Toward Creaturely Value: God's Inner Processive Life and the Intrinsic Value of Creatures in Thomas Aquinas

The intrinsic value of creatures is defensible on many accounts, though more rarely from a speculative, metaphysical, and theological perspective. In this thesis, I seek to establish and elaborate the connection between creaturely value and scholastic theology through the work of Thomas Aquinas. In chapter 1, I explicate the thesis and the methodology and build a case that Aquinas’s speculative, metaphysical, and theological clarification provide the substructure for creaturely value. In chapter 2, I argue that Aquinas’s vision of creation and inner trinitarian relations are mutual informing. In chapter 3, I explicate the ad intra processions of the Trinity as the origin and end of all created life. In chapter 4, I elucidate the relation between the processions of the Trinity ad intra and the procession of creatures ad extra. In chapter 5, I summarize my thesis and offer points of contact for future research. As such, according to Aquinas, the value of all creatures has a direct correlate in the eternal processions of the Trinity.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Majors, Tyler Daniel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Allison, Gregg R.

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10392/6970

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.sbts.edu:10392/6970