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030 - Xxx What Terms Can Be Predicated Of God · Summa Contra Gentiles, First Book (On God)

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty of Suma Contragentilees, First Book on God, by
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  Speaker 1: Saint Thomas aquinas translated by the Fathers of the English
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  Speaker 1: Dominican Province. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty What terms can be predicated of God? Again,
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  Speaker 1: in sequel to the above, we may consider what can
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  Speaker 1: and what cannot be said of God? Also what is
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  Speaker 1: said of Him alone, and what is said of Him
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  Speaker 1: together with other beings. For since every perfection of creatures
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  Speaker 1: is to be found in God, albeit in another and
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  Speaker 1: more eminent way, whatever terms denote perfection absolutely and without
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  Speaker 1: any defect, whatever are predicated of God and of other things,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, goodness, wisdom, and so forth. But any term
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  Speaker 1: that denotes suchlike perfections, together with the mode proper to creatures,
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  Speaker 1: cannot be said of God, except by similitude and metaphor,
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  Speaker 1: whereby that which belongs to one thing is applied to another,
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  Speaker 1: as when a man is said to be a stone
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  Speaker 1: on account of the denseness of his intelligence. Such are
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  Speaker 1: all those terms employed to denote the species of a
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  Speaker 1: created thing as man and stone, for its proper mode
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  Speaker 1: of perfection and being is due to each species. Likewise,
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  Speaker 1: whatever terms signify those properties of things that are caused
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  Speaker 1: by the proper principles of the species. Therefore, they cannot
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  Speaker 1: be said of God otherwise than metaphorically. But those which
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  Speaker 1: express these perfections, together with the mode of super eminence
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  Speaker 1: in which they belong to God, are said of God alone,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, the sovereign Good, the first Being, and the like.
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  Speaker 1: Now I say that some of the aforesaid terms denote
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  Speaker 1: perfection without defect as regards that which the term is
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  Speaker 1: employed to signify. Where as regards the mode of signification,
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  Speaker 1: every term is defective. For we express things by a
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  Speaker 1: term as we conceive them by the intellect, and our intellect,
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  Speaker 1: since its knowledge originates from the senses, does not surpass
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  Speaker 1: the mode which we find in sensible objects, wherein the
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  Speaker 1: form is distinct from the subject of the form on
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  Speaker 1: account of the composition of form and matter. Now, in
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  Speaker 1: those things the form is found to be simple, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: but imperfect, as being non subsistent, whereas the subject of
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  Speaker 1: the form is found to be subsistent but not simple,
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  Speaker 1: naymore with concretion. Wherefore, whatever our intellect signifies as subsistent,
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  Speaker 1: it signifies with concretion, and whatever it signifies is simple.
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  Speaker 1: It signifies it not as subsisting, but as qualifying. Accordingly,
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  Speaker 1: in every term employed by us there is imperfection as
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  Speaker 1: regards the mode of signification, and imperfection is unbecoming to God,
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  Speaker 1: although the thing signified is becoming to God in some
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  Speaker 1: eminent way, as instanced in the term goodness or the good,
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  Speaker 1: for goodness signifies by way of non subsistence, and the
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  Speaker 1: good signifies by way of concretion. In this respect, no
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  Speaker 1: term is becomingly applied to God, but only in respect
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  Speaker 1: of that which the term is employed to signify. Wherefore,
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  Speaker 1: as Dionysius teaches, such terms can be either affirmed or
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  Speaker 1: denied of God, affirmed on account of the signification of
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  Speaker 1: the term, denied on account of the mode of signification. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the mode of super eminence in which the aforesaid perfections
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  Speaker 1: are found in God cannot be expressed in terms employed
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  Speaker 1: by us, except either by negation, as when we say
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  Speaker 1: God is eternal or infinite, or by referring him to
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  Speaker 1: other things, as when we say that He is the
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  Speaker 1: first cause or the sovereign good. For we are able
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  Speaker 1: to grasp not what God is, but what he is not,
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  Speaker 1: And the relations of other things to him is explained
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  Speaker 1: above end of Chapter thirty read by Michael Shane, Craig Lambert,
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  Speaker 1: Elsie