Lexington Books
Pages: 264
Trim: 6 x 8¾
978-1-4985-6281-2 • Hardback • April 2019 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
978-1-4985-6283-6 • Paperback • September 2020 • $39.99 • (£31.00)
978-1-4985-6282-9 • eBook • April 2019 • $38.00 • (£29.00)
Joseph Torchia, O.P. is professor of philosophy at Providence College.
Preface
Introduction
Part I: In the Beginning: Scriptural and Platonic Perspectives
Chapter 1: A Scriptural Point of Departure
Chapter 2: Plato on Cosmological Origins
Chapter 3: Middle Platonic Responses
Part II: The Shape of Things to Come
Chapter 4: The Creation Account of Philo Judaeus
Chapter 5: Creation and Cosmos in the Apostolic Fathers
Part III: Forging the Doctrine
Chapter 6: The Christian Platonism of Justin Martyr
Chapter 7: The Christian Philosophy of Athenagoras of Athens
Chapter 8: Tatian of Syria: The ‘Stages’ of Creation
Chapter 9: Theophilus of Antioch: At the Threshold
Chapter 10: The Alexandrian School
Epilogue: Creation as ‘Beginning’
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
This superbly-written work fills a void when examining the cosmogonies of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Instead of tracing the rarely-used expression 'ex nihilo,' Torchia's focusing in on the metaphysical concept of 'contingency' is brilliant, showing how Athens and Jerusalem stressed the unquestioned omnipotence of the divine and the obvious mutability of matter in different ways.
— David Meconi, SJ Director, The Catholic Studies Centre, Saint Louis University
What do the earliest Greek patristic readings of the opening verses of Genesis have to do with Plato's Timaeus? For the answer, I highly recommend Torchia's excellent account.
— Andrew Hofer, O.P., Dominican House of Studies
Joseph Torchia has given us a careful and thought-provoking study of the development of the Christian doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Beginning with an examination of the doctrine of creation in Scripture, where a metaphysical dimension of creation from non-being is discernable only inchoately, Torchia traces the emergence of an explicitly metaphysical doctrine within the early Church. Through dialogue with and assimilation of the Greek philosophical traditions (viz. Plato and the Middle Platonists) patristic thinkers ultimately articulated the idea that God’s role as Creator involves fundamentally an existential creation from non-being. Such a development paved the way for new and more sophisticated theological and metaphysical questions to be asked within the Christian Tradition.
Fr. Torchia’s study will be helpful and particularly illuminating for graduate students and anyone who is interested in questions regarding the development of doctrine, the relationship between Hellenistic philosophy and Christian thought, faith and reason in the Christian Tradition, and patristic metaphysics of creation (protology).
— Ron Rombs, University of Dallas