Analogía En Tomás De Aquino

AQUINAS DOCTRINE OF ANALOGY

• About the relationship between ordinary language and similar language used of God.
• To solve the problem: how to avoid anthropomorphism without verging into the total agnosticism that would be the result of a purely negative theology.
General lines of solution: affirmative language used of God is used in a sense partly the same, partly different. Aquinas,drawing on some ideas from Plato and Aristotle and his Arabic and Jewish and Christian sources, has a go at working out the rather tricky logic of the situation.
According to Aquinas:
The same word(s) used in different contexts (in language from contemporary philosophy, different �tokens� of the same �type�) may be used:
UNIVOCALLY: i.e. same word, same meaning, with exactly the same sense.
(Ifthis was how it was between God talk and human talk, then we really would be bringing God down to our level, = anthropomorphism.)
But two different tokens of the same type might also be being used
EQUIVOCALLY: same word, different meanings.

This in turn can happen in two ways:
Equivocation a casu � entirely by chance, with no rhyme or reason and no connection between the various senses,just an accidental feature of the language.

E.g.�s bark, bank, date, pen, ram, plus in spoken English lots more such as rain, rein, reign, weather and whether.
According to Moses Maimonides, this is how it is between us and God. But for Aquinas, this would take us into the opposite extreme, into total agnosticism.
Thankfully, there is another kind of equivocation, which is more usuallytermed �analogy�.
Equivocation a consilio � by intention, using the same word in the two different contexts for some good reason, even though the senses are not exactly the same.

Equivocation a consilio is more commonly called ANALOGY. Which kind of Analogy depends on which kind of reason. Basically, there are two kinds of good reason, making for two species of analogy.
So far: words can be usedunivocally, purely equivocally, or analogously. It is the latter which helps us out in respect of talking about God (according to Aquinas and most theologians since).
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KINDS OF ANALOGY:
ANALOGY OF ATTRIBUTION:
:where the reason is a causal relationship between the parties or things given the same name. A commonly used example is �healthy� when said ofa mountain resort or a kind of food: they are called �healthy�, health is attributed to them, because they cause health in certain kinds of living organisms, namely human beings. Once again this is capable of two varieties, however:
EXTRINSIC: a factual, causal relationship, which does not by itself imply any similarity between what has the character literally and that to which the charactergets attributed. E.g. our example of �healthy�: only living things can be literally healthy, healthy is said of mountain resorts and of food by analogy of extrinsic attribution. Alternatively, in the medieval terminology, they are virtually healthy, they have the virtus or power of causing or helping to bring about or sustain health. It is that and only that which legitimates our use of the language.INTRINSIC: the causal relationship is of one of those kinds which brings about a similarity in the effect, e.g. mothers and fathers begetting children, an artist painting herself, or God creating the world in the image and likeness of the Logos.
Analogy of Intrinsic Attribution links closely with Aquinas� renovated neo-Platonic metaphysics. Goodness, Beauty, Truth, Being itself creates good,beautiful, intelligible beings like mountains and seas, plants, trees, flowers, birds, dolphins, whales, human beings, angels etc.
There is an interesting difference between the two kinds of analogy of attribution. In analogy of extrinsic attribution, the effect has the quality literally or formally as the medievals have it, the cause has the quality only by attribution, not really or...