Speaking the Incomprehensible God : Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Positive and Negative Theology.

Intro -- Contents -- Foreword -- Preface -- Abbreviations -- Part One. God the Incomprehensible and Negative Theology -- A Brief Survey of Negative Theology in the Hellenistic and Patristic Traditions -- Authors before Pseudo-Dionysius -- Pseudo-Dionysius and John Damascene -- God's Dual Incomprehensibility in Aquinas -- God as Supereminent Darkness -- Our Nonquidditative Knowledge of God -- No Intellect Sees God by Its Natural Powers -- The Graced Vision of God's Essence -- Finite Intellectual Creatures and God's Infinity -- Our Noncomprehensive Knowledge of God -- Conclusion -- Aquinas' Via Negativa -- The Threefold Way to God -- The Via Negativa -- Three Types of Negative Theology -- Growth and Progress of Negative Theology -- Negation and Preeminence -- The Way of Preeminence -- Conclusion -- Part Two. Analogy and the Web of Judgment -- Analogy in Aristotle -- The Various Meanings of Analogy in Aquinas -- Critique of Analogy -- Analogy as Proportion and Proportionality -- Analogy as Referential Multivocity -- Analogy of Attribution, Proper Proportionality, and Cajetan's Interpretation -- The Primacy of Analogy as Referential Multivocity -- The Logical Status of Multivocal Analogy -- The Unity and Diversity of Analogy as a Web of Predication -- Primary and Secondary Meanings -- Reference to an Individual Reality or Nature -- God and Creatures -- The Analogical Community -- Analogy's "Common Meaning" and "Different Meanings" -- Analogy as Judgment in Aquinas -- Judgment and Truth -- Judgment and Concept -- Analogy as Judgment -- Theological Analogy as the Mean between Univocity and Equivocity -- The Place of Theological Analogy in Aquinas' Treatise on God -- The Graced Judgment of Faith -- Conclusion -- Part Three. Crucial Truths about God -- Aquinas and the Existence of God the Creator -- Aquinas' View of Aristotle's First Principles.

The Unmoved Mover of Aristotle's Physics -- The Primary Substance of Aristotle's Metaphysics -- The Richness of God's Existence in Aquinas' Theology -- Aquinas and the Philosophers on God the Creator -- Creation and Creator -- The World's Eternity -- God the Creator Philosophically Interpreted as Subsistent Being -- The Radical Contingence of Creatures Philosophically Interpreted as the Real Distinction between Being and Essence -- Conclusion -- Aquinas' Crucial Theological Truths -- God Is the Infinite, Pure, and Perfect Act of Subsistent Being -- A Perfect God -- An Infinite God -- God Is the Creator and Conserver of the Universe -- A Transcendent Creator -- An Immanent Creator -- A God Who Freely Creates from Nothing -- Creation Is a Likeness to God -- Creatures Are Both Like and Unlike God -- God's Essence and God's Ideas -- Vestige, Image, Similarity -- Participation: Aquinas' Christian View of the Universe -- Truth and Epistemology -- Part Four. The Divine Names -- Aquinas' Positive Theology of the Divine Names -- Divine Names -- Theory of Names -- On Naming God -- Aquinas' Positive Theology -- Proper Name of Divinity -- Proper versus Metaphorical Predication -- Taxonomy of the Divine Names -- Primacy and Dependence in Divine Predication -- Different Meanings of the Divine Names -- The Distinction between the Reality Signified and the Manner of Signification -- Historical Background -- The Res/Modus Distinction in Aquinas -- God's Modelessness and the Creature's Finite Mode -- The Human Manner of Understanding -- The Human Manner of Signification -- The Res/Modus Distinction and the Analogical Nature of Divine Predication -- Conclusion: Speaking the Incomprehensible God -- Bibliography -- Index of Texts of Aquinas -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.