cannot be summarily dismissed. We read in the Scriptures of the face, the eyes, the ears,

the hands, the fingers, the nostrils, the heart, and the bowels of God. To accept the

statements literally would be manifestly false and unscriptural; and to justify them

logically and philosophically is a task that cannot be easily accomplished.

One result of the Schoolmen's study was the emergence of the fact that language must

be distinguished by a threefold usage. It can be used (1) univocally, (2) equivocally,

and (3) analogically.  A word is used univocally when in two or more propositions it

conveys precisely the same meaning. It is used equivocally when it is used in entirely

different senses. It is used analogically when it is employed because of the connection

observable between two relations. For example:--

The Wisdom of God.--This cannot be a univocal use of the word wisdom, because

that would mean that God's wisdom was neither more nor less than man's wisdom,

which is false. It cannot be equivocal, for in that case it would convey nothing to the

mind. If God's wisdom had absolutely nothing in common with man's, human language

would be entirely unfit for the purposes of revelation. The expression "the wisdom of

God" is employed analogically, for there is something in common between the wisdom

of man and the wisdom of God. What is partial, limited and incomplete in man, is perfect

and infinite in God.

Some have attacked the validity of analogy through mistaking analogy for metaphor.

This distinction we must investigate more fully when we deal specifically with figurative

language, but we must touch upon it here for the sake of our theme. Metaphor expresses

an imaginary resemblance, but analogy expresses a real resemblance. For example, "All

flesh is grass" is a metaphor. There is an imaginary resemblance between "flesh" and

"grass" that justifies the figure. "I am the door" is a metaphor. "This is My body" is a

metaphor. What deplorable superstition and error have resulted from the regarding of

this metaphor as a reality. Neither the bread used by the Lord Himself, nor that which

has been used since by His disciples through the ages, has even been anything but bread.

Analogy, however, implies a real resemblance. Power, personality, presence, mean

something real, whether spoken literally of man or figuratively of God.

Our next problem, therefore, is to consider how the anthropomorphic terms of

Scripture are to be received, and what provision God has made for the true and full use of

analogy. This we must take up in our next paper.

One word in conclusion. We have entitled this paper, "The definition of analogy".

Strictly speaking, however, analogy is extremely difficult to define. Bishop Butler,

whose "Analogy" is well-known, refused to attempt its definition, and proceeded rather

to its application. We must not be taken to task for attempting something that greater

minds have avoided--we use the word "definition" in a loose sense, and not in a strictly

logical one.