Slogans, PSR, Evil, and Predestination with John DeRosa

Comments

1. Don says

   January 1, 2021 at 10:12 pm

   Pat,

   I really enjoyed the exchange between you and John. I would love to hear more of these “Office Hours” chats. In regards to the discussion, it seems there is a difference between your position and the Banezian position but I’m not exactly sure where. I’m no expert but it seems both positions hold to a few things: (1) Sin occurs only if God permits it. (2) Creatures, and not God, are the cause of sin. (3) God’s causality and creaturely causality are not in competition. Is this correct?

   I think I understand you, in the case of Mary for example, to say that the Banezian position is possible even within your own position but just that it’s miraculous. So I really don’t see where any meaningful difference lies between the two positions other than you seem to say that the Banezian position only occurs extraodinarily rather than ordinarily. Correct me if this is wrong of course.

   It would help clarify, I think, if you could answer if on your position it is possible for God to save all. And if not, why not.

   • Pat Flynn says

     January 2, 2021 at 6:33 am

     Hey Don,

     I’m glad you enjoyed it. John and I always have a ton of fun with our “office hours,” so if people would like to hear more of what goes on behind the scenes, we’ll be happy to share it. To answer your question I’m going to paste a section from my recent article on God’s Impassibility and Knowledge of Sin (https://www.chroniclesofstrength.com/gods-impassibility-and-knowledge-of-sin/) , which I think relevant. In short, the issue is not with creature movement in the line of the good (or not at least with that), for the Banezian position, but in the line of evil and how they deploy the term permission.

     Quoting myself at this point (hey, somebody has to do it!):

     The mistake of which I speak is the central horrifying failure of the Banezian school and is inherently bound up in their deployment of the term “permission,” since it is held by Banezians that if God permits our failure then our failure inevitably, infallibly occurs. Critics of this position — including Michael Torre — argue otherwise, saying God’s permission of sin entails only the possibility of sin, not its inevitable occurrence, because permission means only that God wills neither x nor not-x, and so whether we actually we fail morally is ultimately up to us.

     Perhaps we can think of it this way. If a person has fallen off a cliff and we refuse to throw them a rope, that person will infallibly fall. We have “permitted it” in our refusal to throw the rope but there was no way they could not have fallen. Even if they retained some potency to be saved, that potency is a meaningless recognition — a distinction that makes no significant difference — because there is nothing IN FACT that could have prevented their falling if we permitted it by refusing to throw them the rope. But the Banezian school, as Torre has emphasized to me in private conversation, is even worse than my little analogy lets on, for it would be more accurate to say that the person falling — who is otherwise created good and only able to fall in virtue of being naturally fallible — in fact BEGINS falling because God no longer conserved the ground beneath their feet. Not only is no rope extended, but their initial descent is due to a non-conservation on the part of God; though the non-conservation of which we speak pertains to an inner moral structure, not some extrinsic foothold. Once again, it would make no meaningful difference to say that such a person retained a potency to be saved if God infallibly “permitted” them to fall (moved infallibly on the side of God, but contingently on the side of the creature, as it is sometimes described), because though that may be technically defensible, it is little more than a verbal subterfuge, and does not alleviate the absurd consequence that it is God who is ultimately responsible for the creature IN FACT falling and then NOT being saved.

     My position, broadly inline with Maritain, Marin-Sola, and Michael Torre, is that we fall (morally fail) simply because we did not do what we were sufficiently empowered to — more specifically, because we can resister interior grace, or “de-activate” under the divine impulse — and that God not only does not affect the transition from our being naturally able to fall to actually falling (only we do!) but that God extends a salvific rope to every and all who begin to fall, even if God permits our refusal to grab hold and return to him. (Why God would permit our refusal or non-cooperation is something I explore here and here.)

     Maritain describes the issue for the Banezian as follows, “… The theory which, while positing as a principle that God is in nowise the cause of moral evil, nevertheless has recourse, in order to explain how He knows this evil, to divine causality itself modestly concealed under dialectical contrivances, and invents antecedent permissive decrees by means of which God knows the sin of the creature because — oh, it’s purely negative, He is careful not to cause anything! — He Himself has decided not to do what without which the sin in question will certainly take place…” (Permission of Evil, pg. 68.)

     • John DeRosa says

       January 2, 2021 at 9:55 pm

       Let’s put the topic of “the act of sin” as one of the focal points for future discussions since I think Torre and Maritain are (to an extent) straw-manning the more sophisticated Banezian positions I’ve read on this. For example, pg. 212 in the Predestination volume, Lemos explains 4 steps of how it could be analyzed. He’s one Banezian. There are some other views. I myself need to get clearer on the position as well.

       Re: “My position, broadly inline with Maritain, Marin-Sola, and Michael Torre, is that we fall (morally fail) simply because we did not do what we were sufficiently empowered to — more specifically, because we can resister interior grace, or “de-activate” under the divine impulse — and that God not only does not affect the transition from our being naturally able to fall to actually falling (only we do!) but that God extends a salvific rope to every and all who begin to fall, even if God permits our refusal to grab hold and return to him.”

       I think the Banezian/Neo-Banezian can fully affirm this. I’m curious which part of that quote you don’t think can be affirmed? The main difference is that I think the Banezian/Neo-Banezian holds that God can *infallibly govern* our refusals (through permissions) yet without doing violence to our free will such that we really could refuse or not refuse. — I think Maritain might say this is not possible or a contradiction.

       • Pat Flynn says

         January 4, 2021 at 7:36 am

         Yes, definitely. If you haven’t, see my above reply to our friend Don. As we hinted in our exchange, I think zooming in on how “permission” is being used will help us get quicker to the heart of the disagreement.

         • Don says

           January 4, 2021 at 2:24 pm

           Would love to hear you two continue this discussion on a future “Office Hours.”

         • Pat Flynn says

           January 4, 2021 at 6:15 pm

           Thank you, Don! It’s been fruitful and we (John and I) will be sure to explore these concerns in future conversations. I appreciate your support.

     • Don says

       January 2, 2021 at 10:29 pm

       Pat,

       Thanks for the thorough response. I don’t think your analogies hold up. For one, they are within a creature-to-creature framework. Dr. O’Neill remarked in some podcast that we can’t apply the notion of justice between creatures as if it were the same as that between creatures and the Creator. Your examples rely on an understanding (even though I agree with it) of duties we have to other creatures. However, aside from Himself, God owes nothing to anyone (Romans 9:20-21; 11:35). The dissimilarity between God’s causality and that of creatures also creates issues with your analogues.

       About Maritain’s “dialectical contrivances” concern: If it is true that the potency to do something is distinct from the act of doing it then I would argue it is in fact meaningful to say a person has the potency to do good even though he or she will not actually do it. If true, it’s not verbal subterfuge. It’s a true distinction. (The opposite distinction could be made about Mary by the way.)

       “[W]e fall (morally fail) simply because we did not do what we were sufficiently empowered to” is your position. But this is also the Banezian position. I don’t see any difference in the Banezian position and in what you hold to be your position in the rest of the paragraph of that quote. That God offers sufficient grace (or a salvific rope) to all and that those who fall do so because they resisted that grace and that God permitted it is, as far as I can tell, exactly the Banezian position.

       I am unclear on your point about Banez and permission. On your view would it have been possible for God to have created a world where He permitted sin but where sin never occured?

       • Pat Flynn says

         January 4, 2021 at 7:35 am

         Don,

         Of course, and likewise. I appreciate your thoughts on this. I will consider them in future conversations on this topic, as well.

         In the meantime, a few quick points in return:

         Regarding the retaining of potency w/ respect to Mary – there is a symmetry problem here, I think. What might be just/wise when moving a person infallibly “in the line of the good” would, at least in this case, be absurd in the opposite direction, or “in the line of evil.” God could never – not even in his absolute power, forget just talking ordained power – order a person away from himself. It doesn’t make sense. So, the question is not so much whether a potency is retained (hence the charge of verbal subterfuge), but whether the person could have IN FACT done otherwise. Or in other words, is the reason they failed because God either did not conserve them in the moral good or failed to provide what was needed, or because the creature failed, plain and simple? The Banezian does not want the creature to be the one who “surprises” God by introducing sin into the created order absent some prior operation on the part of God, because they are afraid this impugns divine sovereignty and impassibility (my linked article argues otherwise), hence Maritain’s critique of hiding behind dialectic contrivances. But the retained potency is meaningless in this direction, because divine innocence is nevertheless impugned – the reason the creature sins is because God is the per accidens cause of their moral defection. That position, it seems to me, is as bad, if not in some ways worse, than Calvinism.

         Traditionally, the Banezian says that, given permission, sin will infallibly occur. I hold only that IF sin occurs, OBVIOUSLY God has permitted it (and God knows this infallibly in virtue of his eternal knowledge), but permission really means God willing neither (x) nor not-(x), and so permission does not ENTAIL sin, only the possibility of sin. Adam, for example, need not have sinned, but that he did sin we can conclude that God permitted it and infallibly knows it. It seems to me there is confusion about directionality on this issue, not to mention difficulties of thinking through the problematic with a proper appreciation of God’s eternity.

         Naturally, all analogies limp when linked to the divine transcendence, but I’m inclined to stand by the association made. Else we could move them around: Does the person refuse to grab the rope because God has “withdrawn his hand,” so to speak, and so the person could IN FACT not have done otherwise, or because God has permitted us to freely resist his offer and that we could IN FACT have done otherwise? If the former – which I believe the traditional Banezian is committed to – then I declare absurdity and violation of divine goodness. If the latter, then fine and fair, because that is what I hold. (Though saying that God knows they WILL do something is language tempting to God in time; rather, God just knows his creatures AS THEY ARE; there is nothing to know BEFORE a free creature makes a decision; that is one of the issues with Molinism and the theological fiction of middle knowledge). This has been my critique for the Banezian: either an absurdity will be reached, or a concession will have to be made which will effectively collapse their position into Maritain’s/Marin-Sola’s. I have yet to see this dilemma successfully escaped.

         As for justice – true that God is not bound morally as humans are by our human nature, and so we must be careful not to throw our human moral constraints or considerations onto God. No disagreement there. But still, we can maintain certain moral expectations of God based on God being perfectly rational and owing certain things in justice to himself. So, it is simply not enough to rely on God not owing us anything (beatific vision or otherwise) to think God would commit absurd acts – either suddenly annihilating the world, or, as I believe the Banezian positions is committed to, ordering people away from himself via a non-conservation in the moral good himself and toward eternal reprobation. This cannot be right.

         • Don says

           January 4, 2021 at 2:22 pm

           Pat,

           I agree with your concerns but I disagree that they are entailed by the Banezian position. I think your analogies are concluding that the Banezian position is saying something that it’s not saying. In regards to the Banezian (he said Thomist) view of grace Garrigou-Lagrange quoted Jacques-Benigne Bossuet: “We must admit two kinds of grace, one of which leaves our will without excuse before God, while the other allows our will no self-glorification.” Thus sufficient and efficacious grace. Add to this that what good occurs is willed by God and what evil occurs is permitted by God and we have, as far as I can tell, the whole of the Banezian position. And I don’t think there’s much if anything there with which you would disagree. I say that to say I agree with you that the details regarding permission are at the heart of the issue. Thanks for the discussion!

     • Don says

       January 3, 2021 at 7:38 am

       Pat,

       About the faultiness of the analogies, I would add that the first one would be more similar if it were maintained that we do in fact throw the falling person a rope but we do so knowing the person will refuse that rope and also knowing we could move that person to freely accept the rope even though we in fact don’t. Though this modified analogy is more similar (in my opinion), the creaturely framework critique still applies. The second analogy is only shocking if we assume that God owes us the Beatific Vision–this, it seems to me, would be the equivalent of never allowing us to fall. (Though it would need to be modified again to say that a rope is extended but refused even though the person extending the rope knows it would be refused and could move the faller to freely accept it.) If the notion that we are owed the Beatific Vision is not assumed then we are back to the first analogy.

       • Don says

         January 3, 2021 at 8:09 am

         *Beatific Vision and/or the impeccability of Mary

2. Scott says

   January 5, 2021 at 5:18 am

   Pat and John,

   I just got done listening to your recent podcast together primarily on the Maritain vs. Bañez position of predestination. I am pretty new to the predestination debate, but here are my thoughts on the discussion; I would love to hear your input. I was going to post this on the Thomist Discussion Group, but then it sort of turned into an essay:

   Both think that Molinism is incorrect. I think I tend to agree with that. It seems that claiming that there is a “fact of the matter” as to what a human will freely choose in a given set of circumstances seems to make the human will deterministic and this not free. I actually cannot remember how non-Molinists claim that Molinism threatens Divine Providence, but I know that is a common criticism as well. In any case, I think Molinism is off the table for me.

   I feel like I am leaning more towards the Bañezian side because I get the impression that the Maritain position makes God a little too creaturely. I do not necessarily want to stress the issue of impassibility and the mode of God’s knowledge, although I think that is important. I fear that the Maritain position, in denying the compatibility of the Bañezian mode of providence and libertarian free will makes the mistake of treating divine concurrence on the order of a push/pull model of causality. It also seems to deny (implicitly) the ontological reality of potency.

   Let me elaborate these points with an example. The doctrine of divine concurrence or conservation says that any object must be continuously upheld in existence by God (we know this from the Thomistic cosmological arguments for God’s existence). And because agere sequitur esse, it follows that any action of an object likewise requires divine concurrence. So deism, and consequently any libertarian model of free will that implies deism, is ruled out. However, the same principle holds that it is in fact the object that performs the action, and not God, otherwise we get occasionalism and pantheism. For example, when a rock rolls down a hill, it does so because it has a real potency to do so (based on its form of having mass and being in a certain location on Earth by a hill). Now while God actualizes that potency to roll down the hill, it is a real intrinsic potency of the rock that is merely being upheld in existence and actualized by God’s keeping the rock, the Earth, and gravity in existence. I do not think any Thomist would want to say that God is an immaterial spooky “force” that is pushing the rock down the hill without which the rock would be motionless. Similarly, this potency exists in another rock on top of the hill that is not in fact rolling down the hill. Even if the rock and hill exist for all time and the rock never in fact rolls down the hill, it still truly has the potential to roll down the hill, even if it is never actualized.

   Now the key difference between a rock and a human intellect with a libertarian free will is that a rock cannot actualize its own motion. A human free will however, on the order of created motion, can actualize itself. It cannot actualize its own existence, but given its existence, it can freely and intellectually actualize one decision versus another in an analogous way that an animal can indeterminately actualize itself to walk left or right, given its existence.

   Now let’s take a situation in which God wants to create a world in which Agent X chooses chocolate ice cream over vanilla. Since this is a natural, non-sinful action, it avoids the complications of sin and grace. Now God, from eternity, decides He will create a certain Agent X who will choose chocolate ice cream at a certain time. However, Agent X still has a real potency to choose vanilla ice cream by virtue of the kind of thing that he is that God creates. This is evidenced by the fact that Agent X probably chose vanilla over chocolate at a different time in his life. Now just because that potency is not IN FACT actualized, does not mean it COULD NOT have been actualized. It just was not actualized because God did not choose to create the world in which Agent X actualized that potency. It is just like the rock which did not happen to roll down the hill, with the key difference that the human has the power of self-actualization on the order of created reality whereas the rock does not. Therefore, God can pre-ordain that chocolate ice cream would be chosen without needing recourse to a backup plan whereby Agent Y must choose chocolate because Agent X chose not to have chocolate. Even if God knows from eternity that Agent X does not choose chocolate, it seems that there is an ontological ordering that is necessary for God’s plans to not be frustrated.

   The Maritain position seems to want God to garner information from the created substance (albeit from eternity) so as to not infringe upon human freedom. I would agree that if (per impossible) a creature created a volitional agent, such an action would impinge on the freedom of the agent. Perhaps the analogy of an author creating characters in a book is relevant. The characters in a book do not have any substantial being of their own. They are merely accidents in the mind of author. Therefore they are not truly free even though they appear free in the context of the book. But if the author could really give them substantial being, as the Divine Author could, then the characters would truly be free agents even though the fact that there is a story at all would be within the full control of the author.

   Now when we add sin into the mix, we have a privation, so God is no more responsible for that than He is for Agent X choosing chocolate ice cream, even though God predestined a world in which the agent sinned. It is the agent who sins by his own power, and God is merely upholding the sinner’s existence. So this is equivalent to the chocolate ice cream example but with a privation in the sinner insofar as the sinner chooses a lesser good that he ought not have chosen over a greater good.

   Now the case of grace is more complicated. In this case, Agent X does NOT have the power to perform a supernatural act of charity, for example. Rather, God must actualize the soul of the agent by giving him something he does not even have a natural potency for. Rather than allowing the rock to roll down the hill by conserving its existence, this is more like God causing the rock to roll uphill by elevating (no pun intended) the nature of the rock. The difference of course with humans is that we can resist such influences of God’s grace. And even the Virgin Mary had the real power to resist God’s grace. And by choosing to say yes, she deserves merit for her decision, even though saying yes was only something she could do because of the sanctifying grace given to her by God. And I would argue that other Saints who were in a state of mortal sin, arguably St. Paul, used his natural will to accept (rather than reject) the actual graces of God which then put him into a state of sanctifying grace. Therefore he deserves merit for accepting (cooperating with) God’s grace albeit all credit is ultimately owed to God who is the ultimate source of the St. Paul’s sanctification.

   But likewise, God chose to create the world in which Mary said yes, not the world in which Mary said no, and since He knew He would choose such a world, He did not need recourse to any kind of alternative to Mary. Likewise with St. Paul.

   Anyway, those are my musings. I understand if you do not have time to respond, but thank you if you do, and moreover thank you both for the excellent content.

   • Pat Flynn says

     January 5, 2021 at 7:21 am

     Scott,

     Glad to have your comments on this, as well.

     Quickly, I don’t think you have my (or Maritain’s) position quite right. I would be surprised that you think Maritain makes God too creaturely if you have read much Maritain — he is so insistent to the contrary. on God’s radical transcendence! – and so I must assume the failure is on my part to articulate clearly what Maritain holds, especially in the line of the good. If you’ve read my post on God’s Knowledge and Impassibility (which I must encourage, since that issue is critical to this debate) then you will see I immediately affirm divine concurrence and that God causing person X to freely choose thing Y is quite compatible with person X really freely choosing thing Y – and this Maritain would agree with. In the line of being all actuality comes first and ultimately from God, including our free action. But there is also nothing to know with respect to a free creaturely determination BEFORE such a determination is made, and that is one of the critical errors of Molinism (which you’ve hinted at) that Maritain does not fall into.

     In short, whatever objections you have regarding concurrence do not apply to Maritain. I don’t think – rather, one of the best contemporary defenses of divine concurrence and libertarian freedom is found in Matthews Grants book, whose work I have been using to DEFEND the Maritainian position, broadly considered. Again, I refer you to that previous post, along with various other’s where I explore Grants’ work and libertarian freedom generally.

     As for the human will, we first must be set in act by God (and not just in existence but toward the good itself) and then we can determine ourselves. That is a complicated matter all its own but I don’t believe it is especially relevant to the disagreement John and I had, so that I’ll leave that to another time.

     I would HOWEVER be careful about saying God could “pre-ordain” a person freely choose chocolate ice-cream, because, remember, for libertarian freedom to hold, there cannot be any factor that is BOTH prior to and logically sufficient for some particular action – but in what you’ve just described, we seem to have exactly that. Rather this: God causing me to freely choose chocolate ice cream JUST IS my freely choosing chocolate ice cream, and that is really compatible with MY freely choosing chocolate ice cream (and having counterfactual power to do otherwise). That is all we should want to say if our interest is to maintain libertarian freedom. Same with God “deciding” – for there is no “distance” between God’s intention and action when concerning creation – I would collapse that to avoid determinism. These may seem minor points but become critical when getting into the predestination debate. Further, Grant holds that Banezianism and how they deploy pre-motion is itself incompatible with libertarian freedom. (See his note on pg. 205 of his free will book.)

     Now, you have presented something which I have long been critical of: Ducking behind the notion of nature/retained potency as verbal subterfuge. For if, as the Banezian holds, a person IN FACT INFALLIBLY FAILS because of God’s antecedent permissive decree – and because that failure is ENTAILED (rather than made merely possible) by the term permission – then the retained potency is meaningless and God is still the per accidens cause of sin, because God simply did not do that without which the creature could have avoided sin (clunky sentence, sorry)! That is Maritain’s objection and most who do not agree with Banezianism: Because God’s permission entails the failure of the creature and – even if that permission doesn’t change the nature of the creature, and even if some such potency is retained — I charge it is a distinction that makes no meaningful difference.

     Imagine an archer who shoots an arrow. Now, imagine the archer “permits” the arrow to fail by not applying enough force for the arrow to hit its target. Does that permission change the nature of the arrow, or remove its potency to hit the target? It’s hard to see how. But is the arrow or the archer the one ultimately responsible for its failing to hit the target? Obviously, the archer is. Now, it isn’t so much what the archer DID but specifically what the archer DIDN’T do (apply sufficient force) that infallibly entailed the arrow would fall short. And regardless of the arrow retaining its natural potency to hit a target, it could never in fact have done so given what is considered on the archers end. And THAT, I contend, is the proper analogy to how Banezians deploy the term permission, and it not only makes God the indirect cause of sin, but has God ordering a rational creature away from himself, which is absurd – impossible, actually!

     Your other concern does, in fact, seem to be one of putting passivity in God with respect to creaturely freedom and divine knowledge, but that as I argue in my related post is a non-worry once the proper distinctions are made regarding intrinsic vs extrinsic predication, real vs cambridge change, and extrinsic models of divine simplicity and agency are established. Again, see my related post.

     Finally, your paragraph about a sinner sinning by his own power doesn’t go deep enough to reach the heart of the disagreement – is such sin ENTAILED by God’s permission or merely made possible? If the former then you must explain how God is not the author (at least indirect, per accidens) cause of sin; if the latter then you must explain how God is not made passive by sin when the CREATURE (yes, still being powered by God! – though now in a co-operative rather than operative sense) freely resists and “cuts off” God’s causal influx toward the true good. I hold the latter can be resolved (to be annoying: see my related post!), but the former cannot be. And same goes for grace, especially if we allow free human resistance, which, as orthodox Catholics, we must. Does that resistance come about as a matter of entailment because God “withdrew His conserving hand” or failed to provide that without which the creature could have co-operated, or does that resistance “surprise” God? Same difficulty, different part of the story.

     The stuff about Our Lady relates back to Maritain on shatterable vs unshatterable motions and the symmetry issue I brought up with Don on how there can be wisdom in God moving SOME infallibly in the line of the good but only absurdity in God moving ANY infallibly in the line of evil.

     Anyway, good stuff! John and I will be planning a part 3, so even if I cannot attend to all the comments ATM, we will do our best to incorporate as much as we can into our next discussion.

     • Scott says

       January 5, 2021 at 12:47 pm

       Pat,

       Thanks for responding! I will have to reflect on that. I really feel like the main issue is understanding how acts work for ice cream, and then sin and grace are just extra details that can be easily accounted for once natural non-evil free voluntary acts can be accounted for. So I would encourage a little more elaboration on that in a future podcast. Because that will make it a little more simple to understand the usual case of God and Free Will.

       Excited to hear the next one.

       • Pat Flynn says

         January 5, 2021 at 1:49 pm

         Sure thing, Scott. Part of what makes the predestination question so difficult – though also fascinating! – is one must consider different areas of study (metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, Scripture & Tradition, etc), and hope you haven’t screwed up in understanding the relevant aspects of each, otherwise the entire project will suffer, and perhaps irredeemably so. The procedure must therefore be ever so patient and delicate, lest we allow a little mistake in the beginning to become a major error in the end.

         Anyway, more to come, and God bless!

         • Scott says

           January 5, 2021 at 6:30 pm

           Definitely. Patience essential to philosophy, which is why it is so rewarding. After reading your article on God’s knowledge and impassibility, I do have a quick clarifying question on the Maritain position (which you could give a simple yes or no response for). If God wanted to make a world with only 1000 people in it, could He guarantee that exactly 777 people are saved (and the other 223 would freely choose damnation)? Or would there be any possibility that more or less people would choose damnation.

         • Pat Flynn says

           January 6, 2021 at 7:48 am

           In one sense (God’s absolute power) yes but in another sense (God’s ordained power) no. At least in the line of the good (toward salvation) God COULD move everybody with what Maritain calls an “unshatterable” motion. The implication is that I don’t think a “hard” free will defense can be run on Maritain’s view, though I argue there is room at least for a soft free will defense here: https://www.chroniclesofstrength.com/the-soft-free-will-defense/

         • Pat Flynn says

           January 9, 2021 at 6:10 am

           Scott,

           Quickly, do you have a copy of John’s book? If not, email me your address and I can ship it to you.

3. Pat Flynn says

   January 5, 2021 at 7:30 am

   For those who want to read something of a “different spin” on the predestination debate, I would recommend having a look at Rob Koons article, which has similarities to Matthews Grants work: http://robkoons.net/uploads/1/3/5/2/135276253/dualagency.pdf

4. Don says

   January 5, 2021 at 6:55 pm

   Pat and John,

   Maybe something y’all could address in a future episode is how the Banez and Maritain positions deal with the seemingly counterfactual statements that occur in the Bible (e.g, Luke 10:13, Luke 22:67).

   • Pat Flynn says

     January 6, 2021 at 7:56 am

     Thanks for the suggestion, Don. Interestingly, Michael Torre wrote to me on this recently, and I think we would both say these passages aren’t necessarily meant to be taken literally. We often say, “I would have done that if I were you,” etc, not speaking as Molinists with middle knowledge in mind, but about our general disposition, and are being colloquial in our speech. Such passages in the Bible “… they would have converted, etc” are (at the very least) underdetermined, I would say.

5. Cheska J says

   January 7, 2021 at 12:53 pm

   As much as I love the fitness content you put out I also do appreciate this side of your blog, Pat. Love the conversations and insights you bring to the table and you always pick guests with interesting perspectives to share. Great to have John on here. I am no authority nor have I extensively read and studied this but I always appreciate the learnings I take in, I kind of laughed when you share the common slogans because I definitely have heard those arguments a lot. I have encountered a lot of people who discredited the existence God similarly because of the many things you shared such as evil. We can only have this discussions with people who truly want to listen… I cannot imagine having this conversation with the very people who I know who lean on atheism most likely because they refuse to listen. Would you agree though? Anyhow, love how you cited a lot of good resources here. Looking forward to read them — which one would you suggest to check in first? From basic to advanced of course! 😀

   • Pat Flynn says

     January 7, 2021 at 3:48 pm

     Thanks, Cheska! If you haven’t read John’s book One Less God, I would start there. He did a fine job in writing that. Accessible, yet substantial.