Evaluation of Analogy

Question 1

Weakness: We could dispute Aquinas’ claims about proportionate analogy

Answer 1

We could dispute whether humans were created ‘in the image and likeness of God.’

This is challenged by Darwin’s theory of evolution and rejected by atheist Richard Dawkins

Question 2

Weakness: The object of analogy (God) cannot be verified

Answer 2

Link to Ayer’s VP

Question 3

Weakness: Swinburne criticises Aquinas for producing an unncessary theory

Answer 3

We can speak of God and humans as ‘good’ univocally, it is just that humans possess goodness in different ways.

It is still the same essential quality, even though God is perfect and humans are not.

Question 4

Strength: Aquinas’ theory of analogy manages to avoid the problems of standard cataphatic language

Answer 4

Avoids the problems of standard cataphatic language by finding a middle ground between them. Univocal language fails because we are not the same as God and equivocal language fails because we are not completely different.

Question 5

Strength: basis in natural theology

Answer 5

Aquinas accepted that human reason could never know or understand God’s infinite divine nature. He uses natural theology, the view that human reason is capable of knowing something of God, in this case what his qualities are analogous to.