THE PRINCIPLE OF ANALOGY IN PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

THE PRINCIPLE OF ANALOGY IN PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY

THE PRINCIPLE OF ANALOGY IN PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY BY BATTISTA MONDIN s.x. THE HAGUE MAR TINUS NI]HOFF 1963

ISBN 978-94-011-8701-5 DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-9526-3 ISBN 978-94-011-9526-3 (ebook) Copyright 1963 by Martinus NijhoJf, The Hague, Netherlands A II rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form.

TO HIS EMINENCE RICHARD JAMES CARD. CUSHING Great Apostle of Christ and Christian Unity

Nihil obstat quominus imprimatur opus cui titulus est "Analogy old and new"* a G. B. Mondin, sx. exaratum. Parmae, 20 januarii 1963. V. C. Vanzin, sx. Censor delegatus Soc. Xav. Imprimi potest Parmae, die 23 jan. 1963 Petrus Garbero~ SX. Vicarius Generalis Soc. Xav. Imprimatur Parmae, 24 J anuarii 1963 Hamilcar Pasini Vic. Gener. "Analogy old and new" was the original title of the book "The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Ca tholie Theology".

FOREWORD In recent years there has been a remarkable revival of interest in the doctrine of analogy, and many important studies on this doctrine have appeared in the form of articles and books. Today many of the greatest living philosophers and theologians consider some sort of analogy to be an indispensable tool for any fruitful research in metaphysics and theology. In this atmosphere we are sure that a study of the history of the principle of analogy in Protestant and Catholic theology is welcome. This is one of the reasons for the present undertaking. A second reason for this study is to seek to divert the ecumenical dialogue from secondary questions and to direct it to an area where it is necessary to agree in order to be one. The title of our work is somewhat misleading; it may lead one to believe that it deals with all Catholic and Protestant theologians of past and present. Actually it does not. It deals only with some of the major figures of Catholic and Protestant theology. It concentrates especially on Aquinas' analogy of intrinsic attribution, on Barth's analogy of faith and on Tillich's symbolic analogy. It attempts to compare and evaluate these three theological methods, from the standpoint of determining their adequacy to interpret the God-creature relation and to justify the use of theological language. Our criterion in determining their adequacy will be their ability to safeguard both God's transcendence and His immanence. We shall try to show that Tillich's symbolism, in so far as it is grounded on the principle of correlation, is capable of expressing God's immanence but it is a threat to God's transcendence. On the other hand Barth's analogy offaith is'a threat to His immanence in nature. Finally, Aquinas' analogy of proper proportionality is unable to express God's immanence, but his analogy of intrinsic attribution is capable of expressing and safeguarding both divine transcendence and immanence.

VIII FOREWORD Our study of Aquinas' doctrine will be both philosophical and theological, since in his case analogy is a philosophical principle with a theological application. The basic material of the present work is drawn from a Thesis that we presented at the Harvard Department of Philosophy of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Philosophy of Religion in 1959. Desio, Italy September 1962 BATTISTA MONDIN S.X.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword VII I. THE USE OF THE TERM "ANALOGY" IN GREEK AND MEDIAEVAL PHILOSOPHY 1 l. Greek use of "analogy" 1 2. Latin use of "analogy" 4 II. AQ.UINAS' DIVISION OF ANALOGY 7 l. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Commentary to the Sentences 9 2. Aquinas' division of analogy in the De Veritate 12 3. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Contra Gentiles 16 4. Aquinas' division of analogy in the De Potentia 21 5. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Commentaries to Aristotle, Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius 25 6. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Summa Theologica and Compendium Theologiae 29 7. Main textual conclusions 34 8. Cajetan's version of Aquinas' doctrine 35 9. Criticism of Cajetan's interpretation 40 10. A new classification of Aquinas' modes of analogy 51 11. Basic logical differences between Aquinas' four fundamental types of analogy 53 III. METAPHYSICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF AQ.UINAS' FOUR TYPES OF ANALOGY l. Ontological presuppositions 2. Epistemological presuppositions 62 62 76

x IV. AQUINAS' THEOLOGICAL USE OF ANALOGY 85 l. The principle "omne agens agit simile sibi" 86 2. Restrictions to this principle 89 3. The likeness between God and the world, and theological language 93 4. Negative and positive theology 98 5. Analogy of intrinsic attribution and proper proportionality 100 V. ANALOGY IN PROTESTANT THEOLOGY FROM LUTHER TO KIERKEGAARD 103 l. Martin Luther 103 2. John Calvin 107 3. A. Quenstedt 110 4. Soren Kierkegaard 112 VI. TILLICH'S DOCTRINE OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM 118 l. History of the doctrine of symbolism 119 2. Tillich's doctrine of the symbol in general 121 3. Tillich's doctrine of the religious symbol 127 4. Symbolism and analogy 144 VII. BARTH'S DOCTRINE OF ANALOGY OF FAITH 147 1. Philosophy and theology 149 2. Necessity of "analogiafidei" 151 3. Theological semantics of "analogiafidei" 153 4. Theological epistemology of "analogiafidei" 159 5. Theological ontology of "analogiafidei" 164 6. Analogia fidei, analogia entis and analogy 169 VIII. THE MEANING OF THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE 174 1. The meaning of theological language according to Aquinas, Tillich and Barth 174 2. The meaning of religious language according to Linguistic Analysis 177 3. The mysterious meaning of theological language 183 Index of proper names 188

"Two things are to be avoided: one is the making offalse statements especially such as are contrary to revealed truth, the other is the assertion that what we think to be true is an article offaith, for as Augustine says (Conj. x) when a man thinks his false opinion to be the teaching of godliness, and dares obstinately to dogmatise about matters of which he is ignorant, he becomes a stumbling block to others" St. Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, 3, 1