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Doesn't Molinism Amount to Divine Determinism?

12/8/2011

10 Comments

 
A.  God's Natural Knowledge (1st logical moment) includes things that are necessarily true independent of God's willing them.   For example, 2+2=4 is true independent of God's willing it to be true and so is God's knowledge of all possible worlds.

B.  God's Middle Knowledge is dependent on the will of creature.  Since creatures could choose differently, God's middle knowledge would be different if they were to do so.  Hence, middle knowledge is not essential to God.

C. God's free knowledge includes His foreknowledge of everything that will happen.  Since this thrid moment of knowledge is logically posterior to God's creative decree, what God knows wills to happen depends on the world He decrees to create.  Hence, had God chosen to create a different world, then His free knowledge would have been different.  Therefore, this knowledge is not essential to God either (He could have and still be God). 
 Thus, the second and third moment of God's knowledge are considered to be non-essential to God because such truths are contingent truths that are dependent on the wills of either God, or other significantly free creatures like ourselves. 

In order to see that determinism, as that applies to a certain model of free will, has no part in Molinism, I thought I would spell out what it would mean for determinism to combine with Molinism, and then see if middle knowledge even applies to such a model.  First off, on determinism, the circumstances God places us in would causally determine our choices and actions.   However, on libertarianism and Molinism the circumstances God places us in are non-determined and freedom permitting circumstances; but these circumstances have to be fully specified in order for a determinate truth value to obtain for any counterfactual of creaturely freedom.  These circumstances then do not determine our choices and actions, but they have to be fully specified propositionally in order for a truth value to obtain for any counterfactual of creaturely freedom.  Do you see?  Determinism is a model of free will; whereas counterfactuals of creaturely freedom will not have a determinate truth value if information is not contained in the antecedent.  Even though determinate and determinism are spelled similarly they are completely different concepts.  One has to do with freedom, and the other has to with propositions have truth values.  But worse than that, if you combine determinism with Molinism you can no longer say that God's knowledge of what a creature would do in some set of circumstances is middle knowledge anymore:

"because it will collapse God's middle knowledge either into His natural knowledge (God's knowledge of all necessary truths) or else into His free knowledge (God's knowledge of contingent truths posterior to His creative decree). It will be natural knowledge, if, once all the circumstances and laws of nature are specified, it is logically necessary that one choose a certain way. It will be free knowledge if it is logically contingent how one chooses once all the circumstances and laws of nature are specified. So you can ascribe to God counterfactual knowledge, all right, just as He has counterfactual knowledge of what physical events would happen under various specified circumstances, but this isn't really middle knowledge as such. To count as middle knowledge, the relevant counterfactuals have to be (i) contingently true and (ii) true prior to God's decree."

) Isn't Molinism a kind of indirect determinism?  Can't God manipulate the circumstances to get what He wants? The Molinist affirms that we remain non-determined in fully-specified, freedom-permitting circumstances.  However, the "counterfactuals of creaturely freedom" have fully specified circumstances in their antecedents. Such counterfactuals have the form "If agent S were in circumstances C, then S would freely do action A."  Thus, the counterfactual "If Pilate were in C, he would freely do A" can be true or false only if that statement is determinate in the sense that C is fully specified. But the fully specified circumstances are not causally determining circumstances. On the contrary, they're stipulated to be freedom-permitting circumstances. How an agent would freely choose is not determined by the circumstances he is in. It is simply up to him what he will do. So don't confuse a proposition's being determinate with an action's being determined. 

So the Molinist concurs wholeheartedly with you that "if Pilate has libertarian freedom, then regardless of ALL the right biblical conditions, he can still choose one way or the other." Absolutely! He can choose one way or the other; but he will choose one way. If he were in C, he would freely choose A, though he could choose not-A instead. Don't confuse what someone would do with what he could do or think that because he would do A he could not do not-A (Borrowed from WLC).

10 Comments
JakubM link
2/14/2014 02:37:59 am

" Thus, the second and third moment of God's knowledge are considered to be non-essential to God because such truths are contingent truths that are dependent on the wills of either God, or other significantly free creatures like ourselves. "

Well, but there is a question: is something as "non-essential God´s knowledge" non-contradictory possible? Isn´t it something similar to "rounded square"? If not, in what sense it is non-essential?

"However, on libertarianism and Molinism the circumstances God places us in are non-determined and freedom permitting circumstances; but these circumstances have to be fully specified in order for a determinate truth value to obtain for any counterfactual of creaturely freedom. These circumstances then do not determine our choices and actions, but they have to be fully specified propositionally in order for a truth value to obtain for any counterfactual of creaturely freedom."

Is it, please, possible to express this sentention in other words? I am not natural english speaker and I have a little problems with translation of this ...

Reply
Kevin V
10/30/2014 09:56:32 am

Hello,

Essential truths are necessary truths and truths dependent on the will of God. Non-essential truths are about contingent states of affairs like human free choice, laws of nature, and the like. They are non-essential because they could have been false, in which case God's knowledge would also have been different, and they are determined by things outside of God's will, at least in part.

The second paragraph is just saying that even though God places us in the circumstances we make our free choices in, we are free to make them in terms of being the ultimate source of those choices because God doesn't cause us to make our choices, and neither do the circumstances in and of themselves.

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JakubM link
10/30/2014 05:47:19 pm

Hello, thanks for reply.

"Essential truths are necessary truths and truths dependent on the will of God. "
I have a problem with this, namely with labeling the "truths dependent on the will of God" as essential. Could the will of God have been other than in fact is? Well, christians usually admit that God could create completely another possible world than he has actually created. But on the other hand they insist on absolute immutability of God in any sense. So they have to explain the non-contradiction between these two propositions: immutability of God (and so his will) but mutability of the term of his will. In my opinion the truth dependent of God´s will fall into the middle knowledge enclosure.

More coments after re-reading the article:
"But the fully specified circumstances are not causally determining circumstances." - I think this sentence needs reasoning. How do we know it? Looking at the issue from the epistemic point of view (which is the point of view we´re always in!), one may say that using the occams razor, we do not need one more explaining entity (i.e. free will) because we can succesfully get by only with fully specified circumstances as the explanation of why had things happened the way it happened. The second question is the question of causality - what exactly it is. I haven´t read the whole book "Principle of sufficient reason" from Alexander Pruss but I understood it in the way that the causality principle is special case of principle of sufficient reason.

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Kevin V
10/31/2014 01:11:50 am

Hello,

I want to take back what I wrote about truths that are essential to God including actions dependent on the will of God. That isn't correct. William Lane Craig places that kind of knowledge in the third moment, or free knowledge which would have been different had God chosen differently, but not in His second moment or middle knowledge as you would have it.

I side with William Lane Craig in affirming that God is changeless without creation, but not immutable, and upon entering into time at the moment of creation is changing by being related to the world. Immuntability leads to contradictions I think. Don't confuse a de facto property with a modal property.

Since Molinism presupposes libertarian free will, the way we would know that circumstances are freedom permtting would be entailed by the existence of libertarian free will. So, one would look at the evidence for libertarian free will.. Without it, a robust middle knowledge isn't possible, and neither are freedom permitting circumstances so defined.

JakubM link
10/31/2014 02:50:29 am

"Don't confuse a de facto property with a modal property. "
What´s the difference between the two (Concerning God)?

"Molinism presupposes libertarian free will"
Thanks for explanation, I don´t know molinism much well. So it means that molinism doesn´t try to prove free will?

Kevin V
10/31/2014 03:24:00 am

1-You are correct that Molinism presupposes the existence of free will and doesn't offer any reason to support it.

2-If God were immutable, then it is impossible for God to change in any way in ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, which makes immutability a modal property, and I think implies that God cannot act. But if God is in fact changeless (de facto) without creation, then there are possible worlds (like ones God chooses to create in) where God ceases to be changeless in certain respects just by acting.



Reply
Derrick
8/27/2015 12:37:06 am

"How an agent would freely choose is not determined by the circumstances he is in. It is simply up to him what he will do."

I am sympathetic to molinism. Though I am not a trained philosopher, I have read Craig, freddoso, flint, and others concerning molinism. However, the same question keeps popping in my head as I read from all of them. All of them maintain, as you do, that a certain choice/action will always follow from a certain fully specified set of circumstances. Though it is claimed that libertarian free will is compatible with this picture, how can that be? It requires that every single action/choice made in that possible world known by God via middle knowledge will occur exactly the same in the world actualized, for every such choice/action is in fact rendered certain by the circumstance (fully specified, of course). This sounds suspiciously similar to a compatibilist description. It seems that lfw is possibly, but not at all probable given the description of all molinists that I have read. Am I missing something?

Reply
Kevin V
9/1/2015 06:52:35 am

Hello Derrick,

Thanks for your note. I can do no better than quote William Lane Craig's answer to a question similar to yours:

"The counterfactual 'If Pilate were in C, he would freely do A' can be true or false only if that statement is determinate in the sense that C is fully specified. But the fully specified circumstances are not causally determining circumstances. On the contrary, they're stipulated to be freedom-permitting circumstances. How an agent would freely choose is not determined by the circumstances he is in. It is simply up to him what he will do. So don't confuse a proposition's being determinate with an action's being determined...If he were in C, he would freely choose A, though he could choose not-A instead. Don't confuse what someone would do with what he could do or think that because he would do A he could not do not-A."

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/misconceptions-about-middle-knowledge#ixzz3kWRqbi9v

Reply
Derrick
9/1/2015 04:23:08 pm

Thank you for the reply! I've read Craig's response before. Here is my problem with it. (Note that I am NOT a trained philosopher.) "On the contrary, they're stipulated to be freedom-permitting circumstances." Logically, there is no contradiction that is created by his response, as far as I can see. However, it seems exceedingly implausible. To the question, "How can the choices/actions of agents unfold without fail in the actualized world exactly as they were foreseen via middle knowledge? How does such a scenerio not require some type of determinism, as even you say that everyone will CERTAINLY act/choose in a certain way in certain circumstances?" The answer from Craig and others follows: "Well, you see, there is no problem as long as the circumstances are 'fully specified'. And anyway, we do stipulate these circumstances to be freedom-permitting." Just because one says this, though, does not make it at all plausible. A move from partially specified to fully specified circumstances does little to nothing to explain how there can be no possibility that the agent would choose otherwise. Saying that they are "freedom-permitting circumstances" does nothing to explain why, then, there is no possibility that the agent would choose otherwise. While it is logically possible that this would not happen, it is almost totally implausible that libertarian free will is actually preserved in this model. I want to believe it is, but their answers seem not to be answers at all. Am I missing something?

Kevin V
10/7/2015 04:13:51 pm

Hello Derrick,

It seems as if you are not understanding the distinction between a DETERMINATE counterfactual having a truth-value (If Derrick were in circumstance x as specified by features such as..., then he would freely choose y) AND CAUSAL DETERMINISM which says every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature.

Even if God doesn't have middle knowledge because no counterfactuals of creaturely freedom can be fully specified, or be DETERMINATE and have a truth-value, then causal DETERMINISM can still be true.

Likewise, there can be worlds in which causal DETERMINISM is false (perhaps the actual world is such a world) because human beings possess AGENT causation, which is distinct from EVENT causation, that allows them to choose between A and not-A, and God does not have counterfactual knowledge because such propositions cannot be fully specified, or be given DETERMINATE truth conditions.

Lastly, there can another kind of world in which both causal DETERMINISM is true because human beings have agent causation, and God has counterfactual knowledge of whether humans will freely choose A or not A because such propositions can be fully specified. Hopefully this is the world we are in. However, the key is that human free decisions are EXPLANATORILY PRIOR to God's knowledge of what we humans will freely do even though God's knowledge of what will happen in the future is CHRONOLOGICALLY PRIOR to what happens. This implies that humans are still free to choose other than they in fact will AND if they had, then God's knowledge of the future would have been different. Just as the weather explains why a barometer reading is what it is, and had the weather been different, then so too would the barometer reading, God's knowledge of the future is explained by what humans will freely do but if they would have chosen differently, then God's knowledge of the future would have been different. God is like an infallible barometer.

Hope this helps.
Kevin V

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