Speaking the incomprehensible God : Thomas Aquinas on the interplay of positive and negative theology / Gregory P. Rocca.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rocca, Gregory P., 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274.

Thomas.

God (Christianity)--Knowableness--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

God (Christianity).

Knowledge, Theory of (Religion)--History of doctrines--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Knowledge, Theory of (Religion).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (440 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Catholic University of America Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Gregory Rocca's nuanced discussion prevents Aquinas's thought from being capsulized in familiar slogans and is an antidote to unilateralist or monochrome views about God-talk.

Contents:

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 NegativaThree 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 MeaningsReference 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 PhysicsThe 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 UniverseA 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

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-386) and indexes.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-8132-1648-6

OCLC:

922996417