Analogical Theology or Gradational Theology

Abstract

There are attributes in the ordinary language that have been commonly attributed to God and His creatures. Ascribing these attributes to God and His creatures univocally or equivocally leads respectively to anthropomorphism and agnosticism. To solve this problem, some Islamic thinkers have appealed to the gradational meaning of these attributes. Mulla Sadra has presented a theory for this problem that based on his philosophical principles and can be called “gradational theology”. St. Tomas Aquinas has tried to cope with the problem by appealing to the doctrine of Analogy. This theory has been criticized both by Islamic and Christian thinkers. By the semantic analysis of the key words of Aquinas’s theory, it can be said that his theory is similar to the gradational theology with some slight differences. Besides, it can be said that concerning this problem, he was influenced by Avicenna. This article seeks to explain this claim in an analytic-descriptive way along with comparing the theories of Mulla Sadra and Thomas Aquinas.

Keywords

• analogical theology
• gradational theology
• thomas aquinas
• mulla sadra