Middle Knowledge allows God to know exactly how to bring a given individual to salvation. The lynchpin of Molinism: Middle Knowledge. Indeed, C* could differ from C only with respect to some such insignificant event long before the existence of the relevant agent (call her S). But no Molinist worth his or her salt thinks of the counterfactuals that refer to a creature as manacles she is powerless to escape. But if God not only knows but also determines which counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true, then he freely decided to make it the case that (7) was true. Understanding Theology Track| Online Course Bundle - Zondervan Academic Molinist Methodist (@RevIanCollier) / Twitter What is Molinism and is it biblical? No, it is not | carm.org Libertarianism requires that the future be genuinely open: Libby truly could watch the game and truly could watch the movie instead. Since I called this a superficially powerful argument, I must think that its not really a powerful one. Molinism is named after the 16th century Roman Catholic, Jesuit theologian named Luis de Molina (1535-1600). And that plan, the quotation clearly implies, is not one that God makes up as he goes along. Richard Land Responds. ), consequent to Adams action, makes (7) true prior to creation instead. Perhaps God knows what Libby would probably do, given her formed character, if he were to put her in such-and-such circumstances, but there are no guarantees here; people do act out of character, or in ways that antecedently would appear improbable even to a noetically unsurpassable creator. What is Molinism and is it biblical? | GotQuestions.org If one freely accepts the grace offered and coperates with it, a salutary action is produced; this coperation automatically makes a sufficient grace an efficacious one. Zimmermans Yet Another Anti-Molinist Argument begins from the typical Molinist assumption that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are best thought of as having complete antecedentsthat is, antecedents that state the complete causal history of the world at the time the agent in question is free to act. June 7, 2023. Here, then, the Molinist seems to have grounds to distinguish (6) from (1) through (5), for one clearly cannot, on the assumption that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are not under Gods control, proceed to assert, as (6) asserts, that they are under his control. For example, the elaborate justification of (1) offered in my Divine Providence assumes that the relevant counterfactuals are prevolitional and that their truth limits the prophecies God can make.25 No such limitations would be plausible if the truth of the counterfactuals were itself something that was up to God. Natural knowledge tells God what must be; free knowledge tells him what will (but need not) be. As noted earlier, Timothy George, the innovator of the acronym, was himself a Calvinist. Such a God inevitably takes risks if he creates free beings, for his knowledge of how they will react to his initiatives is limited. Molinism terms and definitions by Matt Slick | Jun 16, 2017 | Minor Groups & Issues, Molinism I have provided this list of terms and definitions used in Molinist discussions as provided by Molinists. But the fundamental problem is with libertarianism, not with the counterfactuals. Further, given the Molinist view of freedom, it is impossible for God to bring about the conversion of any person by the exercise of His effective call, for in the view of the Molinists it is always possible for an individual to resist God's grace. There is one other general anti-Molinist argument, what I call the Power Over the Past Argument (POPA), which might well be worthy of more attention than it has thus far received. Therefore, He actualized one feasible world, wherein he could work in, around, and through the free actions of humans. As William Lane Craig defines it, middle knowledge best synthesizes divine providence with human free will. In a nutshell the Molinists were keen to preserve man's free will and the Thomists were keen to preserve God's causal sovereignty, especially in the order of salvation. This family of objections frequently goes under the name of the grounding objection, though the singular the is obviously misleading, since such terms as ground, bring about, cause, make true, and so on are not clearly synonymous and since each individually can be interpreted in a number of different ways. At the time of Peters denial (which I assume was a free act on his part), it was already the case that. No Other Name: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ, On the first three issues, see Chapters 8 through 11 of my, A Death He Freely Accepted: Molinist Reflections on the Incarnation,, The Possibilities of Incarnation: Some Radical Molinist Suggestions,, Should Concretists Part with Mereological Models of the Incarnation?, in, For Sanders, see especially Chapter 8 in his, God, Sin and Rogers on Anselm: A Reply,. Still, most Molinists (and many non-Molinists) would probably find the argument against their Thomist opponents here convincing. God would thus be the source of the truth of the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, but without limiting the freedom of his creatures. At the center of this recent interest has been God's knowledge of possibilities involving human choice (the counterfactuals of freedom as they have been called). The former consciousness is of all necessary truths and thus is known essentially by God. Molinism, named after Luis de Molina, is a theological system for reconciling human freedom with God's grace and providence. Indeed, it is conceivable that, for every action S might perform at the time in question, there is a variation on C that, like C*, is such that, were S placed in that variation, she would perform that action. Thomas Aquinas held to both divine sovereignty and human freedom, but it was not certain how the two could blend. Second, we will discuss the acronym associated with Molinism. The controversy surrounding the picture of divine providence offered by Molina has remained ever since. He is perhaps most highly regarded by Catholics because of the influence his ideas came to have in Medieval Christendom. escaped condemnation by the Catholic authorities in Rome. God, therefore, is the first cause, Who moves causes both natural and voluntary. Evangelicals love to hear about the sovereignty of God, the glory of God in suffering, the security of God's grace, the providence of God over missions, and yes, even the utter depravity of man. Most of us contemporary combatants are not primarily historians and have only a halting familiarity with the works engendered (even into the early twentieth century) by the controversy. Indeed, the idea that even one possible creature was transworld manipulable is hard to swallow. I discuss this point in Divine Providence, pp. The British equivalent of "X objects in a trenchcoat". Prior to the decision to create Libby and to put her in such-and-such circumstances, God knows what she would do in such-and-such circumstances. What is Molinism and is it biblical? - CompellingTruth.org Kansas. Actions caused by something or someone external would be up to them, not up to me, and simply could not be actions for which I am responsiblefor which I could properly be praised or blamed. 1. William Lane Craig, for example, spends a considerable portion of his response to Zimmermans argument by calling into question what he calls the Recombination Principlethe thesis that every (strictly) consistent combination of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom constitutes a possible world-type for Godand thus calling into question the genuine possibility of voodoo worlds: Well, maybe there are worlds like that [i.e., worlds in which two counterfactuals of creaturely freedom with minor causally irrelevant differences in their antecedents differ in truth value], but it seems to me that here we begin merely to speculate. To affirm (6), then, is to abandon Molinism. For classical Molinists the question of how freedom and grace relate was much more important than abstract questions of sovereignty and free will. What-is-the-difference-between-arminianism-molinism-and-calvinism, Introduction to the Problem of Free Will and Divine Causality, from your pastor, priest, or other trustworthy counselor, Stack Overflow at WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin. With middle knowledge, he truly does know what he is about. How appealing is the openist picture of biblical authorship or of prophecy? The Supreme Court judges were part of the team that helped to draft the Constitution of Kenya which was promulgated in 2010. See p. 83 of Yet Another Anti-Molinist Argument; see also pp. Were all of the "good" terminators played by Arnold Schwarzenegger completely separate machines? If one thought of the counterfactuals about Libby as utterly beyond her control, one might have doubts about whether or not middle knowledge safeguards her freedom. Is there a name for the belief that some individuals would always freely reject salvation no matter the world in which they are created? The Molinist picture of providence has been controversial ever since its introduction. The way things could be. Being free, he had the power not to deny Jesus; and (assuming that Jesus could not have issued a false prophecy) had Peter exercised this power, Jesus never would have issued the prophecy. Each of the three camps contains a variety of viewpoints, and endeavors at application have sometimes led to strong resistance from within.39 On the other hand, outsiders have sometimes challenged adherents to one or another of the three general views to relate their providential perspective to a specific Christian doctrine, and some such challenges remain unmet.40 And surely there are unplowed fields hereother elements of belief or practice where attempts at application might prove rewarding. Abortion and contraception equals birth dearth. According to Arminianism, God first created this world (thus setting events into motion) and subsequently used His middle knowledge to decipher the actions of humans. (see THE 24 THOMISTIC THESES). First, speak of a situation that is not relevantly analogous to the particularities of Molinist providence, namely, parents conceiving children. Although Molinism is notably a doctrine addressing human free will and divine sovereignty, the overall school of thought sparked by Molina extends into a distingusshable thologcial system. When we go even further to speculate whether relative to some world or other the counterfactuals of freedom combine to constitute a world-type for God which affords him perfect control of every possible action of every possible free creature, then we are completely out of our depth. There are Scriptural reasons to back up God's middle knowledge (a great example is found in God's knowledge of Pharaoh's reaction to his grace in Exodus). "You are a what?!? If God is truly all-knowing, then he must know not only what his free creatures will do in the situations in which they in fact will find themselves, but also what they would do in any situation in which they could be placed. I myself am a Molinist (a Congruist within that framework of thinking, to be exact). What is Molinism and is it biblical? The origins of Molinism: Luis de Molina. Molinists are true romantics at heart as their acronym is ROSES. His free knowledge, then, entails the divine creative decree, which is an outpouring of contingent truths (truths actualized by an act of the will). Rather, he knows precisely how his free creatures would react to any action on his part. Omniscience and Divine Foreknowledge - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Figures from Thomas Aquinas to William of Ockham referred to him as the Philosopher. Gods necessary knowledge includes several kinds of truths. Molinism is a philosophy that seeks to deal with God's sovereignty and man's free will. The last S of Molinism's ROSES replaces limited atonement in TULIP. Men and women must freely cooperate with what God says and does if they are to become Christians. How the Pandemic Revealed a Greater Health Crisis within Evangelical Christianity, THE GROUNDING OBJECTION TO GODS MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE: ROBERT ADAMS MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL, Understanding the Praetorium of Philippians 1:13. The order of presentation (and some of the wording) in this and the next section is based on my, The language here suggests that God is in timethat there is a time when he is deciding what to do, and a later time at which he does it. Middle knowledge is the philosophical cornerstone supporting the theology of Molinism. St. Augustine did not reject human free will, as the Calvinists do. Why is the expansion ratio of the nozzle of the 2nd stage larger than the expansion ratio of the nozzle of the 1st stage of a rocket? God has knowledge of all such possible outcomes. Unsplash/Dima Pechurin. At this point, we read the following conversation: And the Lord said He will come down. Then he said Will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, They will surrender you. Then David and his men, who were about six hundred, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. His decree also has its source solely in His mind and will. 3. Request the classic book and Stephen Nichols companion teaching series. Church in hometown of Vicar of Dibley star reverses ban on female pastors, Parents group warns of Chinese Communist Party influence in American K-12 schools, Nick Vujicic unveils AI-powered solution to spread Gospel globally, Most family breakdowns arent due to couples divorcing: study, Helping your college student rediscover hope, 1 in 6 democrats believes violence is justified to restore abortion, Transforming lives post-abortion: A fresh take on healing, A plea to global Christians to pray for America. Gods grace is always resistible. Scripture scarcely mentions anything that may be thought to give support to Molinism, while teaching perfectly clearly that God works all things, even the evil actions of people who act with full responsibility, after the counsel of His own will. 6 I found an article that explains Molinism in simple, easy to understand language. sovereignty) without shirking or limiting the free will of man. How credible is it to think that, even though S performed A1 in C, she would have performed A2 in C*? Here are a few different summaries by Alfred Freddoso which may be helpful: To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. So (C A1) is shorthand for If it were the case that S was in C, S would perform action A1.. Free knowledge. How can this be consistent with Gods universal providential rule and His purposes of redemption? Thus, this middle knowledge informs God of the decisions creatures would make if placed in circumstances, and allows him to actualize a world wherein the sum of freely made creaturely decisions ultimately allows God to accomplish His purposes. I use the single-line arrow to represent counterfactual conditionals. Molina would add a concept that would offer a solution. At Keilah, fearing that Saul would attack him there, David asked the Lord whether Saul would come to Keilah. . The way things would be given free decisions made in certain circumstances. Understood in theology, counterfactuals (or counterfactuals of creaturely freedom)represent real options a free creature would have taken if he or she were placed in a certain circumstance. However, when it comes to the issue of divine sovereignty and human freedom, the first theological question I get asked as a minister is; Are you a Calvinist or an Arminian? Even though (C* A2) is true in a world close to the actual world, since (C* and A2) is true in world Z, there is every reason to think that there is another world (call it Z*) closer to W than is Z in which (C* and A1) is true. S= Singular redemption. Translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. The philosophy and theology taught by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) and by those who respect his ideas and follow his basic principles. Molinism, the name used to denote one of the systems which purpose to reconcile grace and free will. The Thomist approach says that God first decides who is predestined and then gives them efficacious grace (which is similar to the irresistible grace of Calvinism) in order to infallibly bring them to salvation. No one, not even God, could know what she either will or would freely do. That is, it could be that (C A1), (C* A2), (C** A3), and so on. Molinists typically suggest that God is, so to speak, stuck with the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom he finds true, and the stuck with locution strongly suggests that all of us see that the set God finds true is not that than which none greater can be conceived. For one attempt to connect a relatively obscure historical figure to the current debate, see, For some of the issues relevant to this point, see my review of, Risky Business: Open Theism and the Incarnation,, Self-Profile and Replies to My Colleagues, in. For foreknowledge is not simply a function of Gods free choice; rather, it is a function of his choice concerning what to create (over which he does have control) and truths about what we would freely do (truths over which he has no control). According to this tradition, then, God is not merely the one who brought all things into being. And the sacrilege flows primarily from the libertarian picture of freedom that Molinists assume. The Molinist approach says that God first decides who is predestined and then consults his Middle Knowledge in order to fashion a world where they will infallibly be brought to salvation. I have four interrelated suggestions.26, First, I think our conversations should take place with the understanding that there are three serious competitors for our support, not just (as some imply) two. The Oxford Handbook of Topics in Philosophy - Oxford Academic So this is not a coherent means of answering the moral objection. 3. See point three for a further description of the Molinist's view of divine sovereignty. But to think that such truths are beyond Gods control is all but sacrilegious. Thus, God elects to save those whom he knows will respond to his grace, but this knowledge does not come from the person, but rather within the mind of God. It may be true that modern variants of Molinism taken up by Craig or Plantinga are not particularly soteriological, but in this they depart from the early sources. Molinists contend that there are such truths and that God would indeed know them. The problem, the open theist might say, is that the Molinist still has not indicated why (6) should be treated differently from (1) through (5). Molina emphasized that this understanding did not come from the world, but rather from within the mind of God. Some might say that embracing (6), and seeing it as akin to (1) through (5) as an instance of (CCP), would primarily be deficient morally, while others might claim its defects are more fundamental and metaphysical. At any rate even if it is true that Molinism originally had more of a focus on soteriology than modern (and I would argue mainstream) Molinism does, this should be in any answer concerning it. God can then decide which situation to put her in (say, A or B) depending on which result (X or Y) can more readily be woven into a world that satisfies his creative intentions. There are many possible worlds in which Libby does not freely watch a baseball game tomorrow, and there are many ways in which God could have prevented her doing so (most radically, by deciding never to create Libby at all). Molinists need not think that Libby can do something about counterfactuals where the antecedent describes a situation shes in fact never in. 4647. Gods free knowledge is his knowledge of the contingent world He creates that follows from His decree to create the world. We need to seek, not to win by a knockout, but to win on points.31, I continue to believe that this is the approach that is most likely to prove most fruitful. Christianity Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for committed Christians, experts in Christianity and those interested in learning more.
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