Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Apathetic Báñezian, Pathetic Calvinist, Sympathetic Lubacian
The Apathetic Báñezian, Pathetic Calvinist, Sympathetic Lubacian
The Apathetic Báñezian, Pathetic Calvinist, Sympathetic Lubacian
Syncretistic Catholicism where any Anglican, Episcopal, Roman & Orthodox consensus informs core beliefs
& divergences are received as valid theological opinions
I have described the above dynamics (an analogue to the science of pest
control strategies, see below) to place my conceptions of nature, grace &
freedom in a context that best fits both my Lubacian & Maritainian
perspectives.
With de Lubac, I affirm the eternal preservation of our original teloi, which
order us toward the ultimate intimacies of immediate divine presencings,
which can be both transitory & everlasting. As an object of our vision, our
experience of this presence will deepen epectatically.
apathetic indifference of a
low amplitude – low frequency approach or live & let live attitude toward
roaches
An Anti-Theodicy Universalism
An Anti-Theodicy Universalism
This is NOT to say I happen to employ the same definitions they do for every
term in every premise or that I accept their conclusions.
This is all to say, then, I have no quarrels with anyone’s logical defenses of
evil, whether they’re in/compatibilists, libertarians, hard or soft determinists.
Logical consistency just isn’t that high a hurdle to jump.
Not being able to empirically & inductively come up with anything plausible or
robustly morally intelligible doesn’t mean I can’t spot, analytically &
deductively, what’s manifestly contradictory & morally unintelligible.
B/c the divine economy & eternal decrees are all about theophany, istm that
optimizing the overall theophanic breadth is at stake &, for us, maximizing our
overall divine intimacy is in play. That’s all just analytic. Evidentially, I’ve got 0
to “help” Ivan Karamazov.
If certain Thomists & David Bentley Hart are Right (and they are), then …
For a great conversation, visit Eclectic Orthodoxy, where Phillip Cary‘s _Inner
Grace: Augustine in the Traditions of Plato and Paul_ is under consideration.
The points of agreement between DBH & those Thomists who, like Hart, reject
the free will defense of hell might be instructive?
So, efficacious graces would only ever establish & enhance – not annihilate or
hinder – our freedom.
One might ask, though, why the protological epistemic distancing &
peccability? What greater good might they be ordered toward?
In any given infusion of efficacious grace, if our essential & sufficient free will
is not at risk, just what is it, then, that we’re imagining as possibly being
sacrificed (seemingly coerced)?
Total Aside:
Only extraordinarily would God infallibly determine that any given person will
sacrifice their autonomous self-determination in this or that manner & to this
or that extent. There is a sacrifice which can get mislabeled a coercion. Why
and when He does is always ordered to maximizing the overall balance of
human co-creative autonomy toward ends like the greater good of optimal
divine intimacy & greatest expansion of theophanic breadth.
If God can simply and unconditionally get what he wills antecedently, for
example, via efficacious grace, why hasn’t He been infallibly arranging all of
our free choices?
It’s clear God has not been infallibly arranging every free deliberation. To the
extent, though, that he has infallibly arranged some of our choices, we do still
want to inquire after what might be at stake in His having accepted those
risks involved in His not infallibly arranging all of our choices?
This task is beyond my ken but I’ll honor your question with my best shot.
There are several ways many others have tried to explain it, as you know.
People are variously persuaded or not. No way can wholly avoid a mysterian
retreat so all must aspire to consistency and admit incompleteness. No way
is uncontroversial.
While intrinsic grace does make some sense to me, it seems to generate as
many theoanthropo- problems as it solves. It can, in some versions, make the
sufficient grace distinction meaningless.
After those feeble attempts, let me say that one of the best overviews in
general in terms of clarity & accessibility can be found in Father John A.
Hardon, S.J. ‘s Course on Grace, Part Two – B, Grace Considered Intensively,
Chapter XIII, Sanctifying Grace and the Indwelling Trinity.
Access it at the link, below, & search for “non-necessitating” to zero in on the
relevant discussion:
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Grace/Grace_004.htm
This Exchange –
A Báñezian Grounding for Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom: A
Response to James Dominic Rooney, O.P – Taylor Patrick O’Neill
From Báñez with Love: A Response to a Response by Taylor Patrick O’Neill –
James Dominic Rooney, O.P. – can be accessed here:
https://stpaulcenter.com/product/nova-et-vetera-spring-2023-vol-21-no-2/
As for logical defenses of hell, I haven’t seen one yet that’s morally intelligible.
They can’t avoid invoking infinite consequences for finite choices. Analytically,
that’s prima facie disproportionate & logically contradictory given almost
everyone’s moral intuitions & aesthetic sensibilities (should they bother to
confront them)?
Fr Pohle critiques all the approaches: intrinsic, extrinsic, congruist,
syncretistic:
https://biblehub.com/library/pohle/grace_actual_and_habitual/section_2_theological_systems_d
How does grace irresistibly secure our consent, while, at the same time, that
consent is also to be deliberatively arrived at?
All bets are off, though, as to securing a consensus or persuading all sincere
inquirers as to HOW our consent can be both efficaciously secured &
deliberatively delivered.
Entering stage left are the Báñezians (e.g. Prof O’Neill, I believe? & many
Dominicans) with intrinsic accounts of efficacious grace.
Entering stage right are the Molinists (many Jesuits) with extrinsic accounts.
At center stage are the Congruists, Molinists who give a nod to the Thomists.
Also near center stage are various Syncretists.
Elsewhere, with very highly nuanced stances are neo-Báñezians (e.g. Rev Dr
Rooney).
Nowhere on the Roman Catholic stage are Calvinists, who bite the bullet &
claim that efficacious grace is necessitating i e thoroughgoingly irresistable ,
yet still in a way not repugnant to free will.
So, when I saw Fr Al’s question inquiring about HOW I explain it, my initial
visceral response was comment-box dread, because my Roman Catholic
approach, as I’d self-describe it, is both syncretistic & eclectic.
From everything I’ve ever read in dialogues at EO between, for example, Fr Al,
DBH & Robert F., all of them hold to a robustly non-voluntarist understanding
of freedom’s relation to the will. I fully concur.
Other Thomistic distinctions are in play, though, which can give rise to
misunderstandings.
The intellect can operate in both active & passive modes. Divine presencing
can be both mediated & immediate. Immediate divine presencing can be both
transitory or everlasting. Both mediated & immediate divine presencings can
vary in both ways & degrees.
It gets FAR more involved than these active & passive distinctions. My own
moderately libertarian stance is informed by Eleonore Stump & Duns Scotus,
especially regarding when & how different gracings operate via efficient vs
formal causes, via the will or intellect, actively or passively, via quiescence (in
a state that’s abstaining from judgement), etc
If there’s one metaphor that might most aptly & ubiquitously apply to every
level in the hierarchy of our pervasively probabilistic order of determinate
being, it could be one which would combine what we observe in waveforms
(in terms of periodicity, frequency & amplitude) with what we describe as
homeostasis in all living systems.
I’ve thus related some of the optimizing dynamics of social living systems,
such as in parenting, codependency, speciation & even pest control, (the
analogous examples are countless!) in terms of whether they are
1) low frequency – high amplitude, sympathetic;
2) high frequency – low amplitude, empathetic;
3) high frequency – high amplitude, pathetic; and
4) low frequency – low amplitude, apathetic.
In other words, we need to eschew our “either-or thinking” when talking about
nature & grace, extrinsic & intrinsic grace, sufficient & efficacious grace,
formal & efficient causation, will & intellect, etc