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Home , Cataphatic theology

The Unknowability of in

Andrew Murray

A paper delivered at the Ninth Biennial Conference in Philosophy, and Culture, The Expressible and the Inexpressible, Catholic Institute of Sydney, Strathfield 5 – 7 October 2012.

The idea for this paper arose out of a certain The paper will have four sections: first, discomfort I felt following a paper at a previous Thomas’ treatment of our knowledge of God in ST Biennial Conference on Thomas Aquinas’s use of I 12; second, his use of negative or apophatic analogical language in talking about God.1 ; third, his treatment of the Divine Thomas, indeed, used analogy, or Aristotle’s pros simplicity in ST I 3; and fourth, the unknowability hen equivocation, as a very powerful linguistic tool of God as subsistent Being (ipsum esse subsistens). with which to speak about God in positive terms Our Knowledge of God (cataphatic theology). His claim is that certain Thomas raises the issue of our knowledge of positive perfections, like good, wise and living, can God in Question 12 of the First Part of the Summa be literally and properly applied to God. My Theologiae. His primary concern is clear in the discomfort lay in the opposite direction. Thomas first article, where he asks whether any created frequently claims that we can know that God is but intellect can see the of God. His answer is not what God is. What are the depths of this yes, because what he wants to save is the unknowingness? Or, in other words what are the knowledge of God had by the blessed in heaven. limits of the knowability of God? Multiple scriptural texts promise this, and This is not to depreciate analogy, which is a Thomas’s own transformation of Aristotle’s clever and useful doctrine. By denying the depiction of ultimate happiness as the application of terms used univocally of God and contemplation of the highest things sees the creatures, Thomas avoids anthropomorphism in achievement of human destiny in the heavenly respect of God. By denying that such terms are beatific vision. The mode of this knowledge is necessarily used equivocally, he avoids . A unusual. It comes not through the intellect’s own term used analogically conveys meaning that is power and by forms or likenesses as is usually the somewhat the same in the two instances of its case, but by the direct action of God through an application though also different. In the case of a infusion of ‘the light of glory’. positive perfection like ‘good’ Thomas uses an The reason that he puts the question in terms of important distinction between the thing signified knowing God’s essence is that if there is to be any and the mode of signification. The term ‘good’ quidditative knowledge of God it can be only of applies more properly to God than it does to God’s essence. As we shall shortly see, God is creatures in its primary meaning or as the thing identical with his essence and there is nothing of signified, because goodness is best found in God. God outside this essence nor parts of God that On the other hand, in its mode of signification, it could be considered separately. Thomas asserts carries with it its origins in the human invention of that God is supremely knowable in Himself as language. With such a tool, Thomas writes eight ‘pure act without any admixture of potency’.3 and a half million words, which apart from the However, as an object of human knowledge the Aristotelian commentaries is mostly theology – divine intelligibility is far beyond the human about God and our relationship to God – God as capacity to receive it. ‘the beginning of all things and their last end’2 Two other questions apply limits to the eschatological knowledge of God. In Article 7, 1 Andrew Murray, ‘Talking about God: Analogy Thomas asks whether the blessed in heaven can Revisited’, The Australian Catholic Record 82/1 comprehend God. To comprehend is to know (January 2005): 29 – 40. perfectly or to know something to the degree it can 2 Summa Theologiae I q. 2 proem. The latest be known. Even the blessed are denied this discussion of analogy is in Summa Theologiae I 13. because the created light of glory cannot be infinite Parallel earlier discussions occur in the as God is. The second question, treated in Articles Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, in the Compendium of Theology and in the Summa I will follow the Summa Theologiae, although the Contra Gentiles, as well as in various places in the parallel texts are in the background. disputed questions. For the purposes of this paper, 3 ST I 12, 1, p. 49.

Andrew Murray – Unknowability of God 1 8 – 10, has to do with what of the created world the Thomas reverses this. His project, as we know blessed know in being united to the divine essence him from his writings, is focussed on discursive who knows all. The answer is ‘not much’, because and positive theology. He proposes three ways to although the effects of God’s creative action carry God: the way of causality, whereby created effects the likeness of their maker, the multiplicity of these give rise to knowledge at least of the existence of effects does not imply multiplicity in the cause their cause; the way of negation, whereby we itself. What is multiple in creation and in human clarify our understanding of God by denying all understanding is one in its supreme cause. The imperfection in God; the way of pre-eminence, human intellect is not powerful enough to grasp the whereby whatever we grasp of God is understood full possibilities of divine power. to be exceeded by the super-eminence of God. At the end of the question in Articles 11 and 12, Thomas uses each of these ways variously and with Thomas turns his attention to our knowledge of a terminology that is quite fluid, and together they God in this life. We cannot know the essence of enable him to build a rich and vigorous theology. God because as bodily beings our knowledge is Nevertheless, we ought not to neglect the directed to form that exists in matter, and God is mystical dimension of Thomas’ life. In his early beyond this. The use of reason similarly begins work, The Commentary on the Sentences of Peter from sensible things, so that we can reason to the Lombard, he writes, ‘We know God most perfectly as the cause of what we see in the in the present life when we realise him to be above world, but our grasp of the power of the cause falls all that our intellect can conceive; and thus we are far short of how God actually is. We cannot, joined to him as one unknown.’7 therefore, know what God is but only that God Though the language is not that of Thomas, exists ‘as the first cause of all things, exceeding all Rocca analyses three kinds of negation in Thomas. things caused by Him’.4 In Article 13, he allows a A qualitative negation is the absolute denial that a more perfect knowledge of God through grace, but quality or a characteristic could be applied to God only in so far as we become ‘united to God as to in any way whatsoever. To say that God is one unknown’.5 immaterial implies that matter should not be thought in any way in relation to God. An Thomas’s Use of Negative Theology objective modal negation denies the creaturely The tradition of negative or mode of a perfection, even if it can be said of God had Jewish, Platonic and Gnostic sources and so in a supereminent way. When we say that God is was understood and used in quite diverse ways. good, we abstract every aspect of creaturely Thomas’s principle source was the Pseudo- particularity. A subjective modal negation holds Dionysius, an early sixth century Syrian author, open the possibility of denying even those things who combined Neo-Platonism and Christianity. that we analogously affirm of God. Hence, it is His other major sources were the eighth century just as true to say that God is not wise as it is to say Eastern theologian, John Damascene, and the that God is wise, because, while in the light of our twelfth century Jewish philosopher and theologian, earlier distinction, ‘wise’ understood as the thing Moses , author of The Guide for the signified can be said primarily of God, Perplexed. nevertheless, ‘wise’ understood in terms of the Gregory Rocca suggests that two kinds of mode of signification falls far short of the reality of negative theology are to be found in Dionysius. In God. In other words, even with the care and the first, the process of denying or negating precision with which Thomas applies language to attributions to God ‘forms a dialectic with the God either negatively or analogically, subjectively assertions of affirmative theology’. The second is a he recognises that we are always at risk of mystical unknowing that is part of the dark ascent collapsing into our ordinary meanings of the of the into God. It is not discursive but is terms.8 found in silence and its object is the God beyond reason. Rocca suggests that the two are intimately The connected, and that while Dionysius mostly follows Thomas begins his Summa with a discussion of the mystical way, his also acts as a the nature of theology or Sacred Science and then corrective to more discursive theology.6 in the second question investigates the existence of God, producing in Article 3 his famous Five Ways. In the Proem to Questions 3 – 11, he says: When the existence of a thing has been 4 ST I 12, 12. p. 58. ascertained there remains the further 5 ST I 12, 13 ad 1, p. 59. question of the manner of its existence, in 6 Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible order that we may know its essence. God (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), p. 21. Rocca will be my major source for the discussion of negative 7 Sentences 4, 49, 2, 1 ad 3, translated Rocca, p. 56. theology as such. 8 Rocca, Incomprehensible God, pp. 49 – 62.

Andrew Murray – Unknowability of God 2 Now, because we cannot know what God is esse, the Latin infinitive, ‘to be’, used as a noun. is, but rather what He is not, we have no For Thomas, it means the actuality of being. He means for considering how God is, but holds that in all created things, including angels, rather how He is not.9 there is composition of essence and esse, essence It is clear that Thomas is going to engage in being the defining form that determines something negative theology and we might expect the to be what it is. Esse participated and limited by standard traditional or modern treatment of the essence brings particular things to be in the world. negative attributes of God. To some extent we are Aristotelian metaphysics did not contain this satisfied, as he deals with God’s infinity, distinction. For Aristotle, change in the physical immutability and eternity, but the discussion is world was adequately explained by the broader and deeper than this. He deals also with composition of form and matter. Separate God’s goodness and perfection. Further, the Five substances, whether god or angels or spheres, were Ways have already established things about God: eternal and unchanging forms. The tenth century complete actuality, first efficient cause, necessary Persian Islamic scholar, , recognised the being and so on. It is a richer tapestry, which will, distinction, but it was fully brought to light only in nevertheless, be investigated and clarified in the Thomas’s early work, On Being and Essence, negative mode, by peeling away attributions that where he explained the possibility of generation of are not appropriate to God. We will examine only angels through the composition of essence as Question 3 on the divine simplicity. potentiality and esse as actuality brought to The first article asks whether God is a body. It essence. In the same discussion, he pointed out may seem a strange question, but the view had that a being in which essence and esse were not been proposed and the objections show that distinguished would be divine. Thomas’s concern was with the multiple images in Although Thomas argues this distinction Scripture that depict God in bodily form. His philosophically and although it is philosophically response is an example of a simple qualitative interesting, there is good reason to accept that it negation. There is no sense whatever in which God was occasioned by theological interests. The has a body. The reasons he gives are interesting, Christian created world is radically contingent. It because they flow from the conclusion of the Five need not have been and God would not have been Ways: bodies are subject to motion, but God is the any the lesser either for not creating or for the ; bodies carry with them world not being. Aristotle certainly knew potentiality, but God is purely actual; God is most contingency, but it was not so radical. Things noble (4th Way), but bodies are at the lower end of came and went, but cosmos as a whole wandered the spectrum of being. on, and was, in Aristotle’s view, probably eternal. The remainder of the articles read like a Thomas understands creation as the textbook in metaphysics and amount to denials that participation of esse or being into the world. Esse God is composed of parts, elements or principles in as it is in God is unlimited, but its reception in any of the ways known to our experience: matter creatures is limited by the essence into which it is and form, substance and essence, essence and received. Again, this is a radical inversion of the existence, genus and species, substance and Aristotelian position in which essence is identified accident. The final Article Eight rejects with actuality. For Thomas it is, at this level, or the Divine composition with the World. So potential and open to receive the actuality of being what is simplicity? In the first instance, it is the or esse. lack of composition in any of the senses that are This is why Thomas can call God Ipsum fundamental to our human experience. We and the Subsistens Esse, or the subsisting actuality of being world around us are manifestly composite, but God itself. We might say that God’s essence is identical is nothing like this. In Article 7, an implication of with God’s being or esse, which is what Article 4 is this is noted. Since God is simple, we cannot about and what ultimately it means for God to be predicate things of God on the basis of parts, as we simple. do when we say ‘the tree is green’. While we It may seem that we have finally defined God, might predicate things of God on the basis of but this is deceptive. We can distinguish the act of creatures’ relationship to God, of God as such, the being from essence in creatures, but it is through best we can say is ‘God is God’. their essence or form that we know them. Maybe we grasp the distinction in the subtle change that The Unknowability of Ipsum Esse occurs at the moment of death. But this gives us Subsistens nothing with which to give formal content to the The most interesting discussion in Question 3 is notion of esse and a being whose essence is Article 4, which asks whether, in God, essence and identical with its esse. On one hand, the distinction existence are identical. The term used for existence captures the enormous gulf between a transcendent God and a created world; on the other hand, it leaves our grasp of God’s essence empty and dark. 9 ST I q. 3, Proem, p. 14.

Andrew Murray – Unknowability of God 3 Conclusion Hector, Kevin W. "Apophaticism in Thomas Thomas does not confuse or conflate mysticism Aquinas: a re-reformulation and with discursive philosophy and theology. One recommendation." Scottish Journal Of does, however, get the sense that even early in life Theology 60, no. 4 (January 1, 2007): 377- his sensitivity to the greatness of God had a 393. mystical element. In the Commentary on the Sentences, he wrote: Macdonald Jr, Paul. "The Eschatological Character When we proceed into God through the of Our Knowledge of God." Modern Theology way of negation, first we deny of Him all 22, no. 2 (April 1, 2006): 255-276. corporeal realities; and next, even intellectual realities as they are found in McDonough, Connor. "Grounding speech and creatures, like goodness and wisdom, and silence : cataphaticism and apophaticism in then there remains in our understanding Denys and Aquinas." Irish Theological only that God exists and nothing further, Quarterly 76, no. 1 (February 2011): 57-76. so that it suffers a kind of confusion. Lastly, however, we even remove from O’Rourke, Fran. Pseudo-Dionysius and the him his very existence, as it is in Metaphysics of Aquinas. Leiden: E. J. Brill, creatures, and then our understanding 1992. remains in a certain darkness of ignorance according to which, in this Rocca, Gregory P. "Aquinas on God-Talk : present of life, we are best united to Hovering over the Abyss." Theological God, as Dionysius says, and this is a sort Studies 54, no. 4 (December 1, 1993): 641- of thick fog in which God is said to 661. dwell.10 At the end of his life, when he stopped writing Rocca, Gregory P. Speaking of the following an experience presumed in the tradition Incomprehensible God. Washington DC: The to have been mystical, Brother Reginald tried to Catholic University of America Press, 2004. persuade him to return to work to complete the Summa Theologiae, he simply said, ‘All I have Wilcox, John R. "Our Knowledge of God in written is straw.’ 'Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Quaestiones 3-6': Positive or Negative?." Proceedings Of The American Catholic Philosophical Association 72, (January 1, 1998): 201-211. Wippel, John F. "Thomas Aquinas on What Bibliography Philosophers Can Know About God." Bucur, Bogdan G. "The theological reception of American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Dionysian apophatism in the Christian east 66, no. 3 (January 1, 1992): 279-298. and west: Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas." Downside Review 125, no. 439 Wippel, John F. "Thomas Aquinas on Our (April 1, 2007): 131-146. Knowledge of God and the Axiom that Every Agent Produces Something Like Itself." Burrell, David Bakewell. Knowing the Unknowable Proceedings Of The American Catholic God : Ibn-Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas. Notre Philosophical Association 74, (January 1, Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1987. 2000): 81-101.

Carpenter, Hilary J. "The philosophical approach to Wissink, J B M. "Two forms of negative theology God in Thomism." Thomist 1, no. 1 (April 1, explained using Thomas Aquinas." In Flight 1939): 45-61. of the , 100-120. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000. Franck, Isaac. "Maimonides and Aquinas on man's knowledge of God : a twentieth century perspective." In Maimonides, 284-305. Notre Dame, Ind: Univ of Notre Dame Pr, 1988. Previously published in The Review of Metaphysics, vol 38, pp 591-615, 1985.

10 Sentences 1, 8, 1, 1, ad 4, translated Rocca, p. 65.

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