From January 14th to February 7th, we will publish excerpts from Drew Sparks’ recent article, “In Defense of Classical Theism: A Review Article of Jeffrey Johnson’s The Revealed God.” This article was originally published in the 2024 Journal of International Reformed Baptist Seminary (JIRBS). The editor and Broken Wharfe graciously granted Baptist Dogmatics permission to publish the article on our site.
Drew began his review of Johnson’s work with a two-part analysis (see part 1 and part 2) followed by minor critiques of The Revealed God. The response to Johnson’s work began with a treatment of divine simplicity (simplicity part 1, simplicity part 2), and is continued in this sixth excerpt, which addresses Johnson’s claims about the principle of analogy.
In the second response to Johnson, I wish to address his claims concerning the principle of analogy. Johnson’s presentation of biblical analogical language fails to provide readers with clear principles for reasoning about God’s world and Word. His presentation of philosophical analogical language suffers in two ways. First, he frequently confuses analogical and metaphorical language, as if they were identical. He accuses PCT of rendering all language about God as metaphorical and anthropomorphic. He also interchanges metaphorical and analogical language (20, 138, 157). Consider the following example: “It’s not that the language of the bible is not analogical. There are many metaphors, anthropomorphisms, and symbols depicting God in the Bible” (227). Johnson states that Scripture tells us when language is literal or analogical/metaphorical. Shortly after making this distinction, he asks, “Just who controls the metaphors of Scripture?” (227). At other times, Johnson is closer to a correct understanding of analogy. For example, he states that analogy requires a real and knowable point of similarity (226). However, his language is often imprecise and he frequently equates analogy with metaphor, as I have shown. Second, he argues that analogical language undermines Scripture’s sufficiency (139). I address each concern accordingly.
First, all language about God is analogical, but not all analogical language is metaphorical. Some analogical language is metaphorical, and some analogical language is literal. Duby rightly states:
Analogy characterizes the diverse (but still similar) sense in which our words apply to God, while the question of whether a name is metaphorical or literal in its application to God concerns whether the content of the name (not just the way in which it is predicated) is intrinsically creaturely, whether the name signifies something that properly belongs to creatures only. For Thomas, all our names for God are analogical, but they may be either metaphorical or literal. They are always predicated of God in a sense diverse from but similar to the sense in which they are predicated of creatures.[1]
Univocal, equivocal, and analogical language address how terms are predicated of their subject. The content of the term may be literal or metaphorical. A simple example from day-to-day language makes this point. When we say that exercise is healthy and the one who exercises is healthy, we are not predicating “healthy” of exercise and the one who exercises in the same way. Exercise is a cause of health, whereas the one who exercises is the subject of health. Health is used analogically and literally, not metaphorically. Johnson simply misrepresents analogical language.
Second, analogical language does not undermine the sufficiency of Scripture, as Johnson states. Analogy is a feature of language. On its face, analogical language cannot undermine the sufficiency of Scripture any more than Scripture’s univocal use of the term “man.” Scripture does not present us with a biblical univocal language as opposed to a philosophical univocal language. When one uses the term “trunk” equivocally, it is simply used equivocally. There is no biblical or philosophical equivocal language.
Johnson’s problem with analogical language appears to be his concern over “who controls the metaphors of Scripture” (227). If Johnson denies analogical language, then the question is not who controls the metaphors, but whether univocal or equivocal language should be used. If Johnson refers to analogical language, then he needs to specify the difference between literal and metaphorical content. Johnson asserts that God’s repentance is metaphorical, but who decided if God’s repentance was metaphorical? (228). Like his treatment of biblical analogical language, Johnson offers readers no tools to discern the metaphors of Scripture.
There is a better way forward. When we speak, we can either speak of creatures or the Creator. Terms used to describe creatures can be classified as univocal, equivocal, or analogical. When speaking of God, all language, whether literal or metaphorical, is analogical. Dolezal distinguishes the horizontal and vertical nature of language, saying:
The categorical [horizontal] level, of course, comprises all the various analogies of being that can be applied to everything falling within Aristotle’s ten categories of being, that is, to the created world. Inasmuch as God is not distinguished by the Aristotelian categories the analogy of being between him and the world is on a transcendental level.[2]
Analogical language is metaphorical when the term properly applies to the creature rather than God. As Aquinas reasons, “All names applied metaphorically to God, are applied to creatures primarily rather than to God, because when said of God they mean only similitudes to such creatures.”[3] Duby, likewise, helpfully states, “If the content of a given name (e.g., ‘rock’) is intrinsically creaturely, the analogical similitude on God’s part lies in God’s effects (e.g., protection) rather than God’s being itself.”[4] In other words, rock-ness is not in God’s being but the effect of protection may be attributed to God analogically. By way of contrast, analogical language is literal when the term properly applies to God and only secondarily to the creature.[5] Duby continues, “If the content of another name (e.g., ‘wisdom’) is not intrinsically creaturely, the analogical similitude on God’s part lies immediately in God himself, and the name applies literally to God.”[6] Analogical language allows theologians to distinguish between metaphorical and literal predications of God by discerning whether the term exists preeminently in God. If it does not, then the content of the term is metaphorical. If it does, then the content of the term is literal.
God’s goodness is literal, not metaphorical, for it lies immediately in God. As Aquinas writes, “The words, God is good, or wise, signify not only that He is the cause of wisdom or goodness, but that these exist in Him in a more excellent way.”[7] Goodness is literally and truthfully applied to God. Aquinas affirms as much, when he writes:
There are some names which signify these perfections flowing from God to creatures in such a way that the imperfect way in which creatures receive the divine perfection is part of the very signification of the name itself, as stone, signifies a material being, and names of this kind can be applied to God only in a metaphorical sense. Other names, however, express these perfections absolutely, without any such mode of participation being part of their signification, as the words being, good, living, and the like, and such names can be literally applied to God.[8]
However, the term is still analogical because it is not predicated of God and creatures in the same way. God is goodness subsisting. He is necessarily, independently, and infinitely good.
Theologians affirm God is eminently good and deny that God is good in the way creatures are good. Rather, creatures are good in a manner analogous to God’s goodness. Turretin explains how analogical language allows one to state the sense in which God’s goodness and creaturely goodness differ. He writes:
So these attributes may be predicated of God essentially and in a manner plainly singular (i.e., infinitely and most perfectly) and so also in the abstract. In this sense, God alone is said to be good (Mt. 19:17), i.e., originally, independently, essentially; but concerning creatures only secondarily, accidentally, and participatively.[9]
Creaturely goodness is like divine goodness because it participates in and is secondary to divine goodness. As Aquinas states:
However, according to this likeness, it is more fitting to say that the creature is like God than vice versa. For one thing is like another when it possesses a quality or form of it. Since, then, what is in God perfectly is found in other things by way of an imperfect participation, that in which likeness is observed is God’s simply, but not the creature’s. And thus the creature has what is God’s, and therefore is rightly said to be like God. But it cannot be said in this way that God has what belongs to his creature: therefore, it is not fitting to say that God is like his creature, as neither do we say that a man is like his portrait, although we declare that his portrait is like him.[10]
This differs from Johnson, who argues, “If we are told that God is like all created things, as all effects resemble their cause, but we are not told how God is like any created thing, then such statements are of no value” (225). However, God is not like created things. Rather, created things are like God.
Analogical language may be metaphorical or literal. Both yield true knowledge of the incomprehensible God. The sufficiency of Scripture remains uncompromised by analogical language, which is simply a feature of language. The nature of God and created reality determine the metaphors of Scripture. Should a particular term find its primary referent in the creature rather than God, it is a metaphor. Otherwise, the content of the term is literal. Because there is no distinction between God’s existence and his essence, how God is good differs from how creatures are good.
[1] Duby, God in Himself, 286.
[2] Dolezal, God Without Parts, 120.
[3] Aquinas, ST Ia. Q.13. A6.
[4] Duby, God In Himself, 285. Aquinas, ST Ia. Q.13. A6.
[5] For a helpful treatment of God and biblical language, see Kyle Claunch, “Theological Language and the Fatherhood of God: An Exegetical and Dogmatic Account,” Eikon, Fall, 2023, https://cbmw.org/2023/11/21/theological-language-and-the-fatherhood-of-god-an-exegetical-and-dogmatic-account/.
[6] Duby, God In Himself, 286.
[7] Aquinas, ST Ia. Q.13. A6.
[8] Aquinas, ST Ia. Q.13. A3.
[9] Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, III.vi.4.
[10] Aquinas, SCG, I. 29.