Does God Play Dice? An Answer to the Neo-Darwinist Mechanicism From the Aristotelic-Thomistic Teleology

Abstract:

The argument that pretends to deny the existence of God has been recently articulated on the Nietzschean assumption that “the world’s global nature is chaos for the entire eternity”, as we can see, for instance, in the Neo-Darwinist mechanicism of Richard Dawkins. This paper seeks to find an answer to this issue from the Aristotelian- Thomistic teleology. According to this perspective, acknowledging the order in a contingent universe allows us to recognise the existence of a Creator God, who, in Aquinas’ words, “produced many and diverse creatures, that what was wanting to one in the representation of the divine goodness might be supplied by another” (S.Th. I, q.47, a.1 in c.)

Key words:

Creation, God, Order, Chaos, Universe, Mechanicism, Neo-Darwinism, Teleology, Aristotelism, Thomism