Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Something's gone awry


What would follow from that difficulty is not that “the God of Molinism is fallible” or that “God is fallible on the Molinist view” or that “according to the Molinist view there are possible worlds in which God’s plans fail”. No, they are clearly committed to ID. That’s their view! Rather, at worst, they’ve given an inadequate metaphysical defense of how ID could be true.
When an Arminian comes to us Calvinists and says, “According to the Calvinist view, people are robots and God is a moral monster,” don’t you think that’s a misrepresentation? Isn’t it better for them to say, “Calvinists say that humans have free agency and that God is holy, but I don’t see how they give a consistent defense of those commitments”?
Here’s a quicker analogy: “Molinists say that God knows these counterfactuals, but we all know they haven’t solved the grounding objection. Without grounds, there aren’t any truths to know. Therefore, Molinists believe in an ignorant God. The God of Molinism is ignorant.” Surely something has gone awry here. 
http://www.proginosko.com/2014/01/the-fallible-god-of-molinism/#comment-1901

What's gone awry is the analogy. The ostensible warrant for Calvinism is revelation. By contrast, even Craig admits that middle knowledge is not a revealed truth. At best, the traditional Molinist prooftexts only establish divine counterfactual knowledge, not middle knowledge. 

Calvinism rises or falls on exegesis. Exegetical theology and systematic theology. If we have the exegesis right, and the logical synthesis right, then it's authorized by divine revelation.

By contrast, Molinism is a construct of philosophical theology. Therefore, we judge it by a different standard. It must withstand rational scrutiny. It rises or falls on reason alone. Unlike Calvinism, it can't invoke the argument from authority to justify appeals to mystery. 

1 comment:

  1. Unlike Calvinism, it can't invoke the argument from authority to justify appeals to mystery.

    BAM! Truth bomb!

    ReplyDelete