Chapter IIIHow Many Kinds of Theology There Are

Although from what we have just shown the account of the true theology of which we have undertaken to speak here seems to have been sketched as in outline (ὥσπερ ἐν τύπῳ), nevertheless a certain equivocation attaches to that most august name of theology and to the definition we have just used; and this must be distinguished before we come to a fuller explanation of the theology at hand. For its breadth is so great that things so different cannot be denoted fittingly enough by the same word, nor can the disparate things we have signified by one word be comprehended under one genus. Therefore, as the things set forth under the name of theology differ in their whole genus according to their nature and condition, yet share fittingly with one another by a certain analogy, so also a homonymy, or (as it is commonly called) an equivocation, of the word must be laid down. Yet we must first distinguish the equivocation itself here, because this is not a pure equivocation but an analogical one, [p. 50] as it is commonly called in the schools. We call that equivocation pure in which the account of the things said equivocally is plainly and wholly different (for we may speak in the manner of the scholastics). We call it analogical when the account of the things said equivocally is partly, or in a certain respect, the same, and at the same time partly different; and this kind of equivocation very often occurs in applying names to divine and human things.

According to this homonymy, then, which we call analogical, we lay down a twofold mode of theology in these words: It is either archetypal (ἀρχέτυπος), namely the wisdom of God himself, or ectypal (ἔκτυπος), formed by God. We must first explain the meaning of this analogical division, and then show its necessity. The meaning is this. Of what is called theology in our speech, one is essential and uncreated (οὐσιώδη καὶ ἄκτιστον), which for the sake of teaching we shall call hereafter in this little book archetypal or prototypal (ἀρχέτυπον, πρωτότυπον); the other is accidental and created (συμβεβηκυῖαν καὶ κτιστήν), or habitual, which you may also fittingly call ectypal (ἔκτυπον), as a kind of image expressed from, or rather sketched after, that formal, divine, and essential theology. And indeed it seems to me that this archetypal theology was once called exemplary by the orthodox Fathers, after whose divine and immutable exemplar the other was conformed by God according to the capacity of creatures; while more recent writers have called the former theology in itself, and the latter theology in a certain respect. The former theology is that very infinite wisdom which God has concerning himself and all things, as they are ordered to him necessarily, properly, and of themselves by a perpetual relation, according to his infinite reason. The latter theology is that wisdom which creatures have, according to their own mode, concerning God and the things ordered to God, through his communication.

These two kinds of theology are so disparate that they cannot in truth be referred to any one definite head and common genus. That theology which we call divine and prototypal (πρωτότυπον) belongs neither to this genus nor indeed to any. That it does not share a common genus with this created theology is taught by the nature of each. For that archetypal theology is essential to the nature of God, and a part (so to speak) of that infinite knowledge which in God is essential; and it is agreed that whatever is essential is properly assigned to the same genus as the essence itself of which it is essential, as we call a part homogeneous (ὁμογενές) with the whole, and a member with the body, sharing its genus. But God [col. 1377] is above every genus, a superessential essence (οὐσία ὑπερούσιος), as the holy Fathers most excellently called him. This theology of ours, however, is not essential to those to whom it belongs; it befalls them as a habit, clothing their essence round, as it were; and so it is as far from the other (to speak with the common saying) as heaven is from earth (ὅσον οὐρανὸς ἔστ᾽ ἀπὸ γαίης). That the archetypal belongs to no genus at all (which we said in the second place) is shown most clearly by nature and reason themselves. For if it is essential, as it is, and therefore homogeneous (ὁμογενής) with the nature of God, its account will certainly be the same as that of the divine essence. And since that divine essence or nature is truly superessential (ὑπερούσιος), and is included with nothing whatever in a common genus, properly or improperly, simply or by reduction, we most rightly declare this theology superessential (ὑπερούσιον). But this created theology of ours, a communicated emanation (ἀποῤῥοή) from that one, since it is nothing else than a kind of seal-image impressed by that essential theology, certainly does not share a common genus with it and cannot be included in one; it has only a certain analogy from it and with it. So a painted image of a man is not homogeneous (ὁμογενής) with the man, but obtains the name of man equivocally, by an analogical account only. Hence the Apostle rightly says, comparing this wisdom with that (1 Cor. 3): "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, [p. 51] that they are vain." What we said before therefore necessarily stands: we call both together theology only by the equivocation that they call analogical (ἀνάλογον).