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AQUINAS ON CREATION: SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND MATTERS OF FACT WERE ONE to search for a central teaching of Thomas Aquinas that most characterizes his contribution to theology, he would do well to find an exposition more notable than Aquinas's analysis of the problem of creation . Historians of medieval philosophy, seconded by present-day scholastics attracted to existentialist thought, have focused on Aquinas's real distinction between essence and existence as his greatest contribution to metaphysics.1 The abundance of literature on this subject attests to its key role in Aquinas's philosophy , and yet this distinction itself has deeper roots in his theology. It has been argued, for example, that the Common Doctor's concern with the "I Am Who Am" of Exodus gave basic inspiration and ultimate precision to his distinctive treatment of e88e or existential act.2 A similar case can be made, perhaps with even fuller historical documentation, for Aquinas's continued concern with the arguments over creation that were being agitated during his lifetime. Whether or not creation is indeed so pivotal a doctrine for him, however, there can be little doubt that his treatment of the problem it poses is most typical of his style of theologizing. And just as, several decades ago, when metaphysics had fallen into dissuetude and was given new life through Aquinas's "authentic existentialism," s so to1 Notably Etienne Gilson and his school; see the writings of James F. Anderson, Charles A. Hart, and Joseph Owens, among others. 2 See Gilson's Elements of Ch1'istian Philosophy (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1960), pp. 104-135, for a clear exposition of this teaching; Gilson also considers the relation of essence and existence to the Thomistic treatment of creation, ibid., pp. 164-183. 8 The expression is Jacques Maritain's in his Existence and the Existent, Eng. tr. by L. Galantiere and G. B. Phelan (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1957), 485 486 WILLIAM A. WALLACE day, when speculative theology is in similar straits, his teaching on creation can perhaps be re-examined, and re-asserted, for the assistance it may give to contemporary theology. Such an aim is the main burden of this essay. It proposes to achieve that objective by examining one aspect of Catholic teaching on creation, an aspect that has been questioned recently by some theologians,4 that, namely, of creation in time. This topic is of particular interest for the light it can shed on the relationships between reason and faith or, more precisely, between science and theology, and this in the context of presentday discussions of man's knowledge of "matters of fact." To appreciate Aquinas's contribution in this area, however, it will first be necessary to set up the contemporary problematic. This can be done most expeditiously by examining the origins and development of the science-religion controversies of the nineteenth century, for these, as we shall see, have had serious and debilitating influences on recent theologies of creation. 1. Science, Theology, and Matters of Fact The year 1584 marks a convenient starting point for this account , for it was in that year that the young Galileo Galilei is said to have penned a series of student notes on the origin of the universe. Galileo's professors were apparently good scholastics in the Thomistic tradition,5 for he affirms in the notes the necessary existence of some first " uncreated and eternal being, on whom all others depend, to whom all others are directed as ultimate end," and who is " the efficient cause of all existenc~ in an unqualified way." 6 This first uncreated cause is God, p. 18; it has been used by Leo Sweeney in the title of his textbook, A Metaphysics of Authentic Existentialism (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965). • Protestant as well as Catholic, viz., Langdon Gilkey, John Macquarrie, Robert Guelluy, Donald Ehr, etc., as will be detailed infra. 6 For documentation, see my study, "Galileo and the Thomists," in St. Thomas Aquinas Commemorative Studies 1fl374-1974, 2 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974), Vol. 2, pp. 298-880. 6 Antonio Favaro, ed., Le Opere di Galileo Galilei, Edizione Nazionale, 20 vols. (Florence: G. Barbera...

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