Autor: Murray, John

Buch: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Titel: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Stichwort: Nizäa (Nicea) -> Thomas von Aquin; Analogie; systematische Theologie

Kurzinhalt: The Nicene problem receives its definitive treatment in Questions 27-44 of the First Part of the Summa theologica; ... whether the dogma is theologically intelligible, that is, in some analogical terms

Textausschnitt: 67b In respect of our present subject, the achievement of Aquinas was that for the first time in history he effected the transposition of the problem of God into a state of systematic theological understanding. His instruments were a developed metaphysic of causality, an articulated gnoseology and psychology, and, above all, an adequately elaborated doctrine of the analogy of being. The achievement represented the culmination of centuries of collective thought, patristic and Scholastic. It was also the personal triumph of a uniquely penetrating intelligence. (Fs)

68a The Nicene problem receives its definitive treatment in Questions 27-44 of the First Part of the Summa theologica. The issue is the ancient one, how is it that the Son who is from the Father, and the Holy Spirit who is from Father and Son, are equally with the Father the one God. Aquinas, however, does not reproduce the patristic argument. He begins where it terminated, with the dogmatic conception of the homoousion, and his precise question is whether the dogma is theologically intelligible, that is, in some analogical terms. (Fs)

68b The insight of Augustine had first glimpsed the analogy. The human intellectual consciousness is somewhat like the divine intellectual consciousness, since man is the image of God. At the same time, the divine mode of consciousness is utterly unlike the human mode, since God is God, not man. Aquinas elaborates the analogy with the utmost finesse, and, using it as a unifying thread, he constructs a masterpiece of relentlessly systematic thought, flawless in its structure, finished with all subtlety in its details. I can say no more than this about it; no brief description could do it justice. The only point here is to illustrate the advance made by Aquinas over the work of the Fathers. The advance was along a different line. Their work had been to defend the affirmations of faith against the Arian errors, utilizing the resources of the Scriptures. His work was to pursue a systematic understanding of the faith that they had affirmed, utilizing the resources of reason illuminated by faith. (Fs)

[...]

69b The first question to be asked about God, as about anything else, Aquinas says, is the existential question, whether God is. To this question he devotes the three articles of Question 2. The third article contains the classic statement of the five ways whereby it can be known that God is. The argument then continues:
Having answered the question, whether a thing is, the inquiry moves to the question, how the thing is; the purpose is to know what the thing is. In the case of God, however, we cannot know what he is; but we can know what he is not. Of him, therefore, we cannot ask the question, how he is; but we can ask the question, how he is not. Hence we shall inquire, first, how God is not; second, how he is known by us; third, how he is named (I, q. 3, proem.). (Fs)
69c This statement of the problem of God seems so simple as to be entirely obvious. It requires some effort to realize that it took nearly ten centuries to work it out into this systematic form. The pattern of the problematic had always been there; in one form or another the four questions had always been asked. They are the questions that man must ask about God in one form or another. There are no other basic questions; all others derive from these. If you wish to argue the problem of God, whether on the planes of the religious existence, theological understanding, or pure reason, you are obliged to argue it within this identical problematical structure, exquisitely discerned and stated with genially stark simplicity by Aquinas. (Fs)