My Objections to Dan's and Tim's Joint Defense of Mere Molinism

Dan Chapa and Tim Stratton (D&T) provided a video defense of Mere Molinism (link) in responding to material from Colton Carlson (CC).  This is just to highlight a few places where I took issue with their defense.  All time stamps are approximate.  I appreciate the generally cordial tone of their video, although I have a few bones to pick with them, as I elaborate below.

Luck Objection (9:00 to 22:00)

D&T acknowledged that CC raised the objection that on libertarian free will, the absence of sufficient causal conditions for an action implies that an agent lacks the control necessary for responsibility because there is no explanation for the actual choice over the alternative choice.  In short, the moral agent is, in essence, just lucky to take the action, and therefore deserves no obvious moral praise or blame for taking it.    

D&T oddly began their discussion by referring to a baby's first choice that allegedly involves reason.  I say, "allegedly," because on libertarian free will, reason is not a sufficient causal condition for any libertarian free choice.   I say, "oddly," because it is usually acknowledged that babies are not responsible for choices and that they lack a fully formed power of reason. 

D&T first argued that "contrastive explanations" can't have an infinite regress.  They then seemed to argue that even if God is is the first cause, and further that if God's nature determined God's action, they asserted that there is no "contrastive explanation" for why God's nature determined one action over another.  A first mistake here is that a "contrastive explanation" does not itself require a preceding contrastive explanation, unless that "contrastive explanation" comes to be, but God's nature does not come to be.  Furthermore, God's decree is eternal: it has no reference to any preceding causal state.

D&T then argued that you need a "buck-stopping, first cause principle to explain these things," and argued that you don't need a contrastive explanation, you just need a "first event" to ground responsibility.    This response isn't particularly persuasive for at least two reasons: (1) it's directly contradictory to the "first cause" argument for the existence of God; and (2) just asserting that you don't need a contrastive explanation doesn't seem to answer the luck objection in a meaningful way.  For example, if indeed moral agents just luckily do the things they do, the fact that they are allegedly luckily the "first cause" of this chain does not seem to address the luck objection.

D&T then further argued that God has libertarian free will, that many Calvinists will acknowledge this, and that consequently libertarian free will is not an incoherent concept.  The problem with this argument, of course, is the definition of "libertarian free will."  God's actions in time are already decided by God from eternity past.  There was never a time when they were not decided.  Yet they flow freely from God, in the sense that no one other than God himself places any limitation on them.  That's the kind of freedom that we hold dear.

D&T ask whether God is "just lucky" to have selected to do what God selected to do.  The answer to that is no, because the reasons for God's decree arise entirely from within God.  God's eternal decrees are not reasonless, they are grounded in God himself.

D&T present the example of Exodus 9:15 where God says he has the ability to strike the people with pestilence.  The weakness in D&T's appeal to this text is that God is not speaking about God's ability vis-à-vis God's eternal decree, but rather God's ability to impose punishments vis-à-vis man's ability to resist.  The point is not whether such an action would contradict some aspect of God's character, nature, wisdom, or the like, but rather the point is the helplessness of the people with respect to God.  In fact, Exodus 9:15-16 shows this, because at the same time God says He could do something other than what He did, and God explains that the alternative action contradicts his purpose.  This provides the contrastive explanation: a rare case where God explains why he chose one action over another.

Stratton makes a claim about what he thinks "the vast majority" of Calvinists believe.  This is one of those fake statistical claims that is problematic.  It's even more problematic when Stratton defines God's freedom that he thinks "the vast majority" of Calvinists hold to without any reference to libertarian freedom ("he could have done otherwise" or "he could have created differently" or the like).

It's dangerous to try to evaluate the underlying cause of such an obviously flawed appeal to Exodus 9:15 passage and the obviously flawed claim that because Calvinists say God is Free that this means libertarian freedom.  Both are straightforward examples of begging the question by assuming something that hasn't been established.

Dan and I had a debate titled, "The Bible Teaches Libertarian Free Will Debate," about 10 years ago (link to mp3), in which one of Dan's central arguments was to appeal to dictionary definitions of "choose" (see this transcript of his opening argument).  As I concluded then (link to transcript of my closing argument), Dan's argument similarly begged the question by assuming that choose (in Scripture and in the dictionaries) refers to a libertarian free choice, rather than by establishing his argument from Scripture.  

As you will notice from the transcript of Dan's opening, for example, he stated:

6 of the 20 dictionaries defined choose as - to select from a number of possibilities. That’s it.  That's libertarian free will right there.    The bible says we choose, choose means select from a number of possibilities, selecting from an number of possibilities is the essence of  libertarian free will, so the bible teaches  libertarian free will.

Notice, however, that there is nothing distinctively libertarian about "select from a number of possibilities."  What does libertarian free will actually entail as distinct from compatibilist free will?  Here's where the problem gets worse for folks like D&T: philosophical supporters of libertarian free will cannot themselves agree (see the numerous points raised here).  This isn't a problem for libertarian free will as a philosophical position, it's a problem for claims like "Calvinists believe God is free, therefore they say God has libertarian freedom," or the like.

I think it may be time for a follow-up debate to my and Dan's debate, in case Dan believes he now he stronger arguments or at least believes that his arguments presented then continue to hold up. 

D&T seem to argue that God's decree must be the result of deliberation.  On the contrary, however, Calvinists should insist that any discussion of God deliberating is language of accommodation, and that God does not and has never thought sequentially.

D&T argue, toward the end of their response, that LFW advocates have "the same foundation for control" as Calvinists.  This is just not true, and is kind of the main point of the luck objection.  So, it's not entirely clear whether the force of the luck objection was rightly understood.  

Conditional Ability to Do Otherwise (vs. Categorical Ability to do Otherwise) (22:00 to 42:00)

D&T seem to argue both that compatibilists are somehow borrowing libertarian ground by appealing to conditional abilities, and simultaneously they seem to try to make a regression argument about wants being voluntary.  My main objections here are that (1) it's self-evident that wants are not always voluntary (for example, hunger) and (2) on libertarian free will, wants are necessarily irrelevant as a causal explanation for the choice.  While libertarians may be able to affirm the statement, "I could choose [X] if I wanted to," that's only because wanting to is irrelevant to the ability to choose [X].  

D&T suggest that in certain cases "wanting to" may be a necessary condition (in both compatibility and libertarian accounts).  However, the chart provided by D&T (an excerpt is shown below) messes up this point:

Notice that under the "reversibility" row, for "Libertarian," D&T have "You can even if you don't want to."  That correctly treats wanting to as irrelevant to the choice.  However, if wanting to were a necessary condition, then "you cannot if you don't want to" is correct on both compatibilism (labelled by D&T as "Determinist") and libertarianism.

The chart's second row is simply an example of an attempted regression.  The whole point of a conditional analysis is to consider a given stage of decision making.  On libertarianism, as on compatibilism, the "wanting to" may or may not be voluntary or otherwise under the control of the person.  As mentioned above, the "wanting" may be hunger.  Assuming that wanting to is voluntary, saying "I can want to" is simply the same question about a different choice, and simply regresses the analysis a step.

Finally, the first row of the chart is potentially misleading.  Compatibilism doesn't require that any one cause be a sufficient condition.  Of course, if "wanting to" is treated as the proximate cause of the choice, then that would be different.  If that is so, though, then the chart equivocates, in that wanting to is not the proximate cause of a choice in libertarianism.

If it is acknowledged that wanting to is just one causal factor, then it may be more accurate to say, "You can and will if you want to" than to say "You can and must if you want to" in that column.  The more grammatically accepted way of saying it is this: "You can and would if you wanted to." 

D&T point out that you don't have the ability to do otherwise in the actual world, but instead in the counter-factual world.  Of course, you only do otherwise in the counter-factual world, so there does not seem to be any meaningful downside to this point.

Furthermore, the whole point of "conditional" ability is to posit and analyze counter-factual worlds.  You don't say, "If I wanted to, I could," unless you want to analyze a different world than the actual world, namely a world in which you wanted to.

Incidentally, even libertarian categorical freedom falls prey to this problem of objecting to reference to hypotheticals.  Under libertarian freedom, in the real world the agent only can bring about one of the multiple competitive outcomes.  In the case of simple binary decision, the agent cannot both choose [X] and not choose [X], he can only choose [X] or not choose [X].  The other path is not in the real world, it's in a hypothetical world where the agent chooses the opposite.

D&T have some back and forth banter regarding Jesus' and Peter's interactions in Mark 14:34-38.  They claim that if Peter was a determinist, he would have answered that he couldn't do otherwise.  The banter, however, overlooked Jesus' own statement: "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," which provides the causal explanation for the sleep of Peter and the others.  Of course, in fact, Jesus and Peter weren't discussing the relationship of Peter's actions to God's decrees and so the conversation was literally exactly what one would expect from two divine determinists.  On the other hand, if we were to interpret this as a discussion about the relationship of Peter's actions to God's decrees, the causal explanation ("the flesh is weak") is one that fits better with a compatibilist understanding.  That said, I wish that falling asleep were an example of a voluntary act of the will, but I think we know that for most people it is not.

The same thing relates to other comments during this portion, such as calling the condition an "impossible condition."  It's not "impossible," it's just not "actual," but of course that's the nature of hypothetical.   

Epistemic Possibilities vs. Freethinking Argument (42:00 to 54:00)

Dan seemed to argue that epistemic possibility is not an adequate explanation of deliberation, because we don't have the same kinds of epistemic uncertainties about the past as we do about the future.  This strikes me as odd, because we don't normally deliberate about the past.

This portion of the discussion also suffers from the same problem as the previous portion, in terms of characterizing "the theistic determinist" view in terms that would likely not be acceptable to Calvinists and others that are being lumped into this group, at least not without qualification.  For example, "and it could not have been otherwise," may be true vis-à-vis the decree, but would not necessarily be true under a hypothetical analysis.  

D&T seemed to argue that people don't have "epistemic access" to an outcome if there is a causal explanation for their choice of the alternative outcome.  This doesn't make much sense, because there doesn't seem to be any reason that epistemic access to an object would require any freedom at all with respect to causing that object.  It makes even less sense, because Tim distinguishes between awareness and epistemic access, but it's unclear how (if at all) these differ.   

Also, again, they say that Peter should have said, "No," to the question, "Could you have stayed awake one hour," but in context the question does have an implied negative answer, as we can conclude from Jesus' own explanation that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.  Jesus was pointing out Peter's failure, which demonstrated Peter's inability.

Can Calvinists be Molinists (54:00 to 1:11:00)

D&T argue that Calvinists can be Molinists and that some Calvinists are Molinists.  This, naturally, depends on how one defines Calvinism.  With folks like Norman Geisler claiming to be a "moderate Calvinist," I suppose one can find a very wide variety within self-labelled Calvinism.  There is no one official pope of Calvinism to say who is in and who is out.  One fairly big-tent way of describing Calvinism is in terms of the five points of Calvinism, which have been memorized using the acrostic TULIP for a while now.  Amyraldians would consider themselves Calvinists without adopting the L point.  As to both Calvinists and Amyraldians, the practical sticking point is combination of the "U" and "I" points.  Both Calvinists and Amyraldians (as per the four or five points) confess that God's election is not conditional on the sinner and that God's calling of sinners to repentance and faith in Christ is effectual.  

On Molinism, God is unable to decree what a person would do in any particular circumstance because humans have libertarian free will.  Thus, fitting Molinism with Calvinism would require either assuming that either God luckily elected people that God was able to place in situations where they libertarian-freely repent and believe, or that any person God could create would libertarian-freely believe and repent under the right set of circumstances.  The former of these options seems to be essentially blasphemous.  The latter of these options then would seem to be the only way to hold these points together.

The bigger problem for Molinism is that its affirmation of Libertarian Free Will runs smack into divine sovereignty, which is also a core Calvinistic doctrine. It's not one of the five points of Calvinism, but it is a point of doctrine that some Calvinists (for example, James White here) have suggested could be called the first of six points of Calvinism.  

Colton provided another option, which is some form of Molinism that applies to lots of things, but not to salvation as such. In other words, another way to try to reconcile Molinism and Calvinism is just to say that repentance and faith are involuntary (at least involuntary in a libertarian-free sense of voluntary).  D&T at first seem to agree with Colton that this option is not a reasonable way to reconcile Molinism with Calvinism, but then seem to say that think it might be a viable way to harmonize them.  

One problem with argument is that Calvinism not only teaches that God effectual calls, but also that men respond with their will: "but because he who works in man both to will and to do, and indeed all things in all, produces both the will to believe, and the act of believing also." (Canons of Dordt, 3rd and 4th head, article 14)  the Westminster Confession is even more explicit: "yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace." (WCF, Ch. 10, Section 1)

Are Arminians Semi-Pelagians (1:11:00 to 1:25:00)

D&T assert that it's a disparaging term and tantamount to accusing Arminians of being heretics.  D&T argue that Colton's definition of Semi-Pelagianism is wrong.  D&T refer to Canon 7 of the Council of Orange.  D&T don't make application of their definition to Leighton Flowers, and I will leave that observation there.

D&T seem to argue that the Council of Orange doesn't fully embrace Augustine's views.  I may have to leave this question for another time.  For now, suffice to say that D&T's argument, as they explained it, defines Semi-Pelagianism so narrowly that even Roman Catholicism is not semi-Pelagian.

Folk Intuitions / Do People Think their Beliefs are Causally Determined (1:25:00 to 1:42:00)

D&T argue that no one thinks that their thought processes are determined.  I think the modifier "all" was used: "all their thoughts and beliefs," at some point.  It seems like that would be a necessary qualification.  Many people struggle with obsessive or intrusive thoughts, especially worries and anxieties that they seem to believe are outside of our beyond their control.  They feel as though their thoughts happen to them.  In some ways of considering thought, for example, people are encouraged to think of thoughts as distinct from awareness, such that thoughts may be involuntary, but awareness or attention is voluntary (at least with some training). 

The argument here is that "folk intuitions" are "libertarian" rather than "compatibilistic."  This section of the talk suffers from the same defects as some of the previous sections, in terms of assuming specific meanings and inaccurately characterizing the opposing viewpoint.  

D&T interact a bit with a study that evidently Colton had cited.  While I disagree with their analysis I found it interesting that Dan said that if God himself revealed that determinism is true, Dan would agree with compatibilism, whereas Tim indicated that he would deny responsibility.

D&T oddly seem to overlook that the first example, which they criticize, demonstrates a widespread refusal to accept the idea of advance knowledge of the future.  If that is indeed a folk intuition, it seems to undercut the reliability of folk intuitions.

The one interesting point that Dan raises in this section (around 1:39:00) is that if Scripture intends something other than folk intuitions, it should say so clearly.  While I agree with this, Scripture does clearly teach that God knows all things including the future.  That advance knowledge of the future undermines folk intuitions, and pushes us to look more deeply into Scripture.  

Likewise, the explicit Scriptural statements that God "predestines," need to be weighed in this same "folk intuition" scale.  As D&T seem to recognize, folk intuition regards predestination as incompatible with free will.  As with folk intuitions about the knowability of the future, folk intuitions about divine foreordination are wrong.  Moreover, since Scripture teaches both human freedom and divine foreordination, the result of a proper exegesis of Scripture is compatibilism, even if compatibilism is contrary to folk intuition.

Frankfurt cases (1:42:00 to end)

D&T argue that there is a "flicker of libertarian freedom" in each of the Frankfurt examples in which people would be willing to assign responsibility to the protagonist.  

D&T's analysis of what they labelled as "Stump's example" was not entirely clear to me.  They seemed to be conflating the Frankfurt example with a positive example of "exhaustive divine determinism."

Furthermore, the "flicker" or "flame" of libertarian freedom seems to be something that D&T grasp at.  D&T, however, do not seem to address the elephant in the room in terms of the fact that their flicker/flame is not at the time of choosing but merely at some previous time.

Calvinism vs. Reformed Molinism Debate

The debate has been posted at the Seeing God Ministries website (link to page)(direct link to mp3). The debate pitted Reformed Molinists Richard Bushey and Zachary Lawson against myself and Josh Sommer.

Molinism - Responses to a Some Attempted Defenses

Someone posting under the name Richard Bushey has a post attempting to defend Molinism against some of the criticisms offered by my friend, Dr. James White (link). I'd like to rebut a few points.

Is Molinism too heavily reliant on philosophy? Mr. Bushey argues that philosophy is inherent to every kind of theology. However, that misses the point. The problem is not simply that Molinism employs philosophy but that it is (at best) totally speculative, based solely on philosophy, rather than being based on Scripture with philosophy being employed to draw out what is implied by Scripture.

Does Molinism begin with libertarian free will aka the "autonomous will of man"? It certainly does. Mr. Bushey says that Molinist just "recognize that freedom of the will exists." The problem is that Molinists cannot establish this starting principle from Scripture. The Scriptures teach that man has a will and that he makes decisions, but not that man's will is autonomous. On the contrary, the Scriptures have plenty of contrary examples.

Does Molinism compromise God's sovereignty? Yes, though not as much Mr. Bushey seems to be willing to let it. Mr. Bushey thinks that on Molinism, God "does not have to dictate every single movement to have sovereignty." Actually, on Molinism God does decide every single movement in his decree to instantiate a single feasible world. Even so, God's sovereignty is compromised because there is a difference between the set of "possible worlds" that God could create, and the set of "feasible worlds" that humans would cooperate in bringing about. Thus, God's choices are limited by human autonomy. Oddly, they are limited by a human autonomy not even yet in existence and consequently having no actual basis.

Mr. Bushey admits, "the Molinist is saying that with the additive of human freedom, then God’s choices become limited because he wants to persist in allowing humans the luxury and virtue of freedom of the will." Since this imagined freedom supposedly results in the eternal damnation of many, it hardly seems appropriate to call it a luxury, and it quite obviously isn't a virtue when exercised in that way.

Furthermore, the idea that freedom to fall into damnation is somehow a good thing contradicts the idea that heaven is going to be a good place, since we won't have the possibility of falling into damnation. Similarly, God himself necessarily lacks the freedom to sin, which suggests that the freedom to sin is certainly not a virtue and is not truly a luxury.

Finally, the Scriptures do not teach or suggest that God has a desire that humans be autonomous. That's that unbiblical philosophical presupposition creeping back in.

Is predestination still personal on Molinism? In some strains of Molinism, where it is suggested that God tries to save the maximum number of people, it does seem impersonal to that extent. Naturally, there are a variety of Molinistic views, so William Lane Craig's views on that point are not representative of the entire spectrum of Molinists. When God chooses to instantiate a particular world, that inevitably leads to a particular group of individuals certainly being saved and all the others being certainly lost, on Molinism. So, from that perspective, it is personal and individual.

Who dealt God the cards? One of the central problems of Molinism is the grounding objection. I've dealt with at length in a previous post (here), so I won't repeat it all. In short, while human autonomy is supposed to limit God's choices prior to the final decree of creation, the problem is that there is no existing created thing at that logical instant to provide the limitation, and the limitation is not internal to God. It's an insoluable problem that can get glossed over, but which ought to trouble every Molinist. On Molinism, God is not literally dealt cards by a card dealer, but what other than a co-eternal being could limit God before God's decree to create?

Does Molinism retain freedom of the will? On Molinism, a person in a particular situation would always make the same decision. That does not look, walk, or quack like autonomy - it sounds like determinism. IF a die is a fair die, it has an equal probability of coming up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. But the Molinist will would, in a particular situation, always come up the same. That looks more like loaded dice.

Is David's experience in Keliah evidence for Molinism? Some Molinists think that God's answer to David's hypothetical question supports the idea of middle knowledge, because it suggests God knows what a person would do, even in circumstances that don't come to pass. Unfortunately, these Molinists have overlooked that God's answer is exactly the same as it would be if the men of Keliah were purely deterministic. If you don't see why, just substitute a non-human in David's question - "If I stay, will the walls collapse on me?" Obviously, in that case, the answer has nothing to do with middle knowledge. The same is the case with David's actual question. The only reason for thinking it has to do with middle knowledge is the insertion of the idea of an autonomous human will - an insertion that lacks basis in Scripture.

-TurretinFan

I've skipped over the stuff about Dr. White supposedly not knowing various things. Those accusations can hopefully be seen to be false in view of the explanations above.

The Fallible(?) God of Molinism and the Problem of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

One aspect of "Libertarian" (nothing to do with politics) Free Will (LFW for short) is the idea that a free agent can, in the same circumstance, either do A or not do A.  God's advance knowledge of the future, coupled with God's infallibility, poses a serious problem to this idea, since it seems that either what God knows will happen will necessarily (i.e. it cannot be otherwise) happen or that God is fallible (i.e. it can be otherwise than God knows).  James Anderson previously pointed this out in an article called "The Fallible God of Molinism."

William Lane Craig responded to Prof. Anderson's article regarding the "Fallible God of Molinism" in a predictable way - by arguing that although the possible worlds where the people choose otherwise are possible, in those worlds God's knowledge would be different. Thus, although a person could not bring about a world where God's knowledge is wrong, he could bring about a world where God's knowledge is different. That sounds confusing, and raises several objections.

A first layer of objection is that in this allegedly possible world is a world with different circumstances than the actual world immediately prior to the alleged free choice. In the actual world, God already has knowledge that the man will do X. Thus, in this set of circumstances, saying that the man "can avoid doing X" on its face requires different circumstances.

A typical Molinist response can be seen in Dr. Anderson's summary here (link):

Craig is correct that I made a misstep in the original argument, as I acknowledged in reply to a comment by Greg Welty. I said at first it wasn’t relevant whether God’s decree (or “providential plan,” to use Craig’s terminology) is included in C, i.e., the circumstances in which God places the free agent S, knowing that S will do A in C. But that’s mistaken, because Molinists will say that C doesn’t include God’s decree, such that in those possible worlds in which S does not do A in C, while C is the same, God’s decree is different. (As Craig puts it, God’s providential plan is not “firm and fixed” across worlds in which S chooses in C, even though C is fixed.) The counterfactuals are different in those alternate worlds and therefore God’s decree will also be different in those worlds, since it is based on those counterfactuals.

In other words, people like Craig argue that because God's knowledge is not the cause of the future action of the person, it can properly be excluded from the circumstances.  Anderson mentions how this looks like special pleading.  Molinists typically argue that it should be clear that God's knowledge is not itself the cause of the future event.  Presumably, Molinists would ground God's knowledge in his decree to instantiate and his middle knowledge.

Nevertheless, in some cases God's knowledge is plainly one of the causes of human action.  For example, we have a category we call "self-fulfilling prophecies."  While this category is not usually applied to God, we note that God's knowledge is plainly the basis for actual prophecies. Furthermore, some people whose actions are prophesied hear the prophecy and act based on their own knowledge of the prophecy.  For example, leaders of the Israelites were sometimes motivated to go up to battle by prophetic revelation of victory in that battle.  In such a case, saying that God's knowledge is not part of the relevant circumstances seems totally indefensible.

Worse than that, Molinists are overlooking the problem that even if God's knowledge itself were always kept secret and were never revealed, there is an antecedent cause of God's knowledge, which is also a cause of all the (other) circumstances.  Anderson explains it this way:

The Molinist has to say, in effect, “Don’t worry, it’s possible for S not to do A in C provided we don’t include God’s decree in C, for then it would be possible for S to do other than what God has decreed.” In other words, the Molinist has to restrict C to intramundane circumstances.

But why should the Molinist be permitted to make that move? After all, the circumstances are causally connected to God’s decree (and necessarily so in the Molinist system). The circumstances obtain only because God decided that they should obtain and caused them to obtain. If we can draw the boundary line of C so as to exclude God’s decree and his actions to implement that decree (i.e., his manipulation of intramundane circumstances), why not draw the boundary line even more narrowly, so as to exclude, say, all circumstances more than five years prior to S’s choice, or all circumstances more than fifty miles away from S’s location? Is there any principled reason to draw the boundary line of C where the Molinist wants to draw it other than to save the system? Why think that it being hot and sunny in Charlotte today is a relevant element of my circumstances but God’s making it hot and sunny in Charlotte (partly in order to direct the choices  of Charlotteans) is not a relevant element?

In other words, God's knowledge is based (at least in part in the Molinist system) on God's decree.  But God's decree is always a cause of at least some of the circumstances for every human choice.  Thus, it is fair to say, as Anderson did:

[T]here’s a clear sense in which, on the Molinist view, God determines S’s choices. It isn’t a causal determinism, but it’s still determinism in the sense that God’s decree that S will do A (which is fixed prior to any of S’s choices) guarantees that S will do A. Given that God has decreed that S will do A, S cannot do otherwise than A.

In short, in order to make the God of Molinism infallible, Molinists have to compromise LFW of creatures by artificially excluding things like the divine decree.  But about the only reason to even consider Molinism is an a priori commitment to LFW.

Furthermore, if Molinists are willing to compromise by excluding some of the causal factors of choices, what's the principled basis for rejecting a Calvinistic free will, in which a will is free in the sense that it could choose differently in different circumstances?

-TurretinFan

Craig's Dilemma - Escape for Aseity, but Hello Grounding Objection

William Lane Craig says he doesn't think aseity is threatened by middle knowledge, because he is an anti-realist with respect to abstract objects including possible worlds.  In other words, he views possible worlds as non-existent.  Thus, God's middle knowledge is not dependent on something outside himself.

While that's an understandable response, it runs smack into the grounding objection (discussed in more detail here).  By definition, middle knowledge is neither based on God's nature (or else it would be natural knowledge) nor based on God's volition (or else it would be free knowledge).

So, either what is called middle knowledge is based on something in God himself (in which case it is really free or natural knowledge, and there is no middle knowledge as such) or middle knowledge is based on something outside God (in which case we have the aseity problem).  It does not seem possible that grounds could be something that is outside God but that doesn't exist, since - by definition - nothing meets that definition.

-TurretinFan

Don't Conflate Middle Knowledge and Knowledge of Contingents of Creaturely Freedom

Alfred J. Freddoso in his lengthy introduction to his translation of Molina's "On Divine Knowledge," provides some advice that would be well taken by his fellow Molinists (p. 23):

Molina claims that infinitely many conditional future contingents obtained from eternity and that from eternity God had comprehensive knowledge of them. However -- and this is very important, though not widely appreciated -- neither of these claims distinguishes him from his Bañezian antagonists.[fn35 For an unambiguous admission of the point in question by a Bañezian, see Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., The One God (St. Louis, 1943), pp. 461-462 (n. 134) and 471. It is hard to overemphasize the importance of this point, given a marked tendency among recent writers to err by simply identifying the Molinist doctrine of middle knowledge with the claim that God has knowledge of conditional future contingents (or so-called counter-factuals of freedom). This claim, to repeat, is not a distinctively Molinist one, and, indeed, it was never in dispute in the rancorous sixteenth-century debates between Molinists and Bañezians.] What is distinctive about Molina is his controversial claim that God's knowledge of conditional future contingents is prevolitional rather than, as the Bañezians would have it, postvolitional.

I would add that Calvinists in the tradition of the real Francis Turretin agree with Bañezians on this point.  Thus, when Dan (who clearly has good taste) argues for Middle Knowledge in Exodus 3:19 by simply arguing that God shows knowledge of a conditional future contingent, or makes similar arguments as "I Told You So Molinism" from Deuteronomy 7:3-4 and 1 Kings 11:2 & 9, he is missing the point.

Rather, he is missing an argument for the distinctively Molinistic view as contrasted with a Bañezians (aka Thomistic) or Calvinistic view.  In other words, we firmly agree that God knows future contingents that are contingent on creaturely freedom (the so-called counter-factuals of freedom).  We simply affirm that God knows those future contingents postvolitionally.

Nothing in or about the cited verses suggests a prevolitional knowledge, and thus appeals to these verses continue to leave Molinism without support as to its distinctive assertions.  We recognize that some Molinists, such as William Lane Craig, are content to acknowledge that Molinism is not something taught by Scripture, and we think that all Molinists ought to join with him in this important concession.

-TurretinFan

UPDATE:

On the difference between prevolitional and postvolitional:

Prevolitional: This term refers to God's knowledge logically prior to God's decree of what will be.
Postvolitional: This term refers to God's knowledge logically following God's decree of what will be.

In other words, Calvinists say that God knows what a man would freely do or will freely do because God has decided what they would do or will do.  Thus, to take a pedestrian example, if it is true that Dan would eat pepperoni pizza if I offered to him, that is true because God decided that it is true.  Thus, God's knowledge of this truth is post-volitional - it arises from God's deciding it to be so.  By contrast, in Molinism God does not decide whether Dan would eat pepperoni pizza if I offered it to him.  This leads to a grounding problem, which I've discussed at length elsewhere (link to discussion).

However, contrary to some apparent Molinist thinking, the Calvinistic model does not assume that God decides what would be apparent from means.  Thus, for example, God has decreed what sort of person Dan is, his cultural background, his tastes, and so forth - all of which contribute to Dan's decision to accept (or not) my offer of pepperoni pizza in our hypothetical.  And my examples of what God has decreed are far too limited: God has decreed just what pepperoni pizza will smell like and how well Dan's nose will smell that, as well as whether this discussion is making you as hungry as it is making me.

William Lane Craig - If God's Just a Player, Who is the House?

William Lane Craig wrote:

God doesn’t create such a choice for Himself. The counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him are outside His control. He has to play with the hand He has been dealt.

(source)

One of the objections to Molinism is precisely that it reduces God to playing the cards he has been dealt, rather than being the dealer. But then who is the dealer? The creature? And we're back to the grounding objection (link to discussion of grounding objection).

-TurretinFan

Molinism - Some Responses

I appreciate that some Molinists / fans of William Lane Craig listened to the Back Pack Radio episode on Molinism and provided some comments.  I'd like to respond to some of the comments.

The first commenter provided the following points:

Molinism was not a response to Jansenism; it came before Jansenism. 

This is true, in the sense that Jansen was only 15 when Molina died.  More technically, Molinism is a Jesuit response to Thomism, as championed by the Dominican theologian, Domingo Bañez.  Jansenism would be one of the heirs to Bañez, rather than the other way 'round.  Since no one (that I know of) speaks of Bañezism, and since the Molinists try to claim that they are Thomists, it seems easier to simply identify Molinism as opposed to Jansenism.  This, however, is technically anachronistic, and it is fair for my Molinist listener to point this out.

Molinists do not believe "somehow God determined it."

This is true, only in the limited sense that some Molinists would be uncomfortable with using the word "determine" this way.  Nevertheless, what comes to pass is effectively determined by God in Molinism.

Molinists do not believe that 1 Sam 23 teaches that more than 1 actual world exists. 

This is true, and is connected with the grounding problem that Molinists have.

Molinists do believe that God can decide what people will do.

This is true, only in the limited sense that Molinists believe that God can decide from among things that people would do, those things that people will do.  God's freedom, therefore, is limited - and in a particular set of circumstances, God cannot decide what that person will do, because he cannot decide what that person would do, he can merely decide whether or not the person will be in those circumstances, in Molinism.

The second commenter was commenting on an earlier blog post, which makes similar comments to those in the podcast (link to blog post):

I had written: "In other words, God cannot (according to the Molinist) decide what man would do in any given circumstance, he can simply decide whether or not to let the circumstance arise."

The commenter responded:

The last phrase is unnecessarily worded to make God sound passive. God doesn't "let the circumstances arise" He actively creates circumstances.

Sometimes the circumstances include the free acts of free agents.  Molinism does not teach that God "actively creates" those circumstances.  The wording was passive to encompass the full range of circumstances.

The commenter stated:

The phrase "God makes the best of the tiles he's dealt" from the Scrabble analogy is also misleading since Molinists believes that God chose to create free agents in the first place. Or in other words, these are the resources God is using. One might just turn around and say that in the Calvinist conception God makes the best of what he can do with compatiblist agents.

This is not a very precise objection.  In Molinism, middle knowledge comes prior to the final decree to create the agents.  Unlike the Augustinian/Thomistic/Calvinistic position, in Molinism what the creatures would do is not within God's control.  In Augustinian/Thomistic/Calvinistic theology, the creatures are clay that can be fashioned by the potter any way that He likes.

The commenter added:

My point is that the phrase is unnecessarily slanted to make God sound powerless. God has to limit Himself to a particular set of options no matter how He creates the world, much like a builder limits himself after he chooses which building materials he is going to use. 

In Molinism, what men would do is not a limitation God imposes on himself, but rather a limitation imposed on God.  It is a little like the difference between a human builder and an ex nihilo creator.  But it is more dramatic than the commenter suggests: on Molinism, it is conceivable that God could have considered creating free agents, only to know by middle knowledge that all humans are transwordly damned.

It happens that such is not the case, but there is nothing in Molinism that explains the existence of at least one possible world in which at least one person is saved, because the possible worlds of Molinism depend on the decisions of free agents that do not themselves actually exist.

-TurretinFan

Molinism on Back Pack Radio

Vocab Malone graciously invited me to discuss Molinism with him and his co-hosts on Back Pack Radio (here is the mp3 of the show).

-TurretinFan