Abstract

This book is the second volume of a two-part study, The Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas in a Historical Perspective. In the first part, the author concentrated on Aquinas's understanding of "common being"; in this part he considers Aquinas's account of the existence and nature of God. Elders largely follows the order of the first questions of Aquinas's Summa theologiae. He begins by examining Aquinas's views about the demonstrability of God's existence and then devotes considerable attention to the Five Ways. Succeeding chapters present and discuss Aquinas's account of standard divine attributes: simplicity, perfection, goodness, infinity, immutability, eternity, and unity. There are then two chapters on knowledge, one on our knowledge of God, and one on God's knowledge of himself and of other things. The last three chapters examine God's creation and conservation of things in the world, His power over creation and His providential guidance of it.