An Aristocratic Compatibilist's Providence

Components of Aquinas's Soft Determinist View

Series: 

Author:
Petr Dvorský
This monograph discusses different philosophical and theological components of Aquinas’s view regarding the relation between human agency and divine providence. Against many contemporary scholars it argues that this view includes a plausible form of strong compatibilism whose philosophical premises are largely independent of Aquinas’s theological positions. Its original contributions to the understanding of Aquinas’s thought include an extensive analysis of Aquinas’s complex conception of modalities, his multileveled understanding of freedom, and his aristocratic perception of values.
Copyright Year:
2024
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ISBN:
978-90-04-54970-8
Publication:
23 Sep 2024
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ISBN:
978-90-04-54969-2
Publication:
26 Sep 2024
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Petr Dvorský, Ph.D. (1985), is assistant professor of philosophy at Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic, and Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of Czech Academy of Sciences. He works in the fields of scholastic philosophy and theology.
Acknowledgments

A Note Concerning Quotations

List of Abbreviations and Abbreviated Titles of Aquinas’s Works

Introduction

1 The Goodness of the Scandalizing God
 1 Introduction

 2 Maritain’s Divine Innocence, Aquinas’s Aristocratic Values, and the Homonymy of the Term “Good”
 2.1 Introduction

 2.2 Two Views on “Good”

 2.3 Is Aquinas’s “Good” Innocent?

 2.4 Supergood Super-God


 3 Abraham’s Morality
 3.1 Introduction

 3.2 Abraham’s Sacrifice in Aquinas’s Sentences

 3.3 Bad or Evil?

 3.4 Due Good

 3.5 The Notion of Sin

 3.6 Sin in Moral Matters

 3.7 The Gravity and the Cosmological Dimension of Moral Sin

 3.8 Sin as an Impotent State

 3.9 Laws


 4 Good God and the Bad States of Creatures
 4.1 Introduction

 4.2 Culpa and the Cause of the Bad State

 4.3 God Cannot Cause Moral Sin

 4.4 The Creator of Evil

 4.5 Blinding Prophet

 4.6 God the Potter

 4.7 Permissive Imperatives and the Usefulness of Demons


2 Modal Notions
 1 Introduction

 2 Possibile – A Sketch Map of the Jungle
 2.1 Some Basic Distinctions

 2.2 (Im)possibile Simpliciter

 2.3 Some Other Distinctions

 2.4 The Great Division of Beings


 3 The Discrepancy Problem – The Incorruptibility of Corruptible Ones
 3.1 Introduction

 3.2 A Common Subterfuge

 3.3 Statistical Conception

 3.4 The Discrepancy

 3.5 The Appetite of Being

 3.6 Potentia Ordinata

 3.7 The Impossible Possibilities

 3.8 The Proposed Solution of the Discrepancy Problem

 3.9 The Consideration of Possible Textual Objections


 4 Contingency and Necessity
 4.1 Contingency – Limitation and Limitlessness

 4.2 The Necessity and the Violence


3 Change, Motion, and Causality
 1 Introduction

 2 General Conception of Movement
 2.1 Movement sensu stricto

 2.2 Generation and Destruction

 2.3 Incorporeal Movements

 2.4 Movement and Activity

 2.5 Causing without Moving


 3 Cause and Contingency
 3.1 Introduction

 3.2 O: Omne quod movetur ab alio movetur

 3.3 C: Causa posita, sequitur effectus

 3.4 Aquinas’s Reception of Arab Determinism

 3.5 Aquinas’s Emphasis on Contingency ad utrumque in the Context of His Reception of C – A Preliminary Look

 3.6 Chance as a Necessary Condition of Contingency

 3.7 Same State of Cause, Same State of Effects

 3.8 Aquinas’s Determinist Contingency – A Closure

 3.9 Some Textual Objections


 4 Mover and Motion
 4.1 Introduction

 4.2 Taxonomy of Movers

 4.3 Motion


 5 Summary


4 Freedoms and Choices
 1 Introduction

 2 Freedoms
 2.1 Introduction

 2.2 Causa sui

 2.3 Society of Slaves

 2.4 Slaves of Jesus

 2.5 Voluntary Agent


 3 Liberum Arbitrium
 3.1 Introduction

 3.2 The Root of Freedom

 3.3 Bad Choices

 3.4 Master of One’s Own Act

 3.5 Faculty of Reason and Will

 3.6 The Most Powerful under God

 3.7 Aquinas’s Freedom in Confrontation with Some Contemporary Arguments against Compatibilism: A Brief Preview


 4 God of the Chosen Ones
 4.1 Introduction

 4.2 Brief Remarks Concerning the Extrinsicist Viewpoint

 4.3 Aquinas’s Rejection of God’s Acting by Necessity

 4.4 Pure Act – of Choice


5 Foreknowledge, Providence, and Predestination
 1 Introduction

 2 Divine Knowledge
 2.1 The Knowledge of an Artisan

 2.2 The Questioning of Causal Explanation

 2.3 Time, Eternity, and Presence in Aquinas

 2.4 The Need for Atemporality


 3 Providence
 3.1 The Meaning of the Term

 3.2 Providence – The Self-Propagation of the Good

 3.3 Fate

 3.4 The Failure of Providential Ordering

 3.5 For Others and for Themselves

 3.6 Providence and Happiness


 4 The Special Case of Predestination
 4.1 Introduction

 4.2 The Foreknown Ones and Double Predestination

 4.3 Election on the Basis of Disposition

 4.4 Two Neoplatonic Motives in Aquinas’s Explications of the Limitations of the Good


6 Will to Good and Deficient Causality
 1 Introduction

 2 Cause of the Act of sin
 2.1 The God of Romans

 2.2 The Origin of Sin

 2.3 Causa Defectus


 3 The Antecedent Will
 3.1 Introduction

 3.2 Velle Sine Vellendo

 3.3 Voluntas Antecedens

 3.4 Antecedent Will and Some Problems Divine Determinists Have with Sin


 4 Light and Sacramentality


General Summary

Bibliography

Index

Philosophers, theologians and historians of ideas (as well as students of these disciplines) interested in Aquinas, free will debate, divine determinism, modal notions, predestination, providence, aristocratic morality and related topics. Keywords: compatibilism, providence, evil, Aquinas, modalities, freedom, determinism, Thomism, sin, foreknowledge, contingency, will, causation, aristocratic morality.
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