Clarke's causal principle—that perfections must exist at least as greatly in the cause—assumes univocal predication, but Aquinas himself held divine intelligence is only analogically related to creaturely intelligence.

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Reasons For

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Reason for

1.Aquinas explicitly rejected univocal predication of divine and creaturely attributes in his analogia entis doctrine.
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2.Clarke's principle requires effects to resemble causes univocally, making it incompatible with Aquinas's analogical framework.
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3.If perfections are only analogically present in God, Clarke's causal principle cannot straightforwardly apply without modification.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

1.Clarke's principle concerns the logical necessity of perfection grounding, not semantic univocity of predicates.
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2.Analogy and univocity address different problems: analogy addresses predication, while Clarke addresses causal sufficiency.
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3.Aquinas accepted that God possesses all perfections eminently; Clarke's principle remains compatible with eminent possession.
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Key Terms

Analogical relation(as used in discussions of how we talk about God versus creation): A way that two things can be similar or connected without being exactly the same—like how 'healthy' can apply both to a person and to food in related but different ways.
Aquinas: Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Italian priest and philosopher (1225-1274) who became one of the most influential thinkers in Western history. He attempted to show that Christian faith and human reason are compatible, arguing that we can use logic and observation to understand God and the natural world. His ideas deeply shaped Catholic theology and continue to influence how religious and secular institutions think about ethics, knowledge, and the relationship between science and belief.
Clarke's causal principle(as used in metaphysics and philosophy of causation): An idea by philosopher Samuel Clarke stating that whatever causes something to exist must itself have all the qualities (or 'perfections') that appear in the thing it creates, at least to the same degree or greater.
Creaturely intelligence(as used in philosophy of religion and theology): The knowledge or understanding possessed by created beings—humans, animals, and other things that exist because God made them.
Divine intelligence(as used in discussions about God's nature): God's knowledge or understanding, as understood in theology and philosophy of religion.
perfections(metaphysics and philosophy of God): In philosophical theology, the supreme qualities or attributes (like knowledge, power, or goodness) that are thought to exist in God and can serve as models for understanding other things.
univocal predication(James of Viterbo's division of real agreement): Predication in which a concept applies to many things by virtue of the self-same ratio, grounded in an essential resemblance between those things.

Connections

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Divine Attributes1 linked

God is intelligent

Analogy and univocity address different problems: analogy addresses predication,...Aquinas accepted that God possesses all perfections eminently; Clarke's principl...Aquinas explicitly rejected univocal predication of divine and creaturely attrib...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit