LessonsCreed Casebook: Claims, Principles and Sound JudgmentsQuiz

Scenario: A person has the health, time and ordinary means to pray but insists that no duty can apply until he experiences a special inner enabling feeling.

Governing principle: Ordinary capacity—health, opportunity and available means—is relevant to the obligation, while divine enabling assistance accompanying the act is distinguished from it.

Sound application: A person with the ordinary capacity required for duty cannot simply cite the absence of a felt inner state to abandon it.

Limit of the conclusion: Divine enabling assistance is not treated as an independent possession of the human agent.

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Capacity and enabling assistance in action

Creed Casebook: Claims, Principles and Sound Judgments

Scenario: A person has the health, time and ordinary means to pray but insists that no duty can apply until he experiences a special inner enabling feeling.

Governing principle: Ordinary capacity—health, opportunity and available means—is relevant to the obligation, while divine enabling assistance accompanying the act is distinguished from it.

Sound application: A person with the ordinary capacity required for duty cannot simply cite the absence of a felt inner state to abandon it.

Limit of the conclusion: Divine enabling assistance is not treated as an independent possession of the human agent.