Louisville Process Theology Network

Aquinas and Whitehead

“As is well known, Thomas argues that God creates through God’s knowledge…….

 

Thus God’s knowledge of all things is not dependent on anything other than God……..

 

But how can this be?

In our experience, knowing depends on the existence

of the known thing; or, as Aristotle puts it, ‘the knowable thing is prior to knowledge, and is its measure’………

 

Does this not imply that there is no freedom in the universe, not even in human beings?

This would be a serious problem for Christian theology, because the reality of human freedom is absolutely crucial to the understanding of sin……

 

How can I really have freedom and independence to do something other than what God from all eternity knows with certain and unchanging knowledge

and wills with perfect efficaciousness?

 

(Yet) There is no doubt that Thomas intended to affirm that created secondary causes actually have the power to cause,

and thus (we) participate in the divine creative power………

 

In Whitehead’s metaphysics,

God’s understanding of all possibilities is eternal……

But God’s knowledge arises from God’s experience of what actual entities have done

with the possibilities God presented to them……..

 

(So) creation does not mean either foreseeing or determining

what any actual entity will be or what event will occur.

 

Rather, divine creation is making possible an open and unfinished universe

which will participate in God’s creative power

by completing or creating itself on the divinely-given ground of possibility…..

 

(And) God’s knowledge is dependent on the creatures of the world……

 

(Surely) Thomas’ intent cannot be faulted:

to affirm free will, contingency and the power of secondary cause….”

 

 

Excepts of “Thomas Aquinas and Alfred North Whitehead on God‘s Action in the World”

at thomistica.net.