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The analogia entis (Latin for "analogy of being") is the philosophical claim that the class of relationship of the "being" of created things and the "being" of God is one of "analogy", and also the theological and devotional ramifications of this.
This entails that God's existence is entirely different to the being and modes of being of all things in the cosmos (all "creatures") and therefore to us is ineffable directly. It has also been summarized as the proposition that there is no (e.g. natural or conceptual) system of which God and creatures are both part. However, analogy can provide true but indirect (though not necessarily reliable) cognition. Other predications apart from "being" may be treated in the same way.
It has been called a guiding principle of Catholic thought (or Denkform[a]) which synthesizes many disparate themes in Catholic doctrine and theology: that general names or predications about God (not only names such as "is a Consuming Fire", "is our Father", "is Patient" and predications of perfections "is infinite", "is love", "is just", but even being itself: that God "is") are true but analogies. It is associated with the Latin phrase "maior dissimulitudo in tanta similitudine":
For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them.
— Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.
The modern formulation of the analogia entis emphasizes a cognitive rhythm: the double motion in and beyond:
What is meant by analogia entis is precisely this: that in the very same act in which the human being comes to intimate God in the likeness of the creature, he also comes to intimate Him as the one who is beyond all likeness.
— Przywara, Schriften vol 2, p404
- ^ Ekberg, Sebastian. "The Mystical End of Finitude: Analogia Entis as Catholic Denkform". www.lunduniversity.lu.se. Lund University.
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