Core Doctrine

Creation & Providence

God as both Creator and Sustainer - the ultimate system architect and runtime manager

God created the universe from nothing (ex nihilo) and continuously sustains every particle of it in existence at every moment. This is the Catholic doctrine of Creation and Providence: God is not a deistic watchmaker who wound up the cosmos and walked away, but the active source and sustainer of all reality. Without His continuous creative action, the universe would instantaneously collapse into nothingness. The Trinity acts as one in creating and sustaining all reality.

Creation and Providence: God's Continuous Action

The Foundation: Creation from Nothing

Creation ex nihilo means God brought the universe into existence without any pre-existing material substrate. He did not shape primordial matter, organize chaos, or emanate reality from His own substance. Rather, God freely willed the universe into being through sheer creative power. As the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) defined, “God is the creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and corporeal, who by his almighty power at the beginning of time created both orders of creatures in the same way out of nothing” (DS 800).

This doctrine distinguishes Catholic teaching from both ancient cosmogonies and modern materialism. Against Plato’s Timaeus, which posited a divine craftsman shaping eternal matter, Scripture proclaims: “I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed” (2 Maccabees 7:28). Against Gnostic dualism, which taught that matter was evil and created by a lesser deity, the Church affirms that all creation flows from God’s goodness and reflects His wisdom.

The theological implications prove profound. Divine transcendence means God exists independently of creation as its ultimate source, not as part of the cosmic system. Creation’s contingency establishes that the universe depends entirely on God’s free act rather than emanating from divine necessity. While ex nihilo creation does not require the universe to have a temporal beginning (God could theoretically sustain creation eternally), it affirms creation’s absolute metaphysical dependence on God at every moment.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons articulated this teaching against Gnostic errors in the second century: “While man indeed cannot make anything out of nothing, but only out of matter already existing, God is in this point pre-eminently superior to men, that He Himself called into being the substance of His creation, when previously it had no existence” (Against Heresies II.10.4). The doctrine entered conciliar definition at Lateran IV and received systematic philosophical elaboration in St. Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between essence and existence in created beings.

Programming Analogy: System Architecture & Runtime Management

Think of God as both the system architect who designed the universe and the runtime manager who continuously executes it. In TypeScript terms, creation and providence work together:

// God as both Creator and Sustainer
class Universe {
    constructor(creator) {
        this.creator = creator;
        this.entities = new Map();
        this.naturalLaws = creator.establishLaws();
        this.isRunning = false;
    }

    // Creation ex nihilo - bringing into existence from nothing
    create() {
        this.creator.createFromNothing(this);
        this.isRunning = true;
        this.startContinuousSustenance();
        return this;
    }

    // Providence - continuous governance and sustenance
    startContinuousSustenance() {
        setInterval(() => {
            if (!this.creator.sustain(this)) {
                // Without God's sustaining power, everything ceases
                this.collapse();
            }
            this.creator.govern(this);
        }, 0); // Continuous, not periodic
    }

    addEntity(entity) {
        // Every created thing depends on God for existence
        entity.dependsOn = this.creator;
        this.entities.set(entity.id, entity);
        this.creator.directTowardEnd(entity);
    }
}

class Creator {
    establishLaws() {
        return {
            physics: this.createPhysicalLaws(),
            causality: this.createCausalOrder(),
            teleology: this.createPurposiveOrder()
        };
    }

    // Sustenance - keeping things in existence
    sustain(universe) {
        universe.entities.forEach(entity => {
            // Each moment, God gives existence
            entity.exist = this.grantExistence();
        });
        return true; // God never fails to sustain
    }

    // Governance - directing toward ultimate end
    govern(universe) {
        universe.entities.forEach(entity => {
            this.directTowardGood(entity);
            this.coordinateWithOthers(entity, universe);
        });
    }

    // Special providence for rational creatures
    provideSpecialCare(rationalBeing) {
        return {
            grace: this.offerGrace(rationalBeing),  // See Grace & Free Will
            guidance: this.provideMoralLaw(),
            destiny: this.callToEternalLife(rationalBeing)
        };
    }
}

// Usage
const God = new Creator();
const creation = new Universe(God).create();

// Every moment depends on God's sustaining power
console.log("Universe exists:", creation.isRunning); // true
console.log("Sustained by:", creation.creator); // Creator instance

This model captures the Catholic understanding: God doesn’t instantiate the universe and then allow it to run autonomously. Rather, He continuously maintains it in existence through active sustenance, analogous to how a runtime environment must continuously allocate resources and manage processes. Without the runtime, the program ceases. Without God’s sustaining power, creation would collapse into nothingness.

The deistic error treats God like a programmer who writes code, deploys it to production, and then abandons the system to run independently:

// ANTI-PATTERN: Deistic "Set and Forget"
class DeisticUniverse {
    constructor() {
        this.creator = null; // Creator disconnected after creation
        this.selfSustaining = true; // FALSE - nothing is self-sustaining
    }

    create() {
        const creator = new Creator();
        creator.createUniverse(this);
        creator = null; // Creator "leaves" - WRONG!
        this.runIndependently(); // IMPOSSIBLE
    }

    runIndependently() {
        // This model fails - nothing can exist without God's sustaining power
        throw new Error("Cannot exist without continuous divine sustenance");
    }
}

Catholic doctrine rejects this model entirely. God is not an absentee landlord but the active ground of all existence.

Conservation: Continuous Sustenance in Being

God’s conservation of creation (conservatio) means that every creature depends on divine power for its continued existence at every moment. This is not a one-time act followed by autonomous persistence, but continuous creation. Just as Transubstantiation demonstrates God’s power over substances in the Eucharist, conservation reveals His power over all existence. As St. Thomas Aquinas explains, “God’s preservation of things is not a new action, but a continuation of the action by which He gives being, which is without movement and time” (ST I, q.104, a.1, ad 4).

Aquinas develops this through his metaphysics of existence. Created beings are composites of essence and existence: what they are (essence) does not entail that they are (existence). Only in God are essence and existence identical; God alone is subsistent being itself (ipsum esse subsistens). Creatures receive existence as a participated gift, dependent on the divine source from which they borrow being. Remove the source, and the participation ceases immediately. Aquinas writes: “Every creature needs to be preserved by God. For the being of every creature depends on God, so that not for a moment could it subsist, but would fall into nothingness, were it not kept in being by the operation of the Divine power” (ST I, q.104, a.1).

This doctrine has scriptural warrant. The Letter to the Colossians teaches that in Christ “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), suggesting continuous sustenance rather than mere initial creation. The Letter to the Hebrews states that Christ “sustains all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). The Catechism affirms: “Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created ‘in a state of journeying’ toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call ‘divine providence’ the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection” (CCC §302).

This understanding illuminates God’s relationship to time. While creatures exist temporally, experiencing succession of moments, God’s creative and sustaining act is eternal and unchanging. From the divine perspective, there is one simple eternal act of will that brings creation into being and maintains it through all moments of its temporal duration. From the creaturely perspective, we experience this as continuous dependence on divine power at each successive moment.

Primary and Secondary Causation

God works through created instruments while remaining the ultimate source of all causal efficacy. This is the doctrine of primary and secondary causation: God is the primary cause who enables all creaturely activity, while natural agents operate as genuine secondary causes. St. Thomas Aquinas articulates the principle: “God is the first cause, who moves causes both natural and voluntary. And just as by moving natural causes He does not prevent their actions from being natural, so by moving voluntary causes He does not deprive their actions of being voluntary; but rather is He the cause of this very thing in them, for He operates in each thing according to its own nature” (ST I-II, q.10, a.4).

This synthesis avoids two errors. Against occasionalism, which denies genuine causal power to creatures and attributes all effects directly to God, Catholic teaching affirms that created agents truly act according to their natures. Fire genuinely burns, water genuinely flows, humans genuinely choose. God grants creatures the dignity of being real causes, not mere occasions for divine action. Against deism, which imagines God creating autonomous secondary causes that operate independently, Catholic teaching maintains that secondary causes depend on primary causation for their very power to act. The fire burns because God continuously empowers its burning; the human chooses because God enables the will’s activity.

Aquinas clarifies: “God works in every agent in such a way that the agent also works. For God works in all things in such a way as to allow them to carry out their own proper operations. And this is so because operation follows upon a thing’s form and power” (Summa Contra Gentiles III, ch.67). Natural laws represent God’s consistent governance through secondary causes. Scientific investigation reveals the rational patterns through which divine providence operates, making science a legitimate means of understanding God’s created order.

This framework reconciles divine sovereignty with creaturely autonomy. God’s comprehensive causation does not compete with natural causation but grounds it. When a physicist explains combustion through oxidation, and a theologian affirms that God causes the burning, they describe different causal levels operating in harmony. The physical explanation describes secondary causation; the theological explanation identifies primary causation. Both are true, and neither excludes the other.

Governance: Directing All Things to Their End

Divine governance (gubernatio) means God directs all creatures toward their proper ends according to their natures. This providential ordering extends to every level of creation, from subatomic particles following physical laws to angels pursuing beatific vision. The universe exhibits teleology (purposiveness) because God governs it according to His eternal plan, directing all things toward the Last Judgment and their ultimate consummation.

God governs through eternal law, which Aquinas defines as “the rational governance of everything on the part of God as the ruler of the universe” (ST I-II, q.91, a.1). This eternal law manifests in different ways for different creatures. Irrational creatures participate in eternal law through natural inclinations—physical laws for matter, biological instincts for animals. Rational creatures participate through natural law, the dictates of practical reason that direct human action toward the human good. Angels participate through direct intellectual apprehension of divine truth.

Scripture attests to God’s comprehensive governance. Jesus teaches that divine providence extends even to sparrows: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” (Matthew 10:29). The Wisdom literature proclaims: “You love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it” (Wisdom 11:24). The psalmist celebrates God’s care for all creatures: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing” (Psalm 145:15-16).

Catholic theology distinguishes levels of providence according to the dignity of creatures. General providence governs all creation through natural laws and the coordination of secondary causes toward universal order. Special providence extends particular care to rational creatures capable of knowing and loving God, providing moral law, revelation, and grace. Most special providence guides the elect toward eternal beatitude through the sacraments and mystical graces.

This hierarchical providence can be represented:

// Different levels of providence
const ProvidenceTypes = {
  general: {
    scope: "All creation",
    method: "Natural laws and secondary causes",
    purpose: "Universal order and common good"
  },

  special: {
    scope: "Rational creatures (humans, angels)",
    method: "Grace, revelation, moral law",
    purpose: "Personal salvation and sanctification"
  },

  mostSpecial: {
    scope: "The elect in the supernatural order",
    method: "Sacraments, mystical graces, election",
    purpose: "Beatific vision and eternal life"
  }
};

God’s governance respects the freedom of rational creatures. Divine providence does not operate through coercion but through the harmonious ordering of free choices toward the ultimate good. God knows eternally how free creatures will choose, and His providence incorporates those free choices into His providential plan without violating their freedom. This mystery of divine foreknowledge and human freedom receives treatment in the Catholic understanding of grace and free will.

The Four Divine Actions in Creation

Catholic theology systematically distinguishes four aspects of God’s creative and sustaining activity. Creation (creatio) is the initial bringing of the universe into existence from nothing through divine power alone. Conservation (conservatio) is the continuous sustaining of creatures in existence at every moment, preventing their collapse into nothingness. Concurrence (concursus) is God’s cooperation with creatures in their actions, enabling them to exercise their causal powers. Governance (gubernatio) is the directing of all things toward their ultimate end according to divine wisdom.

These four aspects are not temporally sequential but logically distinct dimensions of the single divine act by which God relates to creation. Aquinas treats creation and conservation together in Summa Theologica I, qq.44-46 and 104, emphasizing their continuity. He addresses concurrence in his treatment of God’s operation in things (ST I, q.105) and governance in his extensive discussion of providence (ST I, q.22 and qq.103-119).

The unity of these divine actions reflects God’s simplicity. From the divine perspective, there is one eternal act of will that creates, sustains, enables, and directs all creaturely reality. From the creaturely perspective, we distinguish these aspects to understand different dimensions of our dependence on God. We exist because God creates (creation), we persist because God sustains (conservation), we act because God empowers (concurrence), and we move toward our end because God directs (governance).

This framework illuminates the relationship between divine transcendence and immanence. God is transcendent as the source of all being, distinct from creation and independent of it. Yet God is immanent as the sustaining ground of creation, more intimately present to each creature than it is to itself. As St. Augustine prayed: “You were more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me” (Confessions III.6.11). The doctrine of creation and providence holds transcendence and immanence in creative tension.

The Problem of Evil

The existence of evil presents the most formidable challenge to belief in divine providence. If God is all-powerful and all-good, and if He governs all creation, why does evil exist? Catholic theology addresses this ancient question through careful distinctions and metaphysical analysis.

The Church distinguishes physical evil (malum poenae) from moral evil (malum culpae). Physical evil encompasses natural disasters, disease, suffering, and death—the limitations and imperfections inherent in material creation. Moral evil comprises sin and moral corruption arising from the misuse of free will by rational creatures. These two kinds of evil have different sources and require different explanations.

Physical evil results from creation’s material nature and temporal development. God created a universe “in a state of journeying” (in statu viae) toward ultimate perfection (CCC §302). Material creation involves limitations, conflicts, and the dissolution of compound beings. Tectonic activity that causes earthquakes also renews the earth’s crust. Cellular mutation that enables evolution also produces cancer. The same natural processes that sustain life also involve death. Augustine taught that physical evils serve pedagogical and purgative purposes, teaching humans their dependence on God and purifying souls through suffering.

Moral evil originates in the free choice of rational creatures to turn away from God toward lesser goods. God does not will moral evil but permits it as a consequence of granting genuine freedom to creatures. The Catholic tradition, following Augustine and Aquinas, teaches that evil is not a positive reality but a privation—the absence of good that ought to be present. Sin is the privation of right order in the will; moral corruption is the privation of virtue; death is the privation of life. God did not create evil as a positive substance but allows the privation of good as a condition of creaturely freedom and material limitation.

Divine permission of evil must be distinguished from divine willing of evil. God’s permissive will allows evils to occur without His active causation. As Aquinas explains, “God neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit evil to be done; and this is a good” (ST I, q.19, a.9, ad 3). Why does God permit evil? Because He can bring greater good from it than would exist without it. St. Augustine wrote: “Almighty God would in no wise permit evil to exist in His works, unless He were so almighty and so good as to produce good even from evil” (Enchiridion 11).

The Cross demonstrates this principle. God permitted the greatest moral evil—the murder of His incarnate Son—and ordered it toward the greatest good: the redemption of humanity. The felix culpa (happy fault) of Adam’s sin occasioned Christ’s Incarnation and the superabundance of grace. This does not make sin good, nor does it justify evil, but it reveals God’s providential wisdom in ordering permitted evils toward greater goods.

Catholic teaching maintains that divine providence is compatible with genuine human freedom. God’s eternal knowledge does not causally determine human choices. Rather, God knows eternally and infallibly how free creatures will choose in time. His providence incorporates these free choices into the providential plan without violating freedom. The mystery of how God’s comprehensive sovereignty coexists with creaturely freedom finds partial resolution in the doctrine of grace, where God moves the will without coercing it.

Common Errors Regarding Creation and Providence

Seven major errors distort the Catholic understanding of creation and providence. Identifying these helps clarify authentic doctrine.

Materialism denies that the universe requires a creator, asserting instead that matter is eternal and self-explanatory. This error fails to account for contingent existence. The universe’s existence is not self-explanatory—it could have not existed. The cosmological argument demonstrates that contingent beings require an explanation outside the chain of contingent causes, pointing to a necessary being (God) as ultimate source. Modern materialism also struggles to explain the universe’s rational intelligibility, fine-tuned constants, and the emergence of consciousness from supposedly unconscious matter.

Deism acknowledges God as creator but denies providence, treating God as an absentee landlord who started the cosmic mechanism and then withdrew. This error contradicts Scripture’s pervasive teaching about God’s ongoing care for creation. It also fails philosophically: if creatures are contingent beings that do not contain the explanation of their existence in themselves, they require continuous divine sustenance, not merely initial creation. Deism arose in the Enlightenment as an attempt to preserve God while eliminating miracles and providence, but it evacuates religious meaning from the doctrine of creation.

Pantheism identifies God with creation, denying divine transcendence and reducing God to the sum total of natural reality. This error appears in various forms: Spinoza’s identification of God with substance, Hegelian absolute idealism, and some New Age spiritualities. Against pantheism, Catholic teaching maintains God’s transcendence: God exists independently of creation and could exist without it. Creation is God’s free act, not an emanation of divine necessity. Pantheism also eliminates the Creator-creature distinction, making worship and prayer meaningless.

Process theology limits divine power and knowledge, asserting that God evolves alongside creation and does not know the future because it does not yet exist. Influenced by Alfred North Whitehead, process thought posits a “dipolar” God with both necessary and contingent aspects, affected and changed by creaturely actions. While attempting to solve the problem of evil by limiting divine power, process theology contradicts the Catholic understanding of God’s immutability, simplicity, and comprehensive providence. God does not learn, develop, or change; such characteristics indicate imperfection incompatible with divine nature.

Young Earth Creationism (YEC) interprets Genesis 1-2 as providing scientific chronology, asserting that the universe is approximately 6,000-10,000 years old and that all species were created in their present forms. While Catholics are free to hold this position, the Church does not bind consciences to YEC. Papal teaching and the Catechism affirm that Scripture’s primary purpose is salvific truth, not scientific description. Genesis teaches theological truths about God’s sovereignty, creation’s goodness, and humanity’s dignity—not geological chronology. Pope Pius XII’s Humani Generis (1950) and St. John Paul II’s statement that evolution is “more than a hypothesis” establish the legitimacy of accepting mainstream scientific consensus on cosmic and biological timescales.

Occasionalism denies genuine causal power to creatures, attributing all effects directly to God. Developed by Al-Ghazali in Islamic thought and adopted by some Christian thinkers like Malebranche, occasionalism treats created agents as mere occasions for divine action rather than true causes. Against this, Catholic teaching affirms the dignity of creatures as genuine secondary causes. God creates natures that truly act according to their proper operations. Fire genuinely burns; humans genuinely choose. God’s primary causation grounds rather than eliminates secondary causation.

Fatalism and determinism deny human freedom, asserting that all events (including human choices) are causally necessitated by prior conditions or divine decree. This error appears in various forms: mechanistic determinism (all events are determined by physical laws), theological determinism (God’s sovereignty eliminates freedom), and astrological fatalism (celestial configurations determine earthly events). Catholic teaching maintains genuine human freedom grounded in the rational will’s capacity for self-determination. While God’s providence is comprehensive, it operates through the free choices of rational creatures rather than despite them. Divine foreknowledge does not causally necessitate future events; God knows eternally what free creatures will freely choose in time.

Creation, Evolution, and Modern Science

Catholic teaching embraces legitimate scientific investigation as revealing God’s consistent governance through natural laws. The theory of evolution, properly understood, is compatible with Catholic doctrine. God can create through evolutionary processes as secondary causes while remaining the primary cause of all existence and development. Creation unfolds according to God’s plan, reaching its summit in the Incarnation, when the Creator enters His own creation. As St. John Paul II stated: “New knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory” (Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, October 22, 1996).

This scientific dialogue operates within theological boundaries. The special creation of the human soul remains Catholic dogma. While the human body may have developed through evolutionary processes from prior life forms, the rational soul of each human person is directly created by God (CCC §366). This immediate creation establishes human dignity and transcendent destiny. Pope Pius XII taught in Humani Generis (1950) that the Church does not forbid research into human bodily origins, but the soul’s spiritual nature requires immediate divine creation.

Contemporary theology, particularly Joseph Ratzinger’s In the Beginning and the work of Thomistic evolutionists like Nicanor Austriaco, OP, has developed sophisticated accounts of how divine creation operates through evolutionary processes. These accounts maintain primary and secondary causation: natural selection, genetic mutation, and environmental pressures operate as genuine secondary causes, while God’s creative power grounds the entire process as primary cause. The rational structures discovered by evolutionary biology reveal God’s wisdom in creating through development rather than instantaneous fixity.

The Big Bang theory’s compatibility with ex nihilo creation was noted early by Catholic physicist Fr. Georges Lemaître, who proposed the theory in 1927. While the Big Bang describes the universe’s temporal beginning and expansion, it does not contradict or prove ex nihilo creation, which is a metaphysical claim about dependence on God rather than a physical claim about temporal origins. Pope Pius XII’s 1951 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences noted the harmony between Big Bang cosmology and Catholic teaching, though he cautioned against conflating scientific and theological claims.

Quantum mechanics raises new questions about divine action and natural law. The indeterminacy of quantum events (per the Copenhagen interpretation) creates space for non-deterministic divine action without violating physical laws. Some theologians propose that God governs quantum indeterminacy to providentially order creation, though this remains speculative. The Catholic position maintains that however quantum mechanics is interpreted, God’s providence remains comprehensive without coercing nature or violating creaturely autonomy.

Fine-tuning arguments note that physical constants permit life within extremely narrow ranges. The cosmological constant, strong nuclear force, electromagnetic force, and numerous other parameters fall within the narrow windows necessary for complex chemistry and biological life. While not constituting definitive proof of God’s existence, fine-tuning provides convergent evidence for intelligent design and coheres with the doctrine that God orders creation toward the emergence of rational creatures capable of knowing and loving Him.

Practical Implications

The doctrine of creation and providence transforms Christian life across multiple dimensions. Because God actively governs creation, believers can trust divine providence and bring their needs to Him in prayer. Christ’s teaching about the Father’s care for sparrows and lilies (Matthew 6:25-34) grounds Christian confidence in divine provision. Prayer is not an attempt to inform God of our needs or manipulate His will, but cooperation with providence by aligning our wills with His governance.

Environmental stewardship flows directly from creation theology. Since all creation flows from God’s goodness and serves His providential plan, humans bear responsibility as rational creatures to care for the natural world. Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ (2015) draws explicitly on creation theology to ground environmental ethics. All creatures have intrinsic value as God’s handiwork. The interconnectedness of ecological systems reflects divine wisdom. Human dominion means stewardship, not exploitation. Providence extends to future generations, requiring sustainable practices that preserve creation for those yet unborn. This care for creation connects to broader concerns about human dignity in an age of technological advancement.

Human dignity finds its ultimate foundation in special creation and providence. Every human person is directly created and sustained by God, granting infinite dignity and worth regardless of circumstances. The immediate creation of each person’s rational soul (CCC §366) establishes inherent dignity that cannot be earned or lost. Each person has an eternal destiny, called to union with God. This grounds moral responsibility, as humans are free and accountable before God. Universal solidarity follows from humanity’s shared divine image and calling.

Scientific investigation becomes an act of discovering God’s creative wisdom. The regularities studied by physics, chemistry, and biology reveal the consistent patterns of divine governance through natural law. Catholic universities and institutions support scientific research as compatible with faith, recognizing that truth cannot contradict truth. The Church opposes scientism (the claim that science provides the only genuine knowledge) while affirming science’s legitimate autonomy within its proper sphere.

The doctrine of providence grounds Christian hope in suffering. While evil remains a profound mystery, faith affirms that God can bring good from permitted evils. The example of the Cross demonstrates that God uses even the worst evil to accomplish redemptive purposes. Christians facing suffering can trust that God’s providence extends even to their trials, incorporating them into His providential plan. This is not fatalism (suffering is meaningless) nor optimism (suffering is not real), but theological hope grounded in God’s wisdom and power.

Citations

Fourth Lateran Council, Firmiter credimus (1215), DS 800
St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies II.10.4
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles III, ch.67
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q.104, a.1, ad 4
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q.104, a.1
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II, q.10, a.4
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I-II, q.91, a.1
St. Augustine, Confessions III.6.11
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica I, q.19, a.9, ad 3
St. Augustine, Enchiridion 11 (PL 40:236)
Pope John Paul II, “Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences” (October 22, 1996)
Catechism of the Catholic Church §302

Creation & Providence

Creation and Providence: God's Continuous Action

The Foundation: Creation from Nothing

Programming Analogy: System Architecture & Runtime Management

Conservation: Continuous Sustenance in Being

Primary and Secondary Causation

Governance: Directing All Things to Their End

The Four Divine Actions in Creation

The Problem of Evil

Common Errors Regarding Creation and Providence

Creation, Evolution, and Modern Science

Practical Implications

Further Reading

Primary Sources

Magisterial Documents

Patristic and Medieval Sources

Contemporary Theology

Science and Faith Dialogue

Philosophical Background

Citations

Keyboard Shortcuts

Navigation

Interface

Grid Navigation