Glenn, Theodicy, 1939
Natural Theology
The philosophy of God. The proofs for God's existence and the divine attributes — what reason alone can know of the First Cause.
Theological counterpart: God: His Existence & Attributes
Glenn, Theodicy
18 articlesIntroduction
Name, definition, object, importance, and division of Theodicy (Natural Theology) as the philosophical science of God knowable by unaided human reason.
The Existence of God
Chapter 1 God's Existence a Demonstrable Truth
Art. 1 Art. 2
The Question of God's Existence
Atheism, agnosticism, and theism surveyed; the meaning of the question of God's existence; why it is a genuine and answerable philosophical question.
The Need and Possibility of Demonstrating God's Existence
Whether God's existence is self-evident or requires demonstration; the need for proof given human ignorance; the possibility of demonstration from creatures to Creator.
Chapter 2 Demonstration of the Existence of God
Art. 1 Art. 2 Art. 3 Art. 4
The Chief Types of Causes
The four Aristotelian causes — material, formal, efficient, and final — as the metaphysical framework for the demonstrations of God's existence.
The Proof from Efficient Causality
The cosmological argument from efficient causality: every contingent being requires an efficient cause, and the causal chain must terminate in a self-existent First Cause.
The Proof from Formal and Final Causality
Arguments from the formal constitution of beings (the proof from contingency) and from the finality and order pervading nature (the teleological argument) to a necessary, intelligent First Being.
Certain Supplementary Proofs
Additional convergent proofs for God's existence: the argument from universal consent, the moral argument from conscience, and the argument from the desire for perfect happiness.
The Nature of God
Chapter 1 The Essence of God
Art. 1 Art. 2
The Physical Essence of God
What God is in Himself: pure act, ipsum esse subsistens, absolutely simple, without matter or composition; refutation of pantheism, deism, and all finite conceptions of God.
The Metaphysical Essence of God
The metaphysical essence of God as that which constitutes the ultimate ratio of the divine being: subsistent being itself, from which all divine attributes flow necessarily.
Chapter 2 The Attributes of God
Art. 1 Art. 2
The Divine Attributes in General
How the divine attributes are related to the divine essence; the distinction between real and virtual attributes; the via negativa and via eminentiae as methods of theological predication.
The Divine Attributes in Special
The individual divine attributes demonstrated in detail: unity, simplicity, immutability, eternity, immensity, omnipresence, truth, goodness, omniscience, and omnipotence.
The Operations of God
Chapter 1 The Immanent Operations of God
Art. 1 Art. 2 Art. 3
The Operations of God's Intellect
God's intellect as infinite, eternal, and the source of all intelligibility; divine ideas, divine knowledge of possible and actual things, and the problem of God's foreknowledge of free acts.
The Operations of God's Will
The divine will as infinite, perfectly free, and the ultimate source of all created goodness; God's love, justice, mercy, and the compatibility of providence with human freedom.
The Personal Nature of God
God as personal Being: the philosophical meaning of person; the implications of divine intelligence and will for God's personality; the Trinity as known by reason and by faith.
Chapter 2 The Transient Operations of God
Art. 1 Art. 2 Art. 3 Art. 4
The Divine Operation of Creation
Creation ex nihilo: its meaning, the philosophical demonstration of its possibility and fact, the freedom of the creative act, and refutation of emanationism and eternal creation.
The Divine Operation of Conservation
Divine conservation as the continuous creative act by which God sustains creatures in existence; its distinction from creation and its necessity given creature contingency.
The Divine Operation of Concurrence
Divine concurrence as God's co-operation with the free acts of creatures; the metaphysical problem of reconciling divine causality with genuine creaturely freedom; Thomist and Molinist solutions.
The Divine Operation of Governance and Providence
Divine providence as the eternal plan by which God directs all things to their ends; the fact of providence, its universality, and the problem of evil as an objection against it.