In his mature theology the simple non-compositeness of...

In his mature theology the simple non-compositeness of essence and existence in God’s unique case continues to be affirmed, while his final expression of creation is as the production of the whole being of a thing, wherein ‘being created’ is the relation of a substance has as a whole to the creator.[^21] Likewise, it is an Islamic rendition of the Neo-Platonic work, the Liber de Causis , which provides Aquinas with conceptual strategies for articulating the sui generis relation of creation.

The Liber de Causis is a source for some of Aquinas’ most distinctive ways of depicting creation, such as the idea of God as the first and universal cause of the being of all things and the idea of creation as the emanation and participation in being. In his mature work on creation Aquinas continues to depict creation as the emanation and participation in being.

At the same time, Aquinas consistently rejects Muslim acceptance of secondary creators from the Neo-Platonic scheme.[^22] In common with the Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, Aquinas endorses a generally apophatic approach to knowledge of God, yet he rejects Maimonides’ negative understanding of divine predication, instead developing his account of analogy.

With Maimonides Aquinas accepts that unaided human can establish that the world is created, but not that it has a beginning, as revelation informs us. On this question Aquinas refers to and considers the different Muslim views that developed as they inform the discussion, noting, for instance, that they felt it reasonable to affirm both the eternity of the…