Monthly Archives: October 2012

When I was preparing my previous post it wasn’t actually the parallel of Aquinas’ teaching on God with Calvin that struck me most, though that suited the point of the post better. It was how much what I was reading cast light on the Scriptural presentation of God (or vice versa), just as it did when I first read Calvin. Both are an attempt to put consistent philosophical flesh on what is assumed by the Bible writers, however paradoxical it sometimes appears.

I came across an essay by a theistic evolutionist on the history of the understanding of nature. Dealing with Thomas Aquinas he said: Moreover, nature’s autonomy allows for the accidental and random. “It would be contrary to the nature of providence and to the perfection of the world if nothing happened by chance,” he wrote (cited in Haught 41). Randomness, then, is an essential feature of God’s creation. The use of citation rather than primary source is a bad sign. The autonomy mentioned referred to what we now call natural laws, God-given, rather than “freedom”, so that’s clear enough. But the bit on “chance” reminded me of all the articles … Continue reading →