Controversies Over the Omnipotence of God

Abstract

The concept of creation has a religious origin. Hence it is not surprising that it was developed and elaborated within the sphere of theological and metaphysical reflection. At any rate that intellectual environment was characteristic of the whole of the Middle Ages. But with the approach of the Modern period and the emergence of questions which would eventually give rise to the empirical sciences, the creation issue could not remain insensitive to these transformations. Although the idea of creation had become thoroughly theological and metaphysical, it obviously pertained to the world as well, and at a certain stage even served as a sort of bridgehead connecting the issues in theology and metaphysics with the gradually maturing issues in the natural sciences. Movement across this bridgehead went in both directions.