| THOUGH the names predicated of God signify the same thing, still they are not synonymous, because they do not signify the same point of view. For just as divers realities are by divers forms assimilated to the one simple reality, which is God, so our understanding by divers concepts is in some sort assimilated to Him, inasmuch as, by several different points of view, taken from the perfections of creatures, it is brought to the knowledge of Him. And therefore our understanding is not at fault in forming many concepts of one thing; because that simple divine being is such that things can be assimilated to it in many divers forms. According to these divers conceptions the understanding invents divers names, an assigns them to God-names which, though they denote one and the same thing, yet clearly are not synonymous, since they are not assigned from the same point of view. The same meaning does not attach to the name in all these cases, seeing that the name signifies the concept of the understanding before it signifies the thing understood. | |