Creation And Metaphysics

Norman Kretzmann expounds and criticizes Aquinas's theology of creation, which is natural' (or philosophical) in that Aquinas developed it without depending on the data of Scripture. Because of the special importance of intellective creatures like us, Aquinas's account of the divine origin and organization of the universe includes essential ingredients of his philosophy of mind. The Metaphysics of Creation is a continuation of the project Kretzmann began inThe Metaphysics of Theism; as before, he not only explains Aquinas's natural theology, but advocates it as the best available to us.

In this book, Gaven Kerr expands on the brief treatment of creation offered in his 2015 volume, Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia. Aquinas does not offer one cohesive treatment on the issue of creation; Kerr synthesizes discussions from across his works in order to present a unified Thomistic metaphysics of creation. Kerr argues that Aquinas's metaphysics of creation, wherein God is conceived as the absolute source of all that exists, is the backbone of his philosophical theology. Throughout his writings, the framework of the absolute dependence of creatures on God and of the independence of God as existence itself is ever present. Without understanding this aspect of Aquinas's philosophical thought, Kerr suggests, it is impossible to understand his philosophy of God. When it comes to metaphysics, Thomas is committed to thinking through the issues involved therein on the basis of natural reason. Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation demonstrates Aquinas's belief that we must arrive at an affirmation of the existence of God on the basis of a wider metaphysical view as to the constitution of reality, a view that does not presuppose divine truths but can indeed establish them.

"This book does nothing less than to set new standards in combining philosophical with political theology. Pabst s argument about rationality has the potential to change debates in philosophy, politics, and religion." (from the foreword) This comprehensive and detailed study of individuation reveals the theological nature of metaphysics. Adrian Pabst argues that ancient and modern conceptions of "being" or individual substance fail to account for the ontological relations that bind beings to each other and to God, their source. On the basis of a genealogical account of rival theories of creation and individuation from Plato to postmodernism, Pabst proposes that the Christian Neo-Platonic fusion of biblical revelation with Greco-Roman philosophy fulfills and surpasses all other ontologies and conceptions of individuality.

During the last twenty-five years or so, studies in Thomistic existentialism have repeatedly indicated that the notion of creation played a decisive role in St. Thomas Aquinas' view of existence as an existential act or actus es sendi. The importance for metaphysics of this view of existence as act war rants an investigation of the relation between creation and actus essendi; for St. Thomas is the only one, in the history of philosophy, to have con sidered existence as an act-of-being. This study will be limited to the early works of St. Thomas. By the time of the Summa Contra Gentiles, he had reached the key positions of his metaphysics. And the first fifty-three chap ters of the Summa Contra Gentiles were written in Paris before June, 1259; 1 the rest was completed in Italy before 1265. The project was therefore con ceived by St. Thomas during the first period of his career. How the notion of creation enabled him to transform the Aristotelian metaphysics of essence into a metaphysics of esse can be seen from three sections of the Summa Contra Gentiles. Although primarily a theological treatise, the Contra Gentiles never theless accomplishes a radical metaphysical transformation of Aristotelian ism by shifting the whole perspective from esse in actu per formam to actus essendi. Seen from the perspective of existential act as the absolute perfec tion, metaphysics is raised to a strictly transcendental plane of consideration.

Creator and Creators starts from the point of Nothing/Everything and the cosmic Rhythm, and gradually includes and explains the esoteric and exoteric mechanisms that lead to manifestation of life as we know it. Through an analysis of personal experience and the synthesis of spiritual philosophy and modern discoveries in cosmology, quantum physics, and the holographic mechanisms of genetics and neurophysiology Creator and Creators develops a new definition of Matter and new explanations of the nature of Time, Gravitational Waves, and Dark Energy. The book also solves the argument between the creationists and evolutionists by providing a cyclic theory of Creation and Evolution.

This book explores the constant of natural existence, the principle that governs the perennial emergence of the world from the formation of stars to the movement of continents, from the sprout of a seed to the ripening of fruit, from the birth of a person to the death of a culture. As understood in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, this principle is "creation" in the sense that everything in the universe comes into existence through the creative command of God.

In this book, Gaven Kerr expands on the brief treatment of creation offered in his 2015 volume, Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia. Aquinas does not offer one cohesive treatment on the issue of creation; Kerr synthesizes discussions from across his works in order to present a unified Thomistic metaphysics of creation. Kerr argues that Aquinas's metaphysics of creation, wherein God is conceived as the absolute source of all that exists, is the backbone of his philosophical theology. Throughout his writings, the framework of the absolute dependence of creatures on God and of the independence of God as existence itself is ever present. Without understanding this aspect of Aquinas's philosophical thought, Kerr suggests, it is impossible to understand his philosophy of God. When it comes to metaphysics, Thomas is committed to thinking through the issues involved therein on the basis of natural reason. Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation demonstrates Aquinas's belief that we must arrive at an affirmation of the existence of God on the basis of a wider metaphysical view as to the constitution of reality, a view that does not presuppose divine truths but can indeed establish them.