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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > A question regarding Aquinas' view on free will | Forum Quick Jump
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 9/15/2004 12:31 PM (GMT -6) |   | Hi Ross,
I'm not exactly an Aquinas scholar, though I did take a couple classes on him in grad school. As to whether Aquinas affirmed a libertarian or a compatibilist view of freedom, I do not know for sure as I have not studied the matter in depth. I suspect, however, that Aquinas's position is somewhat inconsistent on this matter and that that's why different people can come to different conclusions after reading Aquinas.
What I am sure of is that Aquinas' official doctrine of God is incompatible with libertarian freedom. After all, if, as Aquinas insists, God is completely unconditioned by his creatures in any way, then God's knowledge of what his creatures choose cannot at all be grounded in their actual choices. Rather, creaturely choices have to be part of God's creative decree. In the final analysis for Aquinas, God knows what we will choose because he wills it, not because we make the choice, which means that we cannot choose otherwise than God has already willed for us to choose. That's compatibilism for you.
God bless,
Alan
PS: How's married life treating you? | | Back to Top | | |
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rossfadeinout
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428
| Posted 9/15/2004 2:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Alan,
Thanks for the reply. To start, I'll brag a little on married life. I love it! My wife is truly a blessing to me. We have been having some really good discussions about the problem of evil, how we are to view hell, the destiny of the unevangelized... She says that she is intimidated because she does not feel as smart as me, but she raises some excellent questions. And she's a good cook 
I don't know how much you have read of Geisler's work, but I believe that your criticisms of Aquinas' view of God and its ability to allow for libertarian free will will apply to Geisler's view as well. If I remember correctly in "Divine Sovereignity: 4 views" Dr Pinnock in his response to Dr. Geisler's essay talks about the inconsistencies that arise because Geisler 1) affirms libertarian freedom and 2) God's immutibality. My copy of the book is at work, so I'll see if I can post the quote tomorrow.
I have a copy of the first two volumes of Dr Geisler's Systematic Theology; I'm gonna see if I can find if he addresses this issue anywhere.
By the way, I know that you finished up your doctorate a while back. Are you in the process of looking for a teaching position? I know that I have learned greatly from your posts here on the board, and I'm sure that you'll do a great job teaching...
Peace, Ross
"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid | | Back to Top | | |
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CalvinnHobbes
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 88
| Posted 9/18/2004 12:46 PM (GMT -6) | | I like what the Thomists are trying to do in this department. The Scriptures seem to affirm both that we choose and that God ordains. And I think that any position ignoring or downplaying either of these is going to be unfaithful to written revelation in one way or another.
From my reading of 12 or so different books on Thomism (written by Thomists), I've gathered that the Thomistic language used in the attempt to reconcile these poles is just soincredibly unclear. And given the Thomistic understanding of the divine mind as atemporal with exhaustive divine foreknowledge, I'm not even sure what it means to say that such a mind ordains or chooses anything.
I understand their appeal to analogy concerning the attributes of God. I've been wondering lately if they would also say that we can only understand the divine activity analogously as well. I don't believe I've heard it put this way in my reading. (It may be that I have and have just forgotten. It's been awhile since I've read any Thomistic philosophy.) But really, can we grasp supernatural activity or causation? Would we perhaps have to to have a conceptual grasp of such "mechanism" to really be able to resolve this neverending debate? And, more specifically, would we need a more complete concept than thomistic analogy would give us?
And Alan, I read your dissertation summary. I love what you're doing there. How can I get ahold of the whole thing?
Shane
"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know." ~President John Adams | | Back to Top | | |
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rossfadeinout
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 428
| Posted 9/19/2004 11:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Shane,
I seem to remember that you had some interest in the subject of Thomism, and that you also had a friend that posted here a while back who seemed to know alot about Thomas (I think his name was Jason Reed if I remember correctly)
I find myself torn on the subject of Aquinas and Thomism. I have met Dr Geisler (went to visit at SES last year) and he turned me on to some really cool authors. I have enjoyed the writings of Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Louis-Marie Regis, and more recent Thomist like Peter Kreeft.
I like the Thomistic synthesis of faith and reason; their unswerving committment to the fact that we can know reality. But you're right, in everything I have read about God's timeless and simple knowledge of reality is SO CONFUSING.
Back to the subject of Geisler's understanding of God's knowledge of free acts... Here is his response to John Feinberg (a compatibalist) in "Predestination & Free Will-Four Views"
Geisler: "But to go beyond this and declare that God is "causally determinative"of the choice is to say that it is no longer our choice. What on needs to say is that God is determining moral actions by his knowledge of what, by unfettered free choice,we are causing to happen. In this case our actions are self caused (that is,caused by us) even though God determinately knew(and knowingly determined) we would so choose."(p.48)
But he then seems to contradict his position just stated in his response to Bruce Reichenbach when he says
Geisler: "Reichenbach redefines the traditional view of God's omniscience. Rather than God knowing everything that is, as well as what will be, he concludes that "God will know the event if and only if the event will occur." But such a God is severely limited in his knowledge. He is limited by contingent events because he is dependent on their occurring before he can acquire the truth on that subject. But such a limitation does not square with the assertation that God is unlimited in knowledge, which is implied in God's omniscience." (p132)
Here is Geisler's attempted Thomistic synthesis
Geisler:"I take exception with Reichenbach's claim that either a free act is caused by God's knowledge or else God's knowledge is caused by the free act.
This is a false disjunction.
There is a third alternative: God's eternal knowledge can determine that the act be caused freely. In this case God neither produces the act, nor does the act produce God's knowledge. God simply knows (eternally and determinately) what we choose to do." (p.132)
In response, I've got to quote Shane's earlier post... "I've gathered that the Thomistic language used in the attempt to reconcile these poles is just so incredibly unclear."
It'd be cool if we could get a Thomist to try to help us out here.
Peace,
Ross
"Let us remember how common the folly is of going from one faulty extreme into the opposite." -Thomas Reid | | Back to Top | | |
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CalvinnHobbes
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 88
| Posted 9/22/2004 7:29 PM (GMT -6) | | Quotes from Geisler:quote:
"In this case our actions are self caused (that is,caused by us) even though God determinately knew(and knowingly determined) we would so choose."(p.48) ". . . God's eternal knowledge can determine that the act be caused freely. In this case God neither produces the act, nor does the act produce God's knowledge. God simply knows (eternally and determinately) what we choose to do." (p.132)
If the "determination" in here refers only to a determination of the freedom of the act period, then I perhaps don't have any trouble with the position. I have trouble, however, if this "determination" of the act's freedom is alleged to also be the "determination" of the direction this particular free act goes (i.e. what is chosen), and is alleged to be "determination" in the same sense of the word.
Really, I don't think my difficulty lies so much with reconciling exhaustive divine foreknowledge with human free will. For me, I think it lies more with reconciling both of these together with such terms as "sovereignty," "ordination," "divinely appointed times and places," and the like. I suppose I'm asking in what sense divine sovereignty is active in the particular outcomes of our free choices. And unless we limit God to a purely "knowing that" kind of knowledge (which Thomists perhaps might call "reactive," "dependent," or "contingent" and certainly DON'T want), rather than a "somehow actively determining that" kind of knowledge, then it seems to me that what I'm asking in my previous sentence is really the crux of this endless debate. (Although I could certainly be mistaken.)
And if this actually is the crux, and the issue is the relationship between human agency and divine agency, then I'm wondering how well we can compare the two relata of this relationship without being able to really conceptually grasp the latter. And this is really the backdrop to what I said in my first post about our maybe needing to grasp the "mechanism" of divine activity or causality if we're to really solve this endless debate.
If Thomists are saying that God determines the freedom of the choice and the direction of the choice--in the same sense of the term "determine"--then I don't see how they can say God does not "cause" or "produce" both that freedom andthe particular direction we choose to go with it (the "act" or "action"). However, if they're essentially trying to say that the "mechanism" (for lack of a better word) of divine or supernatural causality is such that it can determine the direction of a free act simply by determining that it occur freely, then I guess they can go ahead and say it, but I'm not sure they've really brought any clarity to the debate. And what we all seem to want precisely is clarity. At least as far as I can tell.
And if they wanted to appeal to analogy concerning knowledge of divine activity (just as I know they do concerning knowledge of divine attributes), I'm not sure this would bring us any clarity either.
Hopefully I haven't been too unclear. I know I've thrown some pretty lengthy sentences in there.
Shane
An FYI in case you didn't already know--I believe free will and divine knowledge are the themes of the annual philosophy conference taking place in Wheaton, IL, here October 28-30.
"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know." ~President John Adams | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 9/28/2004 9:52 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by CalvinnHobbes
Quotes from Geisler:quote:
"In this case our actions are self caused (that is,caused by us) even though God determinately knew(and knowingly determined) we would so choose."(p.48) ". . . God's eternal knowledge can determine that the act be caused freely. In this case God neither produces the act, nor does the act produce God's knowledge. God simply knows (eternally and determinately) what we choose to do." (p.132)
If the "determination" in here refers only to a determination of the freedom of the act period, then I perhaps don't have any trouble with the position. I have trouble, however, if this "determination" of the act's freedom is alleged to also be the "determination" of the direction this particular free act goes (i.e. what is chosen), and is alleged to be "determination" in the same sense of the word. ... If Thomists are saying that God determines the freedom of the choice and the direction of the choice--in the same sense of the term "determine"--then I don't see how they can say God does not "cause" or "produce" both that freedom andthe particular direction we choose to go with it (the "act" or "action"). However, if they're essentially trying to say that the "mechanism" (for lack of a better word) of divine or supernatural causality is such that it can determine the direction of a free act simply by determining that it occur freely, then I guess they can go ahead and say it, but I'm not sure they've really brought any clarity to the debate. And what we all seem to want precisely is clarity.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, Shane. In this quote Geisler shifts from God's determining "that the act be caused freely" to God's knowing determinately "what we choose to do". But, as you point out, determining that an act be caused freely is not the same thing as determining which act is exercized. At any rate, it's not at all clear how the former gives God determinate knowledge of the latter. Until this is made clear, Geisler's proposal does little more than simply assert that exhaustive divine foreknowledge and human freedom are compatible.
God bless,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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