Deeper Waters

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I hope all is going well for you. I want readers to know that I will be away again starting tomorrow night and won’t be back until Monday so don’t expect a blog again after this one until Monday night. Prayers for my safe travels and a great weekend are appreciated. Anyway, we’ve been going through the doctrine of God lately and we’ve been using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide and we’re on the topic of the Names of God and on the tenth article in that. Today’s blog title is definitely a mouthful so let’s get to it.

God. We Christians apply great meaning to that name, however, at the same time, I, as a Christian, believe that the name of God is one of the most meaningless names that there is. Now I don’t mean that when I speak of God from the pulpit or in a class or in correspondence with other Christians or debating non-Christians. I mean that from the way that the name is used by others.

In our word today, God means anything and everything. Oprah speaks of God. Deepak Chopra speaks of God. Muslims speak of God. The New Age crowd talks about God. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses talk about God. About the only people who have a real problem with God are atheists, some agnostics, and some that come from more naturalistic religions.

Hence, this is one reason it’s so great to speak about Jesus. When you as a Christian speak about Jesus, more people know about who you are. God can be rather impersonal and abstract in modern terminology. Jesus, on the other hand, is not. Now true, there are some that have a twisted view of even him, but we are on firmer ground.

Aquinas would agree. We are not speaking univocally. When the pagan speaks of God and the Christian speaks of God, different things are meant. However, there are some similarities. For instance, the pagan can speak of a god as the one to whom he owes his highest allegiance. He can speak of him as the creator and sovereign of the world.

The reason the pagan cannot speak of God univocally with the Christian is because the pagan does not know the divine nature. While Aquinas was Aristotlean, he would say the same of Aristotle. Aristotle came about as close as a pagan can to the nature of God without really knowing him. Aristotle’s God, for instance, spent all his time thinking about himself and had no interest in the world.

Thus, the terms are not used univocally. We can have enough similarities that we can have a dialogue, but there are great differences. While the Christian also does not know the divine nature as it is furthermore, he comes the closest. Why? Because unlike the pagan, the Christian has divine revelation from God himself so that we can know him better, this in the form of Scripture and the form of Christ.

We shall continue Monday.

Hello everyone. I bid you a welcome back to Deeper Waters and if this is your first time, I hope you enjoy it. Come on in. The water’s fine. As we’ve been diving in the ocean, we’ve been studying the doctrine of God and the thought of Thomas Aquinas has been our guide. We have been using his Summa Theologica. If you do not have one, you can read it online at NewAdvent.org. Right now, we’re covering the names of God and we’re on the ninth article.

As I was reading over this, I was struck by how amazing it is that the objections that were raised in the days of Aquinas are still the objections that are raised today. There is nothing new under the sun. So as we go through this today, we are going to cover objections raised today that were addressed around 750 years or so ago.

To begin with, by communicable, we mean “Can the name of God be shared with others?” For our Arian friends, keep in mind that Aquinas, like all good Christians, is a Trinitarian and so he upholds the teachings that have been handed down throughout church history.

Now Aquinas does say in a certain sense, the name is communicable. This is in the sense that something that is a description of that nature in some way is passed on. For instance, when we say that someone is a lion of a man. We do not mean he is a hybrid beast. We rather mean that he is strong and courageous, much like when we speak of the lion of Judah.

An objection arises that it is said that we will become partakers of the divine nature in 2 Peter 1:4. Anyone who has dialogued with Arians before knows that they bring forward this verse. I have also seen Mormons use this verse in order to justify their doctrine of exaltation in which humans become gods.

However, the answer is readily apparent when one simply reads the verse. In what way do we become partakers of the divine nature? It is in relationship to a holy lifestyle as Peter says. It is not about having ontological equality with God as Aquinas has shown earlier would be impossible. It is saying that we will develop the character that we will live holy and godly lives.

But doesn’t Scripture elsewhere say that there are some who are gods? What about the Psalms that say this. Once again, the same problem is here. These are said to be gods in some likeness but not in the totality of the divine nature. What I believe is going on in Psalm 82 is that Jesus is referring to the rulers of Israel who were trying to claim special authority because they had the Torah and therefore they had all right to lord themselves over their brothers.

God is saying that while they are gods in the sense that they were given a position of rulership, they are not gods in reality. They will die like mere men because that is what they are. In essence, this verse is not lifting up the “gods” in it. Instead, it is mocking them. It is ironic that a verse used to mock is used by others to say that God is saying something really good about humanity.

Aquinas concludes that the name of God in its totality is not communicable and we agree. There can be only one.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and wanting to come to a deeper understanding of theology. I hope this is beneficial to you as too often, we count on a Sunday School faith to get us through the world and it just doesn’t have what it takes. Hence, our emphasis here has always been about going deeper. Our guide for going deep has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be read at newadvent.org.

Our topic tonight is if names of God which imply relation to creatures are predicated temporarily or not. In other words, is God really Lord essentially by nature or is this something that is not essential of him? When we ask if the name is applied temporarily, we also don’t mean that the name must go away at sometime. We simply mean that the name is given to God in time but he does not change by receiving it.

For instance, the Bible says that God has become our refuge. Does this refer to a change in the nature of God? Not at all. What it means is that there is an idea that we have applied to God from a temporal perspective. The qualities that make him a refuge however are what have remained the same.

Each name does carry some meaning to it, such as saying that God is Lord. This implies that he has power over the creation. However, God has power whether the creation is here or not. It is when the creation is in the picture that God has something that he has power over in a new way. His power doesn’t change.

However, when it comes to our side, we are really related to God as we are entirely dependent on him for everything. Even when you sin, you are still dependent on God for if God were not, you would not exist and you could not be capable of even going against God. Such is the power of God in Christian theology. To go against God requires the power of God.

Is God really Lord? Yes. He is. But that is not his essence. That is applied to him based on his position in relation to the creation. We are really subject to God and our existence is entirely dependent on him. We really do need him to be our savior. He does love us with an everlasting love as he has had love for all eternity and that is offered to us in time. We cannot escape in any way our dependence on him and his independence from us will never change.

Application? We Christians should realize what this means. God does not need you. He does not need me. Were none of us here, he would be just fine with himself. It is we who need him. We will discuss this more when we discuss the love of God, but for now, let us realize that we add nothing to God but he gives everything to us.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re studying the Christian doctrine of God right now and seeing how it affects our lives. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be found at newadvent.org. We are on the section right now on the names of God. We’re going to be looking at the sixth questions tonight. Are named predicated of God predicated primarily of creatures?

What does that mean exactly? Well we say that God is good, but does that come primarily through what we see of creatures? The concept of goodness is primary in them and only secondarily applies to God? It could seem that this is the way because in Thomistic thought, we know the creator by knowing the creation.

However, we have a problem if we take this route. We do not then really know God. God can once again be said to be good simply because he is the cause of goodness in creatures. Because that could be the case, that does not mean that God is necessarily good. After all, God is the cause of bodies in creatures but he himself is not embodied. We could say God is the ultimate mixed bag then since he is the cause of chickens, humans, dinosaurs, whales, giraffes, etc.

The names are primarily applied to God however in that he is good before his creation is good. Creatures are said to be good insofar as they come to approach the goodness of God. However, for Aquinas, there is one sense in which names are applied primarily of creatures and secondarily to God.

This is when we speak in metaphor. When we say that God is a lion, we do not mean he is primarily a lion. We speak of the lion first and say the lion has a trait that we find in God. The lion is a fierce contender and is king over the area he surveys. In the same way, God is a fierce warrior and the area that he surveys is the entirety of creation.

As we saw when we discussed immutability, I would apply emotions to God in this way. God is not literally angry, but his actions are akin to what would be the actions of an angry person. This is the same when God is described as having a body. To those who have a problem, I will say I am consistent in my hermeneutic. It also works with the philosophical problems of an emotional God.

We should always be watchful for how we interpret Scripture as our ancestors in the faith were. Many people today do not treat the Bible as literature and treat metaphorical language as literal. There is much in the Bible that is literal, but there is much that is metaphorical as well. How do you know the difference? Well that’s part of being a good student of Scripture and literature and learning how to read the Bible as literature.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are continuing our dive into the ocean of truth. We’ve been studying the doctrine of God and our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not have a copy, you can read it online at newadvent.org. If you have an IPhone or kindle, you can also read it there and it could be free. We’re studying the names of God and tonight we’re going to answer the fifth question on the discussion. Is what is said of God and creatures predicated univocally of them?

God-talk. We’ve talked about it before. In the middle of the twentieth century, a movement came about called logical positivism that said unless statements were analytical, that is, the meaning of the statement was in the term, such as bachelors are unmarried males, or were empirically verifiable, then they were meaningless. The problem with this was that the test itself didn’t pass the test. The idea had been to reduce God-talk to meaninglessness.

There are three ways that we can use language. One is univocally. If you walk down the street and see someone and say “Good morning” to them and say to the next person you meet “Good morning”, they don’t have any reason to think you meant anything different to any of them. The term meant the same thing.

There is also equivocal. If I tell you “I am going to the bank”, it could mean I am going to a building that stores money for me, or it could mean that I am going to a river and I am going to sit on the edge. Without some sort of context, you will not know for sure what I mean as the term “bank” means two completely different things.

The final way we can speak of something is analogically. Consider this proposition. “2 + 2 = 4.” You can see that in two ways. In the first way, your eyes can see the proposition and you have visual input of it. In the second way, your mind can see the truth of the proposition. If I wrote “2 + 2 = 5”, you could see it the first way, but not the second. (At least I hope you don’t see it the second.) In this case, “see” is applied analogically.

This is the way statements are applied of God. I would hope I am wise, but I am not wise the way God is. Wisdom is something added to my nature. It is not distinct from God’s nature. It is his nature. My wisdom is kind of like God’s, but it is not exactly the same. On the other hand, it is not completely different either.

If we have a univocal concept, we have a God who is just like us, just different by degree rather than by kind. If we have an equivocal concept, we have a God who is entirely different from us and we cannot know him at all. If we have analogical concept, we have a God who we have some similarities to, but at the same time is different by kind rather than degree. This is the kind of God we do have.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I’m glad you’ve either come back to this blog or are coming for the first time. If for the first time, feel free to check the archive. There’s plenty to keep you reading for awhile. We’re going through the doctrine of God now and our guide is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy, I recommend you go to newadvent.org and you can read it online for free. Of course, I have no objections to your getting your own personal offline copy. Tonight, we’re going to ask if the names that we apply to God are applied synonymously.

What does that mean? Well when we say that God is good and we say that he is wise, are we really meaning the same thing? How could that be? We’ve stated earlier that simplicity is an important attribute of God in the thought of Aquinas. In fact, right after the existence of God, simplicity is the first one covered.

If that is the case, aren’t we speaking of simply one reality, namely God, and when we say anything, we’re simply speaking of that one reality. Can we really speak of that one reality in different ways? We are not going to be saying that goodness is wisdom after all are we?

Like any good thinker, Aquinas knows what you’re thinking is an objection to his system. In fact, he knows the objection better than you do. He’s also got his answers prepared to all of the objections. Aquinas’s answer is that the names are not synonymous but refer to different things.

While God is one, we see him presented in many diverse ways. It is because on our side we are limited and we cannot take in God all at once. When we use different names, we are speaking of different ways of describing him. When we say that he is good, we mean that he is the one that is supremely desirable. When we say that he is omnipotent, we mean that he is the one who possesses all power.

None of these names give a perfect description of God. They are all imperfect. Our understanding of goodness and wisdom and other attributes of God is imperfect. When we say God is good, for instance, we do not know entirely what that means, but we do know that we have an idea of what that means.

All of these names that we give then do apply to the one reality of God, but they apply differently to the way that one reality is understood by us. We speak of the one reality that is God but when we do so, we speak of him in ways that we can only grasp one idea of what he is like at a time.

We should be thankful we can understand God in so many ways and learn once again how seriously the medievals took the topic of God in that even in discussing the way that we speak of him, they saw that we have to be careful with our language. May we continue to do so.

We shall continue this tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I hope things are going well for you and you’re continuing to pray for me. We are going through the doctrine of God and we’re using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide. A copy can be read online at newadvent.org. We’ll be asking the question tonight of if names can be properly applied to God.

One concern with this is that there are several names that definitely cannot be applied to God. We do not speak of God literally when we say that he is a rock or that he is a lion. However, that does not mean that there is no truth to the statements that have been made. When we say God is a rock, we are not saying that he is a material substance that is hard and impenetrable. However, we are saying that he is strong and sturdy and unchanging and will not be moved.

However, there are names in which we do say something of God in his nature. We do such when we say that he is good or that he is wise. Aquinas does make a distinction here however. While we can say that these apply properly to God, they do not apply in the same way. The way that God possesses goodness is different from the way that we do. God is goodness by his eternal act of existing. We are good by our being as Aquinas says earlier, but we exist by grace. There could be no goodness in us unless there was goodness in God.

In other words, creatures do possess these attributes such as goodness and these are perfections insofar as they are possessed, but they are possessed imperfectly. God, on the other hand, possesses all perfections not imperfectly but perfectly. Heis perfect goodness, justice, wisdom, truth, etc.

This doesn’t present a problem either for the idea that many of the names we use of God tell more what he is not rather than what he is. The perfections that we have about him tell us that he is not like any of the creatures that he created. Creatures change, for instance, because they are imperfect. God on the other hand, does not change as he is already perfect and there is no basis for change in him.

What can we get out of this? We can learn that we truly can speak of God and know something about him. This would be important in Aquinas’s day when there was much debate against the Muslims of the time. In Islam, God is ultimately unknowable. This is not a problem for the Christian who believes God has revealed himself and especially in Christ.

We Christians are the ones who can go out and tell a world what God is like and what can be done to know him. In Aquinas’s thought, if you wanted to be God’s friend, you could be considered a Christian. Of course, that has to be the God who is there and not just any god. The only way you can choose to be his friend however is to know something about him. Thankfully, according to Aquinas, that can be done.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I apologize for the lack of updates. I had a late late evening Thursday night so I didn’t blog. As for the rest of the time, I’ve been out of town. I hope no one was too worried. As it is, right now, there should be a feature available on the blog so that fans who like what is going on here and want to support the ministry can do so. Hopefully I will also be able to somehow pull together enough computer knowledge and enough computer imagination to find some ways to update the site from what I fear could be a bland look for the time being. However, tonight we are going to continue our look at the doctrine of God with the guide being the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. A copy is available to be read online at newadvent.org. We will be looking at the second question on the name of God.

This is asking if names can be substantially applied to God. In other words, when we give a name to God, are we able to say something of God in describing the way he is. For instance, some had said that saying that God is good is saying that God is the cause of goodness in things.

However, Aquinas says that we could just as easily then say that God is a body because God is the cause of bodies. When we say God is good, we do affirm that God is the cause of Goodness in things, but we also claim to be knowing something about God.

This is also different from relational terms for God in names. For instance, to say that God is Lord is not describing the substance of God but rather an outworking of God’s relation to creation in light of the nature that he is. Since God is sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., then he is Lord. However, if there is no creation, there are no beings for him to be Lord over.

Thus, when we are speaking of God substantially, it means that any term that we apply to him is one that could be applied of him if there was no creation. Each of them is saying “I am telling you something about God as he is in himself and with this name, this is what I am saying.”

However, Aquinas agrees that this is not saying entirely that this is what God is. Instead, it is saying that this is what God is like. We see a certain perfection in creatures called goodness. This is limited in them. However, when we come to God, this is unlimited. This does not mean that we understand entirely what this goodness is. We just know what it is like.

So Aquinas does agree that we can state something of what God is like, but it is always going to be limited. He does not however wish us to be agnostic about God and say we can know nothing about the divine nature, but like Paul would say, he does affirm that at this point in time, we see through a glass darkly.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I hope that by tomorrow night I will have the blog site more updated. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and right now we’re covering the names of God. The guide for this study has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be found at Newadvent.org if you don’t own your own copy. We’ll start our first night on this with, of course, the first article.

Now in a sense, this is an obvious answer. Of course names can be given to God. We have many names for him, including just calling him God. However, what is meant more is can names be given of him in a truly descriptive sense. This might sound like a strange question, but it is one that the early church dealt with as well.

Can God be given a name truly? The real answer in that sense is no. Names are given by another and they are names given by one who is greater. There is no one greater than God to give him a name and since God does not change, he does not give himself a name either. What we see in the name of YHWH in the OT is that God is the one who exists by necessity of his nature.

But there are ways in which we can give God names. However, these names do not define God but they rather describe him. Words are things that signify something beyond themselves. Each word you see on this blog is not an end in itself. It is an idea meant to point to something beyond itself. This is one of the amazing things about language.

We can use that language to name God based on what we do understand about him and nothing totally captures who he is. If we call him Almighty, then we have not captured his omniscience. Saying he is holy does not capture his power. Saying he is Lord does not speak entirely of his love. All of these give us glimpses simply into who God is. The best name for him is still the one that he used to describe himself to Moses.

Interestingly then, for Aquinas, God is not really Lord in himself. Lord is something that describes God’s relationship to the creation. In this way, he is not really creator in himself. He is the creator of the universe and he is the Lord of the universe but saying such things do not add anything to God. After all, God cannot be added to.

By the use of the name however, we make a statement about who God is in relation to the creation. God is Lord in that he is sovereign over his creation for if there had been no creation, there would have been no one for him to be sovereign over. God is creator in that he is the one who is the efficient cause of the creation. Had there been no creation, he would not be creator.

What more can be found out about the names of God? We shall find out as we continue tomorrow.