The Natural Sciences in the Theology of St. Thomas and the Thomists of the 20th Century
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53439/stdfyt56.28.2025.295-311Keywords:
Thomas Aquinas, Thomism, science-engaged theology, philosophy of nature, theology and scienceAbstract
his paper proposes a new methodological strategy within Thomism for engaging with the natural sciences, suggesting a dynamic framework inspired by recent developments in science-engaged theology. Through the analysis of historical and contemporary cases –including the works of Désiré Mercier, Édouard Hugon, and Joseph Gredt, as well as Thomas Aquinas’s own theological use of natural knowledge–the paper argues that Aquinas himself practiced a method of theology informed by the best scientific understanding of his time. This science-engaged Thomism not only recovers Aquinas’s methodological openness to natural philosophy but also offers a contemporary path for fruitful dialogue between theology and the natural sciences –one that avoids both subordination to science and isolation from it.
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