Creation in Aquinas
Ex nihilo or ex deo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21363474 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Soars (0000-0001-6634-8067, Danieli (Italy), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 102 |
| Issue | 1102 |
| Pages | 950-966 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Blackfriars (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0028-4289 • E-ISSN: 1741-2005 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/nbfr.12603 |
| OpenAlex | W3092417327 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 7 |
While the Christian emphasis on creation as a free and gracious gift is often juxtaposed with Neoplatonic notions of world-production as the emanation of being from the First Cause, I argue in this essay that there is no obvious contradiction between the doctrines of creation ex nihilo and emanation ex deo in Aquinas's thought. This is partly because the Christian teaching that the world is created ‘from nothing’ was never intended to deny that it was from God, but to deny that it was made from anything other than God. By drawing on the Liber de Causis to support his explanation of creation as the emanation of all being from the universal cause, Aquinas provides us with a way to foreground a doctrine which belongs to the foundations of Christian faith but which rarely receives sufficient attention in systematic theology – namely, the omnipresence of the God who is in everything
Christian tradition · Contradiction · Doctrine · Epistemology · Faith · Nothing · Omnipresence · Theology · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy · Theology and Philosophy of Evil
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |