Molinism and Murphyism
A reader encouraged me to check out “Molinism,” which Wikipedia describes in this way:
Molinism, named after 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile the providence of God with human free will. William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga are some of its best known advocates today, though other important Molinists include Alfred Freddoso and Thomas Flint. In basic terms, Molinists hold that in addition to knowing everything that does or will happen, God also knows what His creatures would freely choose if placed in any circumstance.
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William Lane Craig calls Molinism “one of the most fruitful theological ideas ever conceived. For it would serve to explain not only God’s knowledge of the future, but divine providence and predestination as well”.[7] Under it, God retains a measure of divine providence without hindering humanity’s freedom. Because God has middle knowledge, He knows what an agent would freely do in a particular situation. So, agent A, if placed in circumstance C, would freely choose option X over option Y. Thus, if God wanted to accomplish X, all God would do is, using his middle knowledge, actualize the world in which A was placed in C, and A would freely choose X. God retains an element of providence without nullifying A’s choice and God’s purpose (the actualization of X) is fulfilled.Molinists also believe it can aid one’s understanding of salvation. Ever since Augustine and Pelagius there has been debate over the issue of salvation; more specifically how can God elect believers and believers still come to God freely? Protestants who lean more towards God’s election and sovereignty are usually Calvinists while those who lean more towards humanity’s free choice follow Arminianism. However, the Molinist can embrace both God’s sovereignty and human free choice.
Take the salvation of Agent A. God knows that if He were to place A in circumstances C, then A would freely choose to believe in Christ. So God actualizes the world where C occurs, and then A freely believes. God still retains a measure of His divine providence because He actualizes the world in which A freely chooses. But, A still retains freedom in the sense of being able to choose either option. It is important to note that Molinism does not affirm two contradictory propositions when it affirms both God’s providence and humanity’s freedom. God’s providence extends to the actualization of the world in which an agent may believe upon Christ.
Yes, this discussion of Molinism is by far the closest I have seen to my own attempts to reconcile God’s sovereignty with humanity’s free will. (To be clear, I don’t remember ever hearing of Molinism before.) Here’s an excerpt of a post I wrote back in 2012 on this:
From our perspective, it appears that we can influence the material world. For example, I can use my “mind powers” to control my right hand. We take it for granted because we can all do it, but if I could move a rock the way I can move my hand, it would be astonishing. Yes, we can trace the cause-and-effect from the muscles in my hand up to my brain, but nonetheless it sure seems like I am “freely choosing” to open and close my hand. It really looks like I control a small part of the events in the universe, and the only way a strict materialist can really deny that, is to ultimately deny that the term “I” means anything. (That’s why going down the path of materialism, leads to nihilism and drunken Facebook sessions.)
Now the tricky part: I think what happens is that God anticipated what everybody would subjectively want to do, and then designed the laws of the material universe such that it sure looks like we are controlling atoms with our thoughts, when “really” we are just watching a movie unfold before our eyes.
Here’s an analogy: Suppose that a filmmaker could perfectly anticipate where every moviegoer’s eyes would look on the screen. Then he put up each of our names on the screen, and they started moving around. In other words, when the movie started, I would see “Bob Murphy” moving around the screen at the theater, no matter where I looked on the screen. But the guy to my right would see his name up there too, and no matter where he looked on the screen, the letters of his name would perfectly track his line of sight.
If we watched this movie for 10 minutes, and there was never a hitch, we would all be absolutely convinced that we were controlling the movement of the letters. We would think the movie theater had employed some new technology, and that there were sensors in the theater that took our muscle movements as input, and then translated that into commands for the projector, so it would “know” where to shoot the letters for us to see. This, we would convince ourselves, was the only explanation for our apparent control over the letters.
But no, suppose it really were a regular movie, put onto the film months previously. The way it works is that the filmmaker somehow knew exactly who would be watching the film that day, where we’d be sitting, and exactly where we’d be looking, down to the 10th of a second, for the whole film.
A word of warning: If you go back and read my full 2012 post, note that I claim C.S. Lewis wrote, “You don’t have a soul–you are a soul. You have a body.” Apparently C.S. Lewis never said that, even though people often attribute it to him.
Isn’t it kind of circular? God knows which options we’ll pick if placed in a certain situation. Then places us in situations where we’ll pick the pre-ordained option. Seems to me an appearance of freedom but still having not much choice in the matter. Or is there something deeper at work here?
Raja do you think the laws of physics break down when it comes to the molecules in your hand? Do you think you control your hand? That’s a pretty “deep” thing at work.
Bob, Raja’s point is that if God has engineered the situations you’ll encounter based on his knowledge of what you’ll choose to do in those situations, then you’re just being manipulated, you don’t have any real control. How does your point about the hand address that?
Bob, according to Molinism, God designs the events of the physical universe based on his knowledge what you would choose to do in every possible future (including counterfactual ones). So he sees that if a book fell on your hand, you would choose to shout, so then he might design the universe such that a book falls on your hand and then your mouth utters a shout.
But I don’t think you believe the counterfactual part. I think you just believe that God designs the physical universe based on what you will actually choose to do in the actual future, not what you would choose to do in each possible future. That would make you an adherent of occasionalism, not Molinism.
Keshav, I think God considered every possible permutation of the universe, and what humans would freely choose to do in each possible universe, then He implemented the the best of all possible universes with those constraints. So one of His non-negotiable constraints was, “People need free will in any reality I’m going to create,” but within that constraint He achieved His other purposes.
(This doesn’t mean He failed to achieve His purposes fully–it is very important to Him that people have freedom.)
Bob, you may think that there are many possible futures for the physical universe, but don’t you think that there’s only one possible future for the spiritual universe? Don’t you think that God and our souls all exist outside of time? Assuming that you do, then wouldn’t God only need to consider the choices our souls will actually make, not the choices we would make in counterfactual scenarios?
Why was god incapable of doing better? You talk about constraints on god. Isn’t he omnipotent? Either he couldn’t do better, or he could and didn’t. Too lazy?
If god wants to make a world in which Molina pours scalding water on newborns, why couldn’t a wind, one of your miracles, blow the water away at just the right instant?
Well, the argument is that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and God cannot do the impossible.
Well, the argument is that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and God cannot do the impossible.
Better than if the scalding water miraculously cooled before hitting the baby?
it’s always the same with the religious. They will say absurd things like this is the best of all possible worlds rather than abandon a belief for which they have good evidence.
Although Molinism offers an attractive “third way,” it still fails the Calvinist challenge to answer WHY some freely choose (or would do so) while others freely reject (or would). Substitute “vote for Obama” for “accept Christ as your savior” and the problem may be seen more clearly. You are technically “free” to vote for Obama, but you won’t. Why? Because you don’t believe in his policies (or voting in general). But you *could* still vote for him, even if you don’t agree with his policies. You *could* freely choose. This technicality matters little because in the end, you choose according to your beliefs and desires.
Why do some reject Christ? Possible answers (from the Christian perspective): ignorance, pride, love of sin, fear, etc. Then why do those that accept Christ not have as much of these faith-preventing obstacles (beliefs and desires) – there must be something inherently different in them (or their circumstances). I would argue that Scripture calls this difference regeneration (being made spiritually alive, or “born again”). Perhaps Arminianism or Molinism have a different answer (the inherent difference between choosers and rejecters), but in my 20 years in that camp, I never found any.
Also, the core Molinist idea of foreseen faith as a basis for election really stretches the meaning of the Greek word for “foreknowledge” (pro-ginosko). This term carries the idea of intimate, personal knowledge. The term for a foreseen event or action is pro-oida.
“Perhaps Arminianism or Molinism have a different answer (the inherent difference between choosers and rejecters)” Yeah, I think that’s the Molinist answer: there is just something inherently different about the character of choosers and rejecters, something not explainable by the circumstances they’re put in. Both kinds of people might face obstacles, but some are the kind of people who would overcome such things, and some are not.
“there is just something inherently different about the character of choosers and rejecters…”
But what is this *something*? I would argue the Biblical answer is election and regeneration. These are cause, faith is effect.
I am a fan of Molinism.
How do you feel about occasionalism?
“Take the salvation of Agent A. God knows that if He were to place A in circumstances C, then A would freely choose to believe in Christ.”
As God has (if I have understood the logic correctly) designed A and knows he will choose Christ, what from God’s perspective is the point of it ? I can see why he might want to do this as an intellectual exercise in building a weird universe with the illusion of free will , where some come to believe in Christ and other don’t. But I think I’m missing the big picture here.
Transformer, what part do you not see the point of, or what part do you think God was wrong to do?
(1) Create the universe, including all the people who will ever live.
(2) Give them free will.
(3) When designing the universe, take into account that He will give them free will and structure it accordingly so that even their evil actions are turned around to serve goodness.
I think he is saying, that if god has done the math and knows how every detail will work out, why bother making it actually happen? Not as an experiment surely. To impress his Zen master?
Why would His Zen master be impressed, especially if he knew that He was doing it to impress him? I don’t think insecurities are very impressive to a Zen master.
“Take the salvation of Agent A. God knows that if He were to place A in circumstances C, then A would freely choose to believe in Christ. So God actualizes the world where C occurs, and then A freely believes. God still retains a measure of His divine providence because He actualizes the world in which A freely chooses. But, A still retains freedom in the sense of being able to choose either option. It is important to note that Molinism does not affirm two contradictory propositions when it affirms both God’s providence and humanity’s freedom. God’s providence extends to the actualization of the world in which an agent may believe upon Christ.”
If god knows that under certain circumstances that a person will believe and then engineers those circumstances is that really free will – or freedom as a Christian defines it? Surely no one thinks this is an appropriate conclusion. If a person’s hand hovered over a button and the hand was forced to push the button would we say that the person chose to push the button? Hardly. How can theists find this kind of crap convincing? When I saw William Lane Craig’s name associated with this I knew it had to appeal to the pseudo-intellectual theist crowd.
They don’t find it convincing, most of them. The christian science crowd who let their kids die might, the suicide bombers might, the jihadi torturers might, but the garden variety believer doesn’t rush to heaven, kill disobedient children, or eschew science when something he cares about depends on it.
If god is contriving a world where he sets the conditions to determine each choice then not only is there no free will in the sense Murphy claims, but god is still determining to damn those he wills. So he’s cruel.
Bob,
I am so happy to see that you have discovered Molinism! I discovered it through William Lane Craig (who is cited in the Wiki link you posted). I think it is very helpful. It may be the case we are in a world where everything is planned but it is up to us as to what is planned; we have genuine control of our actions and decisions and that *really* matters.