Values, Ontological and Transcendental, of Primary Notions and Principles: Doctrine of Analogy

Chapter III: Values, Ontological and Transcendental, of Primary Notions and Principles: Doctrine of Analogy

It is quite clear that knowledge of supernatural truth is impossible unless a foundation of natural truth already exists. Hence the necessity, at the very outset of a treatise on supernatural religion, of establishing that the primary notions and primary principles of human reason possess, first, an ontological — that is, an objective — value, and second, a transcendental value, reaching beyond the created order to God Himself.

I. Defence of the Ontological Value of Primary Notions and Principles of Reason

A direct proof of an intuitive truth is not, strictly speaking, possible: where the connection between subject and predicate is immediate, there is no room for a middle term. Yet everyone has an intuitive perception that the principle of non-contradiction is not merely a logical law of reason but an ontological law of reality. It is immediately evident that an absurdity — a square circle, say — not only cannot be thought, but cannot exist. Equally immediate is the evidence that a contingent universe postulates a necessary cause.

Though a direct proof of the ontological value of primary notions and principles is thus not strictly possible, a direct defence, resting on an explanation of the terms involved, can bring the mind to see clearly the evidential character of the intuition.

(A) The Direct Defence.

Major: Primary ideas and principles of reason which do not express objects sensible per se, but objects sensible only per accidens and intelligible per se, resolvable into intelligible being, have a value not merely phenomenal but ontological.

Minor: The primary notions of being, essence, existence, unity, truth, goodness, substance, causality, and finality, and the principles built upon them, do not express objects sensible per se (like colour or sound), but objects sensible only per accidens and intelligible per se, resolvable into intelligible being.

Conclusion: Therefore these primary notions and principles have a value not merely phenomenal but ontological.

Explanation of the Major. When the eye sees an orange, the colour of the orange is the direct object of the faculty of sight — the eye perceives the sensible quality directly, per se. But the intellect perceives, beneath the sensible qualities, the essence of the orange; and this essence, abstracted from sensible qualities, is the direct object of the intellect. The object of the intellect — essence — is thus intelligible per se and sensible only per accidens. If I see a man speaking, I apprehend by intellect that he is alive, and I can truly say “I see that he is alive,” although life itself is not sensible per se as colour is. Notions of this kind, therefore, which express sensible qualities only per accidens but intelligible essence per se, have a value which is not merely phenomenal but ontological, because they apprehend the essence, substance, or being underlying the phenomena.

Explanation of the Minor. The primary notions here in question, and their correlative principles — intelligible per se and sensible only per accidens — are all resolvable into the notion of being. Unity is individual being; truth is being conformed to the intellect on which it depends; goodness is desirable being; substance is a mode of being; causality is the realisation of being; finality is the reason for which means are directed to being. The intellect apprehends and judges nothing except in relation to being: in every judgment, the essential copula “is” imports being, so that a judgment is not a mere association of names, but an association of things.

Should it be objected that the idea of being is a purely subjective form of the understanding, the answer is found in contrasting it with ideas that express purely subjective notions incapable of realisation — such as universality or specificity as such — or by contrasting the ontological form of the principle of non-contradiction, “it is impossible that the same thing should exist and not exist,” with its merely logical form, “it is impossible to affirm and deny the same predicate of the same subject in the same relation.” The logical form expresses only the inconceivable character of the absurd; the ontological form expresses its real impossibility. To reduce the notion of being to a subjective form of the mind, and the principle of non-contradiction to a merely logical law rather than an ontological one, is to confound two manifestly distinct things — the impossible and the merely inconceivable. If the principle of non-contradiction were only a logical law, then a square circle, though inconceivable by us, might nevertheless exist in rerum natura. Against precisely this confusion may be set the words of M. Le Roy: “the principle of non-contradiction is not as universal and as necessary as is supposed… supreme law of speech and not of thought in general, it has hold only upon that which is static. But there is contradiction in the world as there is identity, as for example, in fleeting mobilities, becoming, duration, life” (Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 1900, pp. 300, 305) — words which illustrate exactly the error against which the ontological form of the principle must be defended.

(B) The Indirect Defence. If the ontological value of primary notions and principles is denied, knowledge of any kind becomes impossible. The necessity and universality of first principles cannot be explained by the empiricist Agnostics; the idealistic followers of Kant have recourse instead to “judgments synthetic a priori,” which, being neither drawn wholly from reason nor wholly from experience, are in the end blind and motiveless.

That the denial of the ontological value of primary notions and principles renders the essential character of intellectual knowledge absurd may be shown as follows:

1. It fails to distinguish between the direct object of thought (e.g., causality) and the object of reflex consciousness (e.g., the idea of causality); yet the direct act supposes the direct object, and cannot be identified with it without formal contradiction.
2. It confuses the medium quo — that by which a thing is known — with the medium quod, the object thereby known; whereas if the idea were the object known rather than the means of knowing, the idea would merely represent itself.
3. It dissolves the principle of non-contradiction, and with it the value of any statement whatsoever.
4. It renders the very act of intelligence unintelligible, in two ways: Kant denied the passivity of the intellect in regard to intelligible being, leaving only motiveless, blind “judgments synthetic a priori”; Fichte went further, denying the passivity of the intellect even in regard to phenomena, so that the human intellect becomes, absurdly, the creator of its own cognitions and the cause of the things it knows.

II. Defence of the Transcendental Value of Primary Notions and Principles

The transcendental value of primary notions and principles is what enables us to know, not merely the being that underlies phenomena, but God Himself, the First Transcendent Cause — and to know Him not metaphorically or symbolically only, but really. Some Agnostics admit that God may be known symbolically, so that dogmatic formulas have only a metaphorical value, as though “God is wise” were on the same footing as “God is angry.”

Before formulating the syllogism which proves this transcendental value, it must be recalled that the moderate realism of Aristotle and St. Thomas holds a middle path between the extreme realism of Plato, which leads to pantheism, and the Nominalism of the Agnostics, which leads to unknowability. St. Thomas’s doctrine of analogy — a direct consequence of moderate realism — likewise holds a middle path between the univocal sense of being, which leads to pantheism, and the equivocal sense, which leads to Agnosticism.

(A) The Direct Proof.

Major: Notions of perfections which are analogous and imply no imperfection (perfectiones simpliciter simplices) are not unsuited to express, analogically and really, an absolutely perfect Being, and in fact do express such a Being, if the universe postulates an Infinite Cause possessing these perfections.

Minor: The primary notions of being, unity, truth, goodness, efficient cause, final cause, intellect, will, wisdom, prudence, justice, mercy, and the like, express perfections which imply no imperfection, and are analogous.

Conclusion: Therefore these notions are not unsuited to express, analogically and really, an absolutely perfect Being, and do in fact enable us to know Him truly, given that the universe postulates an Infinite Cause possessing these perfections.

Explanation of the Major. Certain perfections, perfectiones simpliciter simplices, involve no imperfection in their own nature, though they exist only in a finite way in the creature — being, wisdom, life, and the like. Other perfections, perfectiones mixtae, do involve imperfection in their very nature — animality, for instance, involves corporeity, and discursive reasoning involves the passage from potency to act.

Analogous perfections stand opposed both to univocal and to equivocal ones. Univocal predicates have a common name and signify one and the same nature: “animal” is predicated univocally of worm, horse, and man, since the nature signified — a body living a sensitive life — is the same, despite the inequality of the specific differences extrinsic to the genus. Equivocal predicates have a common name but wholly different natures: “dog” names alike the domestic animal, a fish, and a constellation. Analogous predicates have a common name and natures which, though different, are from a certain point of view similar: thus “healthy” is said, by analogy, of a body, of medicine, of colour, and of urine.

Analogy is of two kinds: the analogy of proportion, or attribution, and the analogy of proportionality.

Analogy of proportion or attribution indicates a real relation of many things to one, or of one thing to another. Medicine and colour are called “healthy” because of their relation, as cause or as sign, to the health of a man — here the predicate “healthy” is applied to medicine and colour purely extrinsically. Quantity and quality, on the other hand, are called “beings” because of their relation to substance — here the predicate “being” is applied to accidents extrinsically, in the sense that they are not being of themselves, yet they possess it intrinsically at the same time. In the same way, a creature possesses “being” only contingently, God necessarily; a creature, compared to God, is only analogically a being, though “being” belongs to the creature intrinsically none the less. “Being” may thus be attributed analogically both to substance and accident, since there is a proportion between substance — being in itself — and accident — being in another; and it may likewise be attributed analogically to God and the creature, since a similitude of proportion, or proportionality, can be formed between the divine nature and attributes and the created nature and attributes.

Analogy of proportionality indicates a likeness of proportion between different things which share a common name, the natures signified being similar not in themselves but according to the likeness of their proportions. This analogy may be merely metaphorical, or it may be real. It is metaphorical when the relationship is intrinsic and real in one case only, and merely figurative in the other: a king is truly called king of men, but a lion is only metaphorically called king of beasts; the proportionality holds — as a king is to men, so is a lion to beasts — but the underlying reality is present in only one term. So too, when we say “God is angry,” anger is attributed to God only metaphorically; here lies the error of Maimonides and of modern Agnostics, who assert that all attributes are applied to God merely metaphorically, without distinguishing between perfections implying no imperfection, such as wisdom, and perfections connoting imperfection, such as anger.

The analogy of proportionality is real when the relationship is intrinsic and real in both cases, though perhaps more perfect in one than the other. “Being” is really and intrinsically attributed both to substance and to accident, so that substance, in relation to its being, is analogous to accident in relation to its being — a proportion with a definite, determinate distance, since between a created substance and its accident there is a fixed corporeal proportion. But between other analogous terms there is no such determinate distance: sensation stands to its sensible object as intelligence stands to its intelligible object, and yet both are, with real and intrinsic analogy, called cognition; sensitive love stands to sensible good as rational love stands to rational good, without any fixed “distance” being implied between the two relations.

Where the analogy of real proportionality does not require a determinate distance, it is not repugnant that some perfection be attributed to God and to a creature intrinsically, really, and not merely metaphorically:

1. Notions of perfections implying no imperfection may express, in some real way, infinitely perfect Being, because nothing is repugnant to infinitely perfect Being except on the ground of imperfection.
2. Such notions, analogous in the created order, are not unsuited to express infinitely perfect Being analogically and really, since proportionality of this kind does not necessarily postulate a determinate distance — the proportionality being metaphysical, not mathematical; founded on being, not on quantity.

Explanation of the Minor. The primary notions of being, unity, truth, goodness, efficient and final cause, intellect, will, wisdom, prudence, justice, mercy, and the like, express perfections implying no imperfection, and are analogous. The notion of “being” involves no imperfection, for it does not suggest matter, does not involve limitation, and is analogously applicable both to subsistent and to accidental being. The same holds of unity, which is undivided being; of truth, which is being conformed to intellect; of goodness, which is perfect and desirable being. “Good,” by virtue of the analogy of real proportionality, is applied without contradiction to both material and spiritual goodness, and, because it involves no imperfection or limitation, is not unsuited to express infinitely perfect Being without any determinate “distance” — as we speak, without difficulty of degree, of “good fruit,” “a good sacrifice,” and “God, who is infinitely good.”

Efficient and final causality likewise involve no imperfection and are analogous terms, being extrinsic reasons of being rather than intrinsic limitations of it: to create being involves no imperfection, whereas to produce heat, a mere modality of being, does involve limitation. As an efficient cause bears a relation to its effect and is called the “cause” of that effect, it is not repugnant that infinitely perfect Being should bear a relation to the most universal of all effects — the being of things — and be called, analogically and really, its First Transcendent Cause.

Knowledge, love, intellect, and will similarly involve no imperfection and are analogical; hence we speak, without contradiction, of Divine and human knowledge alike, though in man knowledge is a generic quality, a specific habit, measured by things, whereas in God wisdom is not an acquired habit but is identical with the Divine essence, not measured by things but the cause of them; and human love is aroused by the perfection of its object, while Divine love creates and infuses the perfection it loves.

(B) The Indirect Demonstration. If the transcendent value of primary notions and principles is denied, doubt is cast upon the very existence of God, and upon the principle of causality itself; and if the principle of causality is doubtful, something might come to be without a cause — existing neither of itself nor through another, that is, being and nothing at the same time — whereupon the principle of non-contradiction itself disappears, and knowledge of any kind becomes impossible.

One objection deserves brief consideration. In the analogical “equations” set out above — sensation is to its object as intelligence is to its object, and so on — do we not have, in every equation that introduces a Divine attribute, two unknown terms, rendering the equation valueless? The answer is that the Divine attributes are known positively, through the real proportionality that holds between them and the corresponding created perfections; their properly divine mode alone is known negatively and relatively. There are not, therefore, two unknowns in the equation.

By way of summary, three positions may be contrasted. Maimonides and the modern Nominalist Agnostics hold that God’s nature and attributes are entirely different from created perfections — goodness and wisdom exist in God only virtually, or causally — so that, His being being absolutely different from created being, God becomes strictly unknowable. Duns Scotus, an extreme realist, held that created perfections should be predicated of God univocally; on this view God is knowable, but there must exist in Him an actual, formal multiplicity of perfections — which is contrary to the Divine simplicity. (Scotus defended the univocal application of perfections on the ground that no syllogism is valid unless its middle term is used univocally; but he was mistaken, for a unity of proportionality suffices for the valid use of a middle term.) The moderate realism of St. Thomas, by contrast, and his doctrine of analogy, result in the ascription to God of perfections between which and the corresponding created perfections there holds a real proportionality; the Divine perfections are identical with the Divine essence, being only virtually distinct from one another, so that God is at once shown to be absolutely simple and analogically knowable.

Clearly the great mediaeval controversy among Nominalists, Realists, and Conceptualists was not without fruit for the validity of human knowledge.

III. The Relation of First Principles to One Another

Having established the ontological and transcendental value of primary notions and principles, it is useful to consider briefly how the several first principles are related to one another.

(A) The Principle of Contradiction (sometimes called the principle of Non-Contradiction) is the fundamental principle of reason, immediately founded on the idea of being with its implication of non-being. Its logical form may be stated: “It is impossible to affirm and to deny the same attribute in regard to the same thing in the same relation.” Its ontological form is: “It is impossible that the same thing should be and not be at the same time.” The logical form asserts that an absurdity cannot be conceived; the ontological form asserts that it cannot exist. Descartes wrote unwisely, in his Discours sur la Méthode, that a square circle, though inconceivable to us, might be conceived as really existing by an omnipotent Being; but if this were so, Descartes’ own principle cogito, ergo sum would have no value, since thought and non-thought, life and non-life, would then be compatible.

(B) The Principle of Identity is the same supreme principle expressed positively: A is A. It is not a mere tautology, but a positive affirmation of the identity of being and its opposition to non-being — an affirmation of the absolute and immutable value of truth: “Let your speech be yea, yea; no, no.” More explicitly: “every being has a definite essence,” “every being is a thing” — a form which is not tautologous, since “being” connotes existence, and “thing” connotes essence.

(C) The Principle of Substance. Regarded from the standpoint of its variable phenomena, the unity and identity of a thing takes on a new meaning, and the principle of Identity may be reformulated: “every being is a substance” — that is, every being is one and the same under its variable phenomena, a phenomenon being only the accident by which a being appears. These three principles — of Contradiction, Identity, and Substance — arise from the intrinsic, constitutive, specific, or formal cause of a being. The remaining principles arise from extrinsic causes — the efficient and the final — and from the intrinsic material cause.

(D) The Principle of Reason of Being (raison d’être): every being must have a reason why it should exist rather than not exist. Like the three preceding principles, this is immediately evident, and so cannot be directly proved, but can be proved indirectly, by reductio ad absurdum: a thing with no reason for its being would be nothing. Subjectivists like Kant derive this principle from a reflex act of reason upon itself, but the principle is in fact intuitive. In another form: every being has the reason of its being either in itself or in another. If in itself — if its essence necessitates its existence — the being is necessary; if the reason is in another, that other is its extrinsic cause, of which there are two kinds, efficient and final. From the principle of Reason of Being thus follow the principles of Causality and of Final Cause.

(E) The Principle of Efficient Cause. A contingent being is one which may or may not exist; hence, every contingent being is caused by another. This immediately evident principle may be proved indirectly: if a contingent being were not caused by another, its being would have to be from itself — that is, it would be necessary, not contingent.

(F) The Principle of Final Cause. “Every agent acts for an end.” The end is not merely the result of the action, but the reason for which the agent acts: the eye sees, and sight is its end; the ear hears, and hearing is its end; an acorn would not produce an oak rather than a pear tree unless it were directed to that effect. The passive tendency of an irrational agent presupposes the direction of a rational agent, as an arrow tends to its mark because directed by the archer. This principle, too, may be proved indirectly: were an agent to produce an effect suited to its activity without tending to that effect, the suitableness of the effect would be without any raison d’être. A determined and suitable effect produced by an agent is intentional; chance is merely the accidental conjunction of two such intentional causes — as when a gravedigger, digging a grave, finds a treasure: the digging was intentional, the burying of the treasure was intentional, but their conjunction was accidental.

(G) The Principle of Change arises from the material cause, and may be formulated: “All change presupposes a subject capable of change” — a principle that introduces the important philosophical notion of the passage from potentiality to act. It too may be proved indirectly: change without a subject changed would be a change of nothing — that is, a change and not a change at the same time. Creation, it should be noted, is not a “change” in this sense, since it is the production of the totality of a being from no pre-existing material.

All these principles fall under the four causes — formal, efficient, final, and material — and all are, in the end, fundamentally dependent on the one supreme principle of Contradiction.