Dist. 22, Art. 1, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/22/q/bon-sent-I-d22-a1-q1
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### ARTICLE UNIQUE. *On the divine names.*

### Question I. *Whether God is nameable.*

Concerning the first [point], that God is unnameable, is shown from authorities and reasons. From authorities thus:

1. Dionysius, *On the Divine Names*: «Of God it is possible neither to speak nor to understand». And again: «Of God there is neither name nor word nor account nor opinion nor phantasm»: therefore God is altogether unnameable.

2. Likewise, the Philosopher in the book *On Causes*: «The first cause is above all narration»; but what is above all narration is unnarratable, and everything such is unnameable: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, by reason it is shown thus: a name has some proportion and likeness to the thing named, as the voice [has] to what is signified; but God is altogether infinite, while every voice is finite: therefore since there is no proportion, there will be no expression by voice: therefore neither naming.

4. Likewise, every name is imposed from some form; but in God there is no positing of a determinate form; whence Augustine: «God, who escapes every form, cannot be accessible to the intellect»: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, every name signifies substance with quality; but in God there is pure substance without quantity and quality: therefore it does not happen that God is signified by a name.

6. Likewise, that neither [is He signified] by a pronoun. For a pronoun has no determinate signification except by demonstration or relation. But demonstration takes place by means of accidents which can be looked upon by the eyes; but these are not in God: therefore it seems that of God there is neither a name nor a pronoun.

**On the contrary:**

1. In the Psalm: *The Lord is His name.* And again: *How admirable is Your name in the whole earth*: therefore God has a name.

2. Likewise, Dionysius made a book *On the Divine Names*: therefore either God is nameable, or the science there handed down is empty and useless.

3. Likewise, by reason it appears: since everything that expresses itself by a word can express itself by a sign of the word; but the sign of the word is the voice: therefore since God expresses Himself by His own Word, He can be expressed by voice; but what can be expressed by voice can be named: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, what it is possible to understand it is possible to signify or enounce; but it is possible for God to be known by us — this is certain and proved above: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, what it is possible to praise it is also possible to name; but it is possible to praise God — nay, He Himself is supremely praiseworthy: therefore also nameable.

> **Conclusion.** *God is nameable, just as He is intelligible, not indeed perfectly, but imperfectly.*

**I respond:** It must be said that just as "to understand" is said in two ways, so [is] "speakable" and "nameable". For in one way "to understand" is said by perfect comprehension; in another way by half-full cognition. So "speakable" is said in two ways: in one way by perfect expression, in another way by half-full narration. So also "nameable."

If [something] is called speakable or nameable according to perfection of expression, then it must be said that just as God alone is intelligible to Himself, so He alone is speakable and nameable to Himself, not by another name than He Himself is, nor by another word than He Himself is; and just as He is incomprehensible to us, so also ineffable, so also unnameable; and in this way Dionysius and the Philosopher speak.

If, however, [it] is called speakable and nameable according to any narration whatever, then, just as God is knowable to us, so also speakable and nameable; and he who knows better speaks better and names better and more expressly. Whence the believer names more expressly than the unbeliever, and Scripture, which supports faith, such as Sacred Scripture, [more so] than reason or philosophy. And in this way the reasons and authorities for the second part proceed.

*To 1, 2.* To that, then, which is objected from Dionysius and the Philosopher, the response is already plain by the fact that they speak of [that] naming in which there is perfect expression.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that the voice in the name is proportionable to the interior word or to what is signified; it must be said that this is understood of [that] naming which includes the whole signification of the thing; otherwise it has no truth, unless it be understood that there is a proportion to the thing under the aspect of the knowable; and thus it can be nameable. For although God is infinite, yet He is known finitely by us.

*To 4.* To that which is objected, that God does not have form; it must be said that He does not have a form accessible to our intellect, of the kind which is the form whose image [is] in sense; yet He has form, since He Himself is the form which is the ground of knowing, which, although we do not know it in itself, He Himself knows Himself in Himself, and we [know] Him in a created form. Whence from a created form we impose names — [the form] which we understand and see.

*To 5.* To that which is objected, that a name signifies *substance* and *quality*; it must be said that *substance* and *quality* are not taken there properly, but commonly; *substance* is called *that which is known*, *quality* is called *that by which it is known*, and this in the manner of rest; and I say this on account of the verb and the participle and the adverb, which is a disposition of the verb. And since in creatures, for the most part, *that which is known* and *that by which* differ, therefore a name in creatures, for the most part, imports these two through diversity. But in God *the known* and *the ground of knowing* are the same, as far as concerns Himself: therefore the divine name signifies those two with indifference as to the thing; and so the character of substance and of quality is preserved there, as befits a name.