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Aquinas, Dawkins and evolution
Monday 17 July 2006
Alister McGrath makes a good point in his book “Dawkins’ God”. Summarising Thomas Aquinas he says that God is the cause of all things. God’s causality operates in a number of ways. While God must be considered capable of doing certain things directly, he delegates causal efficacy to the created order. For Aquinas, this notion of secondary causality must be considered as an extension of, not an alternative to, the principle causality of God himself. Events within the created order can exist in complex causal relationships, without in any way denying their ultimate dependency upon God as the final cause.
This idea has important implications for the debate with Richard Dawkins who argues that evolution (natural selection) has removed the need for God and makes atheism respectable. But I fear it is too much to expect a considered response to the point from Dawkins.
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