In the previous chapter, we discussed the “negative” approach to God, in which one attempts to explain what God is not. Many theists find the via negativa incomplete, however, and seek also to state what God is. After all, the theistic religious traditions all understand themselves as asserting something that is actually the case about God, and not as merely saying that God is not something. God is said to be, for example, “love” or “mighty” or “merciful” or “living” or “great”. Theists would seem to mean more by such terms than simply that God is not hateful, not weak, not vengeful, not dead, or not little. And besides, even in the example of the “Guess what I am thinking” game used in the previous chapter, notice that after eliminating a great many things from consideration, the guesser ultimately has to say what the object is in order to be successful and win the game!
As a result of such considerations, theists have developed a kataphatic theology to supplement the apophatic theology, a via positiva to supplement the via negativa. They have attempted to state what God is, not simply what God is not. They have thus developed a set a “positive” attributes of God and even names for God. In this chapter, we will begin by surveying these “positive” attributes and names of God and then discuss what theists mean when they ascribe such terms to God.
A. Naming God
Let us return to some of the examples already mentioned. When theists say that God is love, they presumably mean that God is really, really, REALLY love—that God is the supreme lover, or all-loving. God is the maximum in the category of loving things. Similarly, when the Hebrew Bible refers to God as “strong” or “mighty”, or when Muslims say that God is “great”, they presumably do not simply mean that God is just a little stronger or greater or mightier than the other forces we observe around us. They mean instead that God is supremely strong or great. Not only is nothing stronger or greater than God, but God actually maximizes or “maxes out” the category of strength and greatness.
Theists who pursue philosophy often express these qualities in terms of “omni-” words. God is said to be omnibenevolent, omnipotent, or omniscient, for example. Since the prefix “omni-” comes from a Latin word meaning “all”, omnibenevolent thus means “all-good” or perhaps “all-loving” (benevolentia would literally mean “good-willing”). Similarly, omnipotent means “all-powerful” (potentia means “power”), and omniscient means “all-knowing” (scientia is simply a Latin word for “knowledge”). We can see the further use of these “omni-” type words in a new word such as omnipresent; we can see the use of an “all” type word in an old word such as “Almighty”.
Obviously, not just any word can receive a maximizing prefix and then automatically be ascribed to God. For example, theists would never say that God is “omni-malevolent” or “all wicked”. Wickedness seems to imply a certain imperfection, and the theist does not want to say that God is imperfect or incomplete. So, apparently the theist does not want to say that God is perfect or complete in every way, but only in “good” or “positive” ways. Hence, God is not said to be “omni-malevolent” (or “all bad-willing”) but, rather, “omni-benevolent” (or “all good-willing”).
The theist asserts, then, that any form of perfection has its ultimate or maximal completeness in the divine nature. To use an analogy, we sometimes rank qualities on a scale of one to ten. With respect to created things, we might say that their goodness falls somewhere on this scale, with some things being “more good” or “better” than others. On this scale, let us say that all existing created things fall between one and eight. God could not just be a nine, the theist would say, because that would imply that it is theoretically possible for something to be a ten and, hence, better than God. It seems, too, that God cannot just be a ten; rather, God has to be the ten. But to say that God is the ten will not really do the job either. God cannot just be the ten, because ten is just a difference in degree from nine or eight, and God would have to be not only quantitatively but also qualitatively different. God would have to be infinitely good. Or infinitely great. Or infinitely knowing.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, accepted as sacred by both Jews and Christians and understood as in some sense “honorable” if not actually “sacred” by Islam, there are two important passages that we should consider in relation to ascribing attributes or names to God. Both of these occur in the Book of Exodus. The first is the story of the burning bush in chapter 3. Moses, tending flocks in the desert, suddenly sees a bush on fire but not consumed. He approaches the bush, and God addresses him from the fire, explaining that he has a task he wants Moses to accomplish. Moses knows that he needs authority in order to do this task and asks God for his authoritative name so that people will believe his divine commission. God’s mysterious answer is ayeh asher ayeh, which is usually translated into English as “I am who I am” or “I am who am.” The phrase could also be translated as “I will be who I will be.” The narrative goes on to say that Moses should tell the people that “I am” or “I will be” (ayeh) has sent him.
What are we to make of this mysterious passage? One possible interpretation would be that what the narrative means is that God is refusing to give Moses his name. “I will be who I will be”; in other words, “it is not for you to know who or what I am.” If we are attracted to the apophatic theology discussed in the previous chapter, this interpretation might be attractive to us. God’s nature, the story would seem to imply in this interpretation, remains unknown, presumably because it is unknowable and, hence, nothing can really be said about it.
An alternative interpretation would emphasize the am part of “I am who am.” That is, one might say that what is being asserted in the story is that “I exist” or “I am being” or “I just be” or even that “I am the am-er, the cause of being and existing.” If one is attracted to the via positiva, one is probably attracted to this interpretation of the passage. Theists who are interested in philosophical theology have usually understood the passage in precisely this way. Philosophers are interested in concepts like “existence” and “being”, and so they often understand the passage along these lines.
Of course, it is not impossible that both interpretations are intended, for to say that “I am the am-er” is still a pretty mysterious thing for people to understand, including, presumably, Moses! So, perhaps a certain ambiguity is intended by the text. But there is another point that should be made regarding the name of God given at the burning bush. The Hebrew word for “I am” or “I will be” (ayeh) is related to the Hebrew word for the holy name of God. That holy name contains four letters (yhwh) and is sometimes referred to as simply “the Tetragrammaton”. If vowels are added to these four letters, the name could probably be transliterated as “Yahweh”, but nobody knows for sure because classical Hebrew texts did not contain vowels. In traditional Judaism, this name is too holy to be pronounced by human lips, and hence when the Scriptures are read aloud, a substitution is always made; frequently, what is done is to substitute either “the Lord” (adonai) or “the name” (ha-shem) for the Tetragrammaton itself.
Here again, the contrast between the via negativa and the via positiva is relevant. Why? Names can be of at least two sorts; they can simply mark a certain being or person, or they can communicate something about that being or person. With respect to human names, for example, rarely do they do anything more than mark a certain person. On the first day of class, for example, we might learn that a certain student sitting in the back row is named “Jill” and that another one sitting in the front row is named “Suzie”. These names tell us very little about Jill or Suzie, though. The fact of the matter is that when parents name their children, they do so when they are babies, so they really cannot give them names that give us much information about them, because babies have as yet displayed few characteristics. A small qualification of this point might be the use of names such as “Amber”. If the baby were born with red hair, the name “Amber” would tell us at least that the baby was a girl and that she had red hair. Sometimes the names we give our pets tell us a little about them. For example, sometimes people name their dogs “Bandit”, presumably because such dogs like to take things from their masters.
These names that simply mark or “point to” a person are also known as “proper” names. Perhaps the sacred name for God, the Tetragrammaton, the name behind the name “Lord”, is simply a proper name pointing to something whose nature is completely mysterious and unknown. Perhaps, then, it is just another example of the apophatic theology at work in Scripture. However, while it may not be immediately apparent to those who have not studied Hebrew, the sacred name for God (Yahweh) is related to the name God gives to himself from the burning bush (ayeh). In other words, the Tetra-grammaton might well mean something like “he is” or even “he who is”, just as ayeh might mean “I am.” Thus, perhaps the sacred name is not just a proper name pointing to a completely mysterious reality; possibly it is intended to mean something that is actually the case about the divine nature—that is, that God is the one who above all other things “exists”, or that he is supreme being or “Being”.
A piece of evidence that would indirectly support this second interpretation might well be supplied in a second passage from Exodus, the famous passage in which Moses, on Mount Sinai, asks God to show him his divine “face”. To “show him his face” would seem to be the Hebrew Bible’s way of saying that Moses wanted God to show him his nature or essence or inmost and complete reality. In the narrative, God tells Moses that a direct encounter with his face would destroy Moses but that he will shield Moses and permit a reflection of his face to pass by. When Moses is duly protected in the cleft in the rock and shielded by God’s hand, God passes by and a voice (as in the burning bush story) says, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). Notice that in this narrative, the holy name of God, the Tetragrammaton—substituted here with the word “Lord”—is pronounced, not by the human Moses, but by the divine voice. More importantly, we are told something about “the Lord”—that is, that the one named by the sacred name is full of grace, mercy, love, and fidelity.
Since the biblical narrative of Exodus 33 and 34 seems to “fill in” the reader’s knowledge of the divine nature, it is not surprising that philosophically inclined readers might understand the biblical story of God showing a reflection of his face to Moses to be saying something like this: “The one who supremely is is also the one who is omnibe-nevolent.” To assert that God is existence and all-loving, however, is to assert something positive or actual about God, and hence the theistic interest in the via positiva is hardly surprising.
B. Analogical Predication
But to assert something positive about God is a rather dangerous undertaking for us, for in doing so we are using finite words about realities that we understand relatively well and attributing or ascribing or predicating them of God, an infinite being whom we cannot understand nearly so well. We can use the words, to be sure; we can say that “God is love” or “God is omniscient”, for example. But what do such words in such statements actually mean?
Let us step back for a moment and distinguish three ways that words can be applied to various items within the world of common, created realities. Let us say, for example, that the grass on the north side of my walkway is “green” and that the grass on the south side of my walkway is “green”. And let us assume for this example that the two parts of my lawn really are equally green and, indeed, indistinguishable in terms of their greenness. In such a case, I have used the term “green” univocally, for in the two sentences:
The grass on the north side of my walkway is green
and
The grass on the south side of my walkway is green,
I mean the very same thing by the word “green” in both sentences. I am speaking “with one voice” with respect to the word “green”; I am speaking univocally.
Now, let us say that we want to attribute a good quality to God. Let us say, for example, that we want to say that “God is wise.” And let us say that we are asked by a comrade whether we have any wise friends, and we respond that “Natasha is wise.” If we understand the word “wise” to mean the same in each of these two sentences—if, in other words, we predicate the term “wise” to Natasha and to God univocally—we would be saying that Natasha is wise in the very same way that God is or that Natasha is as wise as God. Now, our friend Natasha may indeed be very wise in human terms, but the theist surely does not want to say that any person is as wise as God! Indeed, if we were to do this, we would be falling into the danger of anthropomorphism, or ascribing human qualities to God. And in fact, the ascribing of human qualities to God is not much different from ascribing divine qualities to human beings, and ascribing divine qualities to mere human beings is often called “blasphemy” or even “idolatry”, although the latter term usually refers to attributing divine qualities to something even lower than human beings.
The extreme opposite to univocal predication is equivocal predication. Consider these two sentences:
The food I ordered at the Mexican restaurant was hot.
It is hot outside today.
Presumably in the first sentence, the word “hot” actually means “spicy”. In the second sentence, however, the word “hot” means something like “possessing a temperature much warmer than normal”. In other words, the word “hot” means something completely different in the two sentences. Of course, it could be that the food ordered at the Mexican restaurant was not merely spicy but also “warm in temperature”. But even if that were the case, we could think of other uses of the word “hot” that are clearly different. Again, consider these two sentences:
It is hot outside today.
That movie actor is hot.
In the second sentence, the word “hot” is a vulgar term meaning something like “sexually attractive”. If we were using the term “hot” in the same way in both sentences—if we were using the term univocally—we might conclude that we should get the poor movie actor a glass of cold lemonade. But of course that is not what is meant, for the word “hot” means something completely different in each of the two sentences. When words are used with two completely different meanings in two distinct sentences, the words are said to be used equivocally.
Let us return to our example about Natasha and God both being “wise”. Only now, instead of saying that we are using the terms univocally, let us say that we are using the terms equivocally. Consider again our sentences:
Natasha is wise.
God is wise.
If the word “wise” is used univocally, we said that we would fall into the mistake of anthropomorphism. If we use the terms equivocally, we would surely avoid anthropomorphism, but we would fall instead into agnosticism. Why? Well, presumably we understand what the term “wisdom” means with respect to Natasha, for her wisdom is a human wisdom. But if the term “wisdom” means something completely different with respect to God, well, then we do not really even know what the word “wise” means in the sentence “God is wise.” In other words, if the positive qualities that we would attribute to God can only be predicated of God equivocally, then we really do not know anything about God at all. And that is what agnosticism is: not knowing anything about God.
As our readers by now have figured out, we are telling a three bears’ story in this section, and so the next form of predication we will discuss is, at least in the view of many theists, “just right”. Let us then consider two more sentences:
The landscape of western Ireland is beautiful.
The Blue Mosque is beautiful.
The word “beautiful” is used in each of these sentences, and in each sentence it means something not exactly the same. Western Ireland is not beautiful in the same way that the Blue Mosque is beautiful. Nevertheless, there is something similar about the two beauties. If nothing else, we could say that both are “pleasing to the eye”. Both are “uplifting to the spirit”. In other words, despite obvious differences, there is a certain similarity or analogy between them. In saying that both are “beautiful”, we are therefore implying a certain sameness within difference. This kind of predication is called analogical.
Now, let us go back to God and Natasha. If we say that both Natasha and God are wise and if we are using the term “wise” analogically, what we mean is that, to be sure, there is a great difference between the two ways of being “wise”, yet there is enough similarity that by considering Natasha’s wisdom, we would get a small glimpse of what God’s wisdom is like. To take another example, let us consider these two sentences:
My mother is full of kindness.
God is full of kindness.
If we attempted to predicate “full of kindness” of my mother and God univocally, we would be saying that God is just like my mother—an anthropomorphism. If we attempted to predicate “full of kindness” of my mother and God equivocally, we would not be saying anything about God, for although we would know what “full of kindness” means with respect to my mother, the term would mean something completely different and unknown with respect to God. If we predicate “full of kindness” of both my mother and God analogically, though, we would be saying that the sort of kindness that our mothers exhibit toward us tells us a little something about the sort of kindness that God has for us.
This theistic understanding of analogical predication is easier to grasp if we make a distinction between the order of being and the order of knowing. In the order of being, God’s kindness is the greatest kindness, for God is “all kind” or “omni-kind”, as it were. People do not have direct access to this unlimited kindness, however. They do, nevertheless, know a limited kindness—namely, a mother’s kindness. For people, then, what is first in the order of knowing (a mother’s kindness) is not what is first simply or first in the order of being (God’s kindness). Hence, kataphatic theology suggests, the human knowledge of God names something positive because it names something that we do know about (a mother’s kindness). Human knowledge does not, however, know the essence of God (in this example, God’s kindness), because the order of human knowing is not the order of being. The order of being, then, must itself be fundamentally analogical; there must be an analogical relationship between a mother’s kindness and God’s kindness.
Given such considerations, most theists conclude that when such terms as “wisdom”, “love”, “beauty”, “being”, and “goodness” are attributed to God, they must be understood in an analogical sense. Take the idea you have of those words from other contexts, the theists say, and consider that God has those qualities, only to a much, much greater degree and in a much more perfect form. If you do that, you gain a glimpse into the actual divine nature, rather in the same way that Moses did—albeit much fainter than Moses did—when he was both in the presence of and shielded from the divine nature in the cleft in the rock.