Thomas Sutton on Univocation, Equivocation, and Analogy

The Thomist 70 (2006): 537-75 THOMAS SUTTON ON UNIVOCATION, EQUIVOCATION, AND ANALOGY MARK G. HENNINGER, S.J. Georgetown University Washington, D.C. HOMAS SUTTON, O.P., was one of the most forceful and perceptive proponents of key theological and philosophical doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas in the dosing decades of the thirteenth and opening decades of the fourteenth century.1 Gilson wrote that he "maintained the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas against two successive generations of opponents: (1) the representatives of the late thirteenth century Augustinism ... (2) the new theology of John Duns Scotus."2 Francis Kelley and Gyula Klima have examined Thomas Sutton's defense of various of Aquinas's teachings against the criticism of Henry of Ghent, a representative of the first generation of opponents to the Angelic 1 For Thomas Sutton's life (ca. 1250-ca. 1315) and works, see D. E. Sharpe, "Thomas of Sutton, O.P., His Place in Scholasticism and an Account of His Psychology," Revue neoscolastique de philosophie 36 (1934): 332-54; idem, "Thomas of Sutton," Revue neoscolastique de philosophie 37 (1934): 88-104, 219-33; this second article of Sharpe deals with Sutton's views on certain metaphysical doctrines, angelology, and natural theology. W. A. Hinnebusch, The Early English Friars Preachers (Rome: Ad S. Sabinae, 1951), 396-410; Frederick J. Roensch, Early Thomistic School (Dubuque, Iowa: Priory Press, 1964), 44-51; Johannes Schneider, "Einleitung," in Thomas Sutton, Quaestiones Ordinariae, ed. Johannes Schneider (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1977), 15"'-267"; Gyula Klima, "Thomas of Sutton," in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, ed. Jorge J.E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 664-65; W. Senko, "Trzystudia nad spu8cizrn1 i pogh1dami Tomasza Suttona dotyczqcymi problemu istoty i istnienia," Studia Mediewistyczne 11(1970):111-52. 2 Etienne Gilson, History ofChristian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (NewYork: Random House, 1955), 738; Hinnebusch, English Friars, 397-400, 409-10. See also Roensch, Thomistic School, 47. 537 538 MARK G. HENNINGER, S.J. Doctor.3 In this article, I explore Sutton's defense of a key doctrine of Aquinas, the analogical concept of being, against the second generation of opponents, specifically Duns Scotus's innovative doctrine of the univocity of the concept of being. In his defense of his fellow Dominican, Sutton also treats the problem of the divine names, such as 'wisdom' and 'goodness', stoutly maintaining that they are predicated of God and creatures analogically, not univocally. But which of the various types of analogy is Sutton defending?4 We know that the complexities of analogy and its use in a number of contexts stimulated Aquinas to rethink and deepen his theory during his career. While discussing the problem of the divine names, Aquinas in his early works used a form of the analogy of attribution, while in De Veritate (125659 ) he argues for another type of analogy, that of proportionality. Finally in his later works, such as De potentia and the Summa Theologiae, he quietly abandons the views of De Veritate and returns in the main to his earlier opinion.5 It is no surprise, then, that those who have studied the texts of Thomas Sutton dealing with this issue have also found a complex and articulated teaching. Hence, I examine not only the main reasons and arguments that Sutton brings forward against Scotus's univocal concept of being, but also Sutton's use of various types of analogy 3 Gyula Klima, "Thomas of Sutton on the Nature of the Intellective Soul and the Thomistic Theory of Being," in Nach der Verurteilung von 1277: Philosophie und Theologie an der Universitiit von Paris im letzen Viertel des 13. ]ahrhunderts, Miscellanea Mediaevalia 28, ed. J. Aersten, K. Emery, and A. Speer (Berlin and NewYork: Walter de Gruyter, 2001), 436-55; Francis E. Kelley, "Two Early English Thomists: Thomas of Sutton and Robert Orford vs. Henry of Ghent," The Thomist 45 Ouly 1981): 345-89. Kelley takes up three problems: the relation of the faculties of the intellect and will to the soul, the possibility of creation of matter without form, and the distinction between essence and existence in the creature. For Sutton as author of the completion of two...