Writer of Fancy: The Playful Piety of Jane Austen

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

« Previous Post | Next Post »
« Previous post in category | Next post in category »

Theology: Providence and secularism

Reflecting on Thomas’s discussion of Jesus’ statement, “Without me you can do nothing,” Stephen A. Long writes, “If one denies that the human will receives not only its being, but also its natural motion and application to action from God, one makes the will a demiurgically unmoved first cause. Divine providence extends only so far as the divine causality. It follows that if the human will is not subject to divine power then naturally it is not subject to divine government. . . . Thus our free acts escape dependence upon God for their coming-to-be, it will be an axiomatic inference to separate the governance of these acts from the divine government. Human action then comes to represent a zone of being and good beyond the divine power and outside the scope of divine government.”

Thus, “the denial of God’s causality over human freedom . . . appears to be a critical intra-Catholic contribution to the evolution of secularist anti-theism in the moral realm. For what do we mean by secularism save the claim that the public order is outside the jurisdiction of divine rule? And what could more directly imply this posture than the claim that our free actions are outside the divine government?”