Permutations of Molinism

“It’s no contradiction or incoherence to permit something you hate, so long as you have good reason to do so…Yes, God is willing to permit sin to obtain the greater good.”

It’s no contradiction or incoherence to decree something you hate, so long as you have good reason to do so. Yes, God is willing to decree sin to obtain the greater good.

“On Molinist grounds, ultimate responsibility is essential to moral culpability. Sometimes people are responsible for the downstream consequences of what they do when they are ultimately responsible, and sometimes they are not. But UR is and must always be a factor (even if an upstream one).”

That’s unresponsive to my question, since you’re collapsing two issues into one. The problem of evil involves two parties: God and man. A successful theodicy must satisfy at least two conditions:

i) Show how man can be blameworthy

ii) Show how God can be blameless.

Libertarians often act as though, if they succeed is doing (i), that ipso facto achieves (ii) at the same time. But these are distinct issues.

And I think this is especially the case given the objections which they level against Calvinism. For example, they say the God of Calvinism is culpable because he lacks the attribute of omnibenevolence. He doesn't act in the best interests of all his rational creatures.

Now, suppose, for the sake of argument, that libertarianism can successfully ground human responsibility. Yet that, of itself, fails let God off the hook. Inculpating man doesn't automatically exonerate God–on libertarian grounds.

For even if the damned richly deserve their fate, there is still the question of whether God acted in their best interests.

I don't see that Molinism is any improvement over what it finds so odious in Calvinism in that respect. For, as Craig admits, God doesn't always act in the best interests of all parties concerned. Even though it lay within his power to created a world in which all men are heavenbound, he chooses instead to create a world with a mix of heavenbound and hellbound men inasmuch as that will have more heavenbound men overall.

But in that case, his intentions towards the hellbound are arguably malevolent rather than benevolent. He means them harm. And he always meant them harm.

So God isn't equitable on that scheme. He doesn't treat everyone equally or lovingly. He doesn't even try to do what's best for each and every individual.

Moreover, they never had a chance. He didn't say to Judas, "Hey, Judas, here you are in a possible world where you will enjoy eternal bliss when you die, and here's your counterpart in another possible world where you will suffer eternal misery when you die. Which possible world would you like me to instantiate?"

“The order of the decrees has more to do with the arrangement of events in a specific world rather than the selection on one whole world over another.”

i) I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Given the linearity of time and causation, you can’t rearrange the order of events and still have the same events. For instance, your father can’t be born after you were born.

Therefore, you’re not describing different ways to arrange the same events, but a different set of events. Hence, different possible worlds.

ii) Are you now denying that Molinism involves a divine choice between different possible worlds? Is there only one possible world? In that event, the actual world is necessary.

“God does have an ultimate goal; His glory. He had multiple ways of achieving His goal; His wisdom and power ensured He would reach His end regardless of the many paths He could have taken or multiple possible worlds He could have created.”

i) How does that distinguish Molinism from Calvinism?

ii) It’s an overstatement to suggest that every possible world is a God-glorifying world. Not all logical possibilities glorify God.

“In some of those worlds, freedom to sin, but not sin itself, was a necessary means to obtaining God's ultimate goal.”

Why would they need the freedom to sin unless they exercise that option?

“Supralapsarianism seems to require, as a brute fact, the election/reprobation of specific individuals to glorify God.”

i) How is that a brute fact? You just stated a teleological relationship. If election/reprobation are instrumental in the glorification of God, then that is not a brute fact, for you have just given an underlying rationale for election/reprobation.

ii) Do you deny that, according to Molinism, God elects/reprobates specific individuals?

“Supralapsarianism hardly seems consistent with the idea of possible worlds. If God decrees the outcome first, what other outcome could there be?”

i) I’ve repeatedly explained that to you, Dan. Why do you chronically raise the same objections without even acknowledging, much less refuting, the explanation?

Given the decree, then the outcome cannot be otherwise. But that hardly makes the decree a given. The fact that things cannot be otherwise if God decrees one particular outcome hardly means that God can only decree one particular outcome.

That’s not a hard distinction to grasp, Dan. Why do you persist in misrepresenting the issue?

There are two parties to the transaction: God and man. To say that man lacks the freedom to do otherwise given the decree hardly suggests that God lacks the freedom to decree otherwise.

Try to be honest, Dan.

ii) Moreover, as I’ve explained to you, Dan, a possible world is a reflection of what God could possibly do. Divinely conceivable possibilities. That supplies the reservoir from which God decrees one possibility over another. So, yes, there’s something prior to the decree.

“If the outcome requires certain specific means, what other means could there be?”

Surely you’re not serious, Dan.

i) To begin with, to say specific ends demand specific means scarcely negates other possible worlds. For other possible worlds don’t have the same ends.

ii) Moreover, it’s sometimes possible to achieve the same end through different means. There can be different ways to reach one city from another. I might drive. Or fly. If I drive, I might take one route rather than another.

Are you even trying to offer a serious response?

iii) Furthermore, different possible worlds can encapsulate incommensurable goods. Different possible worlds can better in some respects, but lesser in other respects.

iv) Finally, some differences are trivial differences. In one possible world, Dan Chapa wears light brown socks to church one Sunday; in another possible world, dark brown socks. Does one shade bring greater glory to God than another? No.

“Perhaps you are confusing me with Robert. I don’t have a problem with Kane’s definition for what Kane uses it for.”

You’ve certainly changed your tune since you were debating Manata and me on the subject.

“I consider possible worlds as God's knowledge of what He can do and enable us to do.”

In that event, God is the ultimate source of human freedom. So wouldn’t that make him ultimately responsible as well?

“If two events are related determinately God knows it as a determinate relationship, if two events are related indeterminately, God knows the relationship as such.”

That only pushes the question back a step. What makes them determinate in the first place, such that God knows their determinate relationship? If it goes back to God, then God is the ultimate source.

“God's knowledge is atemporal but He knows things that can have temporal and causal relationships. So it's wrong to deny time and causal relationships are 'in play' in possible worlds.”

You’re equivocating. Possible worlds may represent time and causality, just as a novel may represent time and causality–even though the representation is, itself, timeless. An abstract object.

“Possible conscious agents do not make real choices, they make possible choices.”

Since merely possible agents aren’t conscious agents, they can’t make intentional choices. So how does Molinism satisfy libertarian demands on deliberation?

“What God knows He knows immediately; His epistemology is unique to Him so we cannot explain it.”

i) So Molinism must retreat into brute factuality. Yet you found that objectionable in Calvinism (as you misrepresent it).

ii) Moreover, retreating into mystery at this point is arbitrary. The question at issue is how possible outcomes subsist, such that God can know them. Do they inhere in a coeternal plenum, independent of God’s nature or will (a la Creel)?

Or do they inhere in the nature of God? If the latter, then God is their ultimate source.

“Well, the hypothetical situation includes hypothetical creation and concurrence…”

You keep missing the point. What constitutes possible worlds (and possible persons) in your understanding of Molinism? Are they self-subsistent entities, or do they subsist in the mind of God?

If the latter, then God knows what they would or could do because they are the expression of divine cognition. Divine ideas.

“The alternative seems to be believing that if God created Bob in such and such circumstances, Bob would do nothing.”

You persist in missing the point. You treat possible worlds as a given. But what makes them a given, Dan?
What makes them a given in relation to which God knows the outcome? Do you subscribe to an ontological dualism according to which God and possible worlds eternally coexist as distinct entities? Where do possible worlds (qua possible) come from, Dan? What’s their source of being?

“On the one hand, it's wrong to say that since Judas didn't choose every aspect in the universe, he didn't make any choices at all.”

When was he given that choice, Dan? Not as a merely possible agent. As a merely possible agent, Judas was in no position to choose between alternate courses of action. A merely possible agent is not a conscious agent. He can’t deliberate. He can’t give informed consent.

“The issue you raise could be avoided by either appealing to trans-world damnation of all that will actually be damned.”

If you say that Judas suffers from transworld depravity, then you admit that Judas never had the freedom to do otherwise. So what becomes of libertarian freedom as a precondition of responsibility?

“Or by saying God's decree of who to create precedes middle knowledge.”

If God’s decree of who to create precedes middle knowledge, then Judas didn’t have a say in which Judas-containing world that God decreed to create. Judas wasn’t given the option of choosing the Judas-inclusive world in which Judas enjoys eternal bliss, rather than the Judas-inclusive world in which Judas suffers eternal misery. How does that do justice to libertarian freedom, Dan?

“Or the issue could be embraced as an asset rather than a liability, by those who deny the possibility of trans-world damnation and place election prior to the decree to create this or that world.”

Even if that’s an asset for most parties concerned, that’s a liability for Judas in particular. So is Judas the pawn whom the Molinist God will sacrifice to achieve the common good?

“Finally, a mediating position says God choose which possible world to create, which entails election. This last position falls outside of Calvinism as defined by Dort, yet still contains a different type of unconditional election.”

And how does that do justice to the demands of libertarianism?

“Molinism reconciles God's providence with man's responsibility in a way that permits the natural reading of scriptural passages.”

i) So Molinism is an extrabiblical filter. It doesn’t represent the explicit or implicit teaching of Scripture. Rather, you filter the teaching of scripture through this extrascriptural grid.

ii) Given all of the rival versions of Molinism that you just ticked off (transworld depravity v. the decree to create precedes middle knowledge v. the decree to elect precedes the decree to create v. creation entails election), it’s hard to see how Molinism represents “the natural reading” of Scripture.

“The source of action.”

Isn’t God a source of human action? Does that make God a cause of sin and evil? What about the “author” of sin?

“UR.”

Surely you don’t think that’s a serious response. How is sufficient conditionality consistent with UR, while sufficient causality is not? Where’s the argument?

“Calvinists seem to believe our actions have sufficient causes.”

Once again, you’re not even attempting to offer an intellectually serious response.

What theory of causation do you attribute to Calvinism? For example, do you think Calvinism is consistent or inconsistent with a counterfactual theory of causation? And how does that compare with a Molinist theory of causation?

“In Molinism, people have contra-causal powers.”

How can you attribute contra-causal freedom to human agents if you admit sufficient conditionality into your system? If X is a sufficient condition of Y, then given X, Y must obtain.