Routledge new critical thinking in religion, theology, and biblical studies [More in this series]
Routledge new critical thinking in religion, theology and biblical studies
Summary note
"This book examines scholastic conceptions of final causality through the methods and concerns of historical theology. It argues the history of final causality is most profitably understood according to the interplay of regularity, order, and intentionality as interpretive categories. Within this analytic framework, the author explores the history and theological implications of final causality from Aristotle to Nicole Oresme, utilizing shifts in the dominant interpretive category to clarify how final causality could change from one of four co-equal explanatory strategies in Aristotle to the cause of causes in Avicenna to a merely metaphorical cause in Walter Chatton. Theological debates - ranging from questions of creation, the relationship of primary and secondary causality and of the ultimate good to secondary goods, the autonomy or instrumentality of nature, and the compatibility of chance with providence - motivated many of these changes. The chapters examine final causality in Aristotle and the commentorial tradition from late antiquity to medieval Arabic sources and then consider in detail various scholastic understandings and uses of final causality. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of historical theology, systematic theology, scholastic thought, and medieval philosophy." -- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents
The beginnings of the end: Aristotle on natural final causality
After Aristotle: commentators, critics, harmonizers
Arabic commentators and the bifurcation of Aristotelian interpretation
Nature and the good in scholastic receptions of Aristotle
The order of finality in scholastic thought
Finality and intentionality.
ISBN
9781032756516 (hardcover)
1032756519 (hardcover)
OCLC
1455345921
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