Will There Be Free Will in Heaven?

Just before Christmas 1999, various prominent public figures, teachers, clergymen and others received a set of ten religious questions from the BBC's "Today" programme. All were predictable save one: "Will there be free will in heaven?" This book addresses this important question.;Simon Gaine sets out the arguments of two modern philosophers, one who concludes that heaven is undesirable because it excludes freedom by excluding the possibility of sin (Wall), and the other who responds that an orthodox notion of heaven in fact implies the real possibility of sin (Donnelly). He shows how such modern concerns have arisen against the background of theologians such as Suarez, who limits freedom in the face of heavenly impeccability, and asks whether a high value placed on freedom can be successfully combined with heavenly impeccability.;He then goes on to investigate the theories of Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, two theologians who hold a high view of freedom in general as well as heavenly impeccability, but they are found wanting. Gaine then introduces an alternative conception of freedom through an account of Servais Pinckaers' connection of two different ideas of freedom ("indiff

"this book is to be welcomed as a concise yet comprehensive discussion of a very important issue in moral theology." Hugo Meynell, Heythrop Journal

Fr. Simon Francis Gaine, O.P. is Catholic Chaplain to the University of Edinburgh and the Edinburgh College of Art, UK.