Divine causality, evil, and philosophical theology: A critique of James Ross
✍ Scribed by David R. Griffin
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Year
- 1973
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 1005 KB
- Volume
- 4
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0020-7047
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In the preface of his recent book, Philosophical Theology 1, which he describes as "the beginnings of an analytic reconstruction of scholastic natural theology," James F. Ross announces his intention to give sympathetic attention to three scholastic doctrines:
(a) that one can establish the existence of a being which could (and perhaps does) have the attributes orthodox Christians attribute to God; (b) that it is consistent and intelligible to conceive of God's power as limited only to the logically possible; (c) that there is no theoretical conflict between the universal causality and the absolute entitative and moral perfection of God, on the one hand, and the admitted reality of the evils of the world and the premised freedom of man, on the other. (vii).
In this article only the latter two doctrines will be examined directly. However, the first is relevant in that it emphasizes Ross's concern, which is not with an examination of various possible conceptions of "God," but with a defense of God as defined by "orthodox Christianity" (46). His commitment to this task is relevant to the second doctrine, for he says the problem of understanding how God's power is related to his goodness cannot be solved by "attributing to God a defect or deficiency in power or in anything else. Orthodoxy entirely excludes such concessions" (46). In this context the meaning that must be attributed to God's "universal causality" makes the defense of the third doctrine notoriously difficult.
In sections I-V I explicate and criticize Ross's attempt to reconcile God's omnipotence with his goodness and man's freedom. In sections VI-VII I indicate a relation between Ross's substantive problems with causation and a formal flaw in his philosophical 1 Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs-Merrill, i969. DIVINE CAUSALITY, EVIL, AND PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY I6 9 procedure, and then offer some positive suggestions in regard to this relation between the method of phliosophical theology and the meaning of causality.