Ep. #150 & Ep. #174 – Free Will & Divine Universal Causality w/ Dr. W. Matthews Grant

Summary of Part 1 – Free Will & God’s Universal Causality

If God is causing everything, then how can we be free? Doesn’t God’s universal causality make us puppets and lead to occasionalism? And wouldn’t He be different if He were to cause different things? So, how can He be simple and immutable as classical theists say? Dr. W. Matthews Grant joins us to discuss these issues and more as we look at topics from his book Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account.

Summary of Part 2 – Does God Cause Sin? The Privation View of Evil Explained

If God is the cause of everything, does he also cause sin? Why does Aquinas say that God causes the act of sin? Is it plausible that moral evil is a privation? How do you respond to common objections to the privation view of evil? If one rejects a popular free-will defense, then how can we answer the problem of evil? Dr. W. Matthews Grant joins the show for a part 2 interview on these topics.

Guest Bio

Matthews Grant is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He earned his BA from Wake Forest University, and an MA and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Fordham University. Grant is the Associate Editor of Book Reviews for the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, which features scholarly articles, topical discussions, and book reviews dealing with all philosophical areas and approaches. His areas of expertise include philosophy of religion and medieval philosophy, especially that of Thomas Aquinas.

Topics

• How did you get interested in studying philosophy and St. Thomas Aquinas at such a deep level?
• What was it like working under Fr. Brian Davies?
• Can you give us a birds-eye view of your book Free Will and God’s Universal Causality?
• Some hold that classical theism and God’s universal causality entails occasionalism. How do you respond to that objection?
• Many think if God is causing our actions, then that would mean our actions are not free. But you argue that God can be the cause of our free actions and yet libertarian freedom can be preserved. How do you work this out?
• Does your extrinsic model threaten divine immutability? After all, wouldn’t God be different if he were doing different actions?
• How can God exercise “providential control” if the extrinsic model is true?
• How would you answer the objection to classical theism from changing knowledge? After all, if God knows all things then He will know when dinosaurs come into existence and go out of existence. But if God’s knowledge changes, doesn’t that threaten divine immutability?
• You say God has “multiple acts” but some Thomists say there is only “one divine act.” What’s going on here with the terminology?
• Some have argued that God cannot act for reasons if he is immutable, simple, and impassible. Do you think it can be true that the God of classical theism acts for reasons? If so, how?

Resources

Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account by Dr. W. Matthews Grant

The Aloneness Argument Fails by W. Matthews Grant and Timothy Pawl

Divine Simplicity, Contingent Truths, and Extrinsic Models of Divine Knowing by Dr. W. Matthews Grant

Pat Flynn’s Youtube Interview w/ W. Matthews Grant

The Free Will Show hosted by Taylor Cyr and Matthew Flummer

Divine Premotion by Dr. David S. Oderberg

Thomism and Predestination: Principles and Disputations edited by Fr. Thomas Joseph White and Dr. Roger Nutt

Grace, Predestination, and the Permission of Sin: A Thomistic Analysis by Dr. Taylor Patrick O’Neill

Related Episodes

OFFICE Hours|Common Objections to DDS w/ Pat Flynn

Philosophy for the People Interview w/ W. Matthews Grant (YouTube channel hosted by Pat Flynn and Jim Madden)

BONUS|Maritain, Premotion, & Predestination w/ Dr. Taylor O’Neill

OFFICE HOURS|Slogans, Evil, PSR, & Predestination w/ Pat Flynn

Ep. #144 – Classical Theism & God incarnate w/ Dr. James Dolezal

Ep. #143 – Immateriality of the Intellect w/ Tomaszewski (and some Modal Collapse)