Divine Causality and Human Freedom | Prof. W. Matthews Grant

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Professor W. Matthews Grant examines the traditional Christian doctrine of divine universal causality, exploring how God can be the cause of all things, including human free acts, and how this relates to our understanding of freedom and responsibility.

This lecture was given on November 7th, 2024, at University of Scranton.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.

About the Speaker:

W. Matthews Grant is Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at University of St. Thomas (MN), and Associate Editor of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. His articles have focused on Aquinas and the Philosophy of God, particularly issues having to do with the divine nature and God’s relationship to human freedom.

Keywords: Alvin Plantinga, Anthropomorphism, Divine Causality, Freedom, God, Responsibility, St. Anselm, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas

Transcript

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1:01.0	So this talk is going to start off a fairly big picture, not very technical in the first half or so.
1:08.0	And then it'll get a little more technical as we get going,
1:12.4	but hopefully we can move through slowly enough that people can follow the gist anyway.
1:20.9	So there's this traditional doctrine, traditional Christian doctrine anyway, and it might be a doctrine of other
1:31.3	theistic traditions as well, that I'll call the doctrine of divine universal causality.
1:37.3	And the doctrine is basically this.
1:41.3	It's the idea that God is the source and the cause of all that exists apart from himself.
1:50.1	And we see this doctrine articulated by some of the great thinkers of the tradition.
1:57.9	And so you see this here under Part 1, and we'll be looking at various passages,
2:02.6	then I'll refer to by number here.
2:04.6	So the first passage here from St. Augustine, he says, God's hidden power causes all that
	...

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