What is God? How Do We Talk About God?

Part 3: How Do We Talk About God?

When we ask, What is God?, we’re not just facing a mystery—we’re also facing a language problem.

We want to speak meaningfully about God, but we quickly run into a challenge: our words are limited, and God is not.

If we say God is good, do we mean the same thing we mean when we say a person is good? If we say God is wise, are we describing Him the way we describe a teacher or a scientist? If not, what do we mean?

This is one of the most important questions in theology, and one Aquinas takes very seriously. Before we can describe God, we need to understand how we can talk about Him at all.

Why Definitions Matter

Before we look at how Aquinas proposes we speak about God, we need to appreciate why this matters. If two people use the same word but mean completely different things, they cannot understand each other. The conversation breaks down, even if the words sound familiar.

This is not just a technical problem: it’s a human one. When we fail to define our terms clearly, we risk talking past one another, even when we’re trying to talk about what matters most.

Aquinas insists that theology must begin with clear, well-defined language. Without it, we cannot understand one another, and we certainly cannot speak rightly about God.

The Three Ways of Speaking

Aquinas lays out three basic ways we use language:

1. Univocal – A word that means exactly the same thing in every use. Example: “2 + 2 = 4” means the same thing everywhere.→ This doesn’t work for God, because it treats divine qualities as if they were exactly the same as human ones.

2. Equivocal – A word that means something completely different in each case. Example: “bank” can mean the side of a river or a place that holds money.→ This also doesn’t help. If our words about God had totally different meanings, we couldn’t understand or say anything true.

3. Analogical – A word used in ways that are related, though not identical. Example: “healthy” describes both food and a person, but not in the same way.→ This is the way we talk about God. It acknowledges a real similarity, but also respects the difference between Creator and creature.

So, when we say “God is good,” we do not mean that God is good in exactly the same way we are. But we also don’t mean something completely unrelated. We mean that whatever goodness exists in us pre-exists in God in a more perfect way.

The Way of Analogy

This way of speaking—analogy—is central to Catholic theology. It allows us to talk about God without reducing Him to a creature.

Here’s how it works:

• We observe perfections in the world: goodness, beauty, wisdom, justice.

• We recognize that these qualities must have a source.

• We attribute them to God in a higher, purer, and more excellent way.

Aquinas calls this the threefold way:

1. Way of Causality – God is the cause of all perfections we see.

2. Way of Negation – God is not limited the way creatures are.

3. Way of Eminence – God possesses all perfections in the highest possible way.

So when we say God is wise, we mean: God is the source of all wisdom, is not limited in wisdom as we are, and possesses wisdom perfectly and eternally.

A Note on Duns Scotus

Not every theologian agreed with Aquinas on this point. Blessed John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan philosopher and theologian, proposed a different view. He argued that if we are going to speak meaningfully about God, especially about being, then we must use certain terms univocally—that is, in the same basic sense when applied to God and creatures.

Otherwise, Scotus believed, theological language would collapse into vagueness. Aquinas, however, warned that univocity risks reducing God to creaturely terms. The disagreement highlights a deeper tension in theology: how to preserve both the transcendence of God and the intelligibility of our language about Him.

What God Is Not

Sometimes the best way to speak about God is to say what He is not. This is known as the via negativa, or “the negative way.”

Aquinas insists that we must be cautious not to speak about God as if He were a super-powered creature. So he affirms that:

• God is not material

• God is not composed of parts

• God is not changeable

• God is not limited

• God is not subject to time

We remove from our concept of God anything that implies limitation, dependence, or imperfection. What remains is not a vague shadow, but the pure fullness of being, without defect.

Why This Matters

You might wonder, why go through all this effort just to say what God is not?

Because our goal is to speak truthfully about God. Not just beautifully or emotionally, but accurately. If God is infinite, eternal, and perfect, then our language must stretch beyond its usual limits to honor that reality.

This isn’t just academic. If we confuse God with creation, we start to imagine Him as limited, changeable, emotional, or reactive. That leads to a smaller God—one made in our image.

But if we let God be God, we discover something astonishing: He is greater than we imagined. He is no less personal or less loving than we are. He is more. More real. More good. More wise. More love.

Conclusion: Truth That Transcends

Talking about God will always stretch the limits of our language. But that’s a sign that we’re speaking about someone truly beyond us.

When we say God is good, we’re not just describing what He does. We are expressing a truth that goes deeper than definition. God is not merely the cause of goodness. He is goodness itself, in a way we can barely begin to comprehend.

In the next part, we’ll look at how Aquinas argues that this God, the one beyond all limits, who cannot be described directly, truly exists, and that we can know it with confidence.