Epilogue: Reply to Michael S. Sherwin’s Response, “Painted Ladies and the Witch of Endor”

Having received the response of Fr. Michael Sherwin, O.P., to his paper, Prof. O’Callaghan, in the period after the Colloquium, during which he prepared his paper for publication, included two extended footnotes in reply to certain points made by Fr. Sherwin. They are reproduced below.

–Fr. Bryan Kromholtz, O.P.

On “god” as a Proper Name

For simplicity’s sake and the flavor of the talk as presented, I have retained the claim that God is a proper name in the context of article 2 of the first question of the Prima Pars of the Summa theologiae.¹ In his comments on this paper at the Dominican Colloquium in Berkeley, California, Fr. Michael Sherwin OP correctly pointed out that a number of important figures maintain that the apparent use of the term “god” as a proper name in relevant contexts of Christian belief is really a hidden definite description for something like “the one true god,” “the one and only true god,” or “the real god.” He mentioned works by Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach, as well as Brian Davies.²

Anscombe and Geach are concerned with the semantics of the term “god,” that it is not a proper name but, rather, a definite description in those contexts of use they have in mind. Davies has another concern, namely, that to use “god” as a proper name inevitably leads to theological error concerning Christian Trinitarian belief. He asserts that to use it as a proper name is to use it like the name “Brian,” the name of a person, which inevitably leads to theological error concerning the Trinity. It can lead to the thought that there is some one being that is a person with the attributes of a person in conflict with the Trinitarian doctrines that there are three divine persons who are one god. A quick way to see his point is that one might think from the use of the term “god” as a proper name that there are the three persons of the Trinity, then there is another person “God,” and then the three persons of the Trinity are identical with this one person, God, with the result that three persons are identical to one person. And so he claims that Aquinas “never” uses it as a proper name.

Father Sherwin’s point is well taken with regard to both Anscombe’s and Geach’s semantic point and Davies’ theological point. I hope to address it at length in a more worked-out version of this paper. For now, as to Davies’ point, Davies is making a sociological-cum-psychological point about the tendency of those who use the term “God” as a proper name. He is not making a semantic point. Semantically, a proper name need not be the proper name of a person. And so, the assimilation of “god” as a proper name to “Brian” as a proper name of a person, while it may be a theological danger, is not a semantic necessity. So, the fact that using it as a proper name may lead to theological error does not imply that it will do so, any more than calling a star “Sirius” implies that one with the appropriate astronomical knowledge will make errors about it, treating it as a person. One simply has to be careful to use the term against the background of and guided by the theological truths one affirms about the Trinity.

As to the semantic point made by Anscombe and Geach, I would remark briefly that I do not think it actually undermines the point of this paper. First, it seems to be in conflict with Davies’ point. If they think it is a hidden definite description, it is functioning just as referentially as is “god” used as a proper name. Indeed, more so, since now it functions as part of a referring phrase with descriptive content, the descriptive content that whatever individual is being referred to has the characteristics of a god, among which would presumably be life, intelligence, and...