# Is analogia entis the same as chain of being?



## RamistThomist (Aug 7, 2015)

I'm reading Plotinus and he is very clear that chain of being equals a universe of higher orders causing lower orders. When medieval theologians talk about the analogy of being, do they mean what Plotinus means? Similarly, when Karl Barth and Van Til (yikes!) attack the analogy of being, are they also attacking traditional chain of being?


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## a mere housewife (Aug 7, 2015)

Re: the first question -- I mostly wanted to quote the below, from Lewis' Discarded Image. I had the impression that they were technically different things -- that the analogy of being relates to the way we learn about God from the creation. Yet as Lewis indicates, the creation for those who hold to hierarchies would be very mixed up with that conception? 



> His [pseudo-Dionysius'] writings are usually regarded as the main channel by which a certain kind of Theology entered the Western tradition. It is the 'negative Theology' of those who take in a more a rigid sense, and emphasise more persistently than others, the incomprehensibility of God. It is already well rooted in Plato himself, as we see from Republic 509 and the Second Epistle (312-313), and central in Plotinus. . . .
> But this, though the most important thing about pseudo-Dionysius, is not the one that concerns us. It is by his angelology that he contributed to the Model, and we can therefore confine our attention to his Celestial Hierarchies. . . . [description of their 'trinall triplicities' etc etc]
> [Of the third and lowest hierarchy] . . . The two remaining species, Archangels and Angels, are the 'angels' of popular tradition, the beings that 'appear' to human individuals.
> They are indeed the only superhuman beings that do so, for pseudo-Dionysius is as certain as Plato or Apuleius that God encounters Man only through a 'mean', and reads his own philosophy into Scripture as freely as Chalcidius had read his into the Timaeus. He cannot deny that Theophanies, direct appearances of God Himself to patriarchs and prophets, seem to occur in the Old Testament. But he is quite sure that this never really happens. These visions were in reality mediated through celestial, but created, beings 'as though the order of the divine law laid it down that creatures of a lower order should be moved God-ward by those of a higher'. . . His God does nothing directly that can be done through an intermediary: perhaps prefers the longest possible chain of intermediaries. . . .
> ...



It reminds me of how angels mediated the old Covenant but Christ is the Mediator of the new: 'hereafter you will see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man'. The old covenant seems to have *some* similarities to what the pagans could arrive at by natural philosophy -- but Immanuel shatters those conceptions.


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## MW (Aug 8, 2015)

Interesting! I would take them as two different things, at least theoretically. The analogy does not require a chain. Also, a chain seems to require some sort of emanation, as in Platonic thought, whereas the analogy of being is creationist.


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## Ask Mr. Religion (Aug 8, 2015)

See also Vickers' discussion on page 2 related to chain of being:

http://www.netherbury.net/rcf-conferences/2013 RCF CONF/RCF2013 Vickers.pdf


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## RamistThomist (Aug 8, 2015)

a mere housewife said:


> Re: the first question -- I mostly wanted to quote the below, from Lewis' Discarded Image. I had the impression that they were technically different things -- that the analogy of being relates to the way we learn about God from the creation. Yet as Lewis indicates, the creation for those who hold to hierarchies would be very mixed up with that conception?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's basically what I thought, though Lewis's "Cosmic Dance" in _Perelandra_ is a form of chain of being.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 8, 2015)

MW said:


> Interesting! I would take them as two different things, at least theoretically. The analogy does not require a chain. Also, a chain seems to require some sort of emanation, as in Platonic thought, whereas the analogy of being is creationist.



I, too, am leaning towards seeing them as different things.


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## TrustGzus (Aug 8, 2015)

Jacob, if you have Geisler's & Feinberg's _Introduction to Philosophy_, they address this directly in chapter 11. Just look for the headings *Aquinas* and the very next heading *Plotinus*. They see it as different things. 

If I recall correctly, you've read Craig & Moreland so I thought perhaps you might have this book too.

I'm not very familiar with Bahnsen. I only have one book by him. I'm curious what critique he has of analogy of being.

I think MW's post is right on with the issue.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 8, 2015)

TrustGzus said:


> Jacob, if you have Geisler's & Feinberg's _Introduction to Philosophy_, they address this directly in chapter 11. Just look for the headings *Aquinas* and the very next heading *Plotinus*. They see it as different things.
> 
> If I recall correctly, you've read Craig & Moreland so I thought perhaps you might have this book too.
> 
> ...



I read Geisler tenyears ago. Don't have that text right now. Since Geisler is a Thomist, I figured he would be at least sympathetic to analogia entis.

Moreland is more of a pure Platonist than a neo-Platonist. In his stuff on metaphysics he really does'nt deal with either issue (and most analytic philosophers don't really deal with history of philosophy, except for Russell maybe).

Bahnsen doesn't touch it that much.

Van Til goes full throttle but he seems to identify the two concepts.


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## TrustGzus (Aug 8, 2015)

ReformedReidian said:


> TrustGzus said:
> 
> 
> > Jacob, if you have Geisler's & Feinberg's _Introduction to Philosophy_, they address this directly in chapter 11. Just look for the headings *Aquinas* and the very next heading *Plotinus*. They see it as different things.
> ...



Sproul is also sympathetic to the analogy, like Geisler, he's also a Thomist

Mental lapse on my part. I read "Van Til" and substituted Bahnsen.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 8, 2015)

TrustGzus said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > TrustGzus said:
> ...



Sproul isn't just sympathetic. He openly champions it. CF his lectures on apologetics.


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## jwright82 (Aug 8, 2015)

Yes and no. When Vantillians attack both concepts they do so on the basis that both assume a univocal look at being. That our being is in some way just like God's. But God is a different kind of being than we are. But I suppose that analogy of being is more useful than chain of being. I think for some the way the term analogy has been used assumes or implies chain of being talk. Look at the Clark/Vantil controversy. 

As far as Barth goes Balthasar in his book on Barth says that Barth has misunderstood the concept. I can't say for sure it has been years since I read that book. I think Barth's response to analogy was more extreme than Van Til's. But never the less helpful.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 9, 2015)

jwright82 said:


> Yes and no. When Vantillians attack both concepts they do so on the basis that both assume a univocal look at being. That our being is in some way just like God's. But God is a different kind of being than we are. But I suppose that analogy of being is more useful than chain of being. I think for some the way the term analogy has been used assumes or implies chain of being talk. Look at the Clark/Vantil controversy.



I'm not persuaded analogia entis is univocal, but yes it does seem more proper than chain of being.



> As far as Barth goes Balthasar in his book on Barth says that Barth has misunderstood the concept. I can't say for sure it has been years since I read that book. I think Barth's response to analogy was more extreme than Van Til's. But never the less helpful.



That wasn't von Balthasar's best book (certainly not on the level of Cosmic Liturgy). But it's been so long since I've read it.

Here's another thought that I have been wrestling with:

Platonic philosophy (_The Republic_ Book VI, 549b) says that the good (or God, as it was later Christianized) transcends essence (ἀλλ᾽ ἔτι ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας). So if traditional chain of being models hold to this, it wouldn't necessarily be pantheistic. The schemata could be like this

God/The good
---------------- (this line represents the horizon of being)

Angels

Forms

Creation

The Void


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## jwright82 (Aug 10, 2015)

Yeah, I think that a chain of being model will always be problematic. A facenating couple of thinkers, Dooyeweerd and Vollehoven, for the most part thought that the term being cannot even be applied to God. They affirmed the Creator/creature distinction as a the most basic metaphysical truth. Although can one use chain of being talk after Heiddeger and Derrida successfully?


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## MW (Aug 10, 2015)

God alone has "being" in the original, essential, and immortal sense of the term, and what man enjoys as a gift from God is not "being" in its fullest sense, since all man is, has, and does, must depend upon the being of God.


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## RamistThomist (Aug 10, 2015)

MW said:


> God alone has "being" in the original, essential, and immortal sense of the term, and what man enjoys as a gift from God is not "being" in its fullest sense, since all man is, has, and does, must depend upon the being of God.



Is finite being the same thing as what older thinkers called "ens commune?"


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## MW (Aug 11, 2015)

ReformedReidian said:


> Is finite being the same thing as what older thinkers called "ens commune?"



If I remember correctly Thomism makes "being in common" the object of metaphysics. If correct this would allow for infinite and finite being to be discussed, and then the "analogy" of being is brought in.


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