To the extent that Aristotle's metaphysics was baptized by St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274)—chiefly by introducing and emphasizing the distinction between contingent being and Necessary Being—Aristotle's study of nature could be transferred almost immediately to the foundation of Christian thought. The only correction required by theology was a reconciliation of the dogma of the creation of the world with the philosophical reflection on nature and even that was rather a matter of metaphysics than of the philosophy of nature. Experience was able to force more important changes in the structure of the philosophy of nature, but that experience grew only slowly.