Reddit reviews An Essay on Free Will

Sounds like you got it! Here is a JSTOR link to Frankfurt's seminal paper. Since you are a student you should be able to access its full version.

I recommend that you take a look at those who have disagreed with Frankfurt and his cases:

1. Ginet (1996)
   
   
2. Kane (1996)
   
   
3. McKenna (1997)
   
   
4. Naylor (1984)
   
   
5. O'Conner (2000)
   
   
6. Otsuka (1998)
   
   
7. Rowe (1991)
   
   
8. van Inwagen (1983)
   
   
9. Widerker (1995)
   
   
10. Wyma (1997)
    
    
11. Zimmerman (1988)
    
    An awesome dissertation would be to lay out your project, show how Frankfurt helps your case, outline the best responses to Frankfurt in those 11 sources (only the best! don't do them all!), and then respond those objections to Frankfurt.

> While it might raise the question of why we weren't created with the beatific vision, simply raising the question does not disprove Aquinas's position. A question is different from a challenge.

You're right and I was not clear. The question would be this: if it is possible for God to create a world without sin (think beatific vision) initially, why didn't he? If sin is the ultimate evil, then God--being both perfectly good, all powerful, and all knowing--would create a world in which humans would never sin. He would have the knowledge, power and goodness to make it happen. This holds especially true if compatiblism is true.

The Plantinga free will defense has solved the logical problem of evil. No serious atheist philosopher even attempts to salvage the logical form knowing Plantinga single handedly buried it. The Thomist does not have this defense available for himself.

The problem, bluntly speaking, with compatibilism is that God is still the ultimate metaphysical cause of all human action, including the most morally heinous and disgusting acts in human history. Catholics like to laugh at Calvin and Luther but are committed to the same exact metaphysic.
> A choice is always made with determinism? What does choice even mean, then? Do you just mean that every situation is contingent? What about in the case of necessary truths? Where is the choice in say, the truth "God exists"? Or "Socrates is a man"?

All I can say here is you might want to read a philo of action book if you're not clear what I mean by this. This might seem harsh but if you cannot grasp the basic concepts of how, even under determinism, a choice is always happening, you need an introduction. I would recommend this book.

> Frankly nothing I've ever read by Plantinga suggests that he understands Aquinas much at all.

It just depends on what you have read by Plantinga. Plantinga is far beyond both of us, I would hope you admit.