Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: 4 Gemeinsamkeiten: Molina, Banez (Molinists, Bannezians)

Kurzinhalt: Both sides presume (1) that vital acts are the effects of self-moving potencies; (2) that ...

Textausschnitt: 1/7 In the preceding chapter I asserted that the differences between the Molinists and the Bannezians would ultimately prove less consequential than heir agreement on certain fundamental issues. Both sides presume (1) that vital acts are the effects of self-moving potencies; (2) that first act (form) is the efficient cause of second act (operation); (3) that efficient causality involves an influx that passes from agent to patient; and (4) that in all divine concourse, God acts without the use of any created intermediary. In general, the truth of these propositions is simply taken for granted by all concerned. (212; Fs) (notabene)

2/7 One of Lonergan's principal aims in his early writings on grace is to demonstrate that these philosophical assumptions are unworthy of the confidence commonly placed in them: he explodes the theory of vital act and discloses the fallacies inherent in the conventional scholastic understandings of efficient causality, operation, and cooperation as they relate to the question of divine concourse. The point of these attacks is not to argue for the sake of argument, to raise new clouds in an already blinding speculative dust storm. As we shall see, Lonergan has in mind something much more profound, namely, to show that the reconciliation of grace and freedom - the problem that the Molinist and Bannezian systems each purport to solve - is in fact a problem only insofar as one's thinking is based on faulty philosophical assumptions of the kind just mentioned. (212; Fs) (notabene)