Further Thoughts on an 'Historical Anecdote'

In his discussion of the debate between the Jesuits and Dominicans, Copelston hits on the starting points of each of the sides. The Jesuits, he claims, began with what is best known, namely human freedom. From that staring point we reason backwards, as it were, and explain God's foreknowledge and decree in light of the fact of human freedom. The Dominicans, on the other hand, began with God and his decree and explained human freedom in the light of the fact of God's all-encompassing sovereignty. Of course the Jesuits claimed that on the Dominican view, God is the author of evil and the Dominicans countered that the Jesuits were subjugating God's grace to human wills.

A couple of things jumped out at me while reading this. The first, is that there is nothing really new under the sun. This is the same debate, using the same language that has and continues to occur over these issues. The second is that your starting point determines your ending point. If you being with human freedom as the most fundamental fact about the world (perhaps, even more fundamental than God's freedom) you cannot help but arrive at a view of God that is somehow limited by that freedom. It is here that you begin arriving at notions like 'God's self-limitation' and making his knowledge dependent upon the creature. It seems to me, however, that this isn't Scripture's tact. It begins with God and works from there. He speaks and it comes to be . He commands and it happens. He decrees and nothing can stay His hand.