Aquinas
1. Summa Theologica –
Ninth Circle – Whether holy scripture should use metaphors.
a. Objections:
i. Holy
scripture should not use metaphors as it proper to the lowest science of
poetry.
ii. Metaphors
obscure the divine truth as they are not clear.
iii. God
should be represented through higher creatures, not lower.
b. Answers
from Aquinas:
i. It
is befitting to put forth divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons
with material things.
ii. It
is natural to man to obtain knowledge through sensible objects.
iii. Metaphors
enable the simple to understand intellectual things.
c. Reply
to Objections:
i. Sacred
doctrine makes use of metaphors as both necessary and beautiful.
ii. Metaphors
enable revelation by raising the comparisons to knowledge of truths.
iii. As
things further from god help establish truer estimations of god, it is fitting
that truths are represented by figures of less nobler bodies.
2. Summa Theologica –
Tenth Circle – Whether in holy scripture a word may have several senses.
a. Objections:
i. The
holy writ of a word cannot have several interpretations, as it would produce
confusion and deception.
ii. It
does not make sense to explain one word of God with four different
interpretations.
iii. There
are also parables that is not one of the four interpretations.
b. Answers
from Aquinas:
i. There
is a historical and literal sense where words signify things.
ii. Spiritual
sense is present as things signified by words also have signification.
iii. Allegorical
sense is the things of the old law signifying things in the new law
(reconciliation between the Old and New Testaments.
iv. A
moral sense exists in that we should do things as done by Christ.
c. Reply
to Objections:
i. The
different senses do not produce different meanings.
ii. Some
of the senses like history fall under the literal sense.
iii. Some
of the senses like allegorical and tropological fall under spiritual sense.
iv. Parables
fall under the literal sense as words are signified properly and figuratively.
Works Cited
Aquinas, Thomas. Summan Theologica. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17611/pg17611.txt.
Dec 14, 2013. Web.
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