ANALOGY OF BEING


ANALOGY OF BEING
The mind compares different things on the basis of some relationship they bear to each other. Different things receive a common name because they bear a relation to something that the common name principally signifies.
St Thomas Aquinas gave a threefold division of analogy.
1.      Analogy according to signification only. Here there is no analogy from the point of view of actual existence but only in the signification of a common name applied to common things
2.      Analogy in existence but not in signification. This kind of analogy occurs when several different things have one and the same significationbut differ in degree of perfection in which they possess the reality signified
3.      Analogy in existence and signification. In this case there is absolute identity neither in signification nor in the mode of existence, but there is similarity.
           
            Analogy can be done in three different ways – univocal, equivocal, and analogous.  A term is univocal when a concept is used to predicate on diverse things according the same concept exactly, equivocal when is predicate on different things according to entirely different concepts, and analogous which are and the same name is predicted on many according concept which are not entirely the same but they seems to agree on some common point.
            In analogy the science of metaphysics investigates the causes of a genus and the genus itself.  When analogy is made with God, it is in similitude and not in proportionate, since when things are said to be proportional it seems to mean definite measure.  Therefore it is fitting to use proportionally between God and creatures.

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