Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/506

Rh ANALYSIS 450 ANALYSIS in itself, it is necessarily conceived to some extent through the beings which depend on it and are re- lated to it. It is not an Unknown or Unknowable. It can be known in dilTcrent ways. We remark in finite things a manifold dependence. These things are produced; they are produced according to a cer- tain plan and in view of a certain end. We must conclude that they have a cause which possesses in itself a power of etliciency, e.emplarity, and finality, with all the elements which such a power requires: intelligence, will, personality, etc. This way of rea- soning is called by the Schoolmen "the way of causality" (via causalitatis). (Cf. Pseudo-Dion., De Div. Nom., c. i, § 6, in P. G., Ill, 595; also, St. Thoma.s, Summa Theol.,"!, Q. iii, a. 3; Q. xiii, a. 12.) When we reason from the effects to the First, or Ultimate, Cause, we eliminate from it all the defects, imperfec- tions, and limitations which are in its effects just because they are effects, as change, limitation, time, and space. This way of reasoning is "the way of negation or reraotion" (via negalionis, remotionis). (Cf. Pseudo-Dion., ibid.; also, St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, QQ. iii-xiii, a. 1; C. Gent., lib. I, c. xiv.) Finally, it is easily understood that the perfections affirmed, in these two ways, of God, as First and Perfect Cause, cannot be attributed to Him in the same sense that they have in finite beings, but only in an absolutely excellent or supereminent way (via eminentiw, eicellentite). (Cf. Pseudo-Dion., Div. Nom., c. i, § 41, in P. G., Ill, 516, 590; c. ii, §§ 3, S, in P. G., Ill, 646, 689; St. Thomas, ibid.) What is the value of our knowledge of God ac- quired by such reasoning? According to Agnos- ticisui this attribution of perfections to God is simply hiipossible, since we know them only as essentially limited and imperfect, necessarily relative to a cer- tain species or genus, while God is the essentially Perfect, the infinitely Absolute. Therefore all that we say of God is false or at least meaningless. He is the Unknowable; He is infinitely above aU our conceptions and terms. Agnosticism admits that these conceptions and names are a satisfaction and help to the imagination in thinking of the Unthink- able; but on condition that we remember that they are purely arbitrary; that they are practical symbols with no objective value. According to Agnosticism, to tliink or say anytliing of God is necessarily to fall into Anthropomorphism. St. Thomas and the Schoolmen ignore neither Agnosticism nor Anthropo- morphism, but declare both of them false. God is not absolutely unknowable, and yet it is true that we cannot define Hhn adequately. But we can con- ceive and name Him in an "analogical way". The perfections manifested by creatures are in God, not merely nominally (equivoce) but really and positively, since He is their source. Yet, they are not in Him as they are in the creature, with a mere difference of degree, nor even with a mere specific or generic differ- ence (univoce), for there is no common concept in- cluding the finite and the Infinite. They are really in Ilim in a supereminent manner (eminenter) which is wholly incommensurable with their mode of being in creatures. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. xiii, a. 5, 6; C. Gent., lib. I, c. x.xii-xxxv; in I Sent. Dist., xiii, Q. i, a. 1, ad 4'"".) We can con- ceive and express these perfections only by an analogy; not by an Jinalogy of proportion, for this analogy rests on a participation in a common con- cept, and, as already said, there is no element common to the finite and the Infinite; but by an analogy of proportionality. These perfections are really in God, and they are in Him in the .same relation to His mfinitc es-sence that they arc in creatures in relation to their finite nature. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa iheol., I, Q. IV, a. .3; Q. xiii, a. 5; Q. ii, De verit., all, in Corp. ad ■>""; ibid., xxiii, a. 7, ad g"™.) We must allirm, therefore, that all perfections are really in God, infinitely. This infinitely we cannot define or express; we can say only that it is the absolutely perfect w'ay, which does not admit any of the Umitations which are found in creatures. Hence our conception of God, though very positive in its objective content, is, as represented in our mind and expressed in our words, more negative than positive. We know what God is not, rather than what He is. (Cf. St. Thomas, Sunama Theol., I, Q. iii, the whole question; Q. xiii, a. 2, 3, 5, 12; Q. ii, De veritate, a. 1, ad 9»", ad 10»"'.) Such a conception is evidently neither false nor meaningless; it is clearly inadequate. In a word, our conception of God is a human conception and it cannot De other. But if we necessarily represent God in a human way, if even it is from oiu- human nature that we take most of the properties and per- fections which we predicate of Him, we do not con- ceive Him as a man, not even as a perfected man, since we eliminate from those properties, as attributes of God, all hniits and imperfections which in man and other creatm-es are a very part of their essence. IV. Anaxogy in the Knowledge of the Mys- teries OF F.UTH. The Fathers of the Chuicli always emphasized the inability of the human reason to discover or even to represent adequately the mys- teries of faith, and insisted on the necessity of analogical conceptions in their representations and expressions. St. Thomas, after the Pseudo-Dionysius and Albertus Magnus, has given the theory of analogy so applied to the mysteries of faith. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. i, a. 9; Q. xxii, a. 1; In Librum Boethii De Trinitate Expositio.) The Vatican Coimcil set forth the Catholic doctrine on the point. (Cf. Const., Dei Filius, cap. iv; cf. also Cone. Coloniense, 1S60.) (1) Bejore Revelation, analogy is unable to discover the mysteries, since reason can know of God only what is manifesteil of Him and is in necessary causal relation with Him in created tilings. (2) In Revelation, analogy is neces- sary, since God cannot reveal the mysteries to men except through conceptions intelhgible to the human mind, and therefore analogical. (3) After Revelation, analog}' is useful to give us certain -knowledge of the mysteries, either by comparison with natural things and truths, or by consideration of the mysteries in relation with one another and with the destiny of man. PsEUDo-DioNTsros, Opera Omnia; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, QQ. iii, iv, xiii; Contra Gent., lib. I, xxix; II, ii; QucFst. disp., De verit, QQ. ii. xxiii; De potentid, Q. vii; hi Boet. De Trinitate, expositio; De Regnon, Etudes de thiologie positive 8ur la S. Trinity (Paris, 1898); Granderath, Con- atitutiones dogmatica' S. CEcumenici Concitii Vaticani (Freiburg im Br.. 1892): Hontheim, I nstitutiones Theodicece (ibid., 1893): De la Barre, La vie du dogme eatholique (Paris, 1898); Chollet in Diet, de theol. cath. s. v.: Sertillanges, Agnostic cisme ou anthropomorphisms in Rev. de philosophie, 1 Feb., and 1 .ug., 1906; Gardair, L'Etre Divin in Rev, de phil., July, 1906. G. M. Sauvage. Analysis (a.vi = "up" or " back ", and Xitiv, "to loose") means a separation; it is the taking apart of that which was united, and corresponds exactly to the Latin form "resolution" (re -(-solvere). Its opposite is synthesis (avv, "together", and TiBivai, "to put", hence, a "putting-together", a "composi- tion"). According to this etymology, analysis, in general, is the process by which anything complex is resolved into simple, or, at least, into less complex parts or elements. This complex may be: (1) Con- crete, that is, an individual substance, quality or process, in eitlier the physical or the mental order; (2) .bstract and ideal; incapable, therefore, of exist- ing apart from the mind that conceives it. (1) In the case of a concrete object, we must dis- tinguish three degrees of analvsis. Sometimes a real separation or isolation is effected. To resolve a chemical compound into its elements, or white