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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Medieval Philosophy Vii. the World (cosmology) In determining or defining the relationship of God with the world, Aquinas departs not only from the doctrine of the Averroist Aristotelians, but also from the teaching of Aristotle himself. For Aristotle matter was uncreated and co-eternal with God, limiting the divinity itself (Greek dualism). Aquinas denies this dualism.

The world was produced by God through His creative act, i.e., the world was produced from nothing. Besides, all becoming in matter is connected with God, since He is the uncaused Cause and the immovable Mover of all that takes place in created nature. God has created the world from nothingness through a free act of His will; hence any necessity in the nature of God is excluded.

Again, we know that Aristotle did not admit providence: the world was in motion toward God, as toward a point of attraction; but God did not know of this process of change, nor was He its ordinator. For Aquinas, on the contrary, God is providence: creation was a knowing act of His will; God, the cause and mover of all the perfections of beings, is also the intelligent ordinator of them" all that happens in the world finds its counterpart in the wisdom of God.

Now, how the providence and the wisdom of God are to be reconciled with the liberty of man is a problem which surpasses our understanding. It is not an absurdity, however, if we keep in mind that the action of Divine Providence is absolutely distinct and can be reconciled with the liberty of man without diminishing or minimizing this latter. VIII. The Human Soul (Rational Psychology) Besides God, the spiritual substances are the angels and human souls.

Angels are not destined to inform any matter; the human soul, on the contrary, is ordered to be the form of the body. Hence the question arises as to the nature of the soul and its relations with the body. In regard to the first question, at the time of Aquinas, the Averroists held that "the agent intellect" was a form existent per se and that it was separated from human souls, in which, however, it made its appearance occasionally in order to impress the intelligibles on the passive intellect.

The logical conclusion in this theory is that the human soul will perish when the conditions of the body make impossible the presence of the Unique Intellect. Aquinas was always a strong opponent of Averroism.