The Analogia Entis as Nigromantical Principle

For various reasons I was poking about in contemporary theological writing on analogy of being and Duns Scotus. The usual wasteland of wild claims, textual misinterpretation, and historical inaccuracy abounds now as ever (the belief that Scotus taught in Cambridge is impervious to all argument), but I did come across an interesting discussion of analogy in John Betz's article (which does not mention Scotus) "The Analogia entis as a Standard of Catholic Engagement..." in Modern Theology 2018. The following paragraph caught my eye:

Nevertheless, Barth was right that Przywara did not invent the analogia entis and that it has long been part of the Catholic tradition. Not only is it found in Augustine, specifically in Book XV of De Trinitate, which appears to have been the basis for the decision of the IV Lateran Council. It is also the implicit (but obvious) teaching of Aquinas, whom Przywara calls the teacher of the analogia entis, especially on account of Thomas’s teaching on secondary causes (since this teaching underscores, more so than NeoPlatonic models of exemplarism, including Augustine’s, the difference between God and creation). It is also, for that matter, the implicit teaching of Gregory of Nyssa, as is evident from Gregory’s reading of Exodus 3:14 and his corresponding understanding of the relation between Being and non-being. But it remained for centuries more of an implicit than an explicit teaching and thus stood in need of theological explication (precisely in keeping with Newman’s understanding of the development of doctrine, but here in terms of the Church’s understanding of creation). In fact, it does not appear as a terminus technicus until Cajetan and John of St. Thomas, and only thereafter, by way of Suárez’s Disputationes Metaphysicae, made its way into the Jesuit manuals in which Przywara first encountered it

Two thoughts arise from considering this passage:

First.  As I and probably many other specialists writing on Scotus have pointed out, there are multiple senses of the "analogy being". There is a 'thick' sense, much like what is described in the passage quoted here, which involves dissimilarity-similarity, participation, causality, basically a whole cluster of metphysical notions. There is also a 'thin' sense, which is about the relations between terms and concepts. The thick sense includes the thin sense of analogy. Modern critics of Scotus generally don't distinguish these senses, and, without distinguishing where Henry's theory of analogy falls that Scotus rejects (and to be fair to modern theologians, many now seem to be aware that Scotus attacked Henry's theory of analogy and not Thomas'), assume Scotus rejects the analogia entis, simpliciter et totaliter, that is, that he throws out the thick sense of analogy.

Second. The claim here, backed by an article from 1970 (though, interestingly enough, the article is not by an author who is a medievalist, but apparently by another Przywara scholar) is that the usage of Analogia entis as a technical term is first found in Cajetan. Interestingly enough, the 17th c. Scotist theologian and philosopher Mastri made a similar claim, asserting that "the ancient scholastics wrote little about analogy" and that the debate over analogy began with Cajetan's book on the topic. One sees here the so-called tyranny of print: there was much discussion of analogy by authors such as Petrus Thomae who were never printed in the early days of the press, and so works such as the Quaestiones de ente (which dwarfs Cajetan's De nominum analogia) were lost to later ages. But John Betz and Mastri are both wrong. The usage of 'analogia entis' in both the thick and thin senses is found in the aforementioned Quaestiones de ente of Petrus Thomae, first printed in its entirety last year but written at Barcelona in 1325. This work also contains the first known mention of the Scotist school (Schola scotica). So the first professedly Scotist author is also the coiner of the Analogia entis? Given the widespread belief that Scotus himself and thus all his "progeny" rejected analogy, this is quite the historical irony. Moreover, given that Peter Thomae died in prison under charges of necromancy, perhaps the Analogy of Being is tainted, some attempted spell cast by Peter Thomae from across the ages; in the end perhaps it is, to paraphrase the (Latin) trial documents, a Nigromantical Principle.

For statements on analogy in PT, see Petrus Thomae, Quaestiones de ente q. 10 (thick analogy; see here). See also the same question for thin analogy, ed. me, p. 272: "Ad secundum et tertium et alias similes auctoritates dico quod explicant analogiam entis respectu substantiae et aliorum, sed haec analogia non repugnat verae univocationi."  The edition records no variants here, but one wonders whether "aliorum" shouldn't be "accidentium".

Phillip the Chancellor on Augustine and the Divine Ideas

Summa de bono, q.5 (ed. Wicki p.56):

"De ydeis autem queritur propter quoddam verbum Augustini in XLIII questione libri De LXXXIII questionibus ubi dicit: "rationes vel ydee que eterne sunt et incommutabiles, quarum participatione fit ut sit quicquid est, quoquo modo est, absit ut ponantur nisi in Deo et ut a rebus ipsis accipiantur." Ex quo videtur quod multe sunt ydee, cum multitudo sit ydeatorum.

Quod autem non sit multitudo ydearum, sumitur ex hoc quod omnimoda simplicitas est in ipso secundum essentiam. Esse vero ydeam est dictum secundum, licet approprietur Filio. Ergo omnimoda simplicitas erit ydee, quoed concedendum; se ipso enim omnia cognoscit. Multitudo autem in intentione nominis non est nisi propter multitudinem ydeatorum in suo esse. Et non est simile de exemplaribus que accipiuntur a rebus; illa enim numerantur secundum res."

Augustine on the Divine Ideas

From Augustines' 83 questions, which I lifted from the "Documenta catholica omnia" website (I don't know the edition).

46. - De ideis

1. Ideas Plato primus appellasse perhibetur. Non tamen si hoc nomen antequam ipse institueret non erat, ideo vel res ipsae non erant, quas ideas vocavit, vel a nullo erant intellectae; sed alio fortassis atque alio nomine ab aliis atque aliis nuncupatae sunt; licet enim cuique rei cognitae, quae nullum habeat usitatum nomen, quodlibet nomen imponere. Nam non est verisimile sapientes aut nullos fuisse ante Platonem aut istas quas Plato, ut dictum est, ideas vocat, quaecumque res sint, non intellexisse, siquidem tanta in eis vis constituitur ut nisi his intellectis sapiens esse nemo possit. Credibile est etiam praeter Graeciam fuisse in aliis Gentibus sapientes, quod etiam Plato ipse non solum peregrinando sapientiae perficiendae causa satis testatur, sed etiam in libris suis commemorat. Hos ergo, si qui fuerunt, non existimandum est ideas ignorasse, quamvis eas alio fortasse nomine vocitaverint. Sed de nomine hactenus dictum sit. Rem videamus, quae maxime consideranda atque noscenda est, in potestate constitutis vocabulis, ut quod volet quisque appellet rem quam cognoverit.

2. Ideas igitur latine possumus vel formas vel species dicere, ut verbum e verbo transferre videamur. Si autem rationes eas vocemus, ab interpretandi quidem proprietate discedimus; rationes enim Graece appellantur non ideae: sed tamen quisquis hoc vocabulo uti voluerit, a re ipsa non abhorrebit. Sunt namque ideae principales quaedam formae vel rationes rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles, quae ipsae formatae non sunt ac per hoc aeternae ac semper eodem modo sese habentes, quae divina intellegentia continentur. Et cum ipsae neque oriantur neque intereant, secundum eas tamen formari dicitur omne quod oriri et interire potest et omne quod oritur et interit. Anima vero negatur eas intueri posse nisi rationalis, ea sui parte qua excellit, id est, ipsa mente atque ratione, quasi quadam facie vel oculo suo interiore atque intellegibili. Et ea quidem ipsa rationalis anima non omnis et quaelibet, sed quae sancta et pura fuerit, haec asseritur illi visioni esse idonea, id est, quae illum ipsum oculum, quo videntur ista, sanum et sincerum et serenum et similem his rebus, quas videre intendit, habuerit. Quis autem religiosus et vera religione imbutus, quamvis nondum haec possit intueri, negare tamen audeat, immo non etiam profiteatur, omnia quae sunt, id est, quaecumque in suo genere propria quadam natura continentur ut sint, auctore Deo esse procreata, eoque auctore omnia quae vivunt vivere, atque universalem rerum incolumitatem ordinemque ipsum, quo ea quae mutantur suos temporales cursus certo moderamine celebrant, summi Dei legibus contineri et gubernari? Quo constituto atque concesso, quis audeat dicere Deum irrationabiliter omnia condidisse? Quod si recte dici vel credi non potest, restat ut omnia ratione sint condita, nec eadem ratione homo qua equus; hoc enim absurdum est existimare. Singula igitur propriis sunt creata rationibus. Has autem rationes ubi esse arbitrandum est nisi in ipsa mente Creatoris? Non enim extra se quidquam positum intuebatur, ut secundum id constitueret quod constituebat; nam hoc opinari sacrilegum est. Quod si hae rerum omnium creandarum creatarumve rationes divina mente continentur, neque in divina mente quidquam nisi aeternum atque incommutabile potest esse, atque has rationes rerum principales appellat ideas Plato, non solum sunt ideae, sed ipsae verae sunt, quia aeternae sunt et eiusdem modi atque incommutabiles manent. Quarum participatione fit ut sit quidquid est, quoquo modo est. Sed anima rationalis inter eas res, quae sunt a Deo conditae, omnia superat et Deo proxima est, quando pura est; eique in quantum caritate cohaeserit, in tantum ab eo lumine illo intellegibili perfusa quodammodo et illustrata cernit non per corporeos oculos, sed per ipsius sui principale quo excellit, id est, per intellegentiam suam, istas rationes, quarum visione fit beatissima. Quas rationes, ut dictum est, sive ideas sive formas sive species sive rationes licet vocare, et multis conceditur appellare quod libet, sed paucissimis videre quod verum est.

Comment: This is germane to debates with the EP (energetic procession) crowd, as the ultimate root of their disagreement and scorn of Augustine seems to be that he has been corrupted by "platonism" at least on the issue of divine simplicty. However, he does something no platonist would do, in placing the divine ideas in the divine mind. For the likes of Proclus and Plotinus, there is no divine mind in the One, no thought or awareness of any kind on the part of the One. Plotinus after all is famous for criticizing Aristotle's notion of the prime mover as thought thinking itself because it introduces the duality of subject and object into the One, something Plotinus thought incompatible with divine simplicity. So, although Augustine does indeed hold to divine simplicity (and I can only construe EP rejection of divine simplicity to mean that God is a composite of essence and energy found in a potency-act relationship), it is not the bald-faced uncritical adoption of platonism that they would have us believe and in the end probably not so unlike the whole-scale adoption of Proclus undertaken by the pseudo-Dionysius.