To See a World in a Grain of Sand: Reconciling the Saints to Darwin and Einstein, Divorcing the Saints from Smith and Lincoln

With some modifications, certain insights of St. Thomas Aquinas can be used to make good sense of this dynamic universe of evolving things. These foundational insights cover the nature of human knowledge and the importance of acts-of-being. The human mind is formed by interaction with God’s effects in His creation and this interaction takes place during three billion years of evolution and also during the lifetime of an individual human being. Creation is a manifestation of thoughts which God wishes to share with us. God Himself is His own Act-of-being or the Supreme Act-of-being while all the underlying stuff of created things is ever and continuously brought into existence by God’s acts-of-being. Complex things and living beings are brought into existence by acts-of-being best described as parts of a story being told by God. Even metaphysical and mathematical truths are better described as being facts created by the same God who created things. God is the source of all being and all truths.