Unlocking Divine Action in Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Science Michael Dodds, O.P.

Our understanding of divine action is inherently tied to our idea of causality. The notion of causality, broadly conceived in classical philosophy in terms of material, formal, efficient, and final causes, was reduced by modern (Newtonian) physics to efficient and material causes only (the energy that moves the atoms). The discoveries of contemporary science, however, have again broadened our understanding of causality, opening the way to retrieve the notion causality as understood by Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle and providing the theologian with new (and old) tools for speaking about divince action.