As a basic phenomenological constraint, God is hidden to creation in virtue of being the creator. The conclusion identifies implications for the typical atheistic and the theistic responses to the problem of divine hiddenness. Against the atheist who holds than an all-loving God would always want to be in a relation with us, the conclusion argues that if God is in fact the hidden creator, our ultimate source, he would be uniquely the sort of thing we were implicitly always in relation to even if we were unaware of it. Against the theist who wants to explain divine hiddenness in terms of a moral defect of the one seeking, the conclusion argues that such resistance would only be detectable after the fact, in light of faith, and so would be an issue for theological, not philosophical explication.

At the start of the aletheistic tradition, in the Confessions Augustine pioneers a phenomenological approach to fixing the reference to God by means of a novel linguistic act, overheard praise, which mirrors and frames the beautiful forms of created things as themselves overheard linguistic acts; the existential choice of the reader is either to leave the speech as overheard or to enter the speech as addressee. Augustine interprets things as signs of their source, works out the objective order of love, and thematizes the paradox of God’s hidden presence and the creature’s beauty as a sign of the creator.

To which ‘God’ do philosophers refer? In dialogue with Schellenberg and his insightful distinction between “ultimism” and “theism,” this chapter examines the limits of the natural horizon of inquiry into ultimacy. To think adequately about God the creator entails subverting the natural horizon of thought in order to understand the natural whole as a pointer or deferred ostension of its ultimate source.

Within the aletheistic tradition, Aquinas thinks creation, as a linguistic act, involves the theme of interpersonal manifestation. He is therefore able to overcome the apparent artificiality of Anselm’s linguistic ostension by setting the deferred ostension back into both the structure of created being and the natural longing for happiness.

Using phenomenology to develop Plantinga’s analogy of God and other minds, and in dialogue with Feuerbach’s critique of the God–world difference, this chapter articulates how the order inherent in a work makes manifest the cause of that work even when it remains unknown just how the cause brought about the order. To see the world as created amounts to seeing the world as an ordered work indicating its author amounts to seeing it as created; the world can serve as a kind of protreptic but one that is only understood by those who read it carefully. “That hidden other, whose agency causes the world and me to be, is ‘God’.”

In 1900, long before Schrödinger’s work, Planck introduced the ad hoc hypothesis of energy exchange by quanta between radiation and matter, modelling it as a set of harmonic oscillators. In this chapter we show that this quantisation hypothesis follows naturally from the Schrödinger equation for a quadratic potential energy. The oscillator is of great importance because it concerns the vibrations of nuclei, atoms, molecules and solids, and gives a description of the electromagnetic field in vacuum. Before discussing the quantum aspects, we recall properties of a harmonic oscillator in classical physics to show just how different its quantum behaviour is; this can only be found under the ’classical approximation’. A very effective way of finding solutions to the Schrödinger equation is to introduce ’ladder’ operators. Their physical interpretation as the creation and annihilation of vibrational energy quanta opens a new approach (the second quantisation) to consider energy eigenvalues and eigenstates. As applications, we focus on far-infrared and Raman spectroscopy, which are important techniques for identifying molecules.

This chapter explores the approach of the Italian Thomist and Kierkegaard scholar, Fr. Cornelio Fabro (1911–1995), to move contemporary scholarly discussions toward consensus regarding the dialogue between Thomism and continental philosophy, which centers on the question of the meaning of being (esse) and contingency. The central observation is that what is now taken as the canonical Thomist view of creation and freedom is indebted to Fabro’s research on the metaphysics of participation. For Fabro, the forgetfulness of being that Heidegger rightly identifies loses its way with the forgetfulness of the act of being. By distinguishing esse from existentia with Fabro’s notion of participation and act of being (actus essendi), Fabro’s Thomism avoids Cartesian dualism and phenomenological monism, which opens a constructive dialogue with continental thought. Briefly rehearsing Fabro’s metaphysical distinction between factical existence (existentia) and being (esse) illuminates Fabro’s critical evaluation of continental thought as a speculative scheme of necessary emanation or pure immanence. The chapter concludes that the best way to approach this question is not to limit it to the empirical realm of factical existence (existentia) but rather to open up the existential question to the metaphysics of creation ex nihilo.

Nearing the Comedy’s end, Dante offers a beautiful depiction of an ordered whole. But a countercurrent of intellectual unrest also winds through its conclusion.It’s evident in Beatrice’s parting words when, in the awe-inspiring Empyrean, she dwells on gritty details of earthly politics; when her words elicit from Dante a prayer to his beloved, the only prayer he utters in the poem; and when, Beatrice gone, his doubts persist as to what principle of justice, if any, governs this vision.

Throughout Paradiso, the link between that question and the character of the whole has been expressed in the problem of the One and the Many. That problem is thematic regarding the Primum Mobile’s role in Creation, where the temporal and the timeless must somehow connect. Beatrice bequeaths the perplexity of the nexus as a gift to Dante and to whomever would lead the inquisitive life. However, Beatrice’s successor, Bernard, discourages further questioning. His prayer to Mary balances Dante’s to Beatrice, the difference between them depicting alternative ways of life.The Comedy’s final words express the heartening claim that “Love” moves the perceivable whole.But the poem’s last words do not coincide with its peak. Its ends, much as humanity’s, remain distinct.

The first eleven chapters of Genesis – and of the Old Testament – constitute the Primeval History. This carefully arranged collection of traditions detail God’s good creation of the cosmos, the nature of humanity in the created order of the universe, and God’s relationship with humans. In this chapter, we will explore various genres such as cosmogony, theogony, myth, and history, all of which will help to demonstrate ways in which Israel’s Primeval History resembled the traditions of its ancient neighbors and ways in which Israel’s form and content were unique.

Importantly, Genesis 1–11 prepare the reader for the rest of the Bible. They also function as an explanation for Israelite readers of why things are the way they are. Furthermore, they introduce themes that will be important throughout the remainder of the Old Testament: the concept of creation, the unchallenged sovereignty of God, the central importance of humanity, and the first mention of covenant.

This chapter examines Augustine’s discussion of time in Book 11. The contrast between eternity, in which there is no succession or change, and time, which is nothing but succession and change, is a crucial first step. Augustine uses this contrast to distinguish between ordinary utterances and God’s creative Word, the coeternal Son. Time is itself created, so there is no sense in asking what God was doing before he created, though Augustine’s understanding of the relationship between time and eternity raises difficult philosophical questions that Augustine himself does not address, though recent philosophers of religion have done so. Augustine appears to hold that only what is (temporally) present exists. The most contentious issue is whether Augustine holds a subjectivist theory of time, and if so, what exactly that theory is. After canvasing the merits of possible answers to that question, the chapter concludes that the most charitable reading is that Augustine “does not seem to offer an account of what time is but instead ‘merely’ offers an aporetic examination of certain puzzles concerning time and our experience of it.” This construal is "entirely in keeping with his frequently open-ended and exploratory manner of philosophical investigation.”

This chapter elucidates the ways in which “narrative can serve as a tool for the orientation of consciousness.” The dual narrative of the Confessions – nine books of personal narrative, joined by a book on memory to a cosmic narrative of creation and redemption – conveys, and is intended to convey, theological truth. In his theological work Augustine draws on, amplifies, and corrects (as he sees it) such figures as Origen (though only at second hand), Basil of Caesarea, and Ambrose to articulate his own distinctive views on knowing and willing, the condition of the fallen human will, and the source and destiny of creation. In concluding remarks that elegantly distil the unity of the Confessions, that chapter observes that “Augustine cannot give an account of his life that is not also an account of the work of God.”

In the first paragraph of the modern translation of the Rationale divinorum officiorum of William Durand (c. 1230–1296) are markers of the change this book seeks to chart. One is immediately visible. The translator, Timothy M. Thibodeau, chose to distinguish through the use of italics what he then identifies, through the use of brackets, as biblical texts. Those italics and those brackets do not simply mark the modern sense of “source,” of a particular relationship between Durand and Scripture, that postdates Durand himself. They distinguish Scripture and, in so doing, obscure Durand’s understanding of revelation and its relationship to “ecclesiasticis officiis, rebus ac ornamentis.” There in the opening paragraph of the Prologue and throughout the Rationale, Durand presents a different relationship entirely among ecclesiasticis officiis, rebus and ornamentis, and biblical history, prophecies, psalms, Gospels, and Epistles.

This chapter lays out two key tasks in reading Scripture that Augustine identifies in the Confessions, and especially in his exegesis of Genesis: “the task of grasping meaning” and “the task of grasping truth.” The first task is that of discerning authorial intention; the second is that of “seeing for oneself that what the author is saying is in fact the case.” The task of grasping meaning is difficult in part because of the peculiar character of the Scriptures; they are both accessible to all, using ordinary language (which is open to misinterpretation), and yet full of profundities that only the wisest readers can come to appreciate. It is also difficult because we cannot really know what is in another person’s mind; any judgments about authorial intention are provisional at best, and only pride would claim to have identified the uniquely correct interpretation. The task of grasping truth is likewise difficult. When it comes to intelligible realities, Truth speaks inwardly, not through any text, even that of Scripture. When it comes to historical realities, including the central truths about the life of the Incarnate Word, we cannot have knowledge in the fullest sense.

This chapter focuses on the core issues concerning the doctrine of creation that were debated by early scholastic theologians. These include the view that God brought the world into being from nothing; that God created everything, all at once; and that creation occurred at the beginning of time.