11. Metaphor, Multiple Senses, and Sacred Scripture

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

The Fire Metaphor and Divine Nature (Opening) #

• Fire as metaphor for both divine nature and Trinity
• Light of fire represents divine understanding; warmth represents divine love and transformative power
• From fire proceeds light and warmth, paralleling how Son proceeds from Father and Holy Spirit as love
• Metaphor accommodates the human mind to contemplate the divine

Article 9: Metaphors in Sacred Scripture #

Three Reasons for Using Lowly Bodies Rather Than Noble Ones (Following Dionysius) #

1. Prevention of Error: Using lowly bodies (e.g., “rock”) prevents confusion with literal truth. Noble bodies (e.g., “sun”) risk false identification with God (as Anaxagoras erroneously called the sun a stone on fire, thinking it divine like Apollo)

2. Negative Knowledge: God is better known through what He is NOT than what He is. Lowly bodies distance us more from God and provide truer understanding that He transcends all creation

3. Concealment from the Unworthy: Divine truths are hidden from those unworthy to receive them through figurative language

Thomistic Principle: The Role of the Imagination #

• Metaphors bring the imagination into subjection to God (from Sentences, Book 2)
• Every part of man should be subject to God—not just legs (genuflection) but also imagination, which is mixed with reason and will
• The imagination is both a faculty to be elevated and a source of deception

Poet vs. Theologian #

• Poet: Uses metaphor to raise lowly things up (creates unity of plot from the jumble of actual life)
• Theologian/Scripture: Uses metaphor to bring divine things down to human comprehension
• Both employ metaphor due to difficulty in knowing, but for opposite reasons:
  • Poet: difficulty lies in the things themselves (they lack inherent order)
  • Theologian: difficulty lies in human weakness (God infinitely exceeds our understanding)

Article 10: Multiple Senses of Scripture #

The Four Senses #

1. Sense of the Letter (Literal/Historical Sense)

   • What the author intends; the primary meaning
   • For metaphorical passages, it is the metaphorical meaning, not the grammatical meaning
   • Example: “God is a rock” = God is our support (not a literal rocky body)
   • The foundation upon which all other senses rest

2. Allegorical Sense

   • How things of the Old Law signify things of the New Law
   • Example: Old Testament figures prefigure Christ

3. Moral (Tropological) Sense

   • How things done in Christ signify what we ought to do
   • Pertains to ethical instruction

4. Anagogical Sense

   • How things signify eternal glory and our final end
   • From Greek ἀνά (ana) = “up”; ἀγωγή (agogē) = “leading”
   • Leading upward to heavenly realities

God as Author: Enabling Multiple Simultaneous Meanings #

• God comprehends all things at once by His eternal understanding
• Unlike human authors, God can intend multiple meanings in a single text
• All meanings remain orthodox and coherent because God’s knowledge is unified
• Augustine’s position: Multiple senses of the letter are permissible if orthodox and fitted to the text

The Hierarchy of Signification #

• First signification: vocal sounds (words) signify things
• Second signification: the things themselves signify other things
• Only the first (sense of the letter) provides argumentative foundation for theology
• Spiritual senses cannot serve as basis for theological argument

Clarifying the Literal Sense: Figurative Speech #

Critical Distinction #

• The sense of the letter is NOT the grammatical meaning of words
• When Scripture uses figures (metaphor, irony), the sense of the letter is the author’s intended meaning, not the word’s dictionary meaning

How Figurative Speech Works (From Commentaries on St. Paul) #

• Figurative speech: The meaning of words differs from the meaning of the speaker
• Connection between the two is based on either likeness or opposition

Metaphor #

• Connection based on likeness
• Example: “Honey” (wife) → meaning is “thou pleasant one” (based on likeness: sweetness is pleasant as the wife is pleasant)
• Example: “You pig” → meaning is “thou glutton” (pig’s eating nature parallels gluttony)

Irony #

• Connection based on opposition
• Example: “What a fine example of an Assumption student” (said to drunk student) → meaning is the opposite of what is said
• Example: “Gee, you’re nice” (said to someone behaving poorly) → understood ironically as criticism

Parabolical Sense #

• Parables and figurative speech are contained under the sense of the letter
• The sense of the letter is the parable’s intended meaning, not its surface grammatical meaning

Why Multiple Senses Don’t Create Equivocation #

Response to Objection 1 (Multiple Senses Create Confusion) #

• Multiplicity of senses does NOT constitute equivocation
• Equivocation: one word signifies multiple unrelated things (e.g., “bank” = financial institution or riverbank)
• Scripture: not one vocal sound with multiple meanings, but one thing signified leads to further significations
• All spiritual senses are founded on the single sense of the letter
• Only the sense of the letter provides argumentative force; spiritual senses enrich but do not establish doctrine
• Nothing necessary for faith found in spiritual senses is not also treated explicitly in the literal sense elsewhere

Response to Objection 2 (Augustine’s Different Enumeration) #

• Augustine’s four categories (history, etiology, analogy, allegory) are not incompatible with Thomas’s four senses
• History, etiology, and analogy are distinctions within the sense of the letter:
  • History (ἱστορία): Simple narrative presentation
  • Etiology (αἰτιολογία): Assigning causes for things narrated
    • Example: Why Moses permitted repudiation of wives → hardness of their hearts
  • Analogy (ἀναλογία): Drawing proportional comparisons
• These three all pertain to the literal sense
• “Allegory” in Augustine’s scheme encompasses the three spiritual senses (allegorical, moral, anagogical)

Key Arguments #

Against Multiple Senses (Objections Addressed) #

Objection 1: Multiplicity causes confusion and undermines argumentative force

• Response: No equivocation occurs; all senses presuppose one literal sense; only the literal sense provides argument

Objection 2: Augustine seems to give a different enumeration

• Response: Augustine’s categories are distinctions within the literal sense and allegory, not incompatible with the fourfold scheme

Objection 3: The parabolical sense is not included in the four senses

• Response: Parabolical sense is contained under the sense of the letter as figurative speech

Important Definitions #

Sensus Litteralis (Sense of the Letter) #

• The meaning intended by the author (in Scripture, God)
• For figurative passages, the figurative meaning, not the surface grammatical meaning
• Never false because it expresses the author’s true intention
• Foundation of all spiritual senses

Sensus Spirituales (Spiritual Senses) #

• The three meanings beyond the literal: allegorical, moral, anagogical
• All presuppose and are founded upon the literal sense
• Do not provide argumentative basis for theology
• Reveal the richness of divine truth

Locutio Figurata (Figurative Speech) #

• Speech where the speaker’s meaning differs from the grammatical meaning of words
• Connection is based on likeness (metaphor) or opposition (irony)
• The sense of the letter in figurative passages is the speaker’s meaning

Aequivocatio (Equivocation) #

• One word signifying multiple unrelated things
• Multiple senses of Scripture do NOT constitute equivocation
• Equivocation would undermine argumentative force; multiple senses do not

Ἀλληγορία (Allegoria/Allegorical Sense) #

• How things of the Old Testament signify New Testament realities

Τροπολογία (Tropologia/Moral Sense) #

• How things narrated in Christ signify what we ought to do
• More commonly called the “moral sense”

Ἀναγωγή (Anagoge/Anagogical Sense) #

• Leading upward to eternal glory and final ends
• From ana (up) + agogē (leading)

Examples & Illustrations #

Metaphor Examples from Scripture #

• “The Lord is my rock” → sense of the letter = God is our support (not literally rocky)
• “God is fire” → twofold understanding:
  • Divine nature: light = divine understanding, warmth = divine love and transformative power
  • Trinity: light and warmth proceed from fire as Son and Spirit proceed from Father
• “The arm of God” → sense of the letter = God’s power of operation (not a literal bodily member)

Multiple Senses Example: “I am the way, the truth, and the life” #

• First sense of the letter: In response to disciples asking “where are you going?” Christ is saying He is the road to reach the end (God). As God He is truth and life (eternal life itself); as man He is the way (means of getting there)
• Second sense of the letter: Way (kingship/commandments), Truth (prophecy/teaching), Life (priesthood)
• Allegorical: These realities prefigured in Old Testament
• Moral: We should follow Christ’s example
• Anagogical: These lead to eternal life with God

Scripture’s Adaptability: The Water Metaphor #

• Scripture is called water because water adapts itself to the shape of any container
• Different situations and people find Scripture fitting their particular needs
• My problem differs from your problem; Scripture addresses both, like water conforming to different vessels
• This illustrates why multiple senses of the letter can legitimately exist: Scripture’s richness accommodates diverse readers

Psalm 62 Example #

• References to banquet can signify either the Eucharist (sacred banquet) or heavenly banquet
• Both interpretations are orthodox and fitted to the text
• Demonstrates legitimate multiplicity of the literal sense

Problem of Anaxagoras #

• Ancient philosopher Anaxagoras called the sun “a stone on fire” and thought it divine (identified with god Apollo)
• Shows why using lowly bodies in metaphor is safer: no one would mistake a rock for God, but might mistake the sun
• Illustrates Dionysius’s teaching that lowly bodies prevent error more effectively

Questions Addressed #

Article 9: Why Use Metaphors in the Highest Science? #

• Question: How can theology (the highest science) proceed like poetry (the lowest science)?
• Resolution: Different purposes. Poetry uses metaphor for delight in representation; theology uses it from necessity and usefulness to accommodate divine truth to human nature

Article 10: How Can One Text Have Multiple Senses Without Confusion? #

• Question: Doesn’t multiplicity of senses create equivocation and undermine argument?
• Resolution: No, because all senses are founded on one literal sense, and multiplicity exists in the order of signification, not in the author’s unified intention

How Do We Distinguish the Sense of the Letter from Spiritual Senses? #

• Answer: The literal sense is what the author intends (including figurative meanings when the author uses figures). Spiritual senses are what the things signified by the literal sense further signify

Can Two Different Interpretations Both Be True? #

• Answer: Yes, if both are orthodox and can be fitted to the text. Augustine teaches this. Because God as author intends multiple meanings simultaneously, and His knowledge is unified, multiple legitimate interpretations can coexist in what is called the “sense of the letter”

Why Don’t Metaphors Mislead Us? #

• The sense of the letter (the author’s intended meaning) is what matters
• When we read “The Lord is a rock,” the sense of the letter is support, not literal stone
• Confusion arises only when people mistake the grammatical meaning of words for the author’s intended meaning