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1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Samuel Kahn Reconsidering the Donohue-Levitt Hypothesis
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According to the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis, the legalization of abortion in the United States in the 1970s explains some of the decrease in crime in the 1990s. In this paper, I challenge this hypothesis. First, I argue against the intermediate mechanisms whereby abortion in the 1970s is supposed to cause a decrease in crime in the 1990s. Second, I argue against the correlations that support this causal relationship.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Angela M. Knobel Insight, Experience, and the Notion of “Infused” Virtue
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Some contemporary virtue theorists argue that one cannot come to possess a virtue “all at once.” Linda Zagzebski, in particular, has argued that it would be logically impossible for virtue to arise in this way. This thesis, if true, poses considerable problems for the traditional Christian notion of infused virtue. This paper examines the claim that it is logically impossible for an agent to receive virtue “all at once.” While this claim stems from important insights about the nature of virtue, I argue that it does not in fact establish that infused virtue is a logical impossibility. Rather, it points to some features of virtue that a defender of the notion of infused virtue would have to accommodate.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Victor M. Salas Bonaventure on the Vanity of Being: Towards a Metaphysic of Ecclesiastes
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This article explores Bonaventure’s metaphysical account of creation, which holds that at the heart of every creature is a sort of metaphysical vanity. That vanity stems from the exigencies of a creation metaphysics in which the creator-God draws every creature out of nothingness into being. But, while God’s creative act sustains the creature in being, the nothingness from which God preserves creation, on Bonaventure’s view, always remains a feature of creation’s metaphysical constitution. In short, for the Seraphic Doctor, because nothingness always resides in creation, creation itself is fundamentally vain. Since vanity is a central theme in the book of Ecclesiastes, concerning which Bonaventure has left us a commentary, I argue that the metaphysical vision he employs to illuminate the nature of vanity as it pertains to creation—both within his biblical commentary and beyond—can be properly described as a “metaphysic of Ecclesiastes.”
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Joseph Stenberg Aquinas on the Relationship between the Vision and Delight in Perfect Happiness
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One vexed philosophical question that once enjoyed great esteem is this: in the Beatific Vision that the saints enjoy in heaven, does happiness (beatitudo) consist in the vision of God, in delight in God, or in a combination of the vision and the delight? The answer that one gives to this question apparently commits one to a view about what happiness is ultimately about. It has long been thought that Aquinas holds that happiness consists in the vision of God alone. In this essay, I argue that, on this important issue, Aquinas actually maintains that happiness consists both in the vision of God and delight in God, but that—unlike some of his contemporaries—Aquinas unequivocally affirms that the vision is more important in happiness than the delight. After arguing for this interpretation, I consider the quite compelling account of perfect and imperfect happiness that seems to follow from it.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
R. J. Matava Francisco Suárez on the Ontological Status of Divine Action: Implications for the Freewill Debate
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It has recently been argued that God’s causation of human free choices is best understood in light of Aquinas’s teaching on creation. Such a position is attractive because it provides a way of avoiding the compatibilism of classical interpretations of Aquinas. However, this position may be subject to other flaws. In fact, Francisco Suárez explicitly rejects the view that God’s creative causality can be understood either as the divine essence or as a predicamental relation of the created effect to God. The purpose of this essay is to investigate, first, whether Suárez’s view of efficient causality rules out conceptualizing God’s motion of the will in terms of creation, and second, whether it provides a more plausible alternative. I argue on both points that it does not, and that an error common to both Suárez and his sixteenth-century opponents is one reason to conceptualize divine motion as a kind of creation.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
William Hasker Is Divine Simplicity a Mistake?
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This paper presents a broad-ranging critique of the traditional strong doctrine of divine simplicity which is attributed to Augustine and Aquinas. After showing two important arguments in favor of the doctrine to be unsuccessful, it argues that the doctrine itself, in this strong version, is problematic in three main ways. First, the doctrine involves extensive category mistakes. Second, it is difficult to reconcile with truths about God that are (nearly) universally acknowledged, such as that God knows contingent truths and performs actions which he is not necessitated by his nature to perform. Finally, it is difficult to reconcile with personal attributes of God which are important both for the Bible and for religious practice, such as the claims that God is responsive to human beings and that he loves them. This article contends that while there is a sense in which it is true that God is simple, the traditional strong doctrine of divine simplicity, attributed to Augustine and Aquinas, is a mistake from which theology needs to be liberated.
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Thomas Joseph White, OP Nicene Orthodoxy and Trinitarian Simplicity
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Classical Trinitarian dogma affirms that God is simple—a teaching also advanced by major proponents of classical monotheism. Nevertheless, as each one knows, this notion is controversial in modern analytic philosophy, where it is commonly contested. It is also largely ignored in contemporary continental dogmatic theology. Nevertheless, the teaching that God is simple is requisite for any authentic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma of Nicaea. It is also eminently defensible from a rational, philosophical point of view. In what follows I will begin with (I) a theological consideration of the notion of Trinitarian simplicity before considering (II) the metaphysics of the simplicity of the divine essence. (III) I will then consider briefly two special problems that are associated with the metaphysics of divine simplicity: divine knowledge and divine freedom. (IV) Finally, I will consider briefly the significant Christological consequences of the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of the traditional affirmation of divine simplicity.
book reviews
8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Steven J. Jensen Our Search With Socrates for Moral Truth (Gary Michael Atkinson)
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Scott Crider Passions and Persuasion in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (Jamie Dow)
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10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Raymond Hain Knowing the Natural Law: From Precepts and Inclinations to Deriving Oughts (Steven J. Jensen)
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11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Travis Dumsday Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Lawrence R. Pasternack)
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12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Kevin Timpe Freedom and Self-Creation: Anselmian Libertarianism (Katherin A. Rogers)
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13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Alice Ramos Aquinas on Beauty (Christopher Scott Sevier)
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14. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 90 > Issue: 4
Contents of Volume 90 (2016)
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