Diserner
Well-known member
If you are a fan of the theological scene, you probably have come across the term "Molinism" or someone who claims to be a "Molinist." It is often presented as an opposing alternative to Calvinist soteriology; it's basically, the idea that God considered tons of different worlds, and then chooses to make one based on how people react in it. As a Classical Armininan, I see a real difference with Molinism and the Arminian simple foreknowledge view. It's not that I deny middle knowledge, but Molinism makes a certain claim about what God uses it for. In general those who label themselves Molinists seem to be theologians who want to posit the idea that God specifically uses this middle knowledge to decide what world to actualize. I believe in classical free will and omniscience, but to suppose that God uses his knowledge of future free choices to decide whether to create possible worlds seems to me, to be wrong on two levels, both morally and logically.
It is wrong for God to do this morally, for it does not allow the full freedom of self-expression in choosing for or against God, unless it adds some prior condition is met; in other words, it seems to me, God is tampering with the quality of the choice by only creating it if it is going to choose a certain thing. Thus it is not really a free expression, because it has prior conditions on it, and the quality of freedom is altered. If God were to use middle knowledge to create a world, he could simply only create people who knew would freely choose the good; this is a simple idea, and there is no logical problem with it. On the other hand, of course, there might be people that reject God in all possible worlds. But we Libertarians argue God can't tamper with free will, and so can't force the decision the creation makes. Deciding to make something based on what it will choose in the future is a form of tampering with freedom, a similar moral dilemma. God is being selective and manipulative over the self-expression of his creation by denying the existence of any creation that doesn't choose a certain way.
The second way I think this understanding of Molinism fails, is it is logically untenable as well. The reason for this is that it is not circumstantial or peer pressure by which people decide what ultimate spiritual choices they make; there is not a way to influence or coerce them through the potential world being conceived, because these choices are not made for such shallow reasons as whether our best friend chooses Christ or not, or whether we are born in a country that accepts or prohibits the preaching of the Gospel. This "trans-world" depravity of all who would fundamentally choose to reject God means that alternate scenarios cannot decide or alter the number of saved or damned individuals. Tweaking the input facts will always have the same number of people saved and lost. Using middle knowledge is an inadequate means to pressure or manipulate people into accepting Christ, for their decisions will remain the same under any scenario, and the Bible instructs that we are not even supposed to let circumstances dictate these important spiritual choices.
If you think about it, Molinism is trying to solve the problem of evil in a creative way by positing God has given everyone an optimal chance at salvation by factoring in everyone's future free will choices before creating them; this is intended to reduce the problem we all intuitively feel that God has allowed some people to be victims of other peoples' choices. But if this solution does not logically work and we notice that some people don't seem to get "a fair shake," that is, this Molinistic world hypothesis in fact leaves people in what appears to be a less than optimal state, we will not solve the problem of offense at God for what he has allowed. God has allowed people's sins to hurt other people: and fundamentally we just find that offensive, and Molinism will not somehow patch up that offense. We should not offer people a cheap solution to a perceived moral dilemma about God's actions; we should all rather seek God ourselves to overcome and develop the faith and consecration necessary to put God above the problem of evil and mystery of why he allowed Adam and others to hurt so many. Peace in Christ.
And if God is creating these "pre-world" conditions for whether or not he will actualize you, he is altering the quality of the freedom, and putting constraints and conditions upon it. God decides, "I will only create Person A if they fit in to a maximally gracious world B," and thus there is preconditions upon Person A's free choice, he will only be created if he chooses a certain way. This means, Person A does not get to be created with a real un-manipulated libertarian choice of for or against God for the fundamental reason of simply choosing or rejecting God for who he is, but only if he will choose or reject God for the inferior and idolatrous reasons of how his circumstances pan out, which basis for a choice for God is thoroughly condemned in Scripture. Even if we are encouraged to consider the negative consequences sin will leave us in, we cannot simply use God as a pawn to get what we want.
God would not use a sinful motivations to plan worlds that determine who gets saved, and who doesn't. That's not a pure motivation for choosing or rejecting God. We don't accept God only because we experience or see evil, we accept God because by grace we realize God's worth. It is true evil can discipline or chastise us, causing us to see the terribleness of our sin, but this cannot be said to be the fundamental reason to choose God to begin with: it is merely an extra mercy to refine an impurity. Adam and Eve did not need evil to be able to make the right choice, nor to be maximally graced to make the right choice. The need for evil to chastise or persuade only comes after original sin has already forced the world to be inherently permeated with injustice. In judgment God remembers mercy, the judgments are not mercy itself.
God could certainly use his middle knowledge to minimize judgments and maximally grace people under the current conditions, but not to set up the world to begin with and only create people when they choose under certain conditions. The real reason God allows evil to happen, is not just the expression of love or freedom, because those don't necessitate the amount of collateral damage, the horrific consequences that the current evil entails. God could have just zapped Adam and Eve out of existence the very moment they put their mouths on that fruit. No, God allows the consequences of evil to be so horrendous to give weight and importance to the quality of the choice as being an opportunity to glorify and honor God for who he is, an expression of God's own worth. The proper theodicy is a free will choice based on the holiness of God, not on "soul-building" properties; God's right to be glorified and devalue those who devalue him.
Also realize, another tangential objection is there being no logical reason God could not use middle knowledge to simply never create beings he knows will be freely evil under this system; where is the objection when the purpose is just to maximize good choices? Or why could God not simply eliminate beings as soon as they make an evil choice, instead of allowing that evil choice to hurt other people? If allowing evil is simply to create more good instead of glorify God, where is the objection anymore? Do those evil beings God creates become the best possible world to necessarily help other beings choose better choices? That seems like justifying the ends with the means, using an evil thing to bring about a good thing; but not as a last recourse, as a primary directive! And overcoming the objection to the possibility of sin in heaven is actually surprisingly easy to overcome logically: we can choose our future choices now; since only those who have chosen not to sin will enter heaven, nothing will any longer inhibit that choice.
So what am I left with under Classical Arminianism? That God foreknows choices but does not "tweak" or "alter" the conditions of creation to influence and manipulate those choices, for that would be altering the quality of the choice and devaluing it. God has to "play the cards he is dealt," as some Calvinists so poignantly like to state, and this also explains why the majority of human history seems to be quite a failure from man's side, yet God still creates it. God is willing to take "snake eyes" to allow that quality of choice to stand for what is, without deciding to create it based on how it will choose, which otherwise would not be fully and truly free in regards to the object of the choice. In the end, it may seem less interesting or exciting to simply believe that God foreknows autonomous choices and reacts in accordance to them, rather than decide to create based on foreknowing them, but it is the straight and Biblical way to harmonize sovereignty and free will. Although God does possess middle knowledge and uses it for many things, it would be wrong to determine the actualization of certain worlds to alter the number of saved and damned in some optimal way. And we must always remember God may very well not always act on all the foreknowledge he has, for he is under no moral obligation to do so. Because of the above objections I can't accept Molinism and stick with simple Arminianism.
It is wrong for God to do this morally, for it does not allow the full freedom of self-expression in choosing for or against God, unless it adds some prior condition is met; in other words, it seems to me, God is tampering with the quality of the choice by only creating it if it is going to choose a certain thing. Thus it is not really a free expression, because it has prior conditions on it, and the quality of freedom is altered. If God were to use middle knowledge to create a world, he could simply only create people who knew would freely choose the good; this is a simple idea, and there is no logical problem with it. On the other hand, of course, there might be people that reject God in all possible worlds. But we Libertarians argue God can't tamper with free will, and so can't force the decision the creation makes. Deciding to make something based on what it will choose in the future is a form of tampering with freedom, a similar moral dilemma. God is being selective and manipulative over the self-expression of his creation by denying the existence of any creation that doesn't choose a certain way.
The second way I think this understanding of Molinism fails, is it is logically untenable as well. The reason for this is that it is not circumstantial or peer pressure by which people decide what ultimate spiritual choices they make; there is not a way to influence or coerce them through the potential world being conceived, because these choices are not made for such shallow reasons as whether our best friend chooses Christ or not, or whether we are born in a country that accepts or prohibits the preaching of the Gospel. This "trans-world" depravity of all who would fundamentally choose to reject God means that alternate scenarios cannot decide or alter the number of saved or damned individuals. Tweaking the input facts will always have the same number of people saved and lost. Using middle knowledge is an inadequate means to pressure or manipulate people into accepting Christ, for their decisions will remain the same under any scenario, and the Bible instructs that we are not even supposed to let circumstances dictate these important spiritual choices.
If you think about it, Molinism is trying to solve the problem of evil in a creative way by positing God has given everyone an optimal chance at salvation by factoring in everyone's future free will choices before creating them; this is intended to reduce the problem we all intuitively feel that God has allowed some people to be victims of other peoples' choices. But if this solution does not logically work and we notice that some people don't seem to get "a fair shake," that is, this Molinistic world hypothesis in fact leaves people in what appears to be a less than optimal state, we will not solve the problem of offense at God for what he has allowed. God has allowed people's sins to hurt other people: and fundamentally we just find that offensive, and Molinism will not somehow patch up that offense. We should not offer people a cheap solution to a perceived moral dilemma about God's actions; we should all rather seek God ourselves to overcome and develop the faith and consecration necessary to put God above the problem of evil and mystery of why he allowed Adam and others to hurt so many. Peace in Christ.
And if God is creating these "pre-world" conditions for whether or not he will actualize you, he is altering the quality of the freedom, and putting constraints and conditions upon it. God decides, "I will only create Person A if they fit in to a maximally gracious world B," and thus there is preconditions upon Person A's free choice, he will only be created if he chooses a certain way. This means, Person A does not get to be created with a real un-manipulated libertarian choice of for or against God for the fundamental reason of simply choosing or rejecting God for who he is, but only if he will choose or reject God for the inferior and idolatrous reasons of how his circumstances pan out, which basis for a choice for God is thoroughly condemned in Scripture. Even if we are encouraged to consider the negative consequences sin will leave us in, we cannot simply use God as a pawn to get what we want.
God would not use a sinful motivations to plan worlds that determine who gets saved, and who doesn't. That's not a pure motivation for choosing or rejecting God. We don't accept God only because we experience or see evil, we accept God because by grace we realize God's worth. It is true evil can discipline or chastise us, causing us to see the terribleness of our sin, but this cannot be said to be the fundamental reason to choose God to begin with: it is merely an extra mercy to refine an impurity. Adam and Eve did not need evil to be able to make the right choice, nor to be maximally graced to make the right choice. The need for evil to chastise or persuade only comes after original sin has already forced the world to be inherently permeated with injustice. In judgment God remembers mercy, the judgments are not mercy itself.
God could certainly use his middle knowledge to minimize judgments and maximally grace people under the current conditions, but not to set up the world to begin with and only create people when they choose under certain conditions. The real reason God allows evil to happen, is not just the expression of love or freedom, because those don't necessitate the amount of collateral damage, the horrific consequences that the current evil entails. God could have just zapped Adam and Eve out of existence the very moment they put their mouths on that fruit. No, God allows the consequences of evil to be so horrendous to give weight and importance to the quality of the choice as being an opportunity to glorify and honor God for who he is, an expression of God's own worth. The proper theodicy is a free will choice based on the holiness of God, not on "soul-building" properties; God's right to be glorified and devalue those who devalue him.
Also realize, another tangential objection is there being no logical reason God could not use middle knowledge to simply never create beings he knows will be freely evil under this system; where is the objection when the purpose is just to maximize good choices? Or why could God not simply eliminate beings as soon as they make an evil choice, instead of allowing that evil choice to hurt other people? If allowing evil is simply to create more good instead of glorify God, where is the objection anymore? Do those evil beings God creates become the best possible world to necessarily help other beings choose better choices? That seems like justifying the ends with the means, using an evil thing to bring about a good thing; but not as a last recourse, as a primary directive! And overcoming the objection to the possibility of sin in heaven is actually surprisingly easy to overcome logically: we can choose our future choices now; since only those who have chosen not to sin will enter heaven, nothing will any longer inhibit that choice.
So what am I left with under Classical Arminianism? That God foreknows choices but does not "tweak" or "alter" the conditions of creation to influence and manipulate those choices, for that would be altering the quality of the choice and devaluing it. God has to "play the cards he is dealt," as some Calvinists so poignantly like to state, and this also explains why the majority of human history seems to be quite a failure from man's side, yet God still creates it. God is willing to take "snake eyes" to allow that quality of choice to stand for what is, without deciding to create it based on how it will choose, which otherwise would not be fully and truly free in regards to the object of the choice. In the end, it may seem less interesting or exciting to simply believe that God foreknows autonomous choices and reacts in accordance to them, rather than decide to create based on foreknowing them, but it is the straight and Biblical way to harmonize sovereignty and free will. Although God does possess middle knowledge and uses it for many things, it would be wrong to determine the actualization of certain worlds to alter the number of saved and damned in some optimal way. And we must always remember God may very well not always act on all the foreknowledge he has, for he is under no moral obligation to do so. Because of the above objections I can't accept Molinism and stick with simple Arminianism.
