Divine Providence: The Molinist Account

If you are committed to a "strong" view of providence, according to which, down to the smallest detail, "things are as they are because God knowingly decided to create such a world", and yet you also wish to maintain a libertarian conception of free will - if this is what you want, then Molinism is the only game in town.

- William Hasker, Response to Thomas Flint

The Only Game in Town?

One can uphold the traditional notion of providence only if one acknowledges that there are true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom that guide God's creative decisions. Diminish or dismiss this knowledge and one diminishes or dismisses the robust providential control over his world which the tradition proclaims. So, to be a genuine traditionalist, the libertarian traditionalist has no choice but to grant that there are true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.

But to be a genuine libertarian, she can hardly view such counterfactuals as under divine control, for if God were to determine the truth or falsity of such conditionals, they could not rank as conditionals of freedom, at least not of the sort of freedom that libertarians cherish. The libertarian traditionalist, then, is committed to believing that there are true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom whose truth value is prevolitional, not a result of divine determination.

But to embrace the prevolitional status of these counterfactual truths is to embrace Molinism. For the consistent libertarian traditionalist, then, the path to Molinism is inescapable. It is indeed the only game in town.

A Very Fine Game Indeed

Belief in a strong, robust notion of providence has long been dominant among orthodox Christians. Adherence to a libertarian account of freedom, though not so widespread, has also been common within this community. As we have seen, the inevitable offspring of this coupling is Molinism. But the inevitability here is of a sort well known to philosophers.

Many orthodox Christians who would, if informed of the options and asked their preferences, unhesitatingly embrace both the traditional notion of providence and the libertarian account of freedom have given precious few of their waking hours to extensive ruminations concerning either providence or freedom; their traditionalism (with respect to providence), like their libertarianism (with respect to freedom), is more dispositional than occurrent. And what holds for traditionalism and libertarianism holds even more, it seems to me, for Molinism.

Few Christians would even know what the term "Molinism" stands for, let alone label themselves Molinists. But fewer still, upon encountering the theory of middle knowledge, find the position at first glance outlandish or patently unacceptable (unless, of course, they are among those benighted believers who find any explicit philosophical reflection upon their religious commitments outlandish or unacceptable). Far more common, at least in my experience, is the reaction that Molinism is but an elaboration of a view which they have held implicitly all along.

- Thomas P. Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account