TY - JOUR
T1 - On God’s Practical Knowledge of Creation
AU - Errington, Andrew
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - This article explores a question that exercised Thomas Aquinas, the nature of God’s knowledge of creation, and more particularly, its practical character. It first sets out the logic of Aquinas’s position, articulated especially in Summa Theologiae I, q. 14, a. 16, that God does have practical knowledge of creation, but that this is contained within God’s speculative self-knowledge. It suggests that this position raises questions about the adequacy of its treatment of practical knowledge, particularly to do with the central analogy of an artisan’s knowledge of what is made. The article explores these questions, first, by drawing on contemporary philosophical discussions of practical knowledge, and second, by considering a biblical text in which both a form of practical knowledge and of the artisan analogy are prominent: the book of Proverbs.
AB - This article explores a question that exercised Thomas Aquinas, the nature of God’s knowledge of creation, and more particularly, its practical character. It first sets out the logic of Aquinas’s position, articulated especially in Summa Theologiae I, q. 14, a. 16, that God does have practical knowledge of creation, but that this is contained within God’s speculative self-knowledge. It suggests that this position raises questions about the adequacy of its treatment of practical knowledge, particularly to do with the central analogy of an artisan’s knowledge of what is made. The article explores these questions, first, by drawing on contemporary philosophical discussions of practical knowledge, and second, by considering a biblical text in which both a form of practical knowledge and of the artisan analogy are prominent: the book of Proverbs.
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U2 - 10.1111/ijst.12480
DO - 10.1111/ijst.12480
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85104155979
VL - 23
SP - 215
EP - 234
JO - International Journal of Systematic Theology
JF - International Journal of Systematic Theology
SN - 1463-1652
IS - 2
ER -