The ‘Compatibilism’ of Human Freedom and Divine Omnipotence

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 257-266
Author(s):  
Wyatt Harris
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Divine Omnipotence

Abstract Katherine Sonderegger’s doctrine of God, constructed on the basis of a meditation on the incommunicable divine attributes, is here elucidated. I detail Sonderegger’s commitment to divine simplicity and explain her preferred theological method: metaphysical compatibilism. I show how Sonderegger’s unique understanding of compatibilism allows her the freedom to bypass or displace most normative metaphysical arguments proffered by the tradition that attempt to elucidate divine and human freedom. Granting divine simplicity, thus that omnipotence is a moral doctrine, in other words, that omnipotence is good, I present Sonderegger’s notion of compatibilism in her account of Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush in Exodus 3 and examine pertinent issues. A novel account of the nature of God is given that presents human freedom in a new light. By way of conclusion, Martin Luther is brought in to shed critical light on Sonderegger’s doctrine of God.

Eloquent Silence: The Doctrine of God in the Synopsis of Purer Theology

2012 ◽  
Vol 92 (4) ◽  
pp. 581-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dolf te Velde
Keyword(s):  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Other ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Structural Differentiation ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Common ◽  
Hypothetical Necessity ◽  
The One ◽  
God’S Foreknowledge

This article sketches the theological profile of the Synopsis Purioris Theologiae (1625) by focusing on its exposition of the doctrine of God. Earlier disputations by Leiden theologians Franciscus Junius (1545–1602) and Franciscus Gomarus (1563–1641) are discussed as a background for the theology of Antonius Thysius (1565–1640), the author of the disputation in the Synopsis on God’s nature and attributes. For a further specification of the doctrinal position presented in the Synopsis, it is contrasted with the more innovative accounts proposed by Jacob Arminius (1559–1609) in his disputation “De natura Dei” (1603) and by Conrad Vorstius (1569–1622) in his Tractatus theologicus de Deo (1606). This analysis yields the conclusion that both Arminius and Vorstius advocated a structural differentiation between God’s inner essence and his outward operations, which leaves room for human freedom and independence. While the Synopsis does not explicitly discuss their views, in its own formulations itmaintains the common Reformed orthodox notion of divine simplicity, and keeps the balance between—on the one hand—the (hypothetical) necessity of God’s foreknowledge and decree, and—on the other hand—the contingency and freedom in the created world.

The Nature of God and the Trinity

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-134
Author(s):  
Kyle C. Strobel
Keyword(s):  
Unique Feature ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Human Speech ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
Doctrine Of The Trinity ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Trinity

Commonly recognized as fundamental to his thought as a whole, Edwards’s doctrine of the Trinity has, nonetheless, been the subject of much discord in the secondary literature. After initially mapping the various perspectives (or ‘instincts’) on the issue, this chapter turns to the notion of personalism to explain the inner logic of Edwards’s account. This unique feature of Edwards’s doctrine explains how he can utilize traditional theological machinery in his doctrine of God (i.e. psychological imagery, simplicity, actus purus, filioque, and divine blessedness), to establish his idiosyncratic development of perichoresis and the divine attributes. What this reading of Edwards’s doctrine helps establish is how he articulates human speech about God, and various rules for how that speech functions (e.g. talk about God is to talk about person(s); God’s self-giving is funded by, rather than diminished by, God’s perfection).

Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and Their Wittenberg Colleagues

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J. Wengert
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Theological Method ◽  
Emerging Church ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Lutheran Theology ◽  
The University ◽  
Early Phases

The German Reformation, sparked by the publication of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517, unfolded parallel to another intellectual phenomenon then sweeping centers of higher education throughout western Europe: the development of a new way to read classic literature of the humanities, philosophy, and theology, often called Renaissance humanism. At the University of Wittenberg, this resulted in the development of a sodality of professors in the arts and theology faculties, initially including Andreas Bodenstein (Karlstadt), Nicholas von Amsdorf, Martin Luther, and the court’s university advisor, Georg Spalatin, but quickly spreading to include, by the early 1520s, Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and Johannes Bugenhagen, among others. Any attempt to understand the early phases of Wittenberg’s Reformation without taking into account this sodality will ultimately fail to catch the breadth of this movement and the commitment of these teachers to one another and to their cause. After an early skirmish over theological method resulted in Karlstadt’s distancing of himself from the university, the other faculty members remained committed to reforming the curricula of the arts and higher faculties at the university along humanist, evangelical lines. This reform influenced the theology and practice of the emerging church in Saxony and elsewhere, witnessed among other places in the 1527–1528 Visitation Articles, and led to a uniquely Wittenberg reform, one that always blended the highest regard for good letters and the most ancient sources with a developing Lutheran theology.

Willing Evil

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-322
Author(s):  
Henrik Lagerlund ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
The Other ◽  
Natural Context ◽  
History Of ◽  
William Ockham ◽  
The One ◽  
Do So

In this article, I present two virtually unknown sixteenth-century views of human freedom, that is, the views of Bartolomaeus de Usingen (1465–1532) and Jodocus Trutfetter (1460–1519) on the one hand and John Mair (1470–1550) on the other. Their views serve as a natural context and partial background to the more famous debate on human freedom between Martin Luther (1483–1556) and Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) from 1524–1526. Usingen and Trutfetter were Luther’s philosophy teachers in Erfurt. In a passage from Book III of John Mair’s commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from 1530, he seems to defend a view of human freedom by which we can will evil for the sake of evil. Very few thinkers in the history of philosophy have defended such a view. The most famous medieval thinker to do so is William Ockham (1288–1347). To illustrate how radical this view is, I place him in the historical context of such thinkers as Plato, Augustine, Buridan, and Descartes.

Divine omnipotence and moral perfection

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW LOKE
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Divine Omnipotence ◽  
Moral Perfection

AbstractDivine omnipotence entails that God can choose to do evil (even though He will not) by taking up a human nature. In showing others by way of example how temptations are to be overcome, His exposure to evil desires in such circumstances is consistent with moral perfection. The view that ‘God has the greatest power and is morally perfect simpliciter’, is religiously more adequate than ‘God has great power and is essentially morally perfect’. The essentiality of other divine attributes to God is discussed, and rebuttals to Anselmian arguments are offered.

The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity

1996 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherin Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Human Experience ◽  
Divine Simplicity ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Traditional Doctrine

Traditionally God has been considered absolutely simple. Some contemporary philosophers argue that this means that God is His attributes and hence is mere quality, and that all the divine attributes name exactly the same quality, which is incoherent. However, the contemporary debate misunderstands the tradition. God is not quality, He is act. Analogies from human experience can minimize the initial implausibility. There are worrisome corollaries to this doctrine, the most troubling being that God's nature is somehow dependent on the choices of His free creatures. This conclusion, though radical, is not as shocking as it appears.

The Aseity of God as a Material Evangelical Concern

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R.J. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Divine Attributes ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Antecedent Conditions ◽  
Hypostatic Union ◽  
Free Grace

‭An evangelical doctrine of God is concerned with not only the unfolding of the logic of God’s free grace but also the antecedent conditions whereby God is said to be gracious. In this article I demonstrate the extent to which for Karl Barth grace demands a “backward reference,” indeed the immanent processions of the Son and Spirit as the basis for their missions. Accordingly, I advance the notion that the question of antecedence—the “whence”—represents not simply a formal but rather a material concern, a concern which the Reformed appreciate. I unfold this contention with respect some New Testament texts and in relation to two doctrines, namely the doctrine of the divine attributes and that of the hypostatic union.‬

God

2019 ◽  
pp. 212-226
Author(s):  
Katherine Sonderegger
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Natural Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Divine Omnipotence ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Divine Perfections ◽  
The One

Barth’s doctrine of God is revolutionary. It leaves behind many of the traditional elements of a doctrine of God—natural knowledge of God, comparative religious practice, and proofs—and puzzles over simplicity and immutability. In their place Barth installs a new maxim, that God demonstrates or ‘proves’ himself. The Bible is the record of that self-demonstration. The divine perfections emerge in dialectical pairs, each displaying the personal life of God as the ‘One who loves in freedom’. Language for God successfully names God when it speaks of Jesus Christ, the Holy One who exemplifies divine omnipotence, omniscience, grace, mercy, and patience. In this way, Barth carries out his programme of Christological concentration, even in the doctrine of God. This is a doctrine of God unlike any other, an unsettling and a glorious one.

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