Speculative Foundations of Moral Theology and the Causality of Grace

Abstract

This essay attempts concisely to articulate the necessary role played within moral theology in general—and within the moral theology of grace in particular—by the metaphysics and natural philosophy of human agency. It argues for the priority of the speculative with respect to the practical inasmuch as speculative knowledge precedes desire, and desire precedes intention; for the centrality of unified normative teleology; for the primacy of being over relation; and for the primacy of sound doctrine regarding the divine causal providence for the moral theology of grace and freedom.