Muller Vocabulary

Question 1

Actus purus

Answer 1

• Pure or perfect actualization or actuality
• Term applied to God as the fully actualized being, only being not in potency. God is absolutely perfect and eternally perfect fulfillment of himself.

Question 2

Analogia

Answer 2

• The analogy of being
• Assumption of likeness between finite and infinite being which lies at the basis of the a posteriori proofs for the existence of God. Heart of the discussion of the divine attributes.

Question 3

Aseitas

Answer 3

• Aseity, self-existence

- God is said to exist from himself. Having being from one’s self

Question 4

Causa

Answer 4

• Cause
• That which brings about motion or mutation. Historically includes fourfold causality 1) efficient cause 2) material cause 3) formal cause 4) final cause

Question 5

Decretum

Answer 5

• Decree
• Eternal decree according to which God wills and orders all things. Restrictedly, the eternal predestination of God. Decree and counsel of God are distinguished but one.

Question 6

Ex nihilo

Answer 6

• Out of nothing

- The divine creation of the world not of preexistent and therefore eternal materials but out of nothing.

Question 7

Homoousios

Answer 7

• Of the same substance, consubstantial
• Historically used by Athanasius against Arius in trinitarian problem at the Council of Niceaea. Indicates the fullness of the indivisible substance of the Godhead in each of the divine persons and implies the essential coinherence of the three persons.

Question 8

Lex

Answer 8

• Law
• Four categories of law: 1) eternal law 2) natural law 3) divine law 4) human law. Also includes Pentateuch, divine precepts in general, conscience, Israel’s ceremonial law etc.

Question 9

Opera Dei

Answer 9

• The works of God
• Generally, a term usually applied to the creation and to the providential preservation of creation. Specifically, all the activates of God, distinguished into essential, personal, internal, and external works of God.

Question 10

Opera Dei ad extra

Answer 10

• The outward or external works of God
• Divine activities according to which God creates, sustains, and otherwise relates to all finite things, including the activity or work of grace and salvation. Ongoing works.

Question 11

Opera Dei ad intra

Answer 11

• The inward or internal works or activity of God
• Works of God accomplished apart from any relation to externals and are both eternal and immutable. Internal works of God are essential or personal.

Question 12

Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa

Answer 12

• The external works of the Trinity are undivided
• Since the Godhead is one essence, one in knowledge and will, it would be impossible for any external work of one of the divine persons to will or do anything different from another.

Question 13

Potentia

Answer 13

• Power, potential, potency, efficacy
• Potential being, the capacity or power to accomplish change, to come into being. Distinction must be made between active or operative potency, active, the capacity to effect something, passive, being capable of being acted upon.

Question 14

Praemotio physica

Answer 14

• Physical premotion
• All creaturely movements, including the volitional acts of rational creatures, are ontologically dependent on God: in order or any creaturely motion to take place, God must will that motion concurrently with the creature.

Question 15

Prima causa

Answer 15

• The first cause
• God as the cause of all things, uncaused cause or noncontingent, necessary being whose causal activity sets in motion all contingent causes and their effects.

Question 16

subsistentia

Answer 16

• Subsistence or subsistent
• Individual instance of a given essence. Latin equivalent of hpostasis and a more technical and philosophically adequate term than persona for indicating the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Trinity.

Question 17

substantia

Answer 17

• Substance
• A substance is the individual thing, whether material or spiritual, that provides the foundation in which both essential and incidental properties inhere.

Question 18

Verbum Dei

Answer 18

• The Word of God
• Distinguished into 1) the eternal Word of God, the Son 2) the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ 3) the inspired Word of the Holy Scripture 4) the internal Word of the Spirit, which testifies to the human heart concerning the truth written or external Word.

Question 19

Via eminentiae

Answer 19

• The way of eminence
• Method for the positive derivation of divine attributes by raising attributes of things in the finite order (especially attributes of human beings) to that of the infinite. Power becomes omnipotence, etc.

Question 20

Via negativa

Answer 20

• Negative way
• A method of defining or identifying the divine attributes by negating the attributes of the finite order. God is immeasurable or immense, immutable, etc.