Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
Ever since the advent of Enlightenment Rationalism, Protestant Christianity has seen significant modifications to its intellectual approaches to philosophy and theology. Many core beliefs about the nature of God and the world have undergone radical revision, as is particularly evidenced by the genesis of theo-philosophical systems such as Process Theism. Within Evangelicalism, these ideas have become particularly widespread, with popular authors such as Gregory Boyd and scholars such as William Lane Craig and the up-and-coming R. T. Mullins subscribing, in whole or in part, to these post-Enlightenment doctrines. In this article, I offer a criticism of these modern developments in theology by examining the work of Thomas Aquinas. I argue that Aquinas provides a robust theo-philosophical framework that contemporary authors and scholars are wont to adequately address, with many of their criticisms of Aquinas's work stemming (in whole or in part) from a misunderstanding of his nuanced thought on the subject of God's relationship to time. I examine Aquinas's work on "the motion of the immovable God" thoroughly, address the work of Craig and Mullins in detail, and provide my own thoughts on the issue, concluding that Aquinas's underappreciated theological method renders his high theology immune to the misguided arguments of contemporary thinkers.
Recommended Citation
Stone, J. Elias, "Motum Dei Immobilis: In Defense of Aquinas’s Doctrine of Divine Immutability" (2020). Theology Undergraduate Work. 3.
https://digitalshowcase.oru.edu/theo_undergrad_work/3
