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Symbolism and Belief

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2024

Bernard Kelly
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Extract

This is a work of sane and considerable scholarship covering a field in which, in spite of the work of Père Lagrange, Catholic scholars have shown some measure of diffidence: a field also in which thomist theology has a peculiarly acute responsibility. The problem is stated on p. 25, “The difficulty is that while Christian theology asserts that God is unknowable, it simultaneously asserts that God can be known. And not Christian only, but any form of belief which can be called theistic is bound to assert that in some sense God can be known.” The approach to it, “Not to get rid of anthropomorphism, which is impossible if man is going to have any idea of God at all, but to make the division between right and wrong anthropomorphism where it ought to be made— that is the main problem for all philosophy of religion.” Already the Catholic theologian has grounds to fear that the edges of the problem have been blurred. Not that, in such a fear, there is any room for sectarian pride or aloofness. Dr. Bevan himself underlines the nature of Catholic responsibility in the matter (p. 317), “It would be quite a mistake to suppose that these discussions (of the theory of analogy) are of interest only to Roman Catholic theologians. The problem with which they grapple is a problem which must confront any modern thinker who believes in any God at all.” Further back (p. 315) he says of the same doctrine of analogy, “I cannot profess myself able to make sense of this explanation.

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 19 , Issue 225 , December 1938, pp. 902 - 909
Copyright
Copyright © 1938 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Symbolism and Belief. (Gifford Lectures.) By Edwyn Bevan. (Allen & Unwin. 15s.)

2 cf. Penido. Le Rôle de l’Analogie en Théologie Dogmatique: p. 103: Pour que soit sauvegardée l’objective de la métaphore, il suffit que I’on compare non pas des natures mais des causalités. En theologie, la métaphore nous renseigne donc sur les attributs d’action; elle ébauche toute une étude, des modes divers de la causalité divine. ibid. p. 104: Si dans l’être Dieu domme, dam la métaphore, c’est la créature, l’anneau auquel le divin est suspendu. ibid. Bref, la métaphore désigne en Dieu les perfections relatives à nous.

3 It would not be an impertinence to refer Dr. Bevan to Penido: Le Rôle de l‘Analogie en Théologie Dogmatdque for two reasons: I. that Penido reveals himself to be the greatest contemporary master of the doctrine; 2, that he approaches the subject from a dud standpoint: that of the validity of the attributions of natural theology, and that of the elucidation of revealed dogma by the light of analogy-an approach in some respects similar. though in a reverse order, to Dr. Bevan’s own.

4 Apologies must be offered for the difficulty and perhaps obscurity of this and of what follows. The English language will not easily carry the degree of technical abstraction required to explain the structure of analogy. The reader’s patience is begged and will not be trespassed upon unduly.

5 Note that the proofs for the existence of God (the five ways, which do not include the ontological proof nor reduce to it) affirm from the examination of participated and contingent beings that there must exist a being of a mode utterly not their own (unmoved mover, uncaused cause, necesse esse) which is implied (the proportion which holds) by their actual existence-which is experienced. Ergo Deus est.

6 Better still: Illud est ultimum cognitionis humanae de Deo, quod sciat se Deum nescire. (St. Thomas, quoted by Penido. op.cit.)