In this work, Petr Dvorský considers Aquinas’s teaching on the relationship between divine and human action. Broadly, the goal of Dvorský’s book is twofold: to argue, first, that Aquinas’s account of divine providence is compatibilist and, second, that his compatibilist account works. The way that Dvorský shows the first is through systematically examining a wide array of Aquinas’s texts, showing that in no case does his account require recourse to libertarian freedom. The second is accomplished less by giving an argument that it works (Dvorský thinks such a proof is not to be found in Aquinas, neither does he think it exists anywhere in the secondary literature), but rather by showing how it works. While the overall goal of the book is straightforward enough, Dvorský’s argument requires quite a bit of preliminary ground clearing.
The first chapter is helpful in illuminating the book’s title. Why does Dvorský describe Aquinas’s account as “aristocratic”? At first glance, one might be misled into thinking that Dvorský seeks to draw on the social and historical circumstances of Thomas Aquinas’s life. In fact, Dvorský’s label is simply meant to distinguish Aquinas’s approach from that of other Thomists based on the Nietzschean distinction between aristocratic and slave morality. While Dvorský does not wish to import all the meta-ethical baggage of Nietzsche’s analysis of morality, he nevertheless finds the distinction useful for broadly demarcating two approaches to the question of divine and human agency. In Dvorský’s view, Aquinas’s account is “aristocratic” inasmuch as God’s goodness and justice are to be understood primarily, on their own terms, and not in terms of God’s non-responsibility for moral evil. The opposing position, represented by Jacques Maritain, approaches questions of divine and human agency motived by the principal concern to exculpate God from blame. Such an attempt, Dvorský argues, betrays a notion of innocence foreign to Aquinas, which comes “from some perception of morality that is completely alien to Aquinas’s” (19). Accordingly, Dvorský’s account is not a theodicy. Though he touches on the topic in his final chapter, he is careful to announce his starting point with an aristocratic conception of goodness.
The second and third chapters prepare the way for Dvorský’s main account. In the second, Dvorský considers the question of “modal notions.” Dvorský sets up for much of his later discussion by distinguishing very helpfully between different senses of “(im)possibility” (97-98), which affects how contingency and necessity are to be understood. The need for distinguishing between various senses of possibility arises from one obvious counter to the determinist position: if one cannot do otherwise, then there can be no blame (94). Here, it is a matter of what it means to be unable to do otherwise, i.e., a question of the precise meaning of possibility. Through a survey of a wide array of texts, Dvorský distinguishes the various ways Aquinas speaks of possibility and makes plain that, for Aquinas, possibility and impossibility are not primarily used with reference to logical (im)possibility, but most of all with respect to a thing’s natural potencies, i.e., according as it exists in the actual world (140). The “primordial” use of possibility, for Aquinas, rests in a thing’s active potency (109). He will return to the various senses of possibility throughout his work. In the third chapter, Dvorský makes the case that Aquinas’s account of efficient causality is “intrinsically determinist.” This is important for his analysis of divine and human agency inasmuch as Aquinas relies much on his understanding of God’s role as First Mover. Dvorský’s intention here is less to prove determinism (or to show that Aquinas does), than to show that Aquinas’s account coheres with human freedom (151).
It is not until chapter 4 (thus, 272 pages into the book), that Dvorský is finally in a place to deal with the primary subject matter of his work. In this chapter he has two aims: to show that Aquinas’s notion of freedom is compatible with the aforementioned determinist account (in ch. 3) and that this notion can still account for moral responsibility (273). Dvorský helpfully distinguishes free will from free choice, emphasizing that, for Aquinas, the former alone is not enough. In order for an action to be moral, it must arise from free choice. Chapters 5 and 6 bring the book to a close considering the difficult questions of foreknowledge, providence, and predestination (ch. 5), and God’s role with respect to sin (ch. 6). While God permits sin, it is the radical nothingness from which the creature is brought forth which accounts for the deficiency of a moral act. Dvorský’s clear-headed discussion of the strong language of Scripture vis-à-vis God’s bringing about evil is particularly illuminating (430-433).
Dvorský’s work reflects mastery of the concepts involved and a sensitivity to the historical and contextual significance of Aquinas’s writings. He is careful to note what Aquinas does and does not say; he highlights those aspects of Aquinas’s teaching which have their immediate source in Christian revelation rather than strictly philosophical principles; he is also very sober in his approach, openly identifying difficulties remaining in Aquinas’s account. Moreover, Dvorský is an exemplary reader of texts, clearly stating when his own account extrapolates rather than explicates Aquinas’s thought. One gets the sense that the author knows his subject matter well and has carefully considered the relevant texts of Aquinas as well as major representatives of contemporary positions.
The complexity of the subject matter is not always helped by Dvorský’s prose, however, which is in places idiosyncratic, and very frequently informal. The informal tone of the work is, at times, inviting; Dvorský has a penchant for offering captivating analogies (e.g., he speaks of the self-diffusive character of goodness in terms of a couple’s desire to take a gratuitous selfie, which in no real way contributes to their happiness, but is merely expressive of it, see p. 46, 343, 397; or of a wife guiding her blindfolded husband to his surprise birthday to highlight what it means to be causa sui, p. 289). In such cases, which are not few, it is hard to deny Dvorský’s skill in translating otherwise difficult metaphysical concepts into playful yet illuminating metaphors and analogies. Yet, on many occasions, the same informal quality detracts from the work. The flow of the text is often interrupted by asides and qualifications which may have been better placed in footnotes; further, oblique references and the overuse of demonstrative pronouns make figuring out the precise meaning of a text challenging.
To take just one example, Dvorský makes the salient point that the admission of different types of freedom by incompatibilists highlights a deeper problem with their argument (274). There is not one way to consider freedom; there are certain notions of freedom, admitted even by incompatibilists (political freedom is one example Dvorský gives, the freedom to fire a “large-bore gun,” another), which do not require appeal to a distinctly libertarian notion of freedom. As a result, it is not obvious that the compatibilist notion of freedom should be ruled out, a priori, as a genuine kind of freedom. But if the compatibilist (i.e., determinist) notion of freedom can be admitted by the incompatibilist as a real kind of freedom, it is no longer the case that libertarian indeterminacy of will is necessary for freedom as such. Concluding his argument, Dvorský writes: “Whatever its appeal was while the only alternative to the controversial libertarian freedom was the even more controversial compatibilist freedom, this appeal diminishes immediately when a bunch of different freedoms that are uncontroversial and do not require libertarianism show themselves. More precisely, the plurality of possible ways of conceiving freedom makes the alleged unicity of the way which permits the existence of a reasonable moral judgment doubtful; at its turn, the gnoseological priority of some of those ways questions the libertarian identification of pre-reflexively used notions with the libertarian notion of freedom” (275). It takes more than a minute to tease out Dvorský’s very worthwhile point.
Given Dvorský’s clear mastery of the relevant notions and texts, it is unfortunate that his work is, at times, so difficult to follow. Despite the occasional obscurity of Dvorský’s prose, however, his competence and insight are sufficiently evident throughout the work and invite serious engagement.