Single Question. Whether God is Nameable by us with some Name signifying the Divine Essence in itself, as it is a ‘This’

1. AboutSee the Appendix at the end of this question. ⁹⁶ the twenty second distinction I ask whether God is nameable by us with some name signifying the divine essence in itself, as it is a ‘this’.a a. [Note by Duns Scotus] That he is not.Vatican editors: this note is a contraction of what is found in the Reportatio on the same question. The references are found in full there and are not repeated here. See the Appendix. ⁹⁷ - Augustine on the Lord’s words in Sermon 34: “Whatever can be said is not unsayable (or ineffable);” but God is ineffable (the proof is from St. Paul). Again, Augustine On John sermon 19 and John 5: “The Son can do nothing save what he sees the Father doing;” what the ‘seeing’ of the Word is cannot be demonstrated by word. Again, Hilary On the Trinity III.9: “Do not be ignorant that, as to speech about this nature, virtue does not reach it.” Again Ambrose On the Trinity I ch.5: “Voice is silent, not my own only, but also that of angels.” Again, by reason: he is not understood in this way [sc. as a ‘this’], therefore he is not named in this way either. The inference is plain from Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.4: “He is more truly thought than talked of;” and Enchiridion 13: “Instructions are that by which someone conveys his thoughts to the knowledge of another;” and Plato: “so that [sc. thoughts] may be present to hand.”

On the contrary. - Augustine Against Adimantus 13: “That sublimity must be signified by human sounds.” Again, [God] is understood in this way [sc. as a ‘this’],     therefore etc     .; proof of the antecedent: he is understood to be of himself a ‘this’, therefore he is understood as a ‘this’. Again Rabbi Moses [Maimonides] in Guide I ch.61: “We have no name [sc. for God] that is not taken from his work, save the ‘Tetragrammaton’ [sc. JHVH], therefore it is called ‘the separated Name’, because it signifies the substance of the Creator with a pure signification;” “it is written down, it is not spoken,” “save in the sanctuary, by the holy priests, in giving priestly blessing alone, and by the high priest on the day of fasting.” “This name ‘Adonai’ (Exodus 6) is a recognition of a second name that is more abstract than the other names known about God” besides the first name imposed (the four letters of the tetragrammaton were imposed by God to signify some articulated spoken word that, according to the first imposition of letters, would be signified by other letters; this spoken word was imposed by God to signify his essence purely). Maimonides is treating of the same letters, which are those of the “tetragrammaton” (jod-heth-vau-he, which are the same as the Latin letters j-e-v-h), from which letters - joined together in one syllable - no meaning is collected, but rather from teaching, about which teaching he adds ch.62: “No man knew how speaking in its case would go; the wise used to hand on, one to another, how it might be spoken.”

A spoken name should be a symbol between speaker and spoken to, so that the thing signified (in the way it is signified) might be known to both, and so that the name might be a sign of the thing; the truth of the divine nature, as to the idea of its immensity, is known to God alone, - it cannot, as to the idea of its immensity, be known to any creature; therefore God could appropriate to himself, and make to be his own, this ‘nameable name’ -, no name of a creature, just as no note of a creature, can be a name proper to the divine nature like this, by leading, through some process of removal, to a knowledge of the divine immensity. However, some proper name can be had for signifying the divine nature as it is known by the intellectual creature (a proper name made by the divine or the created intellect), by which sign the saints speak about the truth of the divine nature in the way it is know to them; that name would not be a name-sign for wayfarers, because the divine nature is in no way known to them the way the blessed know it; therefore it is not a known note, just as neither is whiteness to one born blind. A proper name can be made for us, at God’s pleasure, in accord with the way he is known by us; but that name is not transferred from creatures, because what is transferred from creatures is common to creatures and was imposed on them first; therefore a name is imposed on him first and principally. ‘Deus (God)’ signifies what is of perfection simply, as if supreme among Latin words; it is more proper in comparison with other words that express some idea of dignity as if in particular fashion.

Against the minor [sc. the first statement in the preceding paragraph] (against the major later): any of the blessed knows the object as it is infinite, because the object is seen in its supremacy (Ord. I d.1 nn.42-50); again, comprehension is not required for something to be signified; again, the mental word is a natural sign; again, a name given to God would not be an essential sign in its being; again, the saints would be able to use the name. - I concede the second point [sc. ‘However, some proper name can be had for signifying the divine nature... ’], but it would be of the same signified thing. On the contrary: conceiving the signified thing under the same idea as on the part of the object, such the wayfarer knows; proof: the wayfarer has some quidditative concept, otherwise he has no concept at all; that concept is a concept of the quiddity under its proper idea as object, because it is not a common concept in any way, nor a concept capable of being narrowed down, but it is diverse primarily.

Solution. ‘Nameable by me’ is understood in two ways: by me as the one who imposes the name, or by me as imposing it on the user when he says it to me or to another. In the first way the point is denied, because [God] is not known thus, according to Aristotle and the Commentator Metaphysics 8 (the contrary here below, about names of substances, - the way is set down here below, in the solution of the question [end of n.2 below]; response to Aristotle: he is understanding it confusedly; an example: letters). In the second way it is true, not only as with a magpie [sc. when a magpie imitates and repeats a word of human language], but also with someone grasping it from the letters; an example: when someone who does not have a distinct image of Rome speaks about it, - and in the case of proper names generally, whether the name be imposed by us (as in the first case) or by God (Maimonides, Guide I, above). In a third way I conceive it as I am able to, because it is something that falls under the confused concept I have.

But surely I cannot have a proper and quidditative concept? No, because creatures are deficient, even though we could draw a distinction through a simply simple concept (because the concept is proper and not able to be narrowed down, simply simple, primarily diverse), and though we could naturally know necessary truths.

To the arguments: it is ‘ineffable’ to him to whom it is expressed; by using the verb ‘he sees’, just as it is expressed.

I. The Opinion of Others

2. It is said that as God is understood by us so can he also be named by us. Therefore, according to the diverse ways some think about the knowledge of God had by the intellect of the wayfarer, in like manner do they as a result speak in diverse ways about the possibility of also naming God, - and someone who denies a common concept univocal to God and creatures and posits two analogous concepts (one of which concepts, namely that of the creature, is attributed to the other concept, namely that of God), will say accordingly as a result that God is nameable by the wayfarer with a name expressing that analogous concept [e.g. Henry of Ghent, above I d.3 nn.20-21].

3. But against this opinion I argue in particular that every real concept capable of being had about the divine essence is of a nature to be caused in the intellect by virtue of that essence (the proof is that any even the most minimal object is of a nature to cause every real concept capable of being had about it); but according to them only one concept is of a nature to be had about the divine essence by virtue of that essence, although the intellect, as it busies itself, might be able to cause and fashion about the object several concepts; therefore whatever object can cause in the intellect a real concept about God can cause that one concept which the essence would be of a nature of itself to cause; but that single concept is of ‘this essence’ as it is a ‘this’, therefore any object whatever that causes in our intellect some knowledge of God will cause - according to this opinion - a concept of him as he is ‘this essence’, and so God will be nameable by the wayfarer with a name signifying ‘this essence’ as it is a ‘this’ [I d.8 n.188].

II. Scotus’ own Response

4. One can say briefly to the question [n.1] that this proposition, common to many opinions - namely that ‘as a thing is understood so also is it named’ [n.2] -, is false if it is taken to be understood precisely, because something can be signified more distinctly than it can be understood.

5. The point seems to be shown by this, that since substance cannot be understood by the wayfarer save in the common concept of being (as was proved in I d.3 nn.128-129), then, if it could not be signified more distinctly than it is understood, no name imposed by the wayfarer would signify anything of the genus of substance, but that, just as some property is precisely understood by the wayfarer which he uses to impose the name (and this property is commonly expressed by the etymology of the name), so it is precisely such property that would be signified by the name; for example, by the name ‘stone’ (or ‘lapis’) nothing of the genus of substance would be signified but only something of the genus of action, to wit ‘striking the bone of the foot’ (or ‘laedens pedem’), which the etymology expresses and was the origin of the imposition of the name.

6. And so it can be argued about all other names imposed on things in the genus of substance, because none of them signifies anything save some accidental property that was understood by the one who imposed the name - or instead one must say that the name signifies the thing more distinctly than that thing was understood by the imposer of the name.

7. But how this may be possible can be understood as follows, according to the way of Augustine On the Trinity VI ch.6 n.8, by which he proves there is composition in every creature. For many accidents are conceived by anyone, accidents coming together in the same thing, for example such and such a quantity and quality - and the proof that neither of these is the other is because each of them remains without the other; there is also proof that for both of them something else is the common subject, because each of them can be destroyed while the other is not destroyed; therefore something is shown to be the subject of them, for example of the quality and the quantity, - but that which is the subject is not conceived in a quidditative concept save in the concept of being, or of ‘this being’. Also, since it frequently happens that such and such a quantity and quality are conjoined in something and are not conjoined in other things, and this not from the nature of quality and quantity, as was just shown above, - the conclusion follows that this is from the nature of a third thing which both the quantity and quality have for foundation; but the sort of quality and quantity conjoined in this whole are not the sort that are conjoined in that whole; for from the fact they are conjoined in diverse ways in diverse things the conclusion follows that the substrate of these is diverse from the substrate of those, and from this the conclusion follows that this third thing [sc. the substrate in the first case] is other than that third thing [sc. the substrate in the other case].a But on this thus distinct third thing (whatever it be that goes along with the things conjoined in it, which are the things understood) some name is imposed; this name seems to be the proper sign of ‘this’ thing, under the idea in which it is a ‘this’, such that he who imposes the name intends to signify the essence of it in the genus of substance; and just as he intends to signify the thing, so the name he imposes is a sign of the thing, and yet he does not understand distinctly the thing he intends distinctly to signify by this name or this b sign.

a [Interpolation] therefore some third thing is known to be substrate, and likewise that it is different from the subject of other accidents; nor yet do I know distinctly what the subject is in itself, save that it is a being or a thing, qualified by such and such accidents; hence the further conception that I can have of it, as to what it is, is that it is something possessing such and such accident and relations. As to the issue at hand, then, it is not [the same as] such and such accidents.

b [Interpolation] and thus it is perhaps that, after the fall, names have been imposed.

8. There would also be an example of this: if someone were to impose Hebrew characters not knowing Hebrew letters in particular - yet if, knowing that some letter is first and another second and another third, he were to impose them like this, ‘some letter or other is first, and whichever it is, I will that it be signified by such and such a name and such and such a character’, those characters would be signs of those Hebrew letters, which some Hebrew would distinctly know when such signs were put in front of him, while a non-Hebrew, although he would understand what was signified by those shapes, would yet not know distinctly what was signified but only under the idea of first letter or second.

9. Therefore one can say briefly that, at a minimum, many names are imposed that signify God in general, because God can thus be naturally conceived by the wayfarer, as is clear from distinction 3 [I d.3 nn.58, 61]; or if it is true that ‘something can be signified more distinctly than it can be understood’ [n.4], then God can be named by the wayfarer with a name that signifies ‘this essence’.Vatican editors: which essence, however, cannot be naturally conceived by the wayfarer, I d.3 nn.56-57. ⁹⁸

10. But however it may be in these cases, it is likely that God is named by some such name, and this whether the name is imposed by God himself, or by an angel who knows him, or by a wayfarer. For it is likely that there are many names in Scripture that signify the divine essence distinctly, - as the Jews say of the name of God with which they call him, the ‘Tetragrammaton’ [JHVH], and as God seems to say, Exodus 3.14: “These things shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is sent me to you, this is my name;” and in another place, 3.15: “I am the God of Abraham etc., this is my name;” and 6.3: “my great name Adonai I have not made known to them.”

11. God, then, is nameable by the wayfarer with a name properly signifying the divine essence as it is ‘this essence’, because the wayfarer can use that name and intend to express what is signified by the sign, whether he himself imposed the sign or anyone else who knew the thing signified; and also such sign or name can be used as a name by a wayfarer even if he could not have imposed it as a sign. And if the proposition is true that

‘no name can be imposed on anything more distinctly than the thing is understood’ [n.5], yet this proposition is false that ‘no one can use a name that signifies a thing more distinctly than he himself can understand it’; and     therefore one must simply concede that the wayfarer can use many names expressing the divine essence under the idea of divine essence.