Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil

189 Pages·2011·0.55 MB·English

by  Brian Davies

Thomas Aquinas on
God and Evil
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Thomas Aquinas
on God and Evil
brian davies
1
3

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Davies, Brian, 1951—
Thomas Aquinas on God and evil / Brian Davies.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-979089-0; 978-0-19-979090-6 (pbk.); 978-0-19-979098-2 (ebook)
1. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. 2. God (Christianity) 3. Good and evil–Religious
aspects–Christianity. I. Title.
B765.T54D349 2011
231’.8092—dc22 2010032479
The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible,
copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the
Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Sara and Robert Pennella with thanks, and for
Tommy Tong, also with thanks
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Contents
Preface , ix
Abbreviations , xiii
1. The Problem of Evil, 1
2. Aquinas, Philosophy, and Theology, 9
3. What There Is, 19
4. Goodness and Badness, 29
5. God the Creator, 39
6. God’s Perfection and Goodness, 51
7. The Creator and Evil, 65
8. Providence and Grace, 79
9. The Trinity and Christ, 97
10. Aquinas, God, and Evil, 113
Notes, 133
Bibliography, 159
Index, 165
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Preface
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–74) is one of the most historically important
of Christian philosophers and theologians. Canonized in 1323, his
writings have been extremely infl uential over many centuries.
Scholars today, whether they agree with him or not, would generally
regard him both as a giant among medieval thinkers and as a
touchstone of Christian orthodoxy. Recommended to Roman
Catholics by popes such as Leo XIII, whose encyclical Aeterni Patris
(1879) led to a renaissance of Thomistic studies in twentieth-century
ecclesiastical contexts, Aquinas is also now much studied in secular
ones. In recent years numerous essays and books on his philosophy
have appeared, written by people of various religious persuasions or
none. In short, Aquinas is a fi gure with whom to reckon if one has
any interest at all in philosophy or theology.
In this book I offer an account of Aquinas’s teachings on the topic
of God and evil while trying to place him in the context of contempo-
rary discussions. What follows is not a philosophical or theological
evaluation of Aquinas on this topic. Rather, it is an attempt to explain
what his thinking on God and evil amounts to when taken as a whole,
while sometimes noting how it compares and contrasts with what
others have said. Philosophical and theological discussions of God and
evil often refer to Aquinas but hardly ever try to present an overview of
what he has to say on the topic, one that requires reference to things
that Aquinas observes when not explicitly talking of God and evil. In
this volume my aim is to present such an overview.