Molina

[thinkandmull]

From an article on wikipedia, the following was said:

“Jesuit Luis de Molina published at Lisbon his Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis, in which he explained efficacious grace on the basis of scientia media. Bañez, the Dominican professor at Salamanca, informed the Archduke Albert, the Habsburg’s Viceroy of Portugal, that the work contained thirteen certain provisions that the Spanish Inquisition had censured.”

It amazes me that there could be 13 separate issues of debate on this question of predestination. A number like 5 or six is more what I would have guessed. Can anyone else make a guess as to what these 13 articles of dispute could have been?

 

[dmar198]

From an article on wikipedia, the following was said:

“Jesuit Luis de Molina published at Lisbon his Concordia liberi arbitrii cum gratiæ donis, in which he explained efficacious grace on the basis of scientia media. Bañez, the Dominican professor at Salamanca, informed the Archduke Albert, the Habsburg’s Viceroy of Portugal, that the work contained thirteen certain provisions that the Spanish Inquisition had censured.”

It amazes me that there could be 13 separate issues of debate on this question of predestination. A number like 5 or six is more what I would have guessed. Can anyone else make a guess as to what these 13 articles of dispute could have been?

Sure, I can make up all sorts of possible disputed articles about freedom and predestination.

Is human freedom an arbitrary freedom? (“Liberi arbitrii”)
Is the will geared unswervingly toward the good? (as Thomism says)
Can a free human action be caused by God?
Does Scripture teach that God causes free human actions?
Does Thomism imply that there is no free will?
Does Molinism imply that there is no free will?
Is Scripture silent about free will?
Is Scripture silent about arbitrary freedom?
Can man’s will affect eternal causality?
Does God have middle knowledge?
Does Molinism imply that God has discursive knowledge?
Is predestination based on foreseen actions?
Is salvation based on foreseen actions?
Does Molinism imply that God depends on man for something?

There’s fourteen and it only took me a couple minutes. It’s easy to multiply questions that have possible heretical answers. The content of each possibly-heretical proposition is allowed to overlap with other ones. All someone has to do to put a book on trial is find a proposition in it that Could be interpreted in a heretical way. Then you can claim ground for a debate. My opponent is at Least ambiguous, you can say, and therefore his book should be censored at Least until he clarifies. And if your opponent is mad enough, he’ll never accept any clarification as sufficient, because it’s easy to find more sentences that could possibly be interpreted in a heretical way.

 

[thinkandmull]

I am counting ten propositions there that could be taken from a Molinists work and said to be heretical. I find this topic very interesting. The other propostitions could be almost identical in formulations. Molinism is important in understand theory B about time and free will, very important this days considering what is being discussed

 

[thinkandmull]

The Old Catholic Encyclopedia says about Augustines opinion that the greater delight infallibly wins over in free will decisions: “After an official investigation, Benedict XIV exonerated the system”. Does this mean it is not contrary to Catholic truth or just that it cannot be infallibly considered such until it is condemned in the future?

 

[Vico]

I am counting ten propositions there that could be taken from a Molinists work and said to be heretical. I find this topic very interesting. The other propostitions could be almost identical in formulations. Molinism is important in understand theory B about time and free will, very important this days considering what is being discussed

Later analysis revealed only nine. But then, his works were found to be good and were adopted for teaching.

The related dogmas of faith that have been defined by the Church are:

• There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will.
• There is a supernatural influence of God in the faculties of the soul which coincides in time with man’s free act of will.
• The Human Will remains free under the influence of efficacious grace, which is not irresistable.
• There is a grace which is truly sufficient and yet remains inefficacious (gratia vere et mere sufficiens).
• Grace cannot be merited by natural works either de condigno or de congruo.
• God gives all the just sufficent grace (gratia proxime vel remote sufficiens) for the observation of the Divine Commandments.
• God, by His Eternal Resolve of Will, has predetermined certain men to eternal blessedness.
• God, by an Eternal Resolve of His Will, predestines certain men, on account of their foreseen sins, to eternal rejection.
• God’s knowledge is infinite.
• God knows all that is merely possible by the knowledge of simple intelligence (scientia simplicis intelligentiae).
• God knows all real things in the past, the present and the future (Scientia visionis).
• By knowledge of vision (scientia visionis) God also foresees the free acts of the rational creatures with infallible certainty.

 

[thinkandmull]

Another doctrine of Molina, I found out, that was opposed was the idea that it is a greater good to do something difficult because of little grace than to do something that is made easier from much grace. I also say a quote from Augustine but I don’t know how to translate it: “Cujus autem miseretur, sic euim vocat” My question is whether I can believe that Augustiniasm on this question is contrary to Catholic doctrine of free will. It seems obviously so to me, but the old Catholic Encyclopedia says Benedict XIV “exonerated it”. I am trying to find out if this means simply that it has not been decidely declared contrary to that doctrine yet

 

[dmar198]

The Old Catholic Encyclopedia says about Augustines opinion that the greater delight infallibly wins over in free will decisions: “After an official investigation, Benedict XIV exonerated the system”. Does this mean it is not contrary to Catholic truth or just that it cannot be infallibly considered such until it is condemned in the future?

Another doctrine of Molina, I found out, that was opposed was the idea that it is a greater good to do something difficult because of little grace than to do something that is made easier from much grace. I also say a quote from Augustine but I don’t know how to translate it: “Cujus autem miseretur, sic euim vocat” My question is whether I can believe that Augustiniasm on this question is contrary to Catholic doctrine of free will. It seems obviously so to me, but the old Catholic Encyclopedia says Benedict XIV “exonerated it”. I am trying to find out if this means simply that it has not been decidely declared contrary to that doctrine yet

First, I don’t think any pope has intervened infallibly on the issue of predestination and/or the controversies between Molinists, Augustinians, and Thomists. Second, I don’t know what Benedict XIV said about Augustinianism, but based on the above, and on the fact that Molinism and Thomism are still allowed, I’m confident that whatever he said exonerating Augustinism would not require anyone to accept Augustinism. Third, be careful not to characterize St. Augustine’s entire system by that one line alone about free will doing whatever delights it. His most significant book on free will is probably Grace and Free Will, and it does not contain anything resembling that remark from what I can see. Cornelius Jansen jumped on the single line that you’ve noted from the Catholic Encyclopedia’s summary, but I don’t think that was a good move. We should interpret people based on their actual books, not just a single line they said somewhere in a letter.

 

[dmar198]

We should interpret people based on their actual books, not just a single line they said somewhere in a letter.

BTW the letter where he said that line was his Letter to Simplician on Various Questions. One appears at the following link: books.google.com/books?id=T7iQJQiJSvEC&pg=PA376#v=onepage&q&f=false The other is in the following book: amazon.com/Responses-Miscellaneous-Questions-Works-Augustine/dp/1565482778. Click “Look inside.” Page 185 appears to be the part you want.

 

[thinkandmull]

so you think the common consensus in old manuals about Augustine’s (“reed”) position could be mistaken?

 

[dmar198]

BTW the letter where he said that line was his Letter to Simplician on Various Questions. One appears at the following link: books.google.com/books?id=T7iQJQiJSvEC&pg=PA376#v=onepage&q&f=false The other is in the following book: amazon.com/Responses-Miscellaneous-Questions-Works-Augustine/dp/1565482778. Click “Look inside.” Page 185 appears to be the part you want.

“Cujus autem miseretur, sic eum vocat, quomodo scit ei congruere, ut vocantem non respuat” (Ad Simplicianum, I, Q. ii, n. 13)

The reference appears to mean Letter to Simplician Book 1 Question 2 Paragraph 13. That appears to correspond to the last line in Paragraph 13 on page 195 of this book.

“But the person on whom he has mercy he calls in such a way as he knows is appropriate for him, so that he may not reject him who calls.”

 

[dmar198]

so you think the common consensus in old manuals about Augustine’s (“reed”) position could be mistaken?

I don’t know, I haven’t read them or studied this enough to say for sure. But I do know this: the summary “the will always chooses whatever delights it the most” seems acceptable to me because it seems just like another way of saying “The will always does whatever it wants.” The summary “whatever has the strongest delight infallibly wins over the will” seems to be a legitimate way of expressing the former summary. All of these summaries, however, seem too summary to me. I don’t think they should be held up as the heart of St. Augustine’s position. There’s definitely more to the story there.

 

[thinkandmull]

Augustine said free will is like a reed in the wind, it will always bend to the greater force. Just as with a Bible verse, if there is a quote that can only be interpreted one way, someone can’t really go the the default of considering ones entire system. If the writer is consistent, one unambiguous statement suffices.

 

[dmar198]

Augustine said free will is like a reed in the wind, it will always bend to the greater force. Just as with a Bible verse, if there is a quote that can only be interpreted one way, someone can’t really go the the default of considering ones entire system. If the writer is consistent, one unambiguous statement suffices.

In my opinion, there is a sense in which nothing is unambiguous. If by Ambiguous you mean Capable of being interpreted in more than one way, then I think Every sentence is capable of being interpreted in more than one way.

Patrick Madrid uses an analogy that goes like this. Take this sentence as an example: I didn’t say you stole the money. It seems like an easy sentence to interpret. But the meaning can change depending on which word you emphasize, and in that light all the words could change the meaning: I didn’t say you stole the money means someone Else said it. I didn’t Say you stole the money implies that I Thought it. I didn’t say You stole the money implies that I said someone Else stole it. I didn’t say you Stole the money implies that I said you borrowed it or something. I didn’t say you stole the Money implies that I said you stole something else.

Add in context and things get even more complicated. St. Augustine’s analogy of the reed swayed by the wind can be quite compatible with free will if the reed can sway itself too. I doubt he said that in context, but it seems quite possible to me that he could use that analogy in a section of a work where he’s emphasizing the role of outside influences without implying that our will has no control over itself like a reed.

Modern day apologists often use the example of protestants being like a ship without a rudder. They don’t mean they can’t control themselves in an absolute sense, but only that they don’t have all the things the Church offers to guide us to salvation. However, if the ship without a rudder analogy was the only statement you took from modern day apologists, you might reach the conclusion that we think protestants don’t have freedom. The safe way to interpret somebody is not to take a short analogy they used as the sole rule for determining their meaning.

 

[thinkandmull]

If someone says “in all choices humans have the same free will that a bee has”, it is clear what it means. Otherwise the nothing of faith can be known because all the sentences would be ambiguous

Coming back to Molinism, they believe that every possible choice a person WOULD make has a potentiality to be in reality, and God choices which choice to be made actual in time on earth

 

[thinkandmull]

A lot of people misunderstand Molinism. To say that God merely knows what a person will do with grace under any situation is to know the person and perfectly how grace will affect him and thus the outcome, which is the position of those attacking Molinism. This is so because Molinist still believe in the power of grace and their opponents still believe in free will under its influence

 

[IWantGod]

A lot of people misunderstand Molinism. To say that God merely knows what a person will do with grace under any situation is to know the person and perfectly how grace will affect him and thus the outcome, which is the position of those attacking Molinism. This is so because Molinist still believe in the power of grace and their opponents still believe in free will under its influence

Hello thinkandmull

What is the key difference between Aquinas and Molina?

 

[thinkandmull]

let me clarify lest I was ambiguous. According to Molinism we have all made choices in each of our possible situations in potency. Through God only one choice in each situation is made actual. The only other position besides this and Thomism-Augustinianism is the belief that God knows what happens in history by viewing history in a glance; in this belief though God has no pre-decision of whether some will be saved and some lost. In Molinism God choses to actualize some of the choices that were evil, so that that His justice will shine forth as well as His mercy.

 

[thinkandmull]

In the Thomistic school God’s knowledge is prior to decisions (potential and actual), in Molinism it is reversed (God knows what your choice is by knowing your choice itself)

 

[thinkandmull]

The problem with believing that God simply knows what we chose, because He knows that
future in one glance, is that can’t explain prophecy. If God is there as history unfolds, its convoluted to say that God steps into the actions of history with prophecy, since He only knows the future as it unfolds with His single glance.

So I op for Molinism. Imagine God holding countless earths in His hands, and then choosing one of them to be His creation. I don’t think He is necessarily responsible for people going to Hell because they may have chosen that if every possible (potential) situation, and God allows it because they at least get a chance to chose in actual history

 

[Vico]

In the Thomistic school God’s knowledge is prior to decisions (potential and actual), in Molinism it is reversed (God knows what your choice is by knowing your choice itself)

Aquinas writes that the eternity of God is unending (no beginning, no end, and is an instantaneous whole , without successiveness), because of divine simplicity. God is timeless. Using b-series (non-temporal) the standpoint of God is outside the series, so it is timeless.