Our conference this afternoon is on a topic called the divine names.

And what we understand by the term names is not what we typically mean in English.

It doesn't mean a proper name, but really any term or word applied to God.

So let me just give some examples of divine names right here on the

board. If you just say God is or God is being, there's a way in which you're applying a name to him,

especially if you say God is being. You're applying a term to God, some form of to be. Or if you say God is being, you're applying a term to God, some form of to be.

Or if you say God is good, you're applying the term good to God.

Good can then be called a divine name.

God knows.

God is wisdom.

God is love.

God causes.

In all these cases, you're naming God in the sense that you're saying things of God.

And where we get divine names and how we use them is one of the great, great questions of the philosophical and theological tradition in which Aquinas moves.

So one of the great questions is, do the names, do words mean the same thing when applied

to God as one applied to things around us?

And how do we say yes or no one way or the other?

How would you even go about answering such a question?

So what we're going to do today is begin with an important distinction that Aquinas

draws going all the way back to Aristotle between three different types of terms, univocal,

terms, equivocal terms, and analogical terms, and in order to explain this important distinction, Professor Michael Gorman is going to come up and make all things clear.

This is a sort of duo presentation, this one.

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