Natural theology and natural law › Speaking about God through analogy

Question 13 considers how words drawn from creatures can apply to God. If goodness meant exactly the same thing in both applications, Aquinas argues, our language would fail to respect the difference between creator and creatures. If it meant something wholly unrelated, reasoning from creatures would lose its connection with what is said of God (I q.13 a.5).

He develops an analogical account. The meanings are related through the dependence of created perfections on their cause, without making divine goodness an instance of a creaturely quality in the same limited manner. Analogy here is a claim about an ordered relation in meaning, not permission to substitute any attractive metaphor.

This position depends on the metaphysical relationship Aquinas claims between creatures and God. It cannot be established just by choosing the label analogy. Its explanatory task is to show how language can convey something true while leaving the manner of divine existence beyond the mode in which we encounter creaturely perfections.