God and creation in the theology of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth

331 Pages·2019·2.327 MB·English

by  Barth, Karl;Aquinas Saint Thomas;Wittman, Tyler

God and Creation in the Theology
of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth
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 theol-
ogies of God. This book offers one of the first extended analyses 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 overarch-
ing concern to avoid idolatry. Second, he analyses the kind of relation
God bears to creation that follows from these respective understand-
ings. Despite many common goals, Aquinas and Barth ultimately dif-
fer on the subject matter of theological reason with consequences for
their ability to uphold God’s distinctiveness consistently. These mutu-
ally informative issues offer some important lessons for contemporary
theology.
Tyler R. Wittman is Assistant Professor of Christian Theology at The
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY (USA). His
research and writing concentrate on issues surrounding the theology
of God’s perfections, the Trinity, and Christology. His articles have
appeared in the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Modern
Theology, and Pro Ecclesia. He is a member of the American Academy
of Religion and the Evangelical Theological Society.

God and Creation in the Theology
of Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth
TYLER R. WITTMAN
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108470674
DOI: 10.1017/9781108556927
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First published 2019
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For Jessie.
God is very good indeed.

Contents
Acknowledgments page ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Note on Citations and Translations xiii
Introduction
1 Confessing That God Is God: The Relation between Theology
and Economy 3
The Problem of Confessing God as God 4
The Procedure 14
Part I God’s Being and Activity
According to Thomas Aquinas
2 Aquinas on God’s Being and Activity 27
Approaching Divine Actuality: Formal and Material Objects 29
The Ways of God: The Formal Orientation of Theological
Inquiry 32
Simplicity, Perfection, and the Grammar of Divine Naming 48
God Himself: The Material Object of Theology Inquiry 54
Conclusion 71
3 Aquinas on the Creative Act and God’s Relation to Creation 74
Creative Causality and the Question of God’s
Self-Correspondence 75
The Principle of Creation 79
The End of Creation 99
vii
viii Contents
The Relation of Creation 111
Conclusion 125
Part II God’s Being in Act According to Karl Barth
4 Barth on God’s Being in Act 129
The Theological Approach to Divine Actuality 133
Necessity and Decision: The Formal Orientation of
Theological Understanding 135
Loving in Freedom: The Material Object of Theological
Understanding 150
Conclusion: Theology and Economy 170
5 God’s Self-Correspondence and Barth’s Critique of
Nominalism 176
Correspondence as Analogy and Dialectic 178
The Simplicity of God’s Self-Correspondence in Christ 188
6 Barth on the Electing God’s Relation to Creation 199
The Decree’s Necessity and the Question of God’s
Self-Correspondence 202
The Decree’s Form and Content as God’s Internal Activity 206
The Decree’s Form and Content as Christ’s Election 220
Conclusion: God’s Relation to Creation 243
Conclusion
7 Confessing God as God 253
Actuality and Theological Reason 254
Being and Activity 269
Relation and the Confession of God 285
Bibliography 297
Index 313