Analogy of being

The view that terms applied to God and creatures have related but nonidentical meanings. It holds that creaturely language can speak truthfully of God without describing God and creatures in the same way.

Analogy: A comparison that identifies a relevant likeness between things while allowing differences. The analogy of being applies this broader kind of comparison to language about God and creatures.
Aristotle: An ancient Greek philosopher whose works shaped later accounts of substance, being, and predication. His discussion of being said in many ways supplied a major resource for analogical predication.
Analogia entis: The Latin expression for the analogy of being, especially associated with Catholic metaphysics and theology. This name marks the doctrine in its influential Catholic and Przywarian formulations.
Doctrine of creation: The theological account of God as the source of the existence of all created things. The doctrine depends on a real relation between Creator and creatures without making them beings in the same manner.
Analogy of attribution: A form of analogy in which a term applies primarily to one thing and derivatively to related things. It explains how goodness may be predicated of creatures through their relation to God.
Thomas Aquinas: A medieval theologian and philosopher who developed influential accounts of analogy and divine language. Aquinas gives a systematic account of how names apply analogically to God and creatures.
Karl Barth: A Swiss Reformed theologian who rejected natural theology and emphasized God’s self-revelation in Christ. Barth’s polemic against the analogy of being made it a defining Catholic–Protestant controversy.
Participation (philosophy): A metaphysical relation in which something possesses a feature derivatively from a more fundamental source. Participation provides one account of how creatures can possess perfections that belong to God primarily.
Analogy of proportion: A form of analogy that compares relations or proportions rather than identical properties. It offers a model for predications whose meanings vary with the being of their subjects.
Fourth Lateran Council: A 1215 ecumenical council that affirmed both likeness and greater unlikeness between Creator and creature. Its formulation became a touchstone for medieval claims that creaturely language never captures God fully.

Linked from 12 pages