The Metaphysics of Creation Aquinas's Natural

Norman Kretzmann expounds and criticizes St. Thomas Aquinas's natural theology of creation, which is 'natural' (or philosophical) in virtue of Aquinas's having developed it without depending on the data of Scripture. The Metaphysics of Creation is a continuation of the project Kretzmann began in The Metaphysics of Theism, moving the focus from the first to the second book of Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles.

Norman Kretzmann, Susan Linn Sage Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Cornell University, New York, completed this book at the beginning of 1998, and died in the summer of that year. He taught philosophy at Cornell for more than thirty years, and also held appointments at Bryn Mawr College, Ohio State University, and the University of Illinois, and visiting positions at Wayne State University and the Universities of Minnesota, Arizona, and Oxford.

Abbreviations

xiii

Nature from the Top Down

1

(29)

The aims of the book

1

(1)

Aquinas's natural theology

2

(6)

SCG II as the thematic continuation of SCG I

8

(2)

`Divine truth'

10

(4)

God's immanent and transeunt activity

14

(4)

The positive results of meditating on creation

18

(5)

The corrective results of meditating on creation

23

(2)

How philosophy and the faith are taught

25

(3)

Aquinas's plan for SCG II

28

(2)

From God to Everything Else

30

(40)

SCG II as the logical continuation of SCG I

30

(3)

Considering the source

33

(3)

The actus purus argument

36

(5)

God's active power

41

(3)

How to attribute power to God

44

(3)

How to attribute relations to God

47

(6)

God as the source of everything else

53

(3)

Argument E/U

56

(14)

Creation as Doubly Universal Production

70

(31)

For all things the cause of being

70

(3)

Out of no antecedent matter

73

(5)

Not even prime matter

78

(3)

Not through movement or change

81

(4)

Something out of nothing

85

(2)

Movement and change considered more closely

87

(4)

No successiveness in creating

91

(7)

No body can create

98

(1)

Creating belongs to God alone

99

(2)

Creation's Modalities

101

(41)

Why would God create?

101

(2)

The scope of God's creative power

103

(4)

Separated substances as counter-instances to the single-effect account of creation

107

(3)

Corporeal matter as a counter-instance to the single-effect account of creation

110

(3)

Omnipotence and absolute possibility

113

(7)

The modality of creative action

120

(6)

The modalities of intellection and volition

126

(4)

Justice, goodness, and God's plan as possible grounds for obligatory creation

130

(7)

Kinds of necessity in created things

137

(5)

Could the Created World have Existed for Ever?

142

(41)

`The eternity of the world'

142

(6)

The modalities of beginningless creation

148

(4)

The created world need not have existed for ever

152

(7)

Beginninglessness based on considerations of God

159

(8)

Beginninglessness based on considerations of created things

167

(5)

Beginninglessness based on considerations of the making of things

172

(3)

Purported proofs that the world must have begun to exist

175

(7)

Aquinas's probable argument for the greater goodness of a temporally finite world

182

(1)

The Origin of Species

183

(45)

From producing to distinguishing

183

(3)

Distinguishing and furnishing

186

(4)

Aquinas's non-creationist reading of Genesis 1

190

(3)

Distinguishing distinguished, broadly

193

(3)

The complex product of an absolutely simple producer

196

(2)

Distinguishing distinguished, more narrowly

198

(5)

A mind behind the scenes

203

(2)

Not by chance

205

(6)

Not by matter alone

211

(5)

Manifold manifestation

216

(8)

God's choice of this world

224

(4)

Intellects

228

(42)

Considering created things themselves

228

(2)

Considering intellective creatures only

230

(5)

Reasons why creation includes intellective substances

235

(5)

Intellects and wills

240

(4)

Will and freedom

244

(7)

What intellective creatures could not be

251

(5)

The metaphysical complexity of the simplest possible creatures

256

(7)

The two species of potentiality-actuality composition

263

(5)

Incorruptibility

268

(2)

Metaphysical Hybrids

270

(53)

Intellective substances and corporeal substances

270

(3)

Inapplicable modes of union

273

(5)

Power contact

278

(6)

Unconditional union

284

(6)

Aquinas's unreasonable hypothesis

290

(4)

The very nature of a human being

294

(2)

Soul as the first principle of life

296

(3)

Body and soul

299

(8)

Body and souls?

307

(6)

The peculiar character of the human soul

313

(10)

The Soul's Anatomy

323

(46)

Aquinas's philosophy of mind in SCG II

323

(2)

Special features of the soul's union with the body

325

(12)

Aquinas's agenda in SCG II.73-78

337

(5)

Parts of the soul

342

(3)

The sensory part

345

(5)

Sense in intellect's service

350

(7)

Intellective cognition

357

(7)

Organlessness

364

(5)

Souls before Birth and at Death

369

(50)

The rest of Book II

369

(4)

Reproduction, embryology, science, and metaphysics

373

(3)

Aquinas's basic argument regarding the origin of an individual human being

376

(8)

Particular creation as the source of a human soul's existence

384

(3)

Other naturalistic explanations of the origin of a human soul

387

(9)

The argument from the substantial unity of the human soul

396

(7)

Arguing for the incorruptibility of intellective souls

403

(9)

Arguing against arguments for the corruptibility of intellective souls

412

(7)

Appendix I. A Chronology of Aquinas's Life and Works

419

(8)

Appendix II: A Table Indicating the Correspondence between Sections of Chapters of SCG II in the Pera (Marietti) Edition and the Anderson Translation

427

(9)

Appendix III: In Sent. I.44.1.2: Could God Make a Better Universe?

436

(4)

References

440

(11)

Index locorum

451

(16)

General index

467

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The Metaphysics of Creation Aquinas's Natural Theology in Summa Contra Gentiles II

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

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