THOMAS KEITH
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T H E N AT U R E O F G O D ’ S B E I N G
The Nature of God’s Being: Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and the Doctrine of Analogy Thomas D. Keith
“I
n the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful; Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds; The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful; Master of the Day of Judgment; It is You we worship, and upon You we call for help.”1 These are the opening lines of the Qur’an. Here, in one of the great sacred texts of the monotheistic tradition, we find a theme that is central to Islam, Judaism, and Christianity alike: the nature of God. As humans, we use and understand the concepts of mercy and graciousness through the lens of a finite and contingent existence, yet as theists we predicate them of an infinite and necessary God. Are we justified in doing this? And if so, how? In the medieval era, philosophers addressed these questions by focusing on the nature of being. By first understanding how God relates to our finite and contingent understanding of existence itself, we can discover how God relates to our creaturely understanding of His other attributes. The objective for these philosophers was simple: meaningfully describe an immanent God without losing His transcendence. To achieve this, medieval philosophers developed three different categories of theories as to the nature of God’s being: the doctrines of equivocity, analogy, and univocity. Do any of these theories succeed? This paper will argue that the version of the doctrine of analogy formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas succeeds in preserving both God’s transcendence and His immanence. 1.
Qur’an 1:1-5 (ClearQuran Translation).
Vol. III, No. 1
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