This thesis presents a Thomistic account of divine providence and human freedom. I defend and develop the traditional view by adopting some contemporary interpretations of it. I argue that the Thomist solution provides an idea that divine providence is compatible with libertarian freedom. In the first chapter I provide the definition of divine providence, which is God’s continuing action in preserving his creation. In another word, not only does God create the universe and conserve it in existence at every moment, but he also guides it according to his purpose. In the second chapter, I critically examine three solutions to the problem of providence and human freedom. They are compatibilism, open theism, and Molinism. I argue that the solutions are unsatisfactory in that they too easily give up some of the important doctrines concerning God and humans. In Chapter III, I develop a Thomistic account of divine providence and human freedom. The Thomistic theory, I argue, well preserves traditional doctrines concerning both God and humans without damaging either providence or libertarian freedom for humans. In particular, I briefly examine some characteristics of God, which are timelessness and his activity as the First Cause. Based on these features of God’s nature, I show how human beings enjoy entire freedom in the libertarian sense although God has complete sovereignty over human free choices in the world. If the present view is correct, what makes it less attractive is that the theory seems to make God the author of sin. So I finally deal with the problem of moral responsibility and the problem of evil and sin, showing that humans, not God, are the author of sin. I contend that God wills that humans sin but he has a certain purpose for doing so within his providence. But that never destroys human freedom, so humans are responsible for their decisions and actions. Within the Thomistic explanation we can have a logically coherent view of compatibility of divine providence with libertarian freedom of humans. In the last chapter, I summarize my argument and deal with some implications of it.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northwestern University, 1915. / Vita. "Chapters II and VII (with some changes) have appeared in the Monist and the Philosophical review.

Thesis (M.A.)--Denver Seminary, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [80]-87).

published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Both Hilary Bok, in “Freedom and Practical Reason,” and Robert Kane, in “Responsibility, Luck, and Chance: Reflections on Free Will and Indeterminism,” make at least implicit use of process-based accounts of deliberation to establish their positions. But Bok is a compatibilist while Kane is a libertarian—the usefulness of the notion of process to opposing sides of the contemporary free will debate suggests that it might be this notion that is doing the work for Bok and Kane rather than elements specific to their separate doctrines. At the very least it suggests that an exploration of process will offer a better understanding of the interplay between compatibilism and libertarianism in the free will debate. In this thesis, I discuss the process-based accounts of John Dewey and A. N. Whitehead—primarily from Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct and Whitehead’s Process and Reality—in an effort to bring out features of such accounts that are relevant to the issues of free will and human action. Following focused discussions of Dewey and Whitehead I explore how their specific accounts bear upon the positions of Bok and Kane in their aforementioned articles, and conclude that Dewey and Whitehead would reject both the compatibilist and libertarian positions, taking up something of a middle ground between the two views. I then end the thesis by exploring how a more general process account of human action bears upon Bok and Kane, concluding that it is possible to reconcile their views with such a general account with only some reinterpretation and restriction of their positions. In general, I conclude that process-based accounts of human action favour neither compatibilist nor libertarian positions, but rather a mixture or middle ground between the two. / Thesis (Master, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-18 12:30:30.758

Thesis (M.A. in philosophy)--Washington State University, December 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Dec. 23, 2008). "Department of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-39).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1997. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-127).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass., 1998. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-95).

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2008. / Title from file title page. Eddy Nahmias, committee chair; Sebastian Rand, Timothy O'Keefe, committee members. Electronic text (58 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed October 8, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 58).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Princeton University, 1914.