A symbol is the link between a visible and an invisible reality according to their “likeness-unlikeness” (ressemblance dissemblable, Roques).
The likeness expresses the static bond of analogy joining them, whereas the unlikeness expresses the anagogical power of the symbol, which leads the mind from the image to the Model (Borella).
Thus one may complete Paul Ricœur’s well-known formulation —
« le symbole donne à penser » (“the symbol gives rise to thought”)
with Borella’s more metaphysical formulation:
« le symbole donne la pensée à elle-même » (“the symbol gives thought to itself”)
(Symbolisme et Réalité, p. 51).
More precisely
The symbol (Greek sym-ballein, “to bring together”) unites two realities — one sensible, the other intelligible — by an ontological relation grounded in their participation in a higher principle.
It is not an arbitrary representation but a signified presence: beneath the visible sign shines the invisible reality it evokes.
Because it proceeds from the analogy of being, the symbol is not merely a code: it does not only convey a message, but carries the mind upward toward that which it signifies.
Its function is anagogical — it elevates the soul from the sensible form toward its archetype.
Likeness guarantees recognition of the archetype in the image;
unlikeness recalls the transcendence of the model: no created form exhausts it.
The dynamic tension of both produces the efficacy of the symbol.
The symbol is therefore neither mere image nor pure concept: it is a mediating reality uniting visible and invisible, manifested and principial.
It gives thought not only material to reflect upon but the very act by which the mind ascends to truth.
Further reading
- Plato, Phaedrus; Republic — ascending function of images and dialectic.
- Pseudo-Dionysius, Celestial Hierarchy — liturgical and hierarchical symbolism.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae — analogy and sacramental signification.
- Nicholas of Cusa, De visione Dei — symbols and coincidence of opposites.
- Meister Eckhart, Sermons — symbols and the birth of God in the soul.
- Goethe, Maxims and Reflections — symbol as epiphany of the Idea.
- Paul Ricœur, La symbolique du mal — « le symbole donne à penser » (“the symbol gives rise to thought”).
- Jean Borella, Symbolism and Reality / Histoire et théorie du symbole / La crise du symbolisme religieux — ontological scope of the symbol; anagogy.
- Bruno Bérard, Metaphysics for Everyone — symbolism and participation.
- Louis Bouyer, The Christian Mystery — liturgical symbolism.
- Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols — universality of symbolism.