Between Thomism and Scotism Francisco Suárez on the Analogy of Being

chapter 14 Between Thomism and Scotism Francisco Suárez on the Analogy of Being

Victor Salas

1 Introduction

At the beginning of his Church Dogmatics, Karl Barth (in)famously identifies the analogia entis as the ‘invention of the anti-Christ’ and the principal reason for his inability to become Catholic.1 While most Catholic theologians would no doubt dismiss Barth’s characterization of analogy as little more than hyper- bolic diatribe, Barth’s recognition of the centrality of analogy in the Catholic intellectual tradition is more than a little perspicacious. Most likely directing his claim at Erich Przywara2 and, to a lesser extent, Hans Urs von Balthasar3— both Catholic interlocutors of the Protestant theologian—Barth’s criticism of analogy reaches well beyond his twentieth-century contemporaries to challenge the philosophico-theological schemas of thinkers stretching back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Indicative of the role that analogy would play during those periods, centuries prior to the Dogmatics, Tommaso de Vio Gaetanus (1469–1534), more commonly known as Cajetan, wrote that without a knowledge of analogy “no one would be able to learn metaphysics, and many errors in other sciences proceed from ignorance of it.”4 Operating in a much different environment than Barth, medieval and Baroque discussions of analogy had their own set of interlocutors, in particular Thomists and Scotists, the latter following their master, John Duns Scotus, who had issued a direct challenge to the semantic possibility of analogy.5

1 Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God (Edinburgh, 1995), vol. 1.1, p. xiii: “I regard the analogia entis as the invention of Antichrist, and I believe that because of it it is impossible ever to become a Roman Catholic, all other reasons for not doing so being to my mind short-sighted and trivial.” 2 Erich Przywara’s most important work devoted to the subject of analogy is simply known as Analogia Entis: Metaphysik (Munich, 1932). 3 Von Balthasar pursued a constructive dialogue with Barth over the issue of analogy in his own The Theology of Karl Barth (New York, 1971). 4 Cf. Cajetan, De nominum analogia, c. 1, ed. N. Zammit (Rome, 1934), p. 3: “Est siquidem eius notitia necessaria adeo, ut sine illa non possit metaphysicam quispiam discere, et multi in aliis scientiis ex eius ignorantia errores procedant.” 5 Joshua Hochshild, The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De nominum analogia (Notre Dame, in, 2010), p. 79. Briefly, the Scotist challenge stems from the understanding of

In this vein, Francisco Suárez was also keenly aware of the challenge that Duns Scotus and his disciples had posed to any metaphysical and theological thinking that purported to proceed upon non-univocal lines, and it was a challenge to which the Jesuit metaphysician would have to respond if he were to succeed in lifting his own metaphysical project, which is heavily dependent upon analogy, off the ground. Much like the Scotists, Suárez’s concern for the unity of the concept of being is clear in the opening disputa- tions of his Disputationes metaphysicae. In framing his metaphysical project, Suárez first identifies being insofar as it is real being (ens inquantum ens reale)6 as the adequate object of metaphysics, and subsequently investigates being as it is known by means of the objective common concept of being, a concept, he insists, that is most simple (simplicissimus) and absolutely unified.7 At the same time, and somewhat paradoxically, the Jesuit metaphysician denies that this absolutely unified concept is univocal and, moving closer to the Thomist position, insists that it is analogical.8 The juxtaposition of unity and diversity-difference within analogy poses a serious challenge for Suárez and creates tensions in the very core of his metaphysical system, tensions of which he himself is aware:9

metaphysics, as he and Thomists both take it as a ‘science.’ Yet, as any (Aristotelian) science unfolds syllogistically, the demands of syllogistic argumentation must be met, among which is the need for a univocal middle term. Analogy, it seems, falls under the scope of equivoca- tion, which, as Scotus sees it, compromises the scientific character of metaphysics. His way out of this dilemma is the univocal concept of being. 6 dm 1.1.26 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 11): “Dicendum est ergo, ens in quantum ens reale esse objectum adaequatum hujus scientiae.” All references to the Disputationes metaphysicae (dm) will be taken from the Parisian Vivès edition, with volume and page number cited parenthetically. 7 Cf. dm 2.1.9 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 68): “Hinc etiam conceptus entis, non solum unus, sed etiam simplicissimus dici solet, ita ut ad eum fiat ultima resolutio caeterorum…” Cf. ibid., 2.1.11 (ed. Vivès, vol. 25, p. 69): “…hic conceptus [entis] in se est simplicissimus, sicut objective, ita etiam formaliter.” 8 The loci classici for Suárez’s discussions on analogy are dm 28.3 and 32.2. 9 As Jean-Luc Marion sees it, these tensions ultimately make Suárez’s position self-contradic- tory. Suárez’s doctrine of analogy, Marion argues, really ‘shifts its center of gravity’ towards univocity. See Marion, Sur la theologie blanche de Descartes: Analogie, creation des verities éternelles et fondement (Paris, 1991), p. 96: “Ce chef-d’oeuvre souffre cependant d’un défaut: sa contradiction interne qui le rend impensable; et, il ne peut que glisser là où l’entraîne son centre de gravité, vers l’univocité. Cette tendance, Suarez, d’ailleurs, la reconnaît.” Cf. E.J. Ashworth, “Suárez on the Analogy of Being: Some Historical Background,” Vivarium 33.1 (1995): p. 50 and p. 50, n. 3.