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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
The article argues that philosophers of religion and theologians should pay less attention to the so-called ‘classical attributes’ of God and more attention to the neglected, but venerable, tradition of the divine names. Grounded in Scripture, these reflections are predicated on the doctrine of Creation, and what it is for human beings as creatures to speak of their Creator. The article demonstrates that, even the so-called ‘classical attributes’, when placed in the divine names tradition, are far from being mere ‘natural theology’ but Christological to the core and lead us, through intellect, into the mysteries of awe and prayer.
1 An earlier version of this paper appeared as ‘Pourquois des noms ne sont pas des attributs,’ in Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie, vol.150/2018, IV, pp. 357-371.
2 Marion, Jean-Luc, ‘The Essential Incoherence of Descartes’ Definition of divinity’ in Rorty, Amelie O. (ed), Essays on Descartes’ Meditations, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) pp. 297-338CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Sedley mentions creatio ex nihilo in order to distinguish it from the topic he is addressing in his book. Creationism, which was prevalent and contested amongst ancient philosophers and which he defines as “the thesis that the world's structure and contents can be adequately explained only by postulation at least one intelligent designer, a creator god.” Sedley, David, Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 2009), p. xviiGoogle Scholar.’ Blowers, Paul’ excellent Drama of the Divine Economy (New York and Oxford: OUP, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar makes good use of Sedley and provides an extremely helpful guide to early creation theology. Greek philosophers had “creationisms” in abundance, they did not have the radically transcendent deity of Christian orthodoxy. If there were pagan precedents for this radical divine transcendence, it was certainly the language of scripture that was the driver for Philo, and Danielou is, I believe, correct in thinking him the first theorist of radical divine transcendence.
4 See Dillon, J. N., The Middle Platonists 80 B.C. to A.D.220 (London: Duckworth, 1977) p. 181Google Scholar. See Plato's Cratylus 430A-431E. Dillon says that it was the consensus, by Philo's time, that words were attached to things by nature and not convention.
5 ‘I am He that IS’ (Ex.3.14), which is equivalent to “My nature is to be, not to be spoken” (Philo, de. Mut. II.12-13). The Tetragrammaton, YHWH technically has no meaning but resembles the Hebrew verb “to be” and is thus glossed as “I AM the One who is and Will Be”.
6 I am grateful to my colleague, Professor Graham Davies, for these references.
7 Where Jesus asks “why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.”
8 My apologies to Elizabeth Johnson here. Aquinas follows the Greek, ho on, and says “He who is” but his intention is to indicate a personal God, rather than an abstraction like “The Existent”. Unfortunately in the English language we use gendered pronouns to do this.
9 ST Ia 13,11.
10 See Maurer, Armand, ‘St. Thomas on the Sacred Name “Tetragrammaton”’ in Maurer, A., Being and `Knowing: Studies in St. Thomas and Later Medieval Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studes, 1998), p. 59Google Scholar.
11 See Turner, Denys, Thomas Aquinas: a Portrait (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013) p. 157Google Scholar.
12 I must confess that these remarks are conjectural and I stand to be corrected by any medievalists amongst us.
13 Torrell, Jean-Pierre, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Person and his Work (Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1996) p. 112Google Scholar.
14 Ibid.
15 Louth, Andrew. Denys the Areopagite (London: Continuum, 1989), p. 84ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Aquinas does give a far more positive account of the meaningfulness of our speech on the basis of creatio ex nihilo and the theology of participation it entails. See Rudi teVelde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (E.J. Brill, 1995).
17 The sed contra of Ia.2.3 where Aquinas cites the “I AM WHO I AM” of Exodus 3.14, opens his discussion of the Five Ways and launches his doctrine of God.
18 Here I point you to Richard Bauckham's excellent, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, on which I am drawing.
19 See Bauckham, p. 28.
