The New Creation

McCabe's "The New Creation" presents a sophisticated theological reflection on the relationship between divine action and human freedom, addressing fundamental questions about how God's creative activity intersects with human agency and historical development. Writing within the Roman Catholic tradition but deeply influenced by Aquinas and contemporary philosophy, McCabe develops an account of divine creation that challenges both traditional interventionist models and modern deistic conceptions of God's relationship to the world.

The work's central argument concerns the nature of divine causality and its compatibility with genuine human freedom. McCabe contends that God's creative action does not compete with natural or human causes but operates at an entirely different ontological level. He argues that divine creation is not merely an initial act but an ongoing sustaining of existence itself, making God intimately present to all reality without thereby determining or constraining creaturely action. This position allows McCabe to maintain both divine sovereignty and authentic human freedom without resorting to compatibilist compromises or libertarian limitations on divine power.

McCabe engages critically with both classical theism and modern process thought, finding the former too often guilty of treating God as a supreme being among beings, while the latter inappropriately limits divine transcendence. His analysis draws heavily on linguistic philosophy to clarify conceptual confusions surrounding divine action, particularly addressing the tendency to model God-world relations on causal interactions between finite entities. This methodological approach reflects McCabe's broader project of bringing Thomistic insights into dialogue with twentieth-century analytical philosophy.

The text's significance lies in its innovative treatment of perennial theological problems through careful philosophical analysis. McCabe's discussion of creation as the gift of existence itself, rather than as interference in natural processes, offers resources for contemporary debates about divine action in an evolutionary universe. His insistence that God creates precisely by enabling creatures to be themselves provides a framework for understanding providence that avoids both determinism and deism. The work anticipates later discussions in philosophy of religion about non-competitive divine agency and continues to influence theologians seeking to articulate God's relationship to creation in ways that respect both scientific understanding and religious conviction. McCabe's careful distinctions between different modes of causation remain particularly relevant for contemporary discussions of divine action and natural science.