Whether Any Name Can Be Applied to God in Its Literal Sense?
Objection 1: It seems that no name is applied literally to God. For
all names which we apply to God are taken from creatures; as was
explained above (A. 1). But the names of creatures are applied to
God metaphorically, as when we say, God is a stone, or a lion, or the
like. Therefore names are applied to God in a metaphorical sense.
Obj. 2: Further, no name can be applied literally to anything if it
should be withheld from it rather than given to it. But all such
names as "good," "wise," and the like are more truly withheld from
God than given to Him; as appears from Dionysius says (Coel. Hier.
ii). Therefore none of these names belong to God in their literal
sense.
Obj. 3: Further, corporeal names are applied to God in a metaphorical
sense only; since He is incorporeal. But all such names imply some
kind of corporeal condition; for their meaning is bound up with time
and composition and like corporeal conditions. Therefore all these
names are applied to God in a metaphorical sense.
_On the contrary,_ Ambrose says (De Fide ii), "Some names there are
which express evidently the property of the divinity, and some which
express the clear truth of the divine majesty, but others there are
which are applied to God metaphorically by way of similitude."
Therefore not all names are applied to God in a metaphorical sense,
but there are some which are said of Him in their literal sense.
_I answer that,_ According to the preceding article, our knowledge of
God is derived from the perfections which flow from Him to creatures,
which perfections are in God in a more eminent way than in creatures.
Now our intellect apprehends them as they are in creatures, and as it
apprehends them it signifies them by names. Therefore as to the names
applied to God--viz. the perfections which they signify, such as
goodness, life and the like, and their mode of signification. As
regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God,
and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied
primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do
not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of
signification applies to creatures.
Reply Obj. 1: There are some names which signify these perfections
flowing from God to creatures in such a way that the imperfect way in
which creatures receive the divine perfection is part of the very
signification of the name itself as "stone" signifies a material
being, and names of this kind can be applied to God only in a
metaphorical sense. Other names, however, express these perfections
absolutely, without any such mode of participation being part of
their signification as the words "being," "good," "living," and the
like, and such names can be literally applied to God.
Reply Obj. 2: Such names as these, as Dionysius shows, are denied of
God for the reason that what the name signifies does not belong to
Him in the ordinary sense of its signification, but in a more eminent
way. Hence Dionysius says also that God is above all substance and
all life.
Reply Obj. 3: These names which are applied to God literally imply
corporeal conditions not in the thing signified, but as regards their
mode of signification; whereas those which are applied to God
metaphorically imply and mean a corporeal condition in the thing
signified.
_______________________