Analogy
analogy
(Greek: ana, according to; logos, proportion)
Term used in natural theology to express the process of reasoning whereby we arrive at some knowledge, howsoever imperfect, of the nature of God. As He is the Creator of all the qualities there are in creatures, we argue that He must possess them all in their perfection.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Analogy
A philosophical term used to designate, first, a property of things; secondly, a process of reasoning. We have here to consider its meaning and use: I. In physical and natural sciences; II. In metaphysics and scholastic philosophy; III. In theodicy; IV. In relation to the mysteries of faith.
I. ANALOGY IN PHYSICAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES
As a property, analogy means a certain similarity mixed with difference. This similarity may be founded entirely or chiefly upon a conception of the mind; in this sense we say that there is analogy between the light of the sun and the light of the mind, between a lion and a courageous man, between an organism and society. This kind of analogy is the source of metaphor. The similarity may be founded on the real existence of similar properties in objects of different species, genera, or classes; those organs, for instance, are analogous, which, belonging to beings of different species or genera, and differing in structure, fulfil the same physiological functions or have the same connections. As a process of reasoning, analogy consists in concluding from some analogical properties or similarity under certain aspects to other analogical properties or similarity under other aspects. It was by such a process that Franklin passed from the analogy between the effects of lightning and the effects of electricity to the identity of their cause; Cuvier, from the analogy between certain organs of fossils and these organs in actual species to the analogy of the whole organism; that we infer from the analogy between the organs and external actions of animals and our own, the existence of consciousness in them. Analogical reasoning is a combination of inductive and deductive reasoning based on the principle that “analogical properties considered as similar involve similar consequences”. It is evident that analogical reasoning, as to its value, depends on the value of the analogical property on which it rests. Based on a mere conception of the mind, it may suggest, but it does not prove; it cannot give conclusions, but only comparisons. Based on real properties, it is more or less conclusive according to the number and significance of the similar properties and according to the fewness and insignificance of the dissimilar properties. From a strictly logical point of view, analogical reasoning can furnish only probable conclusions and hypotheses. Such is the case for most of the theories in physical and natural sciences, which remain hypothetical so long as they are merely the result of analogy and have not been verified directly or indirectly.
II. ANALOGY IN METAPHYSICS AND SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY
Analogy in metaphysics and Scholastic philosophy was carefully studied by the Schoolmen, especially by the Pseudo-Dionysius, Albertus Magnus, and St. Thomas. It also may be considered either as a property or as a process of reasoning. As a metaphysical property, analogy is not a mere likeness between diverse objects, but a proportion or relation of object to object. It is, therefore, neither a merely equivocal or verbal coincidence, nor a fully univocal participation in a common concept; but it partakes of the one and the other. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. xiii, a. 5, 10; also, Q. vii, De potentiâ, a. 7.) We may distinguish two kinds of analogy: Two objects can be said to be analogous on account of a relation which they have not to each other, but to a third object: e.g., there is analogy between a remedy and the appearance of a person, in virtue of which these two objects are said to be healthy. This is based upon the relation which each of them has to the person’s health, the former as a cause, the latter as a sign. This may be called indirect analogy. Two objects again are analogous on account of a relation which they have not to a third object, but to each other. Remedy, nourishment, and external appearance are termed healthy on account of the direct relation they bear to the health of the person. Here health is the basis of the analogy, and is an example of what the Schoolmen call summum analogatum (Cf. St. Thomas, ib.)
This second sort of analogy is twofold. Two things are related by a direct proportion of degree, distance, or measure: e.g., 6 is in direct proportion to 3, of which it is the double; or the healthiness of a remedy is directly related to, and directly measured by, the health which it produces. This analogy is called analogy of proportion. Or, the two objects are related one to the other not by a direct proportion, but by means of another and intermediary relation: for instance, 6 and 4 are analogous in this sense that 6 is the double of 3 as 4 is of 2, or 6:4::3:2. The analogy between corporal and intellectual vision is of this sort, because intelligence is to the mind what the eye is to the body. This kind of analogy is based on the proportion of proportion; it is called analogy of proportionality. (Cf. St. Thomas, Q. ii, De verit., a. 11; Q. xxiii, De verit., a. 7, ad 9).
III. ANALOGY AS A METHOD IN THEODICY
As human knowledge proceeds from the data of the senses directed and interpreted by reason, it is evident that man cannot arrive at a perfect knowledge of the nature of God which is essentially spiritual and infinite. Yet the various elements of perfection, dependence, limitation, etc., which exist in all finite beings, while they enable us to prove the existence of God, furnish us also with a certain knowledge of His nature. For dependent beings must ultimately rest on something non-dependent, relative beings on that which is non-relative, and, even if this non-dependent and non-relative Being cannot be conceived directly in itself, it is necessarily conceived to some extent through the beings which depend on it and are related to it. It is not an Unknown or Unknowable. It can be known in different ways. We remark in finite things a manifold dependence. These things are produced; they are produced according to a certain plan and in view of a certain end. We must conclude that they have a cause which possesses in itself a power of efficiency, exemplarity, and finality, with all the elements which such a power requires: intelligence, will, personality, etc. This way of reasoning is called by the Schoolmen “the way of causality” (via causalitatis). (Cf. Pseudo-Dion., De Div. Nom., c. i, sect. 6, in P. G., III, 595; also, St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. iii, a. 3; Q. xiii, a. 12.) When we reason from the effects to the First, or Ultimate, Cause, we eliminate from it all the defects, imperfections, and limitations which are in its effects just because they are effects, as change, limitation, time, and space. This way of reasoning is “the way of negation or remotion” (via negationis, remotionis). (Cf. Pseudo-Dion., ibid.; also, St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, QQ. iii-xiii, a. 1; C. Gent., lib. I, c. xiv.) Finally, it is easily understood that the perfections affirmed, in these two ways, of God, as First and Perfect Cause, cannot be attributed to Him in the same sense that they have in finite beings, but only in an absolutely excellent or supereminent way (via eminentiae, excellentiae). (Cf. Pseudo-Dion., Div. Nom., c. i, sect. 41, in P.G., III, 516, 590; c. ii, sect. 3, 8, in P.G., III, 646, 689; St. Thomas, ibid.)
What is the value of our knowledge of God acquired by such reasoning? According to Agnosticism this attribution of perfections to God is simply impossible, since we know them only as essentially limited and imperfect, necessarily relative to a certain species or genus, while God is the essentially Perfect, the infinitely Absolute. Therefore all that we say of God is false or at least meaningless. He is the Unknowable; He is infinitely above all our conceptions and terms. Agnosticism admits that these conceptions and names are a satisfaction and help to the imagination in thinking of the Unthinkable; but on condition that we remember that they are purely arbitrary; that they are practical symbols with no objective value. According to Agnosticism, to think or say anything of God is necessarily to fall into Anthropomorphism. St. Thomas and the Schoolmen ignore neither Agnosticism nor Anthropomorphism, but declare both of them false. God is not absolutely unknowable, and yet it is true that we cannot define Him adequately. But we can conceive and name Him in an “analogical way”. The perfections manifested by creatures are in God, not merely nominally (equivoce) but really and positively, since He is their source. Yet, they are not in Him as they are in the creature, with a mere difference of degree, nor even with a mere specific or generic difference (univoce), for there is no common concept including the finite and the Infinite. They are really in Him in a supereminent manner (eminenter) which is wholly incommensurable with their mode of being in creatures. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. xiii, a. 5, 6; C. Gent., lib. I, c. xxii-xxxv; in I Sent. Dist., xiii, Q. i, a. 1, ad 4am.) We can conceive and express these perfections only by an analogy; not by an analogy of proportion, for this analogy rests on a participation in a common concept, and, as already said, there is no element common to the finite and the Infinite; but by an analogy of proportionality. These perfections are really in God, and they are in Him in the same relation to His infinite essence that they are in creatures in relation to their finite nature. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. iv, a. 3; Q. xiii, a. 5; Q. ii, De verit., a. 11, in corp. ad 2am; ibid., xxiii, a. 7, ad 9supam.) We must affirm, therefore, that all perfections are really in God, infinitely. This infinitely we cannot define or express; we can say only that it is the absolutely perfect way, which does not admit any of the limitations which are found in creatures. Hence our conception of God, though very positive in its objective content, is, as represented in our mind and expressed in our words, more negative than positive. We know what God is not, rather than what He is. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, Q. iii, the whole question; Q. xiii, a. 2, 3, 5, 12; Q. ii, De veritate, a. 1, ad 9am, ad 10am.) Such a conception is evidently neither false nor meaningless; it is clearly inadequate. In a word, our conception of God is a human conception and it cannot be other. But if we necessarily represent God in a human way, if even if it is from our human nature that we take most of the properties and perfections which we predicate of Him, we do not conceive Him as a man, not even as a perfected man, since we eliminate from those properties, as attributes of God, all limits and imperfections which in man and other creatures are a very part of their essence.
IV. ANALOGY IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MYSTERIES OF FAITH
The Fathers of the Church always emphasized the inability of the human reason to discover or even to represent adequately the mysteries of faith, and insisted on the necessity of analogical conceptions in their representations and expressions. St. Thomas, after the Pseudo-Dionysius and Albertus Magnus, has given the theory of analogy so applied to the mysteries of faith. (Cf. St. Thomas, Summa, Theol., I, Q. i, a. 9; Q. xxii, a. 1; In Librum Boëthii De Trinitate Expositio.) The Vatican Council set forth the Catholic doctrine on the point. (Cf. Const., Dei Filius, cap. iv; cf. also Conc. Coloniense, 1860.) (1) Before Revelation, analogy is unable to discover the mysteries, since reason can know of God only what is manifested of Him and is in necessary causal relation with Him in created things. (2) In Revelation, analogy is necessary, since God cannot reveal the mysteries to men except through conceptions intelligible to the human mind, and therefore analogical. (3) After Revelation, analogy is useful to give us certain knowledge of the mysteries, either by comparison with natural things and truths, or by consideration of the mysteries in relation with one another and with the destiny of man.
———————————–
PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS, Opera Omnia; St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, QQ. iii, iv, xiii; Contra Gent., lib. I, xxix; II, ii; Quaest. disp., De verit., QQ. ii, xxiii; De potentiâ, Q. vii; In Boet. De Trinitate, expositio; DE REGNON, Etudes de théologie positive sur la S. Trinité (Paris, 1898); GRANDERATH, Constitutiones dogmaticae S. Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani (Freiburg im Br., 1892); HONTHEIM, Institutiones Theodicae (ibid., 1893); DE LA BARRE, La vie du dogme catholique (Paris, 1898); CHOLLET in Dict. de théol. cath. s. v.; SERTILLANGES, Agnosticisme ou anthropomorphisme in Rev. de philosophie, 1 Feb., and 1 Aug., 1906; GARDAIR, L’Etre Divin in Rev. de phil., July, 1906.
G.M. SAUVAGE Transcribed by Bob Elder
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume ICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Analogy
(), proportion.
1. As applied to the works of God generally, it leads to the conclusion that since He is the chief of intelligent agents, a part of any system of which He is the author must, in respect of its leading principles, be similar to the whole of that system; and, farther, that the work of an intelligent and moral being must bear in all its lineaments the traces of the character of its author. In accordance with these principles of analogy, it is maintained that the revelation of God in the Holy Scriptures is in all respects agreeable to what we know of God, from the works of nature and the order of the world, and that such agreement amounts to a strong evidence that the book professing to contain this revelation of God’s mind and purposes is really and truly indited by Him. The best exposition of this argument is to be found in Bishop Butler’s immortal Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature. (best ed. by Crooks, N. Y. 12mo). SEE BUTLER.
2. The analogy of faith is the correspondence of the several parts of divine revelation in one consistent whole. Its use is pointed out by the apostle in his direction (Rom 12:6) that prophecy that is, preaching be according to the proportion of faith. His rule, of course, extends to all interpretation and exposition of Scripture. The parts of Scripture must be explained according to the tenor of the whole; and, in order to his doing this, the reader must understand the design of the whole. If he do not, he will be continually liable to fall into error. Prejudices and leanings of our own will dispose us to interpret particular parts of the word of God according to the analogy of our own system, rather than according to the total sense of the divine word. Almost every sect and school of divinity has fallen into this error. A prerequisite for following the analogy of faith is the simple love of truth for its own sake. This, more than any thing else, will protect the mind of a student of Scripture from destroying the proportions of sacred truth. The course necessary to avoid these errors is well stated by Dr. Campbell, as follows: In vain do we search the Scriptures for their testimony concern, ing Christ, if, independently of these Scriptures, we have received a testimony from another quarter, and are determined to admit nothing as the testimony of Scripture which will not perfectly quadrate with that formerly received. This was the very source of the blindness of the Jews in our Savior’s time.
They searched the Scriptures as much as we do; but, in the disposition they were in, they would never have discovered what that sacred volume testifies of Christ. Why? Because their great rule of interpretation was the analogy of the faith; or, in other words, the system of the Pharisaean scribe, the doctrine then in vogue, and in the profound veneration of which they had been educated. This is that veil by which the understandings of that people were darkened, even in reading the law, and of which the apostle observed that it remained unremoved in his day, and of which we ourselves have occasion to observe that it remains unremoved in ours. Is it not precisely in the same way that the phrase is used by every sect of Christians for the particular system or digest of tenets for which they themselves have the greatest reverence? The Latin Church, and even the Greek, are explicit in their declarations on this article. With each, the analogy of the faith is their own system alone. That different parties of Protestants, though more reserved in their manner of speaking, aim at the same thing, is undeniable; the same, I mean, considered relatively to the speakers; for, absolutely considered, every party means a different thing. But Chalmers remarks on this, I think Dr. Campbell sets too little value on the analogy of faith as a principle of interpretation. He seems never to speak of a system of divinity without the lurking imagination that there must be human invention in it, whereas such a system may be as well grounded as Scripture criticism (Chalmers, Institutes of Theology, 1, 370; and see further at that place).
There has just appeared (1864) a work entitled Analoqy considered as a Guide to Truth, and applied as an Aid to Faith, by J. Buchanan, D.D., professor of theology, New College, Edinburgh. The following notice of it is from the Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1865: Archbishop King, and after him Dr. Copleston and Archbishop Whately, define analogy as a resemblance of relations or ratios,’ so that there may be an analogy between things that have no direct resemblance at all. Between the seed and the plant, the egg and the bird, there is a resemblance of relations,’ although no external likeness. A sweet taste gratifies the palate,’ says Dr. Whately, so does a sweet sound gratify the ear, and hence the same word
sweet is applied to both, though no flavor can resemble a sound in itself.’ This limitation Dr. Buchanan thinks is too narrow. While it is true to a certain extent, it omits the use which we make of analogy in connection with concrete objects and substantive realities. It is liable also, he thinks, to the objection that is founded on a comparatively small part of human knowledge, viz. the sciences of number and quantity. Without attempting a logical definition, the author of this volume seems to apply the term to all cases where a resemblance exists. Campbell, Prelim. Dissert. 4, 13; Home. Introd. 2, 342; Knapp, Theol. Introd. 5; Ansgus, Bible Handbook, 304-307; Home, Introd. 2, 243. SEE FAITH.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Analogy
(in Scholasticism) Predication common to several inferiors of a name, which is accepted in different senses, in such a manner, nevertheless, that some principle warrants its common applicability. Accordingly as this principle is sought in the relations of cause and effect, proportion or proportionality there are distinguished various types of analogy.
Analogy of attributionIs had when the principle of unity is found in a common concept to which the inferiors are related either by cause or effect. Moreover this common concept must refer principally and per se to a prime reality to which the inferiors are analogous. Thus food, medicine and pulse are said to be healthy. In this case the common concept is health which applies principally and per se to the animal; however, food, medicine and pulse are related to it through the various forms of cause and effect.
Analogy of proportionIs had when the principle of unity is found, not in the relations of two or more to a common concept but in the interrelation of two concepts to themselves. This relation may be one of similitude or order. Thus being is predicated of substance and quantity, not because of their relations to a third reality which primordially contains this notion, but because of a relation both of similitude and order which they have to each other.
Analogy of proportionalityIs had when the principle of unity is found in an equality of proportions. This analogy is primarily used between material and spiritual realities. Thus sight is predicated of ocular vision and intellectual understanding “eo quod sicut visus est in oculo, ita intellectus est in mente”. — H.G.
Analogy
Originally a mathematical term, Analogia, meaning equality of ratios (Euclid VII Df. 20, V. Dfs. 5, 6), which entered Plato’s philosophy (Republic 534a6), where it also expressed the epistemological doctrine that sensed things are related as their mathematical and ideal correlates. In modern usage analogy was identified with a weak form of reasoning in which “from the similarity of two things in certain particulars, their similarity in other particulars is inferred.” (Century Dic.) Recently, the analysis of scientific method has given the term new significance. The observable data of science are denoted by concepts by inspection, whose complete meaning is given by something immediately apprehendable; its verified theory designating unobservable scientific objects is expressed by concepts by postulation, whose complete meaning is prescribed for them by the postulates of the deductive theory in which they occur. To verify such theory relations, termed epistemic correlations (J. Un. Sc. IX125-128), are required. When these are one-one, analogy exists in a very precise sense, since the concepts by inspection denoting observable data are then related as are the correlated concepts by postulation designating unobservable scientific objects. — F.S.C.N.