Calvinistic Molinism

For a long time philosophers and theologians have been trying to reconcile God’s sovereignty and determination over the universe with man’s freedom and responsibility. Often, responses have been unsatisfactory by either favouring a strong version of God’s sovereignty at the expense of man’s freedom, or a strong version of man’s freedom at the expense of God’s sovereignty. In this blog post, I will offer what I term the Calvinist Molinist solution, which attempts to mediate between these two extremes. However, before we can discuss what Calvinist Molinism is, we first have to examine Molinism itself.

Molinism is the theological model, first put forward by sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina as a solution to solve the sovereignty/freedom conflict, and is popular amongst contemporary philosophers such as William Lane Craig. The way Molinism attempts to solve the sovereignty/freedom conflict is by postulating that, in addition to God’s natural knowledge (knowledge of all modal truths) and free knowledge (knowledge God has about contingent affairs), God also has middle knowledge, which is knowledge of how creatures would have freely acted in non-actual circumstances. God, the Molinist says, in light of what He knows via His middle knowledge, chooses to actualise the circumstances that would bring about a world where creatures have freely chosen to act in a way that is most pleasing to Him. The Molinist maintains that God only ever actualises the best feasible world. A feasible world is a subset of possible worlds that are limited by subjunctive conditionals of creaturely freedom (henceforth SCCs) - what creatures would freely choose in a given circumstance. This is in contrast to any mere possible world, which may include scenarios where God overrides the free will of creatures to achieve some end. The molinist argues that SCCs are brute facts, and not grounded in God, which they believe must be argued to protect the freedom of man. 

Molinism has been popular amongst theologians and philosophers as it allows for both God to remain strongly sovereign while also preserving man’s freedom and responsibility. It also provides a solution to the problem of evil in that the culpability for evil, at least moral evil, can be grounded within the free actions of creatures. However, Molinism has serious problems, challenging God’s aseity and sovereignty, the doctrine of divine simplicity, and faces trouble when faced with the ‘truth-maker objection’.

Molinism threatens God’s sovereignty because it suggests that there are contingent facts that God has no control over. God is simply confronted with SCCs which He is beyond His power to do anything about. And this is not only problematic philosophically, but also Biblically, for the Bible asserts that God is sovereign over all of creation. (Job 42:2)

Molinism has the additional disadvantage of threatening divine attributes that are seen as essential to classical theism. For a start, Molinism poses a threat to the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity. Divine simplicity argues that God’s act of willing is identical to God’s act of knowing, and that these are both identical to God’s being. The problem with Molinism is that God is affected by the objects of middle knowledge in a way that entails that His knowledge could not be identical to His willing. Molinism also poses a threat to divine impassability, since it entails that God is affected and changed by the facts of middle knowledge. Moreover, Molinism challenges the doctrine of aseity, which says that God alone is self-sufficient and that all other things depend upon Him; for Molinism claims that these facts cannot be dependent upon God. This again has not only a philosophical disadvantage but a Biblical one too, conflicting with Col. 1.16. Of course, one could reject these doctrines, but this is a high metaphysical cost just to adhere to Molinism.

The final problem with Molinism is that it is incompatible with the truth-maker principle, which states that for any true proposition P, there is some entity which bears and grounds that truth, by virtue of which makes the proposition true. What makes it true that Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March is the fact of him being so assassinated. Similarly, what makes it true that there are bears in Russia is the fact of there being bears in Russia. Molinism, however, brings into question this principle, since there can be no entity that grounds the truth of SCCs. It cannot exist within the creatures, as they are yet to exist, and the Molinist argues that it cannot exist within the mind of God as this would conflict with man’s freedom. 

While those who hold to Molinism have criticised the truth-maker theory and have asserted that SCCs can exist as brute fact, we should hesitate before rejecting the truth-maker principle for the following reasons. First, truth-maker theory prima-facie is a self-evident theory, and we should not reject a self-evident theory for a less evident theory (Molinism) without good reason. Second, if we reject the idea of truth makers, we are left without an explanation of what it is that makes a given proposition true, and are thus lead into indeterminacy. Third, to reject the truth-maker principle would also bring into question the validity of the principle of sufficient reason; this principle itself has admirable prima facie plausibility and if rejected would, as said by Alexander Pruss, undermine science (The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 255.) and philosophical argument. ('The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument', in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, 2009, p. 45)

Defenders of Molinism, such as Craig, have attempted to rebut this criticism by demonstrating that certain truths cannot have truth makers, which shows the truth-maker principle to be erroneous. (Craig, 'Middle Knowledge, Truth-Makers, and the Grounding Objection', Society of Christian Philosophers, 18(3):337-352, 2001) These truths are as follows:

(1) No physical objects exist. 

(2) Dinosaurs are extinct today.
(3) All ravens are black.
(4) Torturing a child is wrong.
(5) Napoleon lost the battle of waterloo.
(6) The US President will be a woman in 2070.

The problem with Craig’s counter-examples is that it relies on assumptions that are classically rejected by classical theists, such as nominalism and the A-theory of time. (2), (5), and (6) all have a truth-maker if we adopt a B-theory of time. (1)’s truth-maker can be explained by appealing to the totality of facts that exist, which includes the facts about the essences of things that exist within the mind of God and whether their potentialities have been actualised or not. This explanation, of course, is excluded on a nominalist account. (4) Can have a truth-maker, again by appealing to the essences of things. On classical essentialism, it is the essence of a thing that defines what is right or wrong for a thing to do. (3)’s truth-maker is also the essence that exists within the mind of God, which defines Raven’s as birds that are black. 

There is a lot more that can be said about truth-makers, but that is a subject for another blog post. Nevertheless, it should be clear that for the traditional classical theist, Craig’s counter-examples are not going to hold weight.

Given that Molinism has a high metaphysical cost, what might be offered in its place that overcomes these problems? I suggest Calvinistic Molinism. Calvinistic Molinism, instead of postulating SSCs as brute fact, instead argues that the SCCs exist within the mind of God as His thoughts. These SSCs are a result of our natures that first exist as essences, or blueprints, within God’s mind. Contrary to what the Molinist might say, it is hard to see why this ought to be taken as denying free will anymore than if the natures are just the result of some undetermined brute fact. Moreover, Calvinistic Molinism has the advantage that it can exist without conflicting with classical theism, and other intuitive principles while also preserving man’s freedom, since God’s sovereignty over the actions of creatures are not the direct result of His particular decrees. 

What might be said to be problematic with Calvinistic Molinism? Perhaps the biggest problem is that it makes the problem of evil more acute, making it seem to be the case that God is the author of sin. There are two ways that one could respond to this challenge. First, we might be able to say that while both God and y are equally responsible for creating s when y does sinful action s, they are not equally to blame. This is because blame attaches itself to intentions. We might be able to say, therefore, that the intention that God had for creating s was to promote the greatest good whereas the intention that y had was not but rather was to benefit himself, meaning that God is not blameworthy whereas y is. 

An additional response is to appeal to our inability to fully comprehend God and His influence over the world. It is wrong to imagine that the way God exercises control over His creation is similar to that of how a man has control over puppets. Instead, we should picture it as being analogous to how an author has control over the events of a novel. Within a crime novel, when the Butler murders Mrs White, we assume that the punishment that the Butler receives is just - we do not object because the story was determined and written by an author. In an analogous way, we can say that while God has control over His creation, the way He exercises His control is not one that violates man’s responsibility or makes God responsible for evil.