A First Without a Second: Understanding Divine Causality
by Dr. Edward Feser
Filed under The Existence of God
NOTE: Dr. Feser's contributions at Strange Notions were originally posted on his own blog, and therefore lose some of their context when reprinted here. Dr. Feser explains why that matters. For the Thomist, to say that God is the First Cause of things is, first and foremost, to say that He is the cause of their existence at every moment at which they do exist. God creates things out of nothing precisely in the act of conserving them in being, and apart from His continual... Read More
Why is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
by Dominicans of the Province of St. Joseph
Filed under Cosmology
Why is there something rather than nothing? This question, usually thought to fall strictly within the purview of philosophy and theology, has recently received attention in the world of popular science thanks to books by Stephen Hawking and Lawrence M. Krauss. Interestingly, these authors propose something similar to what Christians have always believed—that the universe came into existence out of nothing, or ex nihilo—but they think this could have happened spontaneously, or without... Read More
