Free Will and God's Universal Causality
Free Will and God's Universal Causality

Author: W. Matthews Grant

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-05-16

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1350082910

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The traditional doctrine of God's universal causality holds that God directly causes all entities distinct from himself, including all creaturely actions. But can our actions be free in the strong, libertarian sense if they are directly caused by God? W. Matthews Grant argues that free creaturely acts have dual sources, God and the free creaturely agent, and are ultimately up to both in a way that leaves all the standard conditions for libertarian freedom satisfied. Offering a comprehensive alternative to existing approaches for combining theism and libertarian freedom, he proposes new solutions for reconciling libertarian freedom with robust accounts of God's providence, grace, and predestination. He also addresses the problem of moral evil without the commonly employed Free Will Defense. Written for analytic philosophers and theologians, Grant's approach can be characterized as “neo-scholastic” as well as “analytic,” since many of the positions defended are inspired by, consonant with, and develop resources drawn from the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas.

Free Will and God's Universal Causality
Free Will and God's Universal Causality

Author: W. Matthews Grant

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-05-16

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 1350082929

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The traditional doctrine of God's universal causality holds that God directly causes all entities distinct from himself, including all creaturely actions. But can our actions be free in the strong, libertarian sense if they are directly caused by God? W. Matthews Grant argues that free creaturely acts have dual sources, God and the free creaturely agent, and are ultimately up to both in a way that leaves all the standard conditions for libertarian freedom satisfied. Offering a comprehensive alternative to existing approaches for combining theism and libertarian freedom, he proposes new solutions for reconciling libertarian freedom with robust accounts of God's providence, grace, and predestination. He also addresses the problem of moral evil without the commonly employed Free Will Defense. Written for analytic philosophers and theologians, Grant's approach can be characterized as “neo-scholastic” as well as “analytic,” since many of the positions defended are inspired by, consonant with, and develop resources drawn from the scholastic tradition, especially Aquinas.

Theological Perspectives on Free Will
Theological Perspectives on Free Will

Author: Aku Visala

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-07-21

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 1000790045

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Free will is a perennial theological and philosophical topic. As a central dogmatic locus, it is implicated in discussions around core Christian doctrines such as grace, salvation, sin, providence, evil, and predestination. This book offers a state-of-the-art look at recent debates about free will in analytic and philosophical theology. The chapters revolve around three central themes: the debate between theological compatibilists and libertarians, the communal nature of Christian freedom, and the role of free will in Christology. With contributions by leading scholars, the volume provides a valuable overview of current arguments as well as novel openings and ideas for further discussion.

Divine Causality and Human Free Choice
Divine Causality and Human Free Choice

Author: Robert Joseph Matava

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-01-19

Total Pages: 377

ISBN-13: 9004310312

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In Divine Causality and Human Free Choice, R.J. Matava explains the idea of physical premotion defended by Domingo Báñez, whose position in the Controversy de Auxiliis has been typically ignored in contemporary discussions of providence and freewill. Through a close engagement with untranslated primary texts, Matava shows Báñez’s relevance to recent debates about middle knowledge. Finding the mutual critiques of Báñez and Molina convincing, Matava argues that common presuppositions led both parties into an insoluble dilemma. However, Matava also challenges the informal consensus that Lonergan definitively resolved the controversy. Developing a position independently advanced by several recent scholars, Matava explains how the doctrine of creation entails a position that is more satisfactory both philosophically and as a reading of Aquinas.

Free Will and Theism
Free Will and Theism

Author: Kevin Timpe

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0198743955

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This volume presents a systematic exploration of the relationship between religious beliefs and various accounts of free will in the contemporary domain. With a particular eye on how theological commitments might shape our views about the nature of free will, a team of leading experts in the field explores an important gap in the current debate. They focus their attention on this crucial point of intellectual intersection with surprising and illuminating results.

God, Evil, and Redeeming Good
God, Evil, and Redeeming Good

Author: Paul A. Macdonald Jr.

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-01-30

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1000831221

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This book offers an original contribution to debates about the problem of evil and the existence of God. It develops a Thomistic, Christian theodicy, the aim of which is to help us better understand not only why God allows evil, but also how God works to redeem it. In the author’s view, the existence of evil does not generate any intellectual problem that theists must address or solve to vindicate God or the rationality of theism. This is because acknowledging the existence of evil rationally leads us to acknowledge the existence of God. However, understanding how these two facts are compatible still requires addressing weighty, wide-ranging questions concerning God and evil. The author draws on diverse elements of Aquinas’s philosophy and theology to build an argument that evil only exists within God’s world because God has created and continues to sustain so much good. Moreover, God can and does bring good out of all evil, both cosmically and within the context of our own, individual lives. In making this argument, the author engages with contemporary work on the problem of evil from analytic philosophy of religion and theology. Additionally, he addresses a broad range of topics and doctrines within Thomistic and Christian thought, including God, creation, providence, original sin, redemption, heaven and hell, and the theological virtues. God, Evil, and Redeeming Good is an essential resource for scholars and students interested in philosophy of religion, philosophical theology, and the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

Free Will and Classical Theism
Free Will and Classical Theism

Author: Hugh J. McCann

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0190611200

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The articles in the present collection deal with the religious dimension of the problem of free will. Together they provide a historical and contemporary overview of problems in the theology of freedom, along with recent work by some important philosophers in the field aimed at resolving those problems.

Theological Determinism
Theological Determinism

Author: Peter Furlong

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2022-09-22

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1009249398

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This volume unites established authors and rising young voices in philosophical theology and philosophy of religion to offer the single most wide-ranging examination of theological determinism-in terms of both authors represented and issues investigated-published to date. Fifteen contributors present discussions about theological (or divine) determinism, the view that God determines everything that occurs in the world. Some authors provide arguments in favor of this position, while others provide considerations against it. Many contributors investigate the relationship between theological determinism and other philosophical issues (the principle of sufficient reason; the compatibility of determinism and free will; moral luck), theological doctrines (creation ex nihilo; divine forgiveness; the inevitability of sin; the unity of Christ's will with God's), or moral attitudes and practices (trusting God; resenting the ill-will of others; resisting evil). This book is essential reading for all those interested in the relationship between theological determinism and philosophical thought.

The Challenges of Divine Determinism
The Challenges of Divine Determinism

Author: Peter Furlong

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2019-06-06

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 110848302X

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Explores past and present arguments for and against divine determinism, presenting balanced discussion of a major philosophical and religious debate.

Trinity and Incarnation
Trinity and Incarnation

Author: Steven Nemes

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2023-08-28

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1666773565

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This book argues that the doctrine of God taken for granted in the catholic tradition (divine transcendence, creatio ex nihilo, divine simplicity) makes it impossible to give an intelligible and coherent interpretation of the verbal formulas of the catholic dogmas of Trinity and incarnation. By way of response to this apparent incoherence at the heart of the catholic theological tradition, it proposes an alternative post-catholic take on these central doctrines in the light of a qualified monistic conception of God and a “Spirit Christological” interpretation of Jesus’s relation to God the Father as presented in the New Testament.