It is not clear, however, that Maritain avoids many of the concerns expressed by critics of ‘analogical knowledge.’ For example, if the term ‘cause’ is used analogously when applied to God, then when one utters the proposition ‘God is the cause of the universe’ after examining Aquinas's ‘second way,’ it would seem that one has to be using this term in exactly the same sense as it has been used throughout the preceding argument. If it is not being used in exactly the same sense, then how can one claim that Aquinas has demonstrated this conclusion? The problem is not whether analogical predication is possible but, first, whether one can understand the analogical predicate and, second, whether one can employ such a predicate in a demonstration without committing the fallacy of equivocation.
Given Maritain's account of faith and of suprarational knowledge, it would seem that he would see religious beliefs as ‘trusts’ and, hence, as having more than a purely cognitive character. He would, no doubt, follow Aquinas who spoke of religion as a ‘disposition.’ A disposition or habitus is, of course, not merely the product of action, but itself is ordered to action. Thus, to say that religious beliefs are propositional in form is not to say that their function is only descriptive. Nevertheless, Maritain's account of religious belief and its relation to argument and proof is not complete. Moreover, given that he does employ ‘foundationalism’ as a standard of sufficient evidence for claiming that some propositions expressing religious belief are true, it is not clear that it can directly address the challenges of recent critics — particularly those raised by some ‘postmodern’ philosophers concerning the epistemology underlying his view.