Battista Mondin The Principle Of Analogy In Protestant And Catholic Theology

200 Pages·1998·5.4 MB·English

by  Battista Mondin

THE PRINCIPLE OF ANALOGY
IN PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY
THE PRINCIPLE OF ANALOGY
IN PROTESTANT
AND CATHOLIC THEOLOGY
BY
BATTISTA MONDIN s.x.
THE HAGUE
MAR TINUS NI]HOFF
1963
ISBN 978-94-011-8701-5 ISBN 978-94-011-9526-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-9526-3
Copyright 1963 by Martinus NijhoJf, The Hague, Netherlands
A II rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce
this book or parts thereof in any form.
TO
HIS EMINENCE
RICHARD JAMES CARD. CUSHING
Great Apostle of Christ
and
Christian Unity
Nihil obstat quominus imprimatur opus cui titulus est "Analogy old and new"* a
G. B. Mondin, sx. exaratum.
Parmae, 20 januarii 1963. V. C. Vanzin, sx.
Censor delegatus Soc. Xav.
Imprimi potest Imprimatur
Parmae, die 23 jan. 1963 Parmae, 24 J anuarii 1963
Petrus Garbero~ SX. Hamilcar Pasini
Vicarius Generalis Soc. Xav. Vic. Gener .
• "Analogy old and new" was the original title of the book "The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and
Ca tholie Theology".
FOREWORD
In recent years there has been a remarkable revival of interest in the
doctrine of analogy, and many important studies on this doctrine have
appeared in the form of articles and books. Today many of the greatest
living philosophers and theologians consider some sort of analogy to be
an indispensable tool for any fruitful research in metaphysics and
theology. In this atmosphere we are sure that a study of the history of
the principle of analogy in Protestant and Catholic theology is welcome.
This is one of the reasons for the present undertaking. A second reason
for this study is to seek to divert the ecumenical dialogue from secondary
questions and to direct it to an area where it is necessary to agree in
order to be one.
The title of our work is somewhat misleading; it may lead one to
believe that it deals with all Catholic and Protestant theologians of past
and present. Actually it does not. It deals only with some of the major
figures of Catholic and Protestant theology. It concentrates especially
on Aquinas' analogy of intrinsic attribution, on Barth's analogy of
faith and on Tillich's symbolic analogy. It attempts to compare and
evaluate these three theological methods, from the standpoint ofd eterm
ining their adequacy to interpret the God-creature relation and to
justify the use of theological language. Our criterion in determining
their adequacy will be their ability to safeguard both God's tran
scendence and His immanence. We shall try to show that Tillich's symbol
ism, in so far as it is grounded on the principle of correlation, is capable
of expressing God's immanence but it is a threat to God's transcendence.
On the other hand Barth's analogy offaith is'a threat to His immanence
in nature. Finally, Aquinas' analogy of proper proportionality is un
able to express God's immanence, but his analogy ofi ntrinsic attribution
is capable of expressing and safeguarding both divine transcendence
and immanence.
VIII FOREWORD
Our study of Aquinas' doctrine will be both philosophical and
theological, since in his case analogy is a philosophical principle with
a theological application.
The basic material of the present work is drawn from a Thesis that
we presented at the Harvard Department of Philosophy of Religion
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy in the subject of Philosophy of Religion in 1959.
BATTISTA MONDIN S.X.
Desio, Italy
September 1962
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword VII
I. THE USE OF THE TERM "ANALOGY" IN GREEK AND MEDIAEVAL
PHILOSOPHY 1
l. Greek use of "analogy" 1
2. Latin use of "analogy" 4
II. AQ.UINAS' DIVISION OF ANALOGY 7
l. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Commentary to the
Sentences 9
2. Aquinas' division of analogy in the De Veritate 12
3. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Contra Gentiles 16
4. Aquinas' division of analogy in the De Potentia 21
5. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Commentaries to
Aristotle, Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius 25
6. Aquinas' division of analogy in the Summa Theologica
and Compendium Theologiae 29
7. Main textual conclusions 34
8. Cajetan's version of Aquinas' doctrine 35
9. Criticism of Cajetan's interpretation 40
10. A new classification of Aquinas' modes of analogy 51
11. Basic logical differences between Aquinas' four funda-
mental types of analogy 53
III. METAPHYSICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF AQ.UINAS' FOUR TYPES OF
62
ANALOGY
l. Ontological presuppositions 62
2. Epistemological presuppositions 76
x
IV. AQUINAS' THEOLOGICAL USE OF ANALOGY 85
l. The principle "omne agens agit simile sibi" 86
2. Restrictions to this principle 89
3. The likeness between God and the world, and theo-
logical language 93
4. Negative and positive theology 98
5. Analogy of intrinsic attribution and proper proportion-
ality 100
V. ANALOGY IN PROTESTANT THEOLOGY FROM LUTHER TO
KIERKEGAARD 103
l. Martin Luther 103
2. John Calvin 107
3. A. Quenstedt 110
4. Soren Kierkegaard 112
VI. TILLICH'S DOCTRINE OF RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM 118
l. History of the doctrine of symbolism 119
2. Tillich's doctrine of the symbol in general 121
3. Tillich's doctrine of the religious symbol 127
4. Symbolism and analogy 144
VII. BARTH'S DOCTRINE OF ANALOGY OF FAITH 147
1. Philosophy and theology 149
2. Necessity of "analogiafidei" 151
3. Theological semantics of "analogiafidei" 153
4. Theological epistemology of "analogiafidei" 159
5. Theological ontology of "analogiafidei" 164
6. Analogia fidei, analogia entis and analogy 169
VIII. THE MEANING OF THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE 174
1. The meaning of theological language according to
Aquinas, Tillich and Barth 174
2. The meaning of religious language according to
Linguistic Analysis 177
3. The mysterious meaning of theological language 183
Index ofp roper names 188
"Two things are to be avoided: one is the making offalse statements
especially such as are contrary to revealed truth, the other is the as
sertion that what we think to be true is an article offaith, for as Augustine
says (Conj. x) when a man thinks his false opinion to be the teaching
of godliness, and dares obstinately to dogmatise about matters of which
he is ignorant, he becomes a stumbling block to others"
St. Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, 3, 1