📘 Lexicon Entry: Analogical Metaphysics

Theological framework recognizing both similarity and difference between divine and human realities, maintaining proper tension between transcendence and immanence.

A theological framework that recognizes both similarity and difference between divine and human realities, maintaining proper tension between transcendence and immanence by understanding that created reality bears analogical rather than univocal or equivocal relationship to divine reality. This approach avoids both Dominative Christianism’s identity collapse (where creation becomes indistinguishable from Creator) and absolute separation (where no meaningful relation exists between God and world). Unlike Primitive Biblicism’s univocal collapse or Binary Apocalypticism’s equivocal separation, analogical metaphysics enables meaningful theological discourse while preserving divine transcendence. This framework provides essential foundation for understanding how Interindependence operates between divine and human agency through participatory rather than competitive relationship.

Theological Alternative

analogy, metaphysics, transcendence, immanence, univocal, equivocal, participation, divine-human relationship

Geevarghese-Uffman, Craig. “Analogical Metaphysics.” *Political Theology Lexicon*. https://www.commonlifepolitics.com/p/lexicon. Accessed [date].

God’s relationship to creation is primarily analogical rather than either univocal (same meaning) or equivocal (completely different meaning)

Creation bears genuine but non-identical likeness to Creator through participatory relationship

Divine-human relationship involves both likeness and difference simultaneously without collapsing either

Knowledge of God requires both kataphatic (positive) and apophatic (negative) dimensions

Language about God is neither literal nor meaningless but analogical, enabling authentic theological discourse

Univocal collapse that claims direct identification between divine and human categories, characteristic of prosperity theology and religious nationalism

Equivocal separation that claims absolute disconnect between divine and human categories, creating theological irrelevance

Selective univocity that applies direct identification only to favorable aspects while maintaining separation for difficult ones

Reduction of mystery to either exhaustive knowledge or complete unknowability, eliminating space for genuine theological inquiry

Confusion of analogical participation with either pantheistic identity or deistic separateness

Transcendence-Immanence Balance: Maintains proper tension between God’s otherness and presence without collapsing into either extreme

Analogical Interval: Recognizes “space” between divine and human reality that maintains both connection and distinction

Non-Competitive Relationship: Divine and human agency understood as complementary rather than competing forces

Participatory Ontology: Created beings participate in divine reality without becoming identical to it

Sacramental Worldview: Material reality capable of mediating divine presence without replacing it

Biblical Foundations: Scripture employs analogical language extensively, using human terms for divine realities while acknowledging infinite qualitative difference (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Patristic Development: Church fathers like Gregory of Nazianzus developed analogical approaches to avoid both anthropomorphic reduction and complete divine unknowability

Medieval Systematization: Thomas Aquinas’s analogia entis provided classical formulation, distinguishing analogy of attribution and analogy of proportionality

Modern Recovery: 20th-century theologians like Erich Przywara and Hans Urs von Balthasar recovered analogical thinking against modern univocal tendencies

Divine transcendence beyond human thoughts and ways (Isaiah 55:8-9) while maintaining covenant relationship

Creation bearing witness to divine attributes (Romans 1:19-20) without direct identification

Incarnation as paradigmatic analogical event (John 1:14) – divine fully present in human without ceasing to be divine

Jesus’s parables demonstrating analogical relationship between earthly and heavenly realities (Matthew 13:31-33)

Radical Orthodoxy Movement: John Milbank and colleagues recovering participatory ontology against secular univocity and postmodern equivocity

Science-Religion Dialogue: Theologians like Sarah Coakley using analogical frameworks to engage scientific cosmology without reductionism

Political Theology: Applications to understanding divine sovereignty and human governance without theocratic identification or secular separation

Interfaith Relations: Analogical thinking providing resources for recognizing truth in other traditions without relativistic collapse

Ecological Theology: Creation understood as analogically related to Creator, bearing divine image without pantheistic identification

Contemporary scholars demonstrate how analogical metaphysics provides framework for navigating theological challenges without abandoning classical commitments

Research shows analogical thinking enables engagement between scientific and theological perspectives while maintaining integrity of both domains

Studies indicate analogical frameworks support interfaith dialogue by enabling recognition of truth without relativism or exclusivism

Related Primary Concepts: Interindependence provides relational framework that analogical metaphysics makes possible

Key Mutations: Primitive Biblicism, Binary Apocalypticism represent univocal and equivocal distortions

Theological Alternatives: Being With, Relational Ontology build on analogical foundation

Contemporary Movements: Christian Nationalism demonstrates dangers of univocal collapse

May 24, 2025

*This entry is part of the Political Theology Lexicon, accessible exclusively to subscribers. View the complete lexicon to explore related concepts and the full theoretical framework.*