The One Creator God In Thomas Aquinas And Contemporary Theology

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.

God's simplicity and perfection shapes both God's distinctive relation to creation and how theologians properly acknowledge this distinctiveness in thought.

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

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.

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.

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.

This book makes a major contribution to contemporary theological and philosophical debates, bridging scriptural and metaphysical approaches to the triune God. Bridges the gap between scriptural and metaphysical approaches to biblical narratives. Retrieves Aquinas’s understanding of theology as contemplative wisdom. Structured around Aquinas’s treatise on the triune God in his ‘Summa Theologiae’. Argues that intellectual contemplation is part of a broader spiritual journey towards a better understanding of God. Contributes to the current resurgence of Thomistic theology in both Protestant and Catholic circles.

"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.