Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
Abbreviations
Part One
God the Incomprehensible and Negative Theology
1. A Brief Survey of Negative Theology in the Hellenistic and Patristic Traditions
I. Authors before Pseudo-Dionysius
II. Pseudo-Dionysius and John Damascene
2. God's Dual Incomprehensibility in Aquinas
I. God as Supereminent Darkness
II. Our Nonquidditative Knowledge of God
A. No Intellect Sees God by its Natural Powers
B. The Graced Vision of God's Essence
C. Finite Intellectual Creatures and God's Infinity
III. Our Noncomprehensive Knowledge of God
IV. Conclusion
3. Aquinas' Via Negativa
I. The Threefold Way to God
II. The Via Negativa
A. Three Types of Negative Theology
B. Growth and Progress of Negative Theology
C. Negation and Preeminence
III. The Way of Preeminence
IV. Conclusion
Part Two
Analogy and the Web of Judgment
4. Analogy in Aristotle
5. The Various Meanings of Analogy in Aquinas
I. Critique of Analogy
II. Analogy as Proportion and Proportionality
III. Analogy as Referential Multivocity
IV. Analogy of Attribution, Proper Proportionality, and Cajetan's Interpretation
V. The Primacy of Analogy as Referential Multivocity
VI. The Logical Status of Multivocal Analogy
6. The Unity and Diversity of Analogy as a Web of Predication
I. Primary and Secondary Meanings
II. Reference to an Individual Reality or Nature
III. God and Creatures
IV. The Analogical Community
V. Analogy's "Common Meaning" and "Different Meanings"
7. Analogy as Judgment in Aquinas
I. Judgment and Truth
II. Judgment and Concept
III. Analogy as Judgment
A. Theological Analogy as the Mean between Univocity and Equivocity
B. The Place of Theological Analogy in Aquinas' Treatise on God
IV. The Graced Judgment of Faith
V. Conclusion
Part Three
Crucial Truths about God
8. Aquinas and the Existence of God the Creator
I. Aquinas' View of Aristotle's First Principles
A. The Unmoved Mover of Aristotle's Physics
B. The Primary Substance of Aristotle's Metaphysics
II. The Richness of God's Existence in Aquinas' Theology
III. Aquinas and the Philosophers on God the Creator
IV. Creation and Creator
V. The World's Eternity
VI. God the Creator Philosophically Interpreted as Subsistent Being
VII. The Radical Contingence of Creatures Philosophically Interpreted as the
Real Distinction between Being and Essence
9. Aquinas' Crucial Theological Truths
I. God Is the Infinite, Pure and Perfect Act of Subsistent Being
A. A Perfect God
B. An Infinite God
II. God Is the Creator and Conserver of the Universe
A. A Transcendent Creator
B. An Immanent Creator
C. A God Who Freely Creates from Nothing
III. Creation is a Likeness to God
A. Creatures Are Both Like and Unlike God
B. God's Essence and God's Ideas
C. Vestige, Image, Similarity
IV. Participation: Aquinas' Christian View of the Universe
V. Truth and Epistemology
Part Four
The Divine Names
10. Aquinas' Positive Theology of the Divine Names
I. Divine Names
A. Theory of Names
B. On Naming God
II. Aquinas' Positive Theology
III. Proper Name of Divinity
IV. Proper versus Metaphorical Predication
V. Taxonomy of the Divine Names
VI. Primacy and Dependence in Divine Predication
VII. Different Meanings of the Divine Names
11. The Distinction between the Reality Signified and the Manner of Signification
I. Historical Background
II. The Res/Modus Distinction in Aquinas
A. God's Modelessness and the Creature's Finite Mode
B. The Human Manner of Understanding
C. The Human Manner of Signification
III. The Res/Modus Distinction and the Analogical Nature of Divine Predication
Conclusion: Speaking the Incomprehensible God
Bibliography
Indices
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274, God Knowableness History of doctrines Middle Ages, 600-1500, Knowledge, Theory of (Religion) History of doctrines Middle Ages, 600-1500