The role and significance of the word "God" as Christians — and others — use it it cannot be explained by reflecting only on this one word. The word "God" is always used in a context, even if one is only exclaiming, "Oh God!". To determine then not only the meaning of what Christians say about God, but also to understand the meaning of the very word "God" we need to analyze what is said about God, that is, how are the diverse words of human speech used to speak about God.

To do this we will take up a discussion already alluded to in the preceding chapter — the very ancient discussion on the "Divine Names".

As with all words, even those terms of unique reference, the word "God" is not used in isolation but as a subject with logical-linguistic functions. Something is said about God, and is said in diverse ways, even when saying something to God, i.e., praying.

We will take into special consideration propositions in which the term "God" functions primarily as subject; but what we shall say will be equally valid for inquiries, disputations, requests, etc., that contain the word "God". In all these ways of speaking about God, one uses, in various ways, other terms as attributes, connecting them with the term "God".

"Attribute" here is intended in a logical sense, that is, as any predicate (function) that can be united with the subject "God", as that subject has been determined in the preceding chapter.

Linguistically, the attributes, or predicates, of "God" can be:

nouns: "God is the universal King", "God is the father of all", "God is the Absolute";

Adjectives: "God is good", "God is one";

Verbs: "God loves us", "God has saved us", "God became man";

The reference to God can be immediate: "God is good", or indirect: "the goodness of God", or also "to ask God".

All these attributes can be used in propositions, either affirmative or negative, or in disputations, questions, requests (prayers) and so forth.

We generally distinguish attributes which are direct and concrete — attributes of the first degree: "Father", "merciful" — from formal attributes — attributes of the second degree, so called because they implicate an explicit reflection on the way in which God is spoken of: "transcendent", "one", "triune", etc. This distinction is not wholly satisfactory however, as we shall see.

Both kinds of attributes may be either of a natural order: "just", "transcendent"; or of a supernatural order: "Son", "Holy Spirit", "triune". Obviously this distinction is not entirely satisfactory either.

It is in the natural attributes of the first degree that we see most clearly the basic structure of the analogical passage from significance of the human order to significance which refers to God.

When we speak of God we necessarily use the words we already know and which, within the tongue we speak, have a meaning – that is, are used – without however the specific shading they acquire when these same words are used as functions of the subject "God".1 This non-religious significance of a word constitutes the model for it use in speaking about God.

"Model" here is intended in a sense very similar to the sense intended by Ian T. Ramsey,2 as the commonly known, recognized meaning of a word used in speech,3 which permits one to pass to a similar but less common significance, not recognized by all.

For these attributes of God we must obviously use words existing in human language. Not all human expressions can be used as attributes of God, however, but only those that have certain characteristics. The linguistic expressions which are used as attributes of God must have:

a positive connotation;

a horizontally analogical meaning — that is, at the level of human significance.

gradations of significance already at the human level.

Let us now look more closely at these three ‘musts.’4

In order to be used as an attribute of God a linguistic expression must have a positive meaning, which is to say, it must express a value. This can be of the moral order ("just"), social order ("king", "shepherd"), or even economic ("rich"), among others. Non-positive expressions for God can be used only in the negative: "God is not evil", "God is not dependent on anything", etc.

One must however pay attention to the linguistic context, whether general or particular, that determines the mutable connotative value of the words: for example, the word "master"once had a positive value; now it has a negative value. In a situation where the children have been abandoned by their father, even the word "father" can have a negative connotation. The positive connotation is however always recoverable, and in the case of the word "father" it is necessary to recover it: "I too would like to have such a father!" Even an expression which is ordinarily negative can be given a positive value: "Christ humbled himself, and made himself obedient even unto death" "God died for us", etc.

Neutral expressions, such as "red", "heavy", "long", which do not have any valuation, cannot serve as attributes of God.

The exclusion of negatively-valued expressions is reflected in the moral prohibition against blasphemy. The exclusion of neutral expressions on the other hand, is reflected in the prohibition against magic and superstitions.

Only expressions which can be used analogically in non-religious discourse can be used as attributes of God: "good", "one", "rich", as well as "father", "son", "spirit". This then precludes the use of technical — and thus univocal — terms which belong to specialized terminologies such as physics, economy, politics, informatics. It is however possible for a univocal technical term to acquire or reacquire analogical potential, as for example, "energy", "liberation". But it is also possible for a term to lose its analogical significance. One needs only to think of "Unmoved Mover".

A subsequent vertically analogical employment of a word through its qualification5 toward the infinite, must therefore presume the possibility of a ‘horizontally’ analogical use of the same word in a non-religious context. Indeed speech forms of faith presuppose and guarantee the multi-dimensionality of language and of human life against any scientific or political totalitarianism.6 

This is already implicit in the discussion above: for a term to be an attribute of God, it must be have a positive value-connotation and admit to being used analogously on the horizontal level. Let us look more closely however at graduated significance.

The Qualification of the Model. The positive and analogous model, taken from ordinary, non-religious language, needs to be ‘qualified’.7 This occurs in ever-expanding stages, until the point where the significance of the word in question has been expanded to infinity.

The term in question must be usable in a comparative mode: "more merciful", and also "the father of more children".

The term in question must be usable in a progressive mode: "More merciful...still more merciful...yet more merciful"; also: "the father of more and more children".

The term in question must be usable in a negative way: "not so merciful as other merciful ones"; also: "not a father like other fathers".

The term in question must be used in asinotic mode:8 "infinitely more merciful", and also "the father of all in every possible respect". This is to say that the difference between "infinitely more merciful" and the immediately preceding "more merciful" cannot be expressed in any determinate fashion – that is: finitely – because the distance is itself infinite.

The term in question must be usable in a transcendent mode: "infinitely merciful", and also "eternal Father". This is to say that "infinitely merciful" is not the summum of a series of ‘merciful’s’, but is infinitely beyond the whole series.9

The Infinitizing of the Model. The "infinitization" of the meaning of a term is found not only in religious language, but is also fully acknowledged in other fields as well. In mathematics, for example, the ‘limit’ is not only a wholly accepted term but is indispensable in certain branches. Moreover, the rules for its use are elaborate and recognized: the 3 is the limit of 2.9999.... The circle is the limit of the square.

In mathematics the movement towards a limit is quite elaborated. But this infinitization of meaning is not lacking in other types of discourse as well; even in poetry one finds it fairly frequently. And in the extrapolation of certain terms in the exact sciences one can discern something similar — a graduating movement towards an unspecifiable limit.

To be sure, this infinitization takes away the possibility of indicating with any precision both the passage from the progressive gradations to the actual limit itself, and the limit’s distance from every preceding moment, since this distance is itself infinite. Nonetheless the direction of the infinitized meaning remains determinate: the circle is the limit of the square, not of the rectangle (whose limit would be an ellipse); in the same way, the ‘infinitely merciful’ and the ‘infinitely good’ do not coincide as concepts. They coincide in the divine subject.10 

Regarding ‘revealed attributes’, and especially those concerning the Trinity, one needs logically to make a second infinitization– almost the reverse of the first – as a restriction.

‘Father’. "Father of all", as well as "Father of his Chosen People", and even more: "Father of the King (David) and of the King’s House", "Father of the Just"; and in a very special sense: "Father of Jesus" (John 20, 17), "Only Father of the Only Son".

‘Son’. What occurs here is a process correlative to ‘Father": "All are sons (and daughters) of one divine Father" . . . "the only son of the only Father".

‘Spirit’. A two-step procedure is to be made here: both from the scriptural meaning of ‘Spirit’ ("ruah", "pneuma" – not the customary meaning of ‘spirit’ in our own languages), and from its customary meaning in our languages: the spirit of a person, of a people, of an era . . . performing first the ‘infinitization’ of the term, and then the restriction to Christ and to the Father.

–– And with regard to the special significance of other terms which derive from ‘Revelation’: after performing the necessary infinitization, one must explain their meaning in relation to the ‘reductive’ significance of Trinitarian terms.

Certain terms used as predicates of the word "God" have, at least in part, a significance which is formal-grammatical — they function as a ‘linguistic rule’:

"God is good": in speaking of God, as we noted earlier, one can only use ‘positive’ attributes and only negate ‘negative’ attributes.

"God is one": the word "God" is not used in the plural, except in special contexts mentioned earlier.

"God is infinite": with regard to terms used as predicates of "God" one must perform the ‘infinitization’.

"God is transcendent": for terms used as predicates of "God" one must go ‘beyond’ the infinite series of the infinitization.

If "being" is taken in its ancient and medieval sense as "perfection", then it is an attribute, which is to say, a predicate: then the process of infinitization can even be applied to the attribute "being ", right up to "esse subsistens", "actus (essendi) purus". If "being" is taken in this sense – as an attribute subject to gradations – then the ontological argument, beginning with the "the id quod maius cogitari debet" and "id quo maius cogitari nequit," is possible but fails to demonstrate actual existence.11 

If on the other hand, "being" is taken as "actual existence", then it is not a predicate, as Kant saw clearly, and thus it is necessary to treat it in another context.12 

What we say about God — the ‘names of God’ — are human names, words that belong to human discourse, but when they are used to refer to God, their significance is ‘qualified’ to the infinite. In this sense, the "logic of the attributes of God" presupposes the normal logic of human language: it does not render superfluous but indeed contains it; however it is distinct from it and surpasses it. The infinite ‘extendability’ of human meaning thus guarantees not only the religious significance but also, though secondarily, the specifically Christian significance.

The "logic of the attributes of God" directly determines the functioning of Christian communication, as we shall see in chapter Six.

And the infinite extension of human meaning has a correlative even in human existence itself, as we shall see in chapter Eight.

1. This holds true also indirectly for the words deliberately coined for the purpose of speaking about God. The "possest", invented by Nicholas Cusanus as the exclusive attribute of God, presupposes the ordinary significance of the Latin "posse" ("to be able") and "est" ("he is") in order to say about God that "He is all that is able". Cfr. Nicolas Cusanus, De possest.

2. Ian Ramsey, Religious Language : An Empirical Placing of Theological Phrases (London, SCM Press, 1957). Especially: Chapter 2: "Some Traditional Characterizations of God: Models and Qualifiers," pp. 49ff.

3. Ramsey, however, does not speak of "the meaning of a word", but of a "situation": "A ‘model’ . . . is a situation with which we are all familiar, and which can be used for reaching another situation — with which we are not so familiar — one which, without the model, we should not recognize so easily". But he himself uses as examples: "cause", "wise", "good", and "creation". Character Ramsey, op cit, p. 61ff.

4. Here and in what follows, "must" is obviously intended to be understood as a ‘linguistic rule’ ("Sprachregulung").

5. The term ‘qualification’ was introduced by Ramsey and is analogous to the logical term ‘quantification’: to any term "T" can be assigned either an existential quantification (T = "there exists at least one T") or a universal quantification ( T = "for all T’s"). But in the case of the use of a given term with respect to God, ‘qualification’ is that of the infinitization of the term’s meaning. Cfr. Ramsey, op cit, p. 62.

6. Cfr. Karl Huber, "Zeichen Gottes - Zeichen der Kirche," Wilhelm Sandfuchs, die Kirche (Würzburg, Verlage Echter, 1978), pp. 11-24.

7. Cfr. Ramsey, op.cit., p. 62.

8. The term ‘asintotic’ is borrowed from the geometry of the hyperbole, that is, of a curve whose shape approaches ever nearer to a right angle. Its ‘asintotic’ however is achieved only at infinity.

9. Cfr. Plato, Symposium; 209e-211c; Thomas Aquinas, S.T., I. q. 2, a. 3.

10. And they coincide in him in a simple mode, with no composition or division, although for us this mode remains incomprehensible.

11. Cfr. Appendix.

12. See chapter 8: The justification for speaking about God ‘realistically’.