Abstract
Aquinas teaches that human acts are caused by God. Assuming that such causation entails theological determinism, philosophers with libertarian intuitions tend either to read around Aquinas’s teaching on the relation of divine causality and human action, or to reject that teaching altogether. Unfortunately, the arguments most often used by Aquinas and his contemporary defenders to show that his teaching is compatible with human freedom fail to address the libertarian’s main concerns. In part one of this essay, I consider these arguments and show why they fail. In part two, I attempt to address the libertarian’s concerns more directly by arguing that Aquinas should not be thought of as a theological determinist. I will show that theological determinism presupposes a certain logic or explanatory scheme, which Aquinas’s understanding of God, and in particular of divine simplicity, will not accommodate. Hence, the kinds of inferences needed to make theological determinism intelligible do not apply in Aquinas’s case.