Syncretistic Catholicism

another minority report

Syncretistic Catholicism where any Anglican, Episcopal, Roman &

Orthodox consensus informs core beliefs & divergences are
received as valid theological opinions

If certain Thomists & David Bentley Hart

are Right (and they are), then …
For a great conversation, visit Eclectic Orthodoxy, where Phillip
Cary‘s _Inner Grace: Augustine in the Traditions of Plato and Paul_
is under consideration.

Especially see Fr Kimel’s comment with which I resonate.

The points of agreement between DBH & those Thomists who,

like Hart, reject the free will defense of hell might be instructive?

Their shared “freedom for excellence” conception is consistent

with a philosophically coherent double-agency?

It’s a type of compatibilism that would see grace as non-

necessitating even when it’s shattering our vicious natures?
So, efficacious graces would only ever establish & enhance – not
annihilate or hinder – our freedom.

One might ask, though, why the protological epistemic distancing

& peccability? What greater good might they be ordered toward?

In any given infusion of efficacious grace, if our essential &

sufficient free will is not at risk, just what is it, then, that we’re
imagining as possibly being sacrificed (seemingly coerced)?

Wahlberg’s Thomistic Autonomy Defense introduced an autonomy

ordered toward intimacy as an enriched notion of freedom. That
tracks in the right direction.

I don’t view Wahlberg’s notion as changing anyone’s degree or

depth of freedom, however. Rather, I interpret that in terms of
one’s range or scope of freedom.

That’s to say that it has been eternally determined that we will

freely manifest Christ as imagoes Dei, predestined as we are.

Ordinarily, what we autonomously co-self-determine is not whether

but how we’ll freely manifest Christ as we grow in likeness. The
ranges of how we will manifest Christ, however, can be variously
expanded or narrowed, synergistically. They can be sacrificially
self-surrendered during ordinary self-determined soul-crafting
operations.

Extraordinarily, through predestination, election & all manners &

degrees of efficacious gracing, we can respond extra-kenotically to
invites that, in some ways & to various extents, will limit the scope
of our theophanic expression, e.g. whether as priest or prophet or
king or as Theotokos, Moses or Paul, always for the sake of
others.

Total Aside:

No, Wahlberg’s Thomistic Autonomy Defense of Hell doesn’t work.

Rather, it proves that God has no greater good to lose in terms of
human free will. A restoration of all to their original beatitude &
the eternal preservation of everyone’s capacity for the beatific
vision would not risk — but would, indeed, enhance – their
freedom for excellence.

Only extraordinarily would God infallibly determine that any given

person will sacrifice their autonomous self-determination in this
or that manner & to this or that extent. There is a sacrifice which
can get mislabeled a coercion. Why and when He does is always
ordered to maximizing the overall balance of human co-creative
autonomy toward ends like the greater good of optimal divine
intimacy & greatest expansion of theophanic breadth.

That’s why my approach insists on:

1) a universal restoration of our original beatitude,

2) a universal preservation (not necessarily realization) of our

original teloi &

3) universal post-mortem impeccability.

Please see: The Apathetic Báñezian, Pathetic Calvinist,

Sympathetic Lubacian & Empathetic Maritainian Patterns of
Divine Interactivity

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John Sobert Sylvest July 8, 2023 Uncategorized

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