CHAP. XII.] CAUSES. 373 



in the Church s teaching. I mean the teaching that though 

 there is an analogy between the attributes of God and human 

 qualities (so that, e.g., to call Him &quot; good &quot; is neither false 

 nor unmeaning), yet that the disparity being infinite no term 

 whatever, not even that denoting mere existence, can be applied 

 in the same very sense to God and to any creature. Thus 

 after exhausting ingenuity in striving to arrive at the loftiest 

 possible conceptions in order to apply them to God, we must 

 yet declare them to be utterly inadequate ; that, after all, they 

 are but accommodations to human infirmity ; that they are 

 in a sense objectively false (because of their inadequacy), 

 though subjectively and very practically true. But the 

 difference is vast between this view and that which would 

 simply deny to God attributes analogous to human qualities. 

 That denial is practically atheism; while the assertion 

 defended here, maintains that our conceptions only err in not 

 being true enough, i.e., in their impotence to attain the in 

 comprehensible reality which, nevertheless, really is all that 

 can be conceived, plus an inconceivable infinity beyond. 



That this view is the old and traditional one may be made 

 manifest by the following quotation : 



&quot; Dens in hac vita non potest a nobis videri per suam essentiam, sed 

 cognoscitur a nobis ex creaturis secundum habitudinem principis, et 

 per modum excellentise et remotionis : Sic igitur potest nominuri a nobis 

 ex creaturis: non tamen ita, quod nomen significans ipsum exprimat 

 divinam essentiam secundum quod est. Sicut ut hoc nomen exprimit 

 sua significations essentiam hominis secundum quod est.&quot; St. Thomas, 

 Summa, Pars I. q. xiii. art. 1. 



&quot; Cum hoc nomen sapiens de homine dicitur, quodammodo describit, 

 et comprehendit rem significatam, non autem, eum dicitur de Deo 

 relinquit rem significatam, ut incomprehensam, et excedentem nominis 

 significationem, unde patet, quod non secundum eandem rationem hoc 

 nomen sapiens de Deo, et de homine dicitur. Et eadem ratio non est 

 de aliis. Unde nullum nomen univoce de Deo, et creaturis prcedicatur. 

 Dicendum est igitur, quod cujusmodi nomina dicuntur de Deo, et 

 creaturis secundum analogiam, id est, proportionem.&quot; St. Thomas, loc. 

 cit. art. 5. 



This conception of the merely analogous resemblance 

 between terms as applied to God and to creatures thoroughly 



