JACQUES MARITAIN
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act in time, upon material which antecedes the action, by means of
instruments which are at hand in a given place even though they
may have been previously created. For M. Maritain, God creates
the world together with the antecedent material and the instruments
of creation. How is this creation to be -understood? Not meta–
phorically but analogically. The metaphorical sense of creation is
obviously derived from the activity of men as when we speak of
the "creative gusts of spring," (or of "smiling skies" derived from
"smiling men"). The analogical concept of creation as applied to
God, however, has a meaning which in
principle
is not derived
from, or reducible to, the creative activities of men. Nor are
divine
creation and
human
creation two different modes of creation, for
in
that case "creation" as a term would have a univocal, not an
analogous meaning, and what is in question here is the analysis of
the term "creation," rather than the term "divine" whose meaning
has difficulties of its own.
Strictly speaking, we cannot predicate properties of God
whose meanings are derived'from human activity, without subject–
ing him to the same empirical tests as we apply to creatures of
space and time.
If
we do this, God in anthropomorphized and all
statements about him become false.
If
we do not do this, there is
no possible way by which statements about God can be tested, and
they become meaningless.
It
is in order to escape the dilemma
between uttering false or meaningless statements about God, that
the analogy of proportionality is introduced, since it enables
theologians to say that our knowledge of him is "inadequate." But
this is no help, for if the concept "inadequate" is taken literally,
the position is self-contradictory since it presupposes some true
knowledge of God; and if it is taken analogically, the entire posi–
tion is begged.
For Marx the function of intelligent analysis of creation or of
any other abstraction is to put an end to mystery: for M. Maritain
it
is to prepare the mind to accept mystery. From mystery to mira–
ele is one step, and from miracle to authority another. And if we
recall that for M. Maritain our analogical knowledge of God, for
all
its inadequacy and limitation, is more reliable than
any
other
knowledge we have, more certain even than our knowledge of "the
beating of our own hearts," the true measure of his denigration
of
scientific method becomes apparent.
