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Another observation regarding causality is in order here. For Aquinas, all causes acting in the physical universe were instrumental and had to be used, as it were, by a primary agent. To assume that all this causation is self-explanatory is like expecting that a bed will be constructed if only one puts the tools and materials together "without a carpenter to use them." Aquinas then images God on the model of a craftsman.

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Source:


Anna Case-Winters

A revised version of this paper was published in Zygon, March 2000, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 69-81.

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