more eminent way than in creatures.
Now our intellect apprehends them as they are in creatures, and as it
apprehends them it signifies them by names. Therefore as to the names
applied to God--viz. the perfections which they signify, such as
goodness, life and the like, and their mode of signification. As
regards what is signified by these names, they belong properly to God,
and more properly than they belong to creatures, and are applied
primarily to Him. But as regards their mode of signification, they do
not properly and strictly apply to God; for their mode of
signification applies to creatures.

Reply Obj. 1: There are some names which signify these perfections
flowing from God to creatures in such a way that the imperfect way in
which creatures receive the divine perfection is part of the very
signification of the name itself as "stone" signifies a material
being, and names of this kind can be applied to God only in a
metaphorical sense. Other names, however, express these perfections
absolutely, without any such mode of participation being part of
their signification as the words "being," "good," "living," and the
like, and such names can be literally applied to God.

Reply Obj. 2: Such names as these, as Dionysius shows, are denied of
God for the reason that what the name signifies does not belong to
Him in the ordinary sense of its signification, but in a more eminent
way. Hence Dionysius says also that God is above all substance and
all life.

Reply Obj. 3: These names which are applied to God literally imply
corporeal conditions not in the thing signified, but as regards their
mode of signification; whereas those which are applied to God
metaphorically imply and mean a corporeal condition in the thing
signified.
_______________________

FOURTH ARTICLE [I, Q. 13, Art. 4]

Whether Names Applied to God Are Synonymous?

Objection 1: It seems that these names applied to God are synonymous
names. For synonymous names are those which mean exactly the same. But
these names applied to God mean entirely the same thing in God; for
the goodness of God is His essence, and likewise it is His wisdom.
Therefore these names are entirely synonymous.

Obj. 2: Further, if it be said these names signify one and the same
thing in reality, but differ in idea, it can be objected that an idea
to which no reality corresponds is a vain notion. Therefore if these
ideas are many, and the thing is one, it seems also that all the