God and Creation in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth
Cambridge University Press, 11/15/2018
EAN 9781108470674, ISBN10: 110847067X
Hardcover, 328 pages, 23.6 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
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.
Introduction
1. Confessing that God is God
the relation between theology and economy
Part I. God's Being and Activity According to Thomas Aquinas
2. Aquinas on God's being and activity
3. Aquinas on the creative act and God's relation to creation
Part II. God's Being in Act According to Karl Barth
4. Barth on God's being in act
5. God's self-correspondence and Barth's critique of nominalism
6. Barth on the electing God's relation to creation
Conclusion
7. Confessing God as God
Bibliography
Index.