We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
What do you think of Thomas Aquinas’ view of God?
Question: You have written (in Trinity and Process) that the relational God of the Bible is the antithesis of the immutable God of Thomas Aquinas. Could you explain this?
Answer: Aquinas and much of the classical theological tradition borrowed heavily from Aristotle’s notion of God as an “unmoved mover.” God moves the world but remains unmoved himself. Among other things, this entails that God is not reciprocally related to the world. Indeed, for Aquinas, God relates to the world only by relating to himself as the cause of the world. He thus wrote that the relationship between God and the world is real to the world but not to God.
I don’t see how this view of God is at all compatible the central truth of the Christian faith that God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ. If we grant that Christ—rather than Aristotle—most decisively reveals who God is, it’s hard to see how we can justify the conclusion that God is not reciprocally related to his creation. God is so affected by the plight of humans and of all creation that he become a human to save us and creation from the devil’s oppression.
So far as I can see, this relational and vulnerable view of God is the most exalted and beautiful conception of God ever imagined. Though his intention was to articulate the greatness of God, I view Aquinas’ “unmoved mover” conception as being insulting to God.
Category: Q&A
Tags: Classical Theism, God, Open Theism, Q&A
Topics: Attributes and Character
Related Reading
What is the significance of 1 Samuel 13:13–14?
Because of Saul’s rebellion, Samuel tells him, “The Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever but now your kingdom will not continue.” The biblical narrative depicting God’s dealings with Saul up to this point is predicated on the assumption that God intended to establish Saul’s descendants as the permanent heir to the throne…
What is the significance of 2 Samuel 24:12–16?
The Lord gives David three options of how Israel will be judged. “Three things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.” This verse reveals how the Lord gives people genuine alternatives and responds to their choices. If God foreknew what David would choose, however, the purpose of the…
What is the “classical view of God” and what about it do you find objectionable?
The “classical view of God” refers to the view of God that has dominated Christian theology since the earliest Church fathers. According to this theology, God is completely “immutable.” This means that God’s being and experience never change in any respect. God is therefore pure actuality (actus purus), having no potentiality whatsoever, for potentiality is…
What is the significance of 1 Chronicles 21:15?
“And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; but when he was about to destroy it, the Lord took note and relented concerning the calamity; he said to the destroying angel, ‘Enough! Stay your hand.’” This powerful passage tells us why God sent the angel and why he changed his mind. If God…
What is the significance of Jeremiah 32:35?
As in Jeremiah 19:5, the Lord expresses his dismay over Israel’s paganism by saying they did this “though I did not command them, nor did it enter my mind that they should do this abomination.” If this abomination was eternally foreknown to God, it’s impossible to attribute any clear meaning to his confession that this…
How do you respond to Proverbs 21:1?
“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he wills.” Calvinists sometimes argue that this passage teaches that everything every government official ever does is the result of the Lord turning their heart. In light of the hideous things many government officials have done (e.g.…