Seeing God. Thomas Aquinas on Divine Presence in the World

Abstract

How to recognize the presence of God in the world? Thomas Aquinas' proposition, based on the efficient, exemplary and intentional causality, including both the natural level and grace, avoids several simplifications, the consequence of which is transcendent blindness. On the one hand, it does not allow to fall into a panentheistic reductionism involving God into the game of His variability in relation to the changing world. The sensitivity of Thomas in interpreting a real existing world makes it impossible to close the subject in the ''house without windows'', from where God can only be presumed. On the other hand, the proposal of Aquinas avoids the radical transcendence of God, according to which He has nothing to do with the world.

Ancient Greek and Christian Understanding of Contemplation in Terms of a Resonant Attitude Towards the World

“…It is essential to be exposed to the ʻotherʼ and "to be moved by the other" (Waaijman 2020, 438). This is why Origen, one of the most famous teachers of allegorical reading, insists that the reader must attune himself to the "voice of God" (Roszak and Huzarek 2019). The first, object reading, focuses on the ʻwordʼ (sign, content, articulation, reference).…”

Chronos and Kairos of Hope

“…The highest goal of the spiritual life is not the abundance of knowledge, information or the experience of space or things, but the encounter with sacred moments, i.e., kairos. The spiritual experience is not about things that are given to man but about the Presence experienced by man (Roszak and Huzarek 2019). The moment of insight, the touch of the eternal in time, happens within the man and not in the place or space where this event took space (Heschel 2013,17−21;Avsenik Nabergoj 2020, 522−534).…”