Tag Archives: human freedom

Is God the Author of Sin?

Posted on 13 November 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Is God the author of sin? The question assumes paramount importance when evaluating the construal of divine and human agency advanced by Hugh J. McCann. Popular theodi­cies seek to protect God from responsibility for human evil. That’s the upshot of … Continue reading →

Posted in Hugh McCann, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

The World is a Novel in the Mind of God

Posted on 19 October 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Can God determine our actions? One need not think more than a second or two. Of course he can, we answer. If CIA brainwashers and television advertising can cause us to act in specific ways, then the Creator of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Hugh McCann, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 28 Comments

The Free-Will Defense and the Impossible Worlds of Molinism

Posted on 10 October 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

The free-will defense of evil and suffering is a failure—so Hugh McCann con­tends. This verdict sur­prises, given the opinion of so many phi­losophers that Alvin Plan­tin­ga’s argument succeeds resoundingly. But it succeeds, maintains McCann, only be­cause it aban­dons God’s provi­dential … Continue reading →

Posted in Herbert McCabe & Friends, Hugh McCann, Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Rowboating with God: The Mystery of Synergism

Posted on 11 October 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Several years ago I telephoned a well-known Orthodox theologian and asked him to elabo­rate on the doctrine of synergism. He pointed me to the words of the  Apocalypse of John: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophical Theology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Apprehending Apokatastasis: The Necessary Choosing of the Good

Posted on 13 March 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Every human being is divinely ordered to God under the aspects of the transcendentals of being—the Truth, the Good, and the Beautiful. We hunger and thirst for union with him, for only in him can we enjoy supreme and overflowing … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, David B. Hart, Eschatology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 51 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

But the Problem of Free Will

Posted on 8 October 2019 by Fr Aidan Kimel

by David W. Opderbeck, Ph.D. As mentioned at the end of my previous post, David Bentley Hart’s argument in That All Shall Be Saved depends on a specific understanding of human freedom and the will. In response to the “free will” argument … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, David B. Hart | Tagged , , , , , , | 98 Comments

The Possibility of a Thomistic Universalism: A Review of David Bentley Hart’s ‘That All Shall Be Saved’

Posted on 24 September 2019 by Fr Aidan Kimel

by Taylor Nutter It seems prudent to begin this review of That All Shall Be Saved by following Hart in the confession of my own perspective. That perspective, after all, sets the conditions for the conclusions at which I will … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, David B. Hart, Eschatology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 33 Comments