Comments on Joshua Lee Harris’s Essay (2017) Analogy in Aquinas

By Razie Mah

This work comments an essay titled, “Analogy in Aquinas: The Alston-Wolterstorff Debate Revisited”. The author is Joshua Lee Harris. The article appears in the January 2017 edition of the Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers (34:33-56).
Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy has been the focal point of many inquiries. Harris’s essay starts with three basics for understanding the doctrine. These are incorporated into a model of actuality as two contiguous elements.
Harris then goes over the debate between two modern analytic philosophers, William Alston and Nicholas Wolterstorff. He covers Alston first, then Wolterstorff’s response. Harris shows that Alston is closer to the Aquinas than Wolterstorff. At the end, he refutes Alston’s argument.
All this is well and good. The exposition is clear. However, re-articulating Harris’s discussion, in terms of the category-based nested form, messes up that clarity, but with good results. Something becomes apparent.
The scholastic semantic triangle contains internal tensions. Alston alters that tension. Then, Wolterstorff reconfigures what Alston accomplished, squeezing the issue of analogy into a narrowly defined frame that tests a particular proposition. Here is the question addressed by this proposition: What properties are shared by both Creator and creature?
In sum, the category-based nested form moves Harris’s exposition from static analysis into dynamic associations and implications. Features are revealed. They take on lives of their own. Harris’s didactic points acquire an evocative, exploratory flavor. Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy comes alive, along with the debate, in surprising ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Razie Mah
• Release date: Apr 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781942824336

Razie Mah

See website for bio.

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Comments on Joshua Lee Harris’s Essay (2017) Analogy in Aquinas

By Razie Mah

Published for Smashwords.com

2017

Notes on Text

This work comments on an essay published by Joshua Lee Harris in the January 2017 edition of Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers (volume 34(1), pages 33-56), under the title, Analogy in Aquinas: The Alston-Wolterstorff Debate Revisited.

This tightly reasoned article concerns Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy between God and creatures. The doctrine has been extensively studied. It inspired a debate between two analytic philosophers, William Alston and Nicholas Wolterstorff.

My goal is to re-articulate Harris’s discussion in the specialized language of the category-based nested form. The results are intriguing.

‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.

Table of Contents

Introduction 0001

Aquinas and Analogy 0009

A Pause to Review...0057

The Alston-Wolterstorff Debate 0082

Harris Replies to Alston’s Critique 0106

Wolterstorff’s Alternate View 0126

Conclusion 0141

Introduction

0001 Scholastics loved jargon. Sometimes, this confounds discourse about various Latin Age notions, including Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy.

0002 The term perfection is a quality that applies to both God and creature. Of course, the two are very different. So a perfection may be described as univocal (with one voice, or identical) or equivocal (in equal voices, or completely distinct) or analogical (distinct, but related in meaning).

0003 Consider the word gentle in the saying, God is as gentle as a lamb.

Consider the word good in the saying, "God’s goodness is like