In nihilum decidere. "Negatività" della creatura e nichilismo del peccato in Tommaso d'Aquino

Thomas Aquinas was a major representative of a new ontological idea of nature, which was shaped in accordance with Christian theological notions in the context of medieval Aristotelianism. The crucial assumption of this idea was the concept of creation, which determined a radical rethinking of the autonomy that featured order and finality of the Aristotelian physis. Conceived of as a creature, that is, made from nothing in order to be an instrument of the Providence, nature was rooted in and contained by the divine power, upon which not only its existence, but also the realization of its potentialities, ultimately depended. The “nothingness” of the creature (namely, the fact that it was no more than nothing per se) implied a constitutive ontological and moral precariousness: nature could find stability and foundation only in the Godhead, from which it derived its origin and subsistence. Any claim of autonomy not only was improper and weak-willed, but represented a nihilistic act of annihilation of the self, preferring its nothingness and the nothingness of the sin rather than God. Like in Augustine, the nothingness of the creature represented the metaphysical ground of the analogy between creation and redemption, as it brought nature back to the full and unconditioned availability of its Creator.