Pages

Sunday, February 25, 2018

Molinist theodicy

Commenting on Craig's Molinist theodicy, William Hasker notes:

But God nevertheless did place them in that situation, in the full knowledge that they would sin–and so also with each and every instance of sin and evil that has ever occurred. God deliberately chose this complete world-history (this "possible world," as philosophers say) in preference to every other possibility that was available to him, and took all the steps necessary to ensure its exact realization. God, we might say, could not get everything he might want, but he could be absolutely certain of getting exactly what he planned for.

One consequence of this is that, for Molinism as for Augustinianism, the language of "permission" is really out of place as applied to God; it is too weak to cover the situation. God deliberately chose this particular world-history, with each and every instance of sin and evil it contains, and took the needed steps to ensure its exact realization. To say God "did not intend" the evil events included in his history is to strain language beyond the breaking point. God did specifically intend the Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, and whatever instances of egregious evil might come to your mind. To deny this is to trifle with words. 

Another consequence of this is that the Molinist is virtually forced to affirm the "greater-good" principle, which states that each and every instance of evil is a means to a greater good (or to the prevention of an equal or greater good) that even God could not obtain without there being that evil, or some other evil as bad or worse. Otherwise, why was that evil included in God's plan? And this is where the philosophical problem of evil really begins to bite [emphasis his]. C. Meister & J. Dew, eds. God and the Problem of Evil: Five Views (IVP 2017), 155.

No comments:

Post a Comment