American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 80, Issue 2, Spring 2006

Aquinas and Onto-theology

For Heidegger, onto-theology is the use of abstract, impersonal categories under the principle of sufficient reason that has one goal and two results. The goal is to make God fully intelligible to human understanding. The results are the disappearance of mystery from our understanding of God and the loss of any religious significance for the “God” that results. I argue that Aquinas is not guilty of onto-theology because his use of abstract, impersonal categories is subsumed (aufgehoben, teleologically suspended) in his use of personal categories and because his doctrine of analogy retains mystery in our understanding of God.