Tag Archives: creation

The One-Storey Universe of David Bentley Hart

Posted on 3 May 2022 by Fr Aidan Kimel

David Hart’s critique of two-tier Thomism can be misleading. If we are acquainted with the ongoing debate swirling around natura pura and the desiderium naturale, we will be tempted to judge his arguments according to scholastic criteria and categories. This is … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, David B. Hart, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 42 Comments

Is God the Author of Sin?

Posted on 13 November 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Is God the author of sin? The question assumes paramount importance when evaluating the construal of divine and human agency advanced by Hugh J. McCann. Popular theodi­cies seek to protect God from responsibility for human evil. That’s the upshot of … Continue reading →

Posted in Hugh McCann, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

If God is going to deify everyone anyway, why not deify everyone immediately?

Posted on 20 January 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

by David Bentley Hart Frankly, Al, I find the question very strange. In part, because its premise is an absolute banality: that life is a kind of contest, played within the arbitrary constraints of the clock, at the end of … Continue reading →

Posted in David B. Hart, Eschatology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 132 Comments

Double Agency: Conceiving Divine and Creaturely Causality

Posted on 7 October 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

We begin, I suggest, by getting clear in our minds the kind of relationship that exists between Creator and creatures: God’s creative activity is not external to the universe, as is our relation to such things as stoves and books. … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Ex Nihilo Nonnihil Fit: “from nothing something comes”

Posted on 6 September 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Can we imagine the universe spontaneously emerging from nothing? I would have thought that the answer would obviously and logically be no—as long as nothing is understood as it was in classical philosophy and theology: the absence of any thing … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

It’s Tortoises All the Way Down!

Posted on 2 September 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

“In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. Yet the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and a divine wind was being carried along over the water.” (Gen 1:1-2) That the one God … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Exorcizing the God of the Gaps

Posted on 1 September 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

The rise of modern science created a problem for Christian theology. If God is not scientifi­cally needed to explain why water freezes at 32°F or why the stars come out at night, if the universe is just a self-powered machine … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 60 Comments

God in Science: No Need for that Hypothesis

Posted on 30 August 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

It’s funny how one can remember something read decades earlier but cannot remember the contents of a book read only last week. Back in seminary I read a little book by Arthur A. Vogel titled The Power of His Resurrection. … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment