God and creation in the theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth / Tyler R. Wittman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wittman, Tyler, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?-1274.

Thomas.

Barth, Karl, 1886-1968.

Barth, Karl.

God (Christianity).

Creation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 315 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

The legacies of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth remain influential for contemporary theologians, who have increasingly put them into conversation on debated questions over analogy and the knowledge of God. However, little explicit dialogue has occurred between their theologies of God. This book offers one of the first extended analyzes of this fundamental issue, asking how each theologian seeks to confess in fact and in thought God's qualitative distinctiveness in relation to creation. Wittman first examines how they understand the correspondence and distinction between God's being and external acts within an overarching concern to avoid idolatry. Second, he analyzes the kind of relation God bears to creation that follows from these respective understandings. Despite many common goals, Aquinas and Barth ultimately differ on the subject matter of theological reason with consequences for their ability to uphold God's distinctiveness consistently. These mutually informative issues offer some important lessons for contemporary theology.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title page

Imprints page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

List of abbreviations

Note on Citations and Translations

Introduction

1 Confessing That God Is God: The Relation between Theology and Economy

The Problem of Confessing God as God

The Procedure

Part I God's Being and Activity According to Thomas Aquinas

2 Aquinas on God's Being and Activity

Approaching Divine Actuality: Formal and Material Objects

The Ways of God: The Formal Orientation of Theological Inquiry

The Five Ways and the Acknowledgment of God

God's Simple Perfection

Simplicity and Irreducibility

Perfection and Participation

Simplicity, Perfection, and the Grammar of Divine Naming

God Himself: The Material Object of Theological Inquiry

God's Goodness

God Himself as God's Blessedness

Conclusion

3 Aquinas on the Creative Act and God's Relation to Creation

Creative Causality and the Question of God's Self-Correspondence

The Principle of Creation

Divine Operations and Creation

Trinity and Creation

The End of Creation

The Order of God's Self-Correspondence

God's Self­Correspondence as Benefit

The Relation of Creation

What God's Relation to Creation Is Not

God, Relations, and the Limits of Understanding

Part II God's Being in Act According to Karl Barth

4 Barth on God's Being in Act

The Theological Approach to Divine Actuality

Necessity and Decision: The Formal Orientation of Theological Understanding

Anselm and the Necessity of the Objects of Faith

Act, Being, and the Necessity of God's Decision

Loving in Freedom: The Material Object of Theological Understanding

God's Loving

God's Freedom

Conclusion: Theology and Economy

5 God's Self­Correspondence and Barth's Critique of Nominalism.

Correspondence as Analogy and Dialectic

Analogy as Correspondence of Form and Content

Dialectic and the Movement of God's Self-Correspondence

The Simplicity of God's Self­Correspondence in Christ

6 Barth on the Electing God's Relation to Creation

The Decree's Necessity and the Question of God's Self-Correspondence

The Decree's Form and Content as God's Internal Activity

Immanent Activity and the Decree in Protestant Scholasticism

Immanent Activity, Divine Constancy, and Self-Determination

The Decree's Form and Content as Christ's Election

The Decree's Christological Objectivity

The Teleology of God's Self-Correspondence

Conclusion: God's Relation to Creation

7 Confessing God as God

Actuality and Theological Reason

Being and Activity

God's Self-Correspondence

God's Self-Consistency

Relation and the Confession of God

Bibliography

1. Works by Thomas Aquinas

2. Works by Karl Barth

3. Literature Referenced or Cited

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 16 Nov 2018).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-63653-5

1-108-55692-2

1-108-59375-5

OCLC:

1064008464