Univocal and Equivocal Causation
The strongest sort of likeness possible between an effect and its cause considered just as such is the kind occurring in connection with the sort of agent causation that requires the inclusion of the agent cause and its effect within the same species. Biological reproduction is the paradigm, but not the only instance 'if the agent is included in the same species along with its effect, then between the maker and what is made there will be a likeness in form that is in keeping with the same ratio...
The Structure of G2
The being that argument G2 has in its sights is a sempiternal, transcendent 'separated' , absolutely unmoved, cosmic first mover that is, a beginningless, everlasting, ultimate source of all PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE www.oxfordscholarship.com Copyright Oxford University Press, 2006. All Rights Reserved change, a source that is itself necessarily unchangeable in any respect and extrinsic to everything it changes. With some justification, Aquinas considers himself entitled to...
The Sun as an Equivocal Cause
Well, then, is it equivocal causation, despite its off-putting label, that obtains between universally perfect God and God's necessarily less than universally perfect effects Aquinas's model of Kretzmann, Norman , deceased formerly Susan Linn Sage Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Cornell University, New York Print ISBN 9780199246533, 2001 pp. 151 - 155 equivocal agent causation in chapter 29 does seem to provide some of what we'd expect to find in an account of divine causation. The sun causes...
ST and Sacra Doctrina
At the end of his Prologue, Aquinas introduces a fourth term into his complex identity claim, when he says that in ST he is going 'to pursue the things that pertain to sacra doctrina', thereby introducing his preferred designation for the subject of theology as he handles it in ST. The term may be, and sometimes has been, translated literally as'holy teaching', and it's only natural that the designation he prefers for the subject-matter of this textbook should allude to teaching. But what...
Summa Philosophica
No one knows what title, if any, Aquinas gave to SCG. In some of the medieval manuscripts it is entitled Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium A Book About the Truth of the Catholic Faith, Directed Against Mistakes Made by Unbelievers'. That title strikes me as coming closer to an accurate representation of the book's aim and contents than the more pugnacious, traditional Summa contra gentiles Summa Against Pagans', 38 On the authenticity and interpretation of these...
The Metaphysics of Theism 1
Print ISBN 9780199246533, 2001 pp. viii Rowe, and Richard Sorabji all read the whole manuscript, at their own request. If they hadn't volunteered, they would have been recruited. I found their detailed written comments invaluable. And I will never forget Hughes's brilliant, hours-long, critical talk with me about one of the lectures just before I delivered it. As soon as I had a rough draft of any part of this book, I sent it first to Eleonore Stump, as I've done with everything I've written...
Sacra Doctrina and Natural Theology
Where do these considerations leave natural theology Natural theology must be based, ultimately or immediately, on 'principles known by the natural light of intellect'. The possibility of developing a metaphysics of theism, of beginning a systematic presentation of philosophy with natural theology, depends on that feature of it, which it has simply in virtue of being one of what Aquinas calls the 'philosophical studies'. If natural theology when developed as a philosophical study in its own...
Barth Metaphysics
As presented by Plantinga, Barth is the most belligerent of these Reformed objectors to natural theology, but certainly no more genuinely threatening than the other two. For one thing, Barth's objection could have force only against Christian practitioners of natural theology. He accuses them of being in 'the standpoint of unbelief', which is 'to hold that belief in God is rationally acceptable only if it is more likely than not with respect to the deliverances of reason. . . . Such a person's...
Preface
The chapters of this book are revisions of the Wilde Lectures in Comparative and Natural Religion, which I delivered at the University of Oxford in the spring of 1994 under the general title 'Philosophy from the Top Down'. I'm grateful to the Wilde Lecture Committee for inviting me, to Professor Richard Swinburne and Sir Anthony and Lady Nancy Kenny for hosting me and my wife, Barbara Ensign Kretzmann, during our stay in Oxford, and to Balliol College for providing me with a study in college....