Prima Pars
Lecture 53: Proper and Metaphorical Names of God

Transcript
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Names is expressed what God is perfectly, right? But each one imperfectly signifies it, right? Just as creatures imperfectly, right, represent it, huh? Follow that? Okay, to the second it should be said, huh? That in the signification of names, now this is another distinction that's very important, other sometimes is that from which, huh, the name is imposed to signify something. And that to which the name is imposed to signify. And it says we call this the what? The etymology of the word and the what? The meaning of the word, right? Okay, so he calls the etymology of the word that from which the name is taken, right? To be applied to something. And the meaning of that to which it is applied, right? Okay, these are often connected, but they don't necessarily what? Yeah, yeah. And those have the scientists all the time, you know. They have a new element called Berkleyum or something, you know. It wasn't discovered in Berkeley, California or something, but a scientist there or something, you know. So what are you going to call it, you know? But there is a very low connection between the etymology and there. Just as this name lapis in Latin, right? Thomas thought it was, the etymology was, what? Laid at peddle, you know? I don't know if that's really the correct one or not. But let's say it is, huh? So you might name the stone for the fact that it hurts the foot, right? But it is not imposed to signify hitting the foot, right? But to signify any certain kind of body, right? Okay. Otherwise, everything injuring the foot would be a, what? Stone, right? Thus, therefore, it should be said that names of this sort, divine names, are imposed from the, what? Processions of the deity, right? From God to, what? Creatures, right? Just as according to the diverse proceedings of perfections, the creatures represent God, although imperfectly. So thus, our understanding, according to each procession, knows and, what? Names God, right? Thomas has a very interesting explanation of a passage in scripture there in the beginning of the fourth book of the Summukai Chantiles. He says, ecce hecic partiviarum. He's just said in the part of his ways. He's talking about the knowledge we have of God to creatures, right? And these things descend from God to us, right? And we start down here and go back up, right? Okay. And that's my little analogy there to the circle, right? Okay. In other words, the point there which is the center of the circle represents the simplicity of God at that point that proceeds from the simple university perfect God many different perfections and creatures, right? And then we start from these, work our way back to God, right? And he's the beginning of all these things that are found in creatures, but he's beginning of it in a simple way, right? And in a more perfect way, huh? So our understanding according to each proceeding, which in that text in the Summa Congenitius is called each way or row, right? It knows God and names him, right? But nevertheless, these names are not placed upon God to signifying the processions, right? As when it's said that God is living the senses that from him proceeds life, right? But to signifying the very, what? Beginning of things, right? Insofar as there preexistent life, right? Although in a more excellent or eminent way than is understood and signified by what? By us, yeah. To third, therefore, it should be said that the essence or nature of God in this life we are not able to know according as it is in itself, but we know it according as it is represented in the perfections of creatures. And thus the names imposed by us signify it, huh? So I don't, you know, that third argument you gave in the Bible text, that's my experience myself of studying these things, right? When I think that God is alive or something like that, I'm not thinking about his just being the cause of our life, right? But he's alive in a way that makes us seem almost dead. You know, we're deconic talking about our minds, and it seems to be practically so sluggish, huh? Slow to understand, huh? Okay, so did a little break here before we go on to the, or take the third article. Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Okay, so did a little break here, huh? Here, where there's some name is said property of God, to the third thus one proceeds. It seems that no name is said of God properly, right? I think properly here is taken as the opposite of what? Figurative, huh? Okay. You may recall there was an article in the first question, right? On what a scripture should use metaphors. Okay. All names which we say about God are taken from creatures, as has been said, right? But the names of creatures are metaphorically said of God. As when we say that God is a stone, the Lord is my rock, or a lion, right? Or something of the sort. Therefore, all names said of God are said, what? Metaphorically, huh? Okay. Moreover, no name is properly said of something from which is more truly removed than said of it. But all of these names, bonus, sapiens, good, wise, and so on, are more truly removed from God than said of him, as is clear through Dionysius in the second chapter of the celestial hierarchy. Therefore, none of these names is properly said of God, huh? I don't know if he's going to bring it up here, but that reminds me of the, you know, the fourth modern consul, you know? Which Paul VI first called my attention to one time, one of his sermons. But it's talking there about, you can never note a likeness of the creature in God without the same time a greater what? Yeah, yeah. So you have these things, you know, in Scripture, like, who is like God, you know? And, well, in some way we're like God, but it's more like, you know, we're unlike God, huh? Unlike him, huh? And that's part of the reason why, you know, you have behind this. Moreover, the names of bodies are not said of God except, what? Metaphorically, since he is bodiless. But all names of this sort imply some bodily conditions, for they signify with time and with composition, as we said before, right? And with other things of this sort, which are the conditions of bodies. Therefore, all these names are said of God metaphorically, huh? Well, this is obviously overlooking some kind of distinction between a name like, say, the Lord is my rock, right? And God is good, right? Because God is good is going to be said properly, and God is a rock. He's going to be said, not properly, but figuratively and metaphorically, huh? But again, this is what Ambrose says in the second book on faith, huh? There are some names, huh, which evidently show the property of the divinity and which express the clear truth of the divine majesty. Others, which are what? Translative, right? Said by likeness of God, huh? Now, let's stop now from the Latin there. The Latin word translatio, where we get our English word translation, and the Greek word metaphor are etymologically the same. And they both mean what? Karyor. Karyor, right, huh? Okay. But now, for no good reason, but nevertheless has happened, translation in English has come to mean carrying over the meaning of somebody's words, but not his words. Right. Why, metaphor has come to mean carrying over the word, but not the same meaning. So, when the husband says his wife is honey, it doesn't mean that she's that sticky yellow substance and so on. But he's carried the name honey over, right? Okay. Now, that's not true of Latin, you see. Okay. And Thomas will talk, I've seen the phrase in Thomas, translatio nominisa, the carrying over the name. So, he's not limited like the English word is, right? Okay. But when he uses the word translatio here in the text from Ambrose, right, he's thinking of what? Carrying over the name, right? Not the meaning. But nevertheless, there's a connection between the meaning of the metaphor, of the word itself, and what you mean when you say it of God, there's some kind of likeness there, right? Okay. So, translatio here is similar to the kind of translation or carrying over that you have in the word metaphor, right? Therefore, not all names are said of God metaphorically, but some are said properly, right? So, this is the distinction that Ambrose is making. It's a pretty good name that Ambrose is. I'm impressed with a lot of things that Gil Lombard uses, you know, signs from Ambrose. It's mainly from Augustine, you know. Occasionally, he'll bring in some text from Ambrose that's very, to the point, and very exact, and not as often as Augustine, but sometimes even, you know, he's got a better text from Ambrose than Augustine, occasionally. And this is a particularly clear text, it seems to me, from the great Ambrose. He's considered one of the four great doctors of the Western Church, huh? Augustine, Ambrose, Gregory, and Jerome, huh? Yeah. So, he's clearly making the distinction that Thomas wants to make in the body of the article. I answer it should be said, as has been said, that we know God from perfections, right? Proceeding in creatures from him, right? Which perfections are in God in a more eminent way than they are in what creatures? Our understanding, however, right, in that way apprehends them according as they are in creatures. And according as we grasp something, so we signify it through names, huh? In the names, therefore, which we attribute to God, there's two things to consider. To which the perfections themselves signified as goodness, life, and of this sort, and the modem significandi, the way of signifying, huh? Now, as regards what these names signify, they belong properly to God, and more properly than the creatures. So that Christ can say, you know, God alone is good, right? They belong more properly to him, see? You wouldn't say, God alone is a stone, would he? No. But God alone is good, right? And, periprius, huh? They have said of him before, they have said of creatures, right? But as regards the way of signifying, right? And they are not properly said of God, right? Because they have the way of signifying, this composed and this concrete and abstract we spoke about before, right? Because they have the way of signifying, which is fitting to, what, preachers, huh? Is that clear? Okay. Now, in the reply to the objections, he's going to be making something like the distinction that he makes in the Summa Chagentiles that I spoke about earlier. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the names signifying perfections of this sort, proceeding from God into created things, in this way that that imperfect mode in which the creature partakes divine perfection, if that's included in the name, right, as stone signifies something that is a being in a material way. And these names cannot be said of God except metaphorically. Okay, that's the same distinction he made in the Summa Chagentiles, right? That if the name signifies a perfection in the way that's private to the creature, like stone does, right, huh? Then it can't be said of God except metaphorically, huh? Okay. But, whatever names signify these perfections, absolutely. Without this, right, that some way of partaking of them in the creature is included, there's an indication, as being, good, and living, right? There's an indication, as being, good, and living, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Thank you. These can be said, what, properly of God, right, okay? And in this Summa Congentiles, he distinguishes a third thing, right? Okay, if you say God is the primum mens, or the summum bonum, right? Then you're naming that perfection with what's private to the way that God has it, and therefore it can be said only of God, right? Okay, but names like being, good, living, can be said of God properly, right? And not metaphorically. Now incidentally, go back to that distinction. Thomas, I think, gives the best explanation of what figurative names are in the commentaries on the epistles of St. Paul and so on. There's one text example when St. Paul uses a figure of speech called irony. And Thomas has to explain that Paul is not lying or saying something false, okay? And so he says, when you speak figuratively, Thomas says, and St. Paul is speaking figuratively here, not properly. When you speak figuratively, he says, the meaning of your words is not the meaning of the speaker. That's a remarkable thing, right? That's not because he's made a mistake. He didn't say what he wanted to say, in a sense, right? Not that sort of thing. But there is some connection between what his words mean and what he means. And in that particular text, Thomas contrasts irony, which is being used by St. Paul, with metaphor, right? And I think he contrasts them because the connection in metaphor between what your words mean and what you mean is one of likeness. But in the case of irony, there's an opposition between what your words mean and what you say, right? Okay? So, if the man, if the husband calls his wife honey, or more generally sweet, right? He doesn't mean what the words honey and sweet mean, huh? But since the honey or the sweet is pleasant, huh? There's a certain likeness of honey or sweet to his wife or his girl, right? So, instead of saying, oh, thou pleasant one, oh, thou agreeable one, which would be speaking properly, right, huh? You know? He speaks... What? I bet you he's done it. So, when I say, oh, thou agreeable one, my words mean what I mean, you see? But when I say honey or sweet, I don't mean what my words mean. But I mean something like what my words mean, right? Okay? Let's take the example in class today, and I said, if Romeo calls Juliet, Juliet, he's calling her by her own name, properly. If he calls her Rosalind, which was the girl I was in love with before he met Juliet, he's making a mistake. But if he calls her honey or sweet, he's not making a mistake, right? But now he's speaking a different way. He's not calling her properly, but he's speaking metaphorically. Now, in the case of irony, the connection is one of what? Unlikely. Of opposites, right? Okay? So, when somebody's mean to us, and we say to them, gee, you're nice. You hear that here, it's said a lot, huh? Our example stories in class was, if I come in here on the weekend, I find you drunk under the table. Then I say, what a fine example of an assumption college student. And you know I don't mean what I'm saying. And you find, you know, Mark Anthony in the famous speech in Judas Caesar, so are they all, honorable men, right? He's giving all kinds of reasons why the assassinators are not honorable, but he keeps on calling them honorable men, right? And so, when I say that God is, or God is good, right? My words mean what I mean. But when I say, the Lord is my rock, then my word doesn't mean what I mean. But, in this case, it means something like, you know, he's my support in the way the rock supports something, right? Okay. Now, the second objection about these names can be more denied of God, right? To the second, it says that these names are said by Dionysius to be negated of God, because that which is signified by the name does not belong to him in that way in which the name signifies, but in a more excellent way. Once Dionysius says there that God is above all substance and all life, huh? Now, the third objection says that you've got sort of a bodily aspect in these names, huh? Okay, Thomas says, well, those names which are properly said of God as opposed to the metaphorical naming of God, they imply bodily conditions not in the meaning of the name, right? Not in the signification of the name, but in the way of signifying them. While, on the other hand, those things which are metaphorically said of God imply a bodily condition in the very thing signified, huh? Okay? So, you know, if someone, if the metaphor took on a new meaning, right, it would no longer be a metaphor. If the word itself took on a new meaning, right? As if the word stone came to mean firm, you know? And sometimes a metaphor is so commonly used that we almost think that's the meaning of the word, right? But if that becomes the meaning of the word, it's no longer a metaphor, see? If sweet comes to mean pleasant, because it's such a common metaphor for pleasant, right, then sweet would no longer be a metaphor. And sweet would be that from which the name was taken, right? But that to which the name, as Thomas says, would be, in this case, pleasant, right? What is that when a product becomes to say that I don't want to make a copy of this, I want to zero access? Yeah. It's not a figure of speech, really, huh? That's what they call it. It's more like, um, uh, more like Canton of the Sea, really, huh? Mm-hmm. See, where you give the name of a particular one to the whole, right? Yeah. See, I mean, I still call these things, you know, my wife wants to call these things tissues, and I call it Kleenex. You know, but because Kleenex was the one that kind of popularized the stuff, yes. You see? Um, and if you see somebody, you know, he's a Romeo, or he's a Casanova, right? Well, what figure of speech is that? No, no. That's Antonio Masia, see? Antonio Masia is where you give the general name to the particular, or vice versa, right? Mm-hmm. Okay? So when Thomas calls Aristotle the philosopher, right, or we call the Bible the book, right, you know, um, they're giving the common name to the particular, right? But you also call it Kleenex the reverse when you give the, what? Yeah, yeah. See, he's a Hamlet, right? You know, I mean, he's hesitant, or he's, you know, slow. But more commonly, he's a Romeo, or he's a Casanova, or something like that, right? Then you mean he's, what? A lover, right? See? Um, it's called Antonio Masia. Now, synecdoche is like that, but it's with the integral whole ones apart, right? So you see, and the word was made flesh. That's synecdoche. They're giving the name, what? Of the part to the whole. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, or a guy who, you know, kicks the field goal all the time and makes it, you know, called the toe, you know, or something like that, you know? You know, or something like that, you know, or something like that, you know, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that, or something like that. Thank you. You know, a very long nose, you know, the nose, you know, here comes the nose. But, you know, it's a common thing, you know, it's kind of smart and grace could call him a brain, right? Was anybody a brain? That's only a part of that, even the Brady guy, it's only a part of it, right? But calling him a brain is what? Giving the name of the heart to the whole, right? The neck can also work the other way. Yeah, yeah. That's what I know, in Scripture, when it says our Lord has been until three days, it wasn't three periods of 24 hours, but those parts of those days are called. Yeah, yeah, Thomas would explain that a lot, you know, because it could have been an objection that he'll say. Yeah, it wasn't there in three days, right? Right. I mean, when Scripture says it was in there three days, it's Scripture false, see? Or Scripture using Synecdoche, right? You know how heretics like Aries, you know, the Word was made flesh, you know? Like the Word was in the place of the soul, you know? So Christ didn't have a soul, right? That's a big heresy, you know? But it's taking what is a, what? Synecdoche as if it's being said, what? Properly, right? Okay. A lot of people, you know, it says in Scripture, you know, that God was angry or something like that. A lot of people take what is said figuratively to be said, what? Properly, right? You know, as if there really are these emotions in God or something like that. Or God would be sad if you're not, you know, behaving yourself and so on. And, but God is, properly speaking, never sad. In His divine nature, His human nature can be. But not His divine nature. Also, about the Antoinette Sea of the Hamlet, that's what Pope John XXIII once referred to, Paul VI, when he was Archbishop of the Land, referred to him as the Archbishop Hamlet, because he was very booty and even size. Well, Paul VI spoke a little bit of his hesitation, you know, to some kind of Hamlet, I think, you know? But that's the Antoinette Sea, I think. So it goes either way, right? You know, you can give the common name to the particular or the particular to the common, right? Instead of saying he's a lover, you say he's a Romeo. Or instead of saying Aristotle, you say he's the philosopher. Either way. Plato talks about that in the, in the dialogue called the Symposium, right? He wants to talk about, it's a dialogue about love, right? And of course, sometimes the word love means, what, romantic love, right? And Plato or Socrates wants to explain that way of speaking. Because he uses the word whole and part there, right? But he compares it to the Greek word for poet, as I mentioned earlier, right? Because the Greek word, the common word to make is poien, like in the categories, right? Poien and paske. So the word poet in Greek is like, say, you're calling Homer, is the maker. He is a maker. And we don't realize it, because he took over the word, poet from Greek, and we don't realize it. What you're saying in Greek is that he's the maker. Homer is the maker. I just got to say something to get from here. Okay. Okay. Look, it's easier. Yeah, yeah. But he's explaining that when you call the romantic lover a lover, right? Or you call romantic love love, you know? And then, is that calling the poet or maker? So, it doesn't name it there. I think the names came, those names are kind of crazy in a sense. They come from the rhetoricians, right? The rhetoricians are, a lot of times, using figures of speech, right? And so they use, and the poets too. So I think the rhetoricians, the names came from them. So the etymology of the names don't exactly clue you into what they are, but you've taken the names over from them. But you see, you see Thomas more in the commentaries in Scripture. You know, he'll use the term, see, antonomasia, and metaphor, and so on, because they show up more in Scripture than they do in this kind of work, right? But you talk about them sometimes. You have a book or an article that you get pointed out, or point me to? Well, no, I mean, the nearest thing, I suppose, would be the quintillion, right? You know, where you find some of these things talked about, but I don't think as well as they should be, you know? So what I do is try to piece together the thing from what, from a place where Thomas talks about it, you know? And, I mean, the basic forms are metaphor and irony, right? Metaphor is much more important than irony. And then antonomasia and synecdoche, and then methanin, or methanin, to name the figure of speech, yeah? And perhaps I privileged another one, but be careful with me about that a little bit. Don't use an entry to support. Yeah. But in the case of metaphor and irony, it's based upon the likeness of the opposition of the things, right? In the case of synecdoche and antonomasia, it's based on whole and part. But synecdoche is the integral whole, and it's part. And antonomasia is the universal whole, and it's part. But going either way, right? And then metonymy is when you take the name of the container and the contained. And I think it's also applied to cause and effect sometimes, right? So if I say this is a wicked place, right? Well, that's considered a metonymy, huh? Because the place is not wicked, but the people in it are wicked, right? Or you speak of bad times, huh? Was the time bad? No. But the events in that time were bad, right? But then you carry over what would be said of the events in that time to the time itself, right? Okay? Or because of the bad people or the bad things done in this place, see, that's a bad place, huh? A wicked place, right? Sometimes Thomas says, you know, when he says, let the earth bless the Lord, right? Well, sometimes this is taken as metonymy, right? Meaning, those who are on the earth, let them bless the earth, you know? So those who are contained by the earth, meaning us, bless the Lord, right? Instead of saying, let those who are on the earth bless the Lord, you say, let the earth bless the Lord, right? Okay? But the most common thing is, you know, if I say, I'm drinking a cup of water, a cup of wine, or, you know, or a glass of beer. Well, do you really drink a glass of beer, or a glass of wine, or a cup of water, a cup of tea? Do you drink a cup of tea? You see? But you mean, you're drinking what's in the contained, huh? So you're calling what's, you're giving the name of the container, the contained. I drank a whole cup of tea. See? You mean, actually, I drank what was contained in the cup of, in that cup. You see? So these things, the speech are used daily, and we thought I recognized that we're using them. But in scripture they're used a lot, and they're used in, they're used a lot in poetry, in fiction, poetry especially. And, uh, to some extent in, what, uh, by the politician, right? Nick Nixon called the democratic programs retreads of the New Deal. Well, that's a good metaphor, right? You know what I'm saying? But, um... The gate in the city, the park for the whole, that's... What's that? Like the park for the whole, that's Synecdoche. Synecdoche. You see, Synecdoche? Yeah, yeah. I say, I kind of classified them together. I put Synecdoche and Antonio C together, because in both, you have whole and part, right? And you're giving the name of the whole to the part, or vice versa, the part to the whole. But the difference between the two is that in Synecdoche, it's a composed whole and one of its parts. So the word was made flesh in Synecdoche, right? But in the case of Antonio Messiah, it's a universal whole in its part, right? So when I say, uh, he's Christ, huh? The anointed one, right? That's Antonio Messiah. But when I say the word was made flesh, that's Synecdoche, right? And I put metaphor and irony together, because like this in opposition, I kind of contrast with each other, right? And that's why Thomas contrasts them when he's explaining the irony of St. Paul, right? He contrasts the metaphor. And the metonym is something a little different. And I know that the term metonymy is used for the container and the contained. And I know that the term metonymy is used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right? And that's why it's used for the container of St. Paul, right?