Hence, because God spoke for our sake, He suited and accommodated His speech to our capacity and to how things happen for us.
Five Books on the Nature of God,
or
On the Divine Attributes
or
On the Divine Attributes
By Girolamo Zanchi
Translated by Patrick J. O'Banion
Book 1, Chapter 6, Quaestio 1, Part 2
Volume 1 is available for order now from Merchant Royal Press
But the meaning of the proposed question can also be understood in another way: Whether some name (or names) that can rightly be attributed to God is (or are) fitting for Him—a name whereby He is distinguished from other things and that expresses who He is and what He is like (to an extent that is sufficient for us to know for our salvation in this life). Well then, we respond affirmatively to this second thesis.
The Second Thesis
All names that are predicated of God in the Holy Scriptures and, so, that are truly divine can appropriately be attributed to God because they express who God is and what He is like, to the extent necessary for our salvation.
This thesis needs neither explanation nor proof, if one keeps in mind who imposed these names of which we speak: not men but God Himself. But does God ever act or do anything that could be said to have been done unjustly or wrongly?
Accordingly, the reverence that we owe to God and His Holy Scriptures should, on its own, be the equal of a thousand clear proofs, indicating to us that the names attributed to God in the Holy Scriptures are rightly attributed to Him and that they befit God as they are received in the way that He wants them to be received. Now, add experience. For, those names that we have from God in the Holy Scriptures bring all of the elect to a true knowledge of God whereby they are saved. Indeed, His name is so holy that, although all of God’s names are derived from created things for our sake, He set down a law as a warning lest anyone take His name in vain. For the dignity of the divine names does not depend upon the things from which they are taken but upon Him to whom and by whom they are applied.
Hence, in order to show that these names please and, therefore, rightly befit God, on many occasions He consented to have the mere invocation of His name (even by the wicked) produce many incomparable miracles and wonders. Consequently, God so effectively distinguishes Himself from other things by the names found in the Holy Scriptures and so perfectly explains who He is and what He is like for our salvation that those names may rightly be called divine names. For, as I said previously, they perfectly signify to us the divine nature to a sufficient degree for this present life.
But what if someone were to take exception in the following way:
All the names that might be predicated of someone are either predicated in the concrete or in the abstract.
But concrete names do not suit God because He is most simple. Nor do abstract names suit Him, for He is a truly subsisting thing [res], but abstract names do not signify a subsistens.
Therefore, no names suit God.
If someone were to argue thus, the argument would have to be turned back on them in the following way.
On the contrary, what is said concretely and abstractly is predicated of God altogether rightly. For names of the first sort (namely, concrete names) signify that God is a thing [rem] truly subsisting. And the other sort (namely, abstract names) signify that He is most simple and not composed of matter such that being and essence, God and Deity, good and goodness, wisdom and wise are the same thing in God. And so forth with the rest.
But you will ask: How can verbs and participles that signify time or signify with time be attributed to God, who is beyond time? Hence, how can it be said that He elected us, loved us, and other things of this sort? God speaks thus of Himself most sensibly in the Scriptures, for God did not speak about Himself in this way for His own sake but for us and for our sake. Consequently, it is right for speech acts and discourses to be accommodated to our capacity. But because we are in time, the only way in which we can understand the eternal things in God is by way of temporal things and by means of expressions that signify time.
Therefore, God sometimes signified eternity by the name עולם, age, ages, and days of ages. In fact, the things which are in God without time are in us in time, and with respect to us, they are either past, present, or future. For although, for example’s sake, the act of predestining and loving someone is eternal in God and actually cannot be said to have happened, nevertheless, we certainly have been predestined and loved in the past.
This is why, with respect to the One predestining, when God is said to have predestined it is clear that this is said improperly. Yet, with respect to those who are predestined, we speak altogether properly when we say that they have been predestined before the foundation of the world [Eph. 1:4]. Hence, because God spoke for our sake, He suited and accommodated His speech to our capacity and to how things happen for us. Accordingly, God rightly spoke of Himself using not only names—abstract and concrete, composite and simple names—but also verbs, participles, and every other part of speech, because He thereby expressed what we could learn. We observe God’s superlative wisdom and goodness in this matter.