Confessing God as God

: Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth on theology and economy

Abstract

This thesis argues that a proper construal of theology and economy requires two things: first, that theology demonstrate how God’s perfection does not require his relation to creation; second, that theology demonstrate the intelligibility of God’s perfection in himself as logically ‘prior to and apart from’ his relation to creation. The proper coordination of theology and economy satisfies both criteria through a dialectical subversion of the formal orientation of its inquiry into God’s being and activity that acknowledges theology’s principal material object as ‘God himself’ and not merely God as the principle and end of creatures. The critical norm for these judgments is a concern to confess God as God, and thus as qualitatively distinct from creation ontically and noetically: Deus non est in genere.

Reflection on these issues is undertaken through critical analysis of the coordination of theology and economy in Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth. Such analysis shows that the intelligibility of God’s relation to creation depends on materially prior teaching about God’s fullness in himself such that questions about God’s relation to creation are bound up with questions about divine being and activity. Each theologian’s thought about the relation between divine act and being is traced by analyzing the forms of continuity between God’s life ad intra and the extension of this life to us ad extra. How precisely God’s external activity corresponds to his life ad intra and how theology renders coherent its notion of divine perfection within such an inquiry bears upon the question of God’s distinction from creation. The conclusion attempts to provide a provisional account of these theologians’ mutual concern for confessing God in his distinction from creation, while critically adjudicating certain tensions that arise through the analysis of both figures.

Date of Award	30 Nov 2016
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of St Andrews
Supervisor	John Bainbridge Webster (Supervisor)