Molinism: Catholic vs. Protestant

[AngloCath4]

I have been doing a lot of reading on the two brands of Molinism, and the Protestant one seems too easy to be true compared to the Catholic version. The Catholic version seems so intricate that I cannot make heads or tails of it! Am I the only one who thinks this? Can someone explain the Catholic version of Molinism in a similar manner as William Lane Craig explains his version?

 

[john330]

Hadn’t heard of this particular theology! Will give me something to read through the night shift. Will get back to you once I have studied it…

 

[john330]

Questions: please describe Protestant molinism? And in what way is it too good to be true?

And:

Does molinism imply that the world that God actualizes is one in which everyone is put in a situation in which they can choose good (or salvation, how ever that may find them)?

 

[JerryZ]

I have been doing a lot of reading on the two brands of Molinism, and the Protestant one seems too easy to be true compared to the Catholic version. The Catholic version seems so intricate that I cannot make heads or tails of it! Am I the only one who thinks this? Can someone explain the Catholic version of Molinism in a similar manner as William Lane Craig explains his version?

hmmm Perhaps you have been confused on the terms, Molinism is a theological system that tries to reconcile the concepts of grace, free will and predestination.
It was developed by a Jesuit priest Luis de Molina.
In opposition to this system there is also a Thomistic (from Thomas Aquinas) approach proposed by a Dominican priest (Domingo Bañez). They start looking at the problem from 2 different viewpoints, one from Grace and the other Free will.
Here is the link to the article on Molinism from the Catholic Enciclopedia:

newadvent.org/cathen/10437a.htm

In the Protestant side you cannot have Molinsm as such, they would balk at using a system developed by a jesuit priest, instead the have mainly Calvinism from Calvin with his thesis on total depravity and double predestination.

newadvent.org/cathen/12378a.htm

–

 

[AngloCath4]

Well, the Molinism espoused by Protestants goes something like this:

God chose to actualize this world for whatever reasons (some Protestant Molinists would say this world is the one in which the most people would be saved), and He could have created any number of worlds, but He sovereignly chose this one.

So the thinking is that He chose the world in which the elect would be saved (therefore making election a work of God), but the reprobate would have chosen hell on their own (therefore making damnation a work of man).

This really does make sense. However, after reading various articles about Catholic Molinism, I am lost. The articles from www.newadvent.org are exactly what I mean by being too intricate for a layperson to understand. William Lane Craig explains his views easily, consistently and clearly.

JerryZ wrote, “In the Protestant side you cannot have Molinsm as such, they would balk at using a system developed by a jesuit priest, instead the have mainly Calvinism from Calvin with his thesis on total depravity and double predestination.” Nope. Look up William Lane Craig and Molinism. Furthermore, there are Arminians and Single Predestinarians (ie, Lutherans) in the Protestant world.

 

[dling]

To not believe something simply because it comes from a Catholic source would be a “Genetic Fallacy”. You view the source as corrupt, therefore everything that proceeds from that source must be corrupt.

Indeed, there are several significant protestant Molinists… but relative to arminianism and calvanism, the number is very small. Most have never even heard of it.

 

[Anselm33]

I have been doing a lot of reading on the two brands of Molinism, and the Protestant one seems too easy to be true compared to the Catholic version. The Catholic version seems so intricate that I cannot make heads or tails of it! Am I the only one who thinks this? Can someone explain the Catholic version of Molinism in a similar manner as William Lane Craig explains his version?

My take on Molinism is that God is aware of “counterfactuals”, worlds that could but do not exist. Thus, like a teacher who knows after a few days of classes which students will get A’s and which will flunk (my wife’s example), God is aware of what could happen, but doesn’t–it is still the student’s choice whether he/she will do well or fail. Now if you believe in the Many Worlds/Many Minds interpretation of quantum mechanics, you can think of alternative universes inhabited by other consciousnesses, counterfactual to us, our ego, but not to God’s. Thus God remains omniscient and we have Free Will. (I’ve discussed this a bit in my blog.)