logical participation and participation of effects in the per-
fection of their causes. St Thomas on Analogy (1960).
82 Through the work of scholars such as Gilson, Fabro, Geiger et al.
83 Heidegger (2008), Being and Time p. 257, 270. For a devastating critique of Heidegger and of a Heideg-
gerian reading of Aquinas see Mario Enrique Sacchi, The Apocalypse of Being: The Esoteric Gnosis of Martin
Heidegger, (St. Augustine’s Press, 2002).
84 On Blondel see Garrigou-lagrange, Reginald, God, His Existence And His Nature V2: A Thomistic Solu-
tion To Certain Agnostic Antinomies, (Kessinger Publishing, 2007), p. 33–60.
85 ST 1a, q.16, a.1, resp.
86 Rocca (2008), p. 132 citing Sent 1.24.1.1.ad 4.
87 Ibid p. 132 citing Sent 1. prol. 1.2 ad 2.
88 Occurs especially in the Commentary on the Sentences eg 111 Sent 23,3,1,1; De Potentia, 2,2; 7,5; 2
SCG, 21, 8; 22, 5; 40, 2; 43, 8; ST 1a, 5,; 45, 6.
324 ALAN PHILIP DARLEY

89 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, ch 2.3 640C; ch 4.31, 732B; ch 6; ch 9.6. 913C-D.
90 Mondin (1968), p. 86–89.
91 Commentary on the Divine Names: trans Matthew N. Petersen, http://www.in-librum-dionysii.blogspot.
com/Chapter 1, Lecture 1, J.
92 ST 1a, q.93, a.1, ad 2.
93 SCG Bk 1, ch 29, par 5; ST 1a, q.93, a.1, resp.
94 ST 1a, q.93, a.4, resp.
95 ST 1a, q.3, a.3, resp.
96 Ibid 1a, q.13, art 12.
97 ST 1a, q.12, a.4, resp.
98 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a. q.12, a.5. I am indebted to this reference from A.N. Williams
discussion in The Ground of union (Oxford University Press 1999) p. 38.
99 Mondin (1968), p. 58.
100 Klubertanz, G, (1960); p. 115–116.
101 Rocca (2004), ch 7.
102 1 SCG ch 34, 5.
103 Milbank and Pickstock (2002), p. 47.