Overview

In this book, Gaven Kerr expands on the brief treatment of creation offered in his 2015 volume, Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia. Aquinas does not offer one cohesive treatment on the issue of creation; Kerr synthesizes discussions from across his works in order to present a unified Thomistic metaphysics of creation. Kerr argues that Aquinas's metaphysics of creation, wherein God is conceived as the absolute source of all that exists, is the backbone of his philosophical theology. Throughout his writings, the framework of the absolute dependence of creatures on God and of the independence of God as existence itself is ever present. Without understanding this aspect of Aquinas's philosophical thought, Kerr suggests, it is impossible to understand his philosophy of God. When it comes to metaphysics, Thomas is committed to thinking through the issues involved therein on the basis of natural reason. Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation demonstrates Aquinas's belief that we must arrive at an affirmation of the existence of God on the basis of a wider metaphysical view as to the constitution of reality, a view that does not presuppose divine truths but can indeed establish them.

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9780190941338

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Reviews

Kerr's book is an impressive synthetic and philosophical presentation of the Christian notion of creation from Aquinas's metaphysics of esse understood as a distinctive actus of its own. In conjunction with Kerr's Aquinas's Way to God: The Proof in the De Ente et Essentia (Oxford, 2015), the new work should be welcomed both by Thomists and philosophers of the Analytical persuasion. -- John F.X. Knasas, Professor Emeritus at the Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas Kerr's newest study Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation has a lot to offer to the reader interested in a philosophically serious treatment of the notion of creation. In a clear and sober style, the book presents us with Aquinas's synthetic vision of creation and the underlying metaphysical principles. It is a rich book, inviting the reader to think along with Aquinas's challenging account of the being of the world and its origin in God. -- Rudi A. te Velde, Thomas More Chair of the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas in relation to Contemporary Thought, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality is a pathbreaking work. It is a philosophically astute, textually scrupulous, and imaginatively subtle reconstruction of Ramakrishna Paramhansa's teachings. ... Infinite Reality is a delight to read: clear, accessible, fair-minded and rigorous. Its philosophical charms are complemented by a musicality about experience. -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Vice Chancellor of Ashoka University in India, The Indian Express

Author Information

Gaven Kerr is a Thomist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, a married father of three, and a Third Order Dominican. He teaches theology at Mary Immaculate College Limerick. He has focused on philosophy and theology throughout his student days and into his academic career, in particular the thought of St Thomas Aquinas. He defends Aquinas's thought within a contemporary context, and by means of that thought he engages with the other non-Thomist traditions.

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