Review article
https://doi.org/10.31337/oz.76.3.5
The Creation–Providence Framework According to Thomas Aquinas
Maja Herman Duvel
orcid.org/0000-0001-9017-8985
; Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
According to Thomas Aquinas, man, in his natural search for truth, inquires into the beginnings of the existence of the world and the way the world functions — not only in terms of individual natural laws, but also in terms of the logos of the world as a whole. Thomas Aquinas’ answer can be presented by means of a Creation–Providence framework. The paper presents in a synthetic way Aquinas’ detailed analyses of questions on creation, providence, and government, as elaborated in his works Summa Theologica, Summa Contra Gentiles, and The Disputed Questions on Truth. The conclusion is drawn that God is the efficient, exemplary, and final cause of the whole of reality such that he creates beings in their entire substance and not hing uncreated or created by someone else is presupposed. The act of creating a being absolutely, not as this or that being, is proper only to Almighty God. As the final cause of creation, God has a plan for bringing all things to a purpose, which is he himself in his goodness. This plan or idea is called divine providence, and its concrete temporal realization is called government. Divine providence necessarily accomplishes its purpose, but it does so in an unnecessary way which includes secondary or indirect causes that may accidentally cause evil. The world has come into being through God with order and with order it is directed towards God. The first example of creation is God in his goodness, and he is perfectly — according to its mode of creature –represented only by the world in its totality, owing to the multiplicity, diversity and inequality of created things.
Keywords
creation; providence; God; government; order; perfection; good
Hrčak ID:
259897
URI
Publication date:
7.7.2021.
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