Neoclassical theists reject the traditional divine attributes of impassibility and immutability, holding that God can be affected by the things he has created and is thus changeable. Some claim, for example, that God undergoes changes in emotional state, has desires that can be either satisfied or frustrated, grows in knowledge, and can suffer. I argue that this position rests on a simplistic distortion of perfect being theology grounded in highly contestable intuitions and conceptually sloppy usage of key terms (such as “emotion” and “knowledge”). By contrast, the first-cause theology of Thomism is grounded in a rigorously worked-out metaphysics that neoclassical writers typically engage with only superficially if at all. Nor is “neoclassical” theism really new, but in fact marks a regression to a crudely anthropomorphic conception of God that Western thought moved beyond at the time of Xenophanes.

Chapter one offers a constructive proposal of an Aristotelian-Thomistic model of metaphysics of evolutionary transitions, grounded in the categories of hylomorphism, virtual presence, disposition of matter, and accidental and substantial changes. The final part of this chapter concentrates on the classical principle of proportionate causation and the question of whether the proposed metaphysical model of evolutionary changes contradicts it.