Answer: We deny, along with the Reformed Orthodox

A friend forwarded a post claiming that Scotus refuted Aquinas. Well, if Scotus refuted Aquinas' analogical view, I don't know what is left of the Reformed Orthodox doctrine of analogy, which rejected Scotus' univocity and affirmed Thomistic formulations. The claim did not include affirming Scotus' univocal core, but in history, nothing is more sharply contrasted with the Thomistic analogical view or analogy of being (analogia entis) than Scotus' univocity of being.1

For a starter, let's have Ronni Kuritz define for us analogical, univocal, and equivocal (let's include equivocation for complete comparison) languages,

Analogical language is preferable over univocal and equivocal language because the creature is both like and unlike God. On one hand, there is an ontological distinction between the two that the creature cannot traverse. On the other hand, humankind is made in the imago Dei and numbered among those who participate in him and his cosmos. As Davison demonstrates, equivocal language collapses the likeness into the unlikeness, whereas univocal language collapses the unlikeness into likeness.2

Here's a good illustration.

Having those terms clearly understood. Let's check some resources to see if the claim that Scotus refuted Aquinas stands.

The Reformed Orthodox in General for Aquinas

The historian Richard Muller, as stated by Charles J. Rennie, observes that the Reformed Orthodox generally adopted Thomistic formulations over Scotus. Note that Charles J. Rennie wrote "Analogy and the Doctrine of Divine Impassibility" as his contribution to a book published by Reformed Baptist Academic Press (RBAP).

Richard A. Muller has pointed out that there was a general consensus among the early and late Reformed orthodox regarding the doctrine of analogy, or analogical predication, understood predominantly from a Thomistic perspective which resisted the notion of a core of univocity in the language of predication with regard to God and creatures. The doctrine of analogy was stock-in-trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, enjoying a relatively precise and established meaning. In today's theological context, however, although it is popular to cite the analogical proviso, its precise meaning can no longer be assumed. As a result of ambiguous formulations and inconsistency in fleshing out the doctrine, what was once employed in defense of divine impassibility is now marshaled by evangelicals and Reformed alike in defense of its revision. Not surprisingly, the result has been a drift toward univocity, or a so-called univocal core.4

Turretin and Mastricht for Aquinas

The two towering Reformed theologians, such as Francis Turretin and Peter Van Mastricht, affirmed Aquinas' analogy of being using the terms 'principally' and 'participatively' when predicating attributes to God and creatures, respectively.

Thus, against Scotus's affirmation of univocity, God's 'communicable' perfections are not predicated of God and creatures in the same sense. Yet, they are not predicated in a sense totally diverse with agreement in name only. Therefore, according to Turretin in the high orthodox period, the perfections are instead predicated analogously – 'principally' of God and 'participatively' of creatures. This sentiment is echoed later in the orthodox period by the Dutch theologian Peter van Mastricht. He writes that 'between the infinite and the finite, there is no proportion in any way'. Yet, the attributes are not predicated of God as if they 'concurred only in name'; rather, they belong 'principally and originally' to God and 'participatively and with a grade of diminution' to creatures. Thus, as the question of the distinctions among the attributes elicits Reformed responses along Thomistic lines, so the question of the predicative sense of the attributes brings out responses aligned with Thomas more than Duns Scotus or Ockham.5

Protestant Scholastics' Retrieval of Aquinas

While Scotus was not able to refute Aquinas's analogy of being, he objected by promoting univocity. There is a danger in affirming Scotus' univocity, such as flattening the distinction between the simple, eternal, and infinite Creator and complex, temporal, and finite creatures. Matthew Barrett writes,

If earlier Scholastics were correct in their refusal to separate semantics from the ontology of theology proper, then the historian can understand why later Scholastics in the Thomist tradition—as well as later Protestant Scholastics who retrieved the Thomist tradition—considered univocity a serious error. For if univocity does have ontological consequences, then the Creator-creature distinction has been flattened. God and those in his likeness exist on the same plane. While that plane may be defined by a Creator who is infinite and a creature who is finite, nevertheless, the difference is not one of kind but degree, not one of quality but quantity, despite Scotus's protest. And the creature's participation in the Creator now appears weak at best if not dispensable at worst. Thomas anticipated this entailment long before Scotus promoted univocity.6

This blog does not claim that Scotus had no contribution to the Reformed Orthodox and scholasticism's theological formulation. Nor do I claim that the Reformed Orthodox embraced everything that Aquinas thought. I simply demonstrated that the Reformed Orthodox stood in continuity with the Great Tradition (not limited to Aquinas), deliberately maintained the analogy of being (analogia entis), and decisively rejected Scotus's univocity of being. The majority of Reformed Scholastics resisted the shift toward a univocal core. They recognize its incompatibility with the classical distinction between Creator and creature.

As we celebrate the Reformation month, it is important to know history so that we may not fall into caricatures of the view we disagree with. The Reformation does not only hail a stance that sides with Luther7, but also faithfulness to the God of the Scriptures, who used men (yes, even Aquinas, who quoted Augustine more than Aristotle!) to promote a high and lofty view of His ineffable divinity.

In our theological contemplation, the analogy of being provides a proper way of relating God and His creatures. So what is the benefit of this? By affirming the analogy of being, we have an indispensable middle ground (not neutral!) between the idolatry of univocation (which flattens the Creator-creature distinction) and the misery of equivocation (which renders God unknowable). The analogy of being is fundamentally important for Classical Theism. This provides the necessary metaphysical and epistemological framework for how we speak truthfully about God while at the same time upholding the absolute distinction between the Creator and creatures.

The benefit of theological analogy within Christian trinitarian theology is that analogical predication allows the theologian to keep a robust doctrine of incomprehensibility and ineffability while still pursuing meaningful speech about God. For, theological language does not have to be univocal to be meaningful and true. Rather, theological analogy and ectypal theology both prepare room for the creature to participate in meaningful knowledge and speech about God—to know and name the triune God. Theology is possible, even as the enterprise attempts to contemplate an incomprehensible God, only because God has gone about the gracious business of accommodation and through ectypal theology and analogical language allows the creature to participate in the divine wisdom of divine matters.8

To the Triune God alone be the glory!

A good friend pointed out that Scotus' univocity is "more modest". And "there is at least some univocal predication which grounds analogical predication. Analogical predication is a mixture of equivocity and univocity." Good thing, he also recommended reading Thomas Williams' "THE DOCTRINE OF UNIVOCITY IS TRUE AND SALUTARY," and Stephen D. Dumont's "Transcendental Being: Scotus and Scotists" to get a better understanding of Scotus' univocity.

Another friend recommended the work by Richard Muller entitled "Not Scotist" which argues against the dominance of the Scotist concept in the writings of early modern Protestantism.

Footnotes

  1. Barrett clarified this in his book, "Like Thomas, Scotus did recognize the difference between the Creator and the creature, and he did not think finite man could know the infinite essence of God. To be clear, Scotus did have a place for a concept of analogy, but he considered its legitimacy dependent on the concept of univocity. 'I say that God is thought of not only in some concept analogous to that of a creature, that is, one entirely different from what is predicated of a creature, but also in some concept univocal to himself and to a creature.' Scotus believed predications can portray more than similarity; identity is possible since being itself is the immediate object of the mind… Thomas Williams summarizes Scotus's understanding of univocity as follows: 'Notwithstanding the irreducible ontological diversity between God and creatures, there are concepts under whose extension both God and creatures fall, so that the corresponding predicate expressions are used with exactly the same sense in predications about God as in predications about creatures.'" (Barrett, Matthew (2022). The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the Gospel for the Modern Era. Zondervan.) ↩

  2. Kurtz, Ronnie. (2024). "The Incomprehensibility of the Holy Trinity." In On Classical Trinitarianism, edited by Matthew Barrett, InterVarsity Press. ↩

  3. Feser, Edward. (2014). Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Independent Publishers Group, 283. ↩

  4. Rennie, Charles J. (2015). "Analogy and the Doctrine of Divine Impassibility." In Confessing the Impassible God: Rationalists, Voluntarists, and the Christian Doctrine of Divine Impassibility. eds. Ron Baines, Richard Barcellos, et al. RBAP. ↩

  5. Duby, Steven J. (2016). Divine Simplicity: A Dogmatic Account. T&T Clark, 23. ↩

  6. Barrett, Matthew (2022). The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the Gospel for the Modern Era. Zondervan. ↩

  7. Note that Luther rejected via moderna, which is the later medieval tradition (Biel, Ockham, and Scotus!), contrasted with the older ones, including Aquinas (via antiqua). ↩

  8. Kurtz, Ronnie. (2024). "The Incomprehensibility of the Holy Trinity." In On Classical Trinitarianism, edited by Matthew Barrett, InterVarsity Press. ↩