The One Creator God in Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology

The One Creator God in Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Theology
Author: Michael J. Dodds, OP
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2020-08-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813232872

This book provides a fundamental introduction to Aquinas's theology of the One Creator God. Aimed at making that thought accessible to contemporary audiences, it gives a basic explanation of his theology while showing its compatibility with contemporary science and its relevance to current theological issues. Opening with a brief account of Aquinas’s life, it then describes the purpose and nature of the Summa Theologica and gives a short review of current varieties of Thomism. Without neglecting other works, it then focuses primarily on the discussion of the One God in the first part of the Summa Theologica. God's transcendence and immanence is a recurrent theme in that discussion. Evidence of God's immanent causality in the natural world grounds Aquinas's five arguments for the existence of God (the Five Ways) which then open onto God's transcendence. The subsequent discussion of the divine attributes builds on the modes of God's causality established in the Five Ways. It also shows the need for a language of analogy to preserve God's transcendence and prevent us from reducing God to the level of creatures, even as qualities such as "goodness" and "love," which we first know from creatures, are applied to God. The discussion of God's providence and governance establishes that the transcendent Creator God is most intimately present in creation. God acts in all creatures in a way that does not diminish their proper causality, but is rather its source. As there is no contradiction between God's transcendence and immanence, so there is no competition between the primary causality of God and the secondary causality of creatures. Empirical science, which is limited by its method to the secondary causality of creatures, is shown to be compatible with the broader discipline of theology which also embraces the primary causality of the Creator.

The Perfectly Simple Triune God

The Perfectly Simple Triune God
Author: D. Stephen Long
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 447
Release: 2016-08-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 150641687X

A particularly nettlesome question is that around the relationship of the confession of God as a simple yet threefold being—the treatises of the one God and the Trinity. Although God as simple and Triune was widely accepted for over a millennium, simplicity has been widely critiqued and rejected by modern theology. The purported error is in conceiving God’s unity prior to the Triune persons, an error begun by Augustine and crystallized in Aquinas. The Perfectly Simple Triune God challenges this critique and reading of Aquinas as a misunderstanding of his doctrine of God. By refusing to begin theology with God’s oneness, who God is collapses into who God is for us, a loss of the biblical and dramatic character of God for us. D. Stephen Long posits that the two treatises were never independent, but inextricably related and entailing one another. Long provides a constructive rereading of Thomas Aquinas, tracing antecedents to Aquinas in the patristic tradition, and readings of him through to the Reformers, taking into account challenges to the classical tradition posed by modern and contemporary theology and philosophy to offer a robust articulation of divine Trinitarian agency for a contemporary age that adheres to broadly considered orthodox and ecumenical parameters.

The Unchanging God of Love

The Unchanging God of Love
Author: Michael J Dodds
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2008
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0813215390

The Unchanging God of Love provides a clear and comprehensive account of what Aquinas really says about divine immutability, presented in a way that allows his theology to address contemporary criticisms

Divine being and its relevance according to Thomas Aquinas

Divine being and its relevance according to Thomas Aquinas
Author: William J. Hoye
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2019-11-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004413995

Aquinas’ theology can be understood only if one comes to grips with his metaphysics of being. The relevance of this perspective is exhibited in his treatment of topics like creation, goodness, happiness, truth, freedom of the will, the unity of the human being, prayer and providence, God’s personhood, divine love, God and violence, God’s unknowablility, the Incarnation, the Trinity, God’s existence, theological language and even laughter. This book endeavors to treat these questions in a clear and convincing language.

Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart

Speaking of God in Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart
Author: Anastasia Wendlinder
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2016-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1317051408

Medieval masters Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart considered problems inherent to speaking of God, exploring how religious language might compromise God's transcendence or God's immanence ultimately hindering believers in their journey of faith seeking understanding. Going beyond ordinary readings of Aquinas and building a foundation for further insights into the works of both theologians, this book draws out the implications of the thought of Eckhart and Aquinas for contemporary issues, including ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, liturgy and prayer, and religious inclusivity. Reading Aquinas and Eckhart in light of each other reveals the profound depth and orthodoxy of both of these scholars and provides a novel approach to many theological and practical religious issues.

William Desmond and Contemporary Theology

William Desmond and Contemporary Theology
Author: Christopher Ben Simpson
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2017-11-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0268102244

In William Desmond and Contemporary Theology, Christopher Simpson and Brendan Sammon coordinate, through a collection of scholarly essays, a timely exploration of William Desmond’s work on theology and metaphysics, bringing the disciplines of philosophy and theology together in new and vital ways. The book examines the contribution that Desmond’s metaphysics makes to contemporary theological discourse and to the renewal of metaphysics. A central issue for the contributors is the renewal of metaphysics within the post-metaphysical, or anti-metaphysical, context of late modernity. This volume not only capably demonstrates the viability of the metaphysical tradition but also illuminates its effectiveness and value in dealing with the many issues in contemporary theological conversation. William Desmond and Contemporary Theology presents Desmond’s contemporary, yet historically aware, continental metaphysics as able to provide revealing insights for the discussion of the relation between philosophy and theology. Simpson and Sammon argue, moreover, that Desmond’s contribution to linking these two fields makes his an important voice in the academic conversation. Students and scholars of Desmond, contemporary philosophy, theology, and literature will find much to provoke thought in this collection. Contributors: John R. Betz, Christopher R. Brewer, Patrick X. Gardner, Joseph K. Gordon, Renée Köhler-Ryan, D. Stephen Long, John Panteleimon Manoussakis, Cyril O’Regan, Brendan Thomas Sammon, D. C. Schindler, Christopher Ben Simpson, and Corey Benjamin Tutewiler.

Unlocking Divine Action

Unlocking Divine Action
Author: Michael J. Dodds
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2012-09-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0813219892

Provides a sustained account of how the thought of Aquinas may be used in conjunction with contemporary science to deepen our understanding of divine action and address such issues as creation, providence, prayer, and miracles.

God the Creator

God the Creator
Author: Robert Cummings Neville
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 354
Release: 1992-02-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438414528

God the Creator provides a detailed exposition of a conception of God as the creator of everything determinate. It does not defend an established conception such as the Thomist, the Calvinist, or the Process theological idea, but rather elaborates the ancient theme of creation ex nihilo in a new form appropriate to the contemporary world. Part one is a rigorous philosophical development of the idea of God as creator ex nihilo, arguing that an adequate solution to the problem of the one and the many demands such a conception. This part includes a dialectical examination of contemporary and classical theories of being. Part two asks how one can have knowledge of the kind of God described previously; it deals with experience, analogy, and dialectic. Part three applies the conception developed in part one to fundamental religious conceptions such as the object of worship, the nature of religion, and the practices of private and public religious life. It presents theories arising from the conception of creation ex nihilo for the interpretation of religious concern, conversion, faith, certainty, solitude, bliss, service, liturgy, providence, evangelism, dedication, reconciliation, brotherhood, discipline, the integration of public and private religion relative to other dimensions of life, freedom, love, and glory. Though the language arises from the Christian tradition and expresses an orthodox strand of that religion, the argument weaves throughout the concerns of many world religions.

Paths to the Triune God

Paths to the Triune God
Author: Anselm Kyongsuk Min
Publisher:
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2005
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

"Perhaps the greatest strength of Min's project is its sheer originality. I can hardly think of any journal articles, let alone books, that attempt to engage Aquinas from the perspective of contemporary liberation theology. Min has given us a distinctive and welcome addition to the literature on Aquinas, which should spark a lively debate among Thomists and liberation theologians alike." --Bruce D. Marshall, Southern Methodist University "Paths to the Triune God is a work of theology of the first rank. It brings, in a clear and exact manner, Aquinas's sapiential theology to bear on issues of pressing contemporary concern and, in so doing, brilliantly makes the case for a renewed engagement with a central figure in the Catholic theological tradition." --Joseph P. Wawrykow, University of Notre Dame In Paths to the Triune God, Anselm K. Min brings the theology of Thomas Aquinas into mutually critical dialogue with contemporary theological concerns. Min defends Aquinas's Trinitarian theology of reason and creation against modern detractors of natural theology while also calling attention to the lack of historical consciousness in Aquinas's writing. Min discusses Aquinas's affirmation of the salvation of the non-Christian through a moral life but also criticizes his sometimes naive approach to salvation history. Min presents Aquinas's Trinitarian theology of salvation through the incarnation and the possibility of a sacramental theology of religions for today while also taking seriously the scandal of his doctrine of reprobation. Min highlights Aquinas's contemplative conception of theology against contemporary preoccupations with praxis while also criticizing his intellectualist interpretation of human existence. Min also offers a substantive presentation of Aquinas's Trinitarian theology and a full-scale analysis and critique of the views of such contemporary social Trinitarians as J rgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., all in light of Aquinas. He concludes that neither the purely sapiential theology of Aquinas nor the purely prophetic theology of contemporary liberation movements is adequate, arguing that contemporary theology must methodologically incorporate into its content a tension between wisdom and praxis.