Tag Archives: double agency

The Extrinsic Model of Universal Divine Causality: Divine Providence and Grace

Posted on 6 November 2023 by Fr Aidan Kimel

I hope you are now persuaded that the dual sources account of universal divine causality, when articulated within the extrinsic model, represents a plausible construal of the relationship between divine and human agency. And as we have seen, it appears … Continue reading →

Posted in Aquinas, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , | 23 Comments

Divine Universal Causality, Determinism, and the Mystery of Double Agency

Posted on 30 October 2023 by Fr Aidan Kimel

In this article and the next three, I want to explore the question “Is St Thomas Aquinas’s doc­trine of absolute predestination a form of causal determinism?” I considered including this four-parter in my series on Roberto De La Noval’s “Pelagius … Continue reading →

Posted in Aquinas, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The Difference of God and the (Spiritual) Difference it Makes

Posted on 20 October 2023 by Fr Aidan Kimel

O God, you are different. I have long believed in God’s radical difference. I remember experiencing it in the summer of 1975 when I was introduced to Solemn High Mass at St Paul’s Parish, K Street, in Washington, D.C. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology, Spirituality | Tagged , , , , , , | 13 Comments

A Self-effacing Gardener: The Unity of God’s Activity in Nature and Grace in the Theology of Austin Farrer

Posted on 30 December 2019 by Fr Aidan Kimel

by Jeffrey A. Vogel, Ph.D. Introduction At the end of Faith and Speculation, his last major work, Austin Farrer writes the following: “Our thesis is no more than that the relation of created act to creative Act is inevitably indefinable, … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Who Hardened Pharoah’s Heart?

Posted on 9 July 2019 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Ezekiel 12:1-16 In the Exodus story of the ten plagues, who hardens Pharoah’s heart, God or Pharoah? Verses can be cited to support both, and Bible readers have wondered ever since. Modern readers have noted that we should not expect … Continue reading →

Posted in Bible, Robert Jenson | Tagged , , , , , , , | 33 Comments

Does God “respect” our freedom?

Posted on 22 August 2016 by Fr Aidan Kimel

One often finds the following proposition asserted: God has created humanity as free beings and has thus bound himself not to interfere with their free decisions and choice. Divine agency and human agency are conceived as mutually exclusive. In one … Continue reading →

Posted in Hugh McCann, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , | 30 Comments

Hugh J. McCann on Divine Agency and Human Freedom

Posted on 14 August 2015 by Fr Aidan Kimel

As readers of Eclectic Orthodoxy know, I am fascinated by the topic of divine and creaturely agency. How can human beings be free if God is the transcendent source of the world?  So I immediately jumped to the relevant chapter … Continue reading →

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Mysteriouser and Mysteriouser: Divine Agency and Human Freedom

Posted on 3 February 2014 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Because God is the infinite source and ground of all reality, he transcendently causes everything that is and everything that occurs, yet not in a way that conflicts with the scientific apprehension of the world. As Diogenes Allen explains: Divine … Continue reading →

Posted in Herbert McCabe & Friends, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments