Molinism, Im still a bit confused

[Vulturesrow]

I have recently started to delve into Molinism. I find its ideas (as I understand them) very appealing. In fact, until I learned about it, I used to think omniscience was Gods knowledge of all possible outcomes. So for a layman in philosophy, I was happy that I was able to arrive at that (admittedly simplistic) summary of Molinism. But as I read about it, Im still troubled by the free will question. I dont quite get how God actualizing a world where he knows the most amount of people will accept grace if it is presented to them answers the free will question. To put it clearly, if we reduce to a singular level, how is God not manipulating my free will by actualizing a world where he knows I will choose to accept grace. It still seems like a manipulation of my free will to actualize a world where he knows with certainty that I will accept grace. Thank you in advance.

 

[Eucharisted]

God created the best possible world, taking into consideration what will take place and who will be born and who will die and what people will do and not do; and the world He has created is not yet finished, for He is perfecting it, guiding it toward its consummation, at every moment, for He who is Eternal has entered into time by becoming man.

 

[Vulturesrow]

God created the best possible world, taking into consideration what will take place and who will be born and who will die and what people will do and not do; and the world He has created is not yet finished, for He is perfecting it, guiding it toward its consummation, at every moment, for He who is Eternal has entered into time by becoming man.

I appreciate your answer, but, I’m still confused.

 

[TheWhim]

Oh, I fear there’s generally something wrong with Molinism. Though it purports to protect human free will it rather enunciates in clouded terms a new fatality in human action. – If God knows that person x will act so and so in circumstance so and so, it apparently belongs to person x’s nature to act as foreseen by God. But if it is his nature to act thus, he has no free will after all – merely, instead of God determining what he’s doing it is ‘nature’ that controls him entirely now. This does not seem to be an exchange from which any moral profit or comfort might be drawn. Surely enough we’re all appalled by Calvinism but is this crude Naturalism any better? The Molinist somehow ressembles the neuro scientist who murmurs in a detached manner magic words the media is all to keen to be bewitched by, like ‘constitution of the brain’, ‘determining force of neuronal activity’ and ‘the abolition of criminal law’.

But of course, maybe I have not arrived yet at the inner meaning of Molinism – please feel free to contradict me.

 

[Contarini]

Oh, I fear there’s generally something wrong with Molinism. Though it purports to protect human free will it rather enunciates in clouded terms a new fatality in human action. – If God knows that person x will act so and so in circumstance so and so, it apparently belongs to person x’s nature to act as foreseen by God. But if it is his nature to act thus, he has no free will after all – merely, instead of God determining what he’s doing it is ‘nature’ that controls him entirely now. This does not seem to be an exchange from which any moral profit or comfort might be drawn. Surely enough we’re all appalled by Calvinism but is this crude Naturalism any better?

I have the same problem. I’m glad (or perhaps sad, since it would be convenient for me to find Molinism convincing) to see that I’m not alone in my impression!

Edwin

 

[TheWhim]

Here you can find a great article on Molinism:
newadvent.org/cathen/10437a.htm

I set it into quotes and comment on some of its conclusions.

Molina’s doctrine, which Bellarmine and Becanus* had made their own, was soon abandoned as savouring of Determinism. Molina (Concordia, pp. 290, 303) transferred the medium of God’s infallible knowledge to the supercomprehensio cordis (kardiognosia, the searching of hearts). In virtue of this supercomprehension, God knows the most secret inclinations and penetrates the most hidden recesses of man’s heart, and is thus enabled to foresee with mathematical certainty the free resolves latent in man’s will. This unsatisfactory explanation, however, met with the natural objection that the mathematically certain foreknowledge of an effect from its cause is nothing more or less than the knowledge of a necessary effect; consequently the will would no longer be free (cf. Kleutgen, “De Deo Uno”, Rome, 1881, pp. 322 sqq.).

I argued likewise in my previous post. It seems Molinism just replaces divine determinism with natural determinism, without any benefit received from this switch.

Therefore, the opinion, gradually adopted since the time of Francisco Suárez (but repudiated in Molina’s work), maintains that, by the scientia media, God sees the conditioned future acts in themselves, i.e. in their own (formal or objective) truth. For, since every free act must be absolutely determined in its being, even before it becomes actual or at least conditionally possible, it is from all eternity a definite truth (determinata veritas), and must consequently be knowable as such by the omniscient God with metaphysical certainty.

Honestly, I cannot make out what shall be purported by this. But perhaps this isn’t even important, as we shall see below.

However, when further investigations were made, so great and well-nigh insurmountable were the difficulties which arose against the establishing of the absolute independence of the scientia media in regard to the Divine Will, that the greater number of the modern Molinists either give up the attempt to indicate a medium of Divine knowledge (medium in quo), or positively declare it to be superfluous;

Insurmountable difficulties. Perhaps this is to be seen as indication that the theory that was called to the rescue, conditioned future acts in themselves, wasn’t such an aid after all.

nevertheless, there are a few (e.g. Kleutgen, Cornoldi, Régnon) who make a sharp distinction between the question of the actual existence of the scientia media and that of its process. While vigorously maintaining the existence of the scientia media, they frankly acknowledge their ignorance with regard to its process of operation. Thus, the scientia media, which was meant to solve all the mysteries concerning grace, seems to have become itself the greatest mystery of all.

There’s an air of fine irony pervading this last sentence. It’s great to find such marks of dry humour where one would have expected them the least, in an encyclopedia.

The most favourable statement that may be made in its favour is that it is a necessary postulate in any doctrine of grace in which the freedom of the will is to be safeguarded; in itself it is but a theologoumenon. If we then consider that the Thomists also, with Billuart (De Deo dissert., VIII, art. iv, §2 ad 6) at their head, call the reconciliation of their prœmotio physica with the freedom of the will a “mystery”, it would seem that man is not capable of solving the problem of the harmony between grace and free will.

The last statement made here is perfectly expressive of my own opinion on the subject. I do believe both in grace and in free will but I do not see how these contradictory notions could ever be reconciled satisfactorily. However, as these contradictions represent the only sane view on the matter of human salvation, I adopt them into my faith albeit their paradoxical nature. As Chesterton would perhaps remark on such an occasion, common sense sometimes requires even contradictions.

 

[MindOverMatter]

I have recently started to delve into Molinism. I find its ideas (as I understand them) very appealing. In fact, until I learned about it, I used to think omniscience was Gods knowledge of all possible outcomes. So for a layman in philosophy, I was happy that I was able to arrive at that (admittedly simplistic) summary of Molinism. But as I read about it, Im still troubled by the free will question. I dont quite get how God actualizing a world where he knows the most amount of people will accept grace if it is presented to them answers the free will question. To put it clearly, if we reduce to a singular level, how is God not manipulating my free will by actualizing a world where he knows I will choose to accept grace. It still seems like a manipulation of my free will to actualize a world where he knows with certainty that I will accept grace. Thank you in advance.

God is existence; so how can there be a time that is not known to God? Its impossible that God cannot know all.