You have guts to combat Aquinas, Dario! Thanks for sharing. Would it be proper to conceive the new earth as a restoration of the garden of Eden or will it be even more glorious?
Thanks John! I was lucky enough to be addressing one of the few times St. Thomas was wrong. That's actually a very interesting question. I'm not sure what the answer is. I'll only venture to note that, according to St. Thomas, man did not possess the beatific vision in the garden of Eden. So our blessedness will be greater in the new earth due to our renewal in Christ. It seems to me that the renewal of the material world must be commiserate with man's renewal because it is only by way of participation in man's blessedness that it is made new. If that is true, then it would appear that the "happy fault" was happy not just for man, but for all material creatures who are renewed through man's renewal in Christ. It is hard to say, however, in what way material creatures would be more perfect than in the garden of Eden, since in the garden they would possess all natural perfection and only man possesses the intellect sufficient to possess the beatific vision.
You have guts to combat Aquinas, Dario! Thanks for sharing. Would it be proper to conceive the new earth as a restoration of the garden of Eden or will it be even more glorious?
Thanks John! I was lucky enough to be addressing one of the few times St. Thomas was wrong. That's actually a very interesting question. I'm not sure what the answer is. I'll only venture to note that, according to St. Thomas, man did not possess the beatific vision in the garden of Eden. So our blessedness will be greater in the new earth due to our renewal in Christ. It seems to me that the renewal of the material world must be commiserate with man's renewal because it is only by way of participation in man's blessedness that it is made new. If that is true, then it would appear that the "happy fault" was happy not just for man, but for all material creatures who are renewed through man's renewal in Christ. It is hard to say, however, in what way material creatures would be more perfect than in the garden of Eden, since in the garden they would possess all natural perfection and only man possesses the intellect sufficient to possess the beatific vision.