GROUNDING OBJECTIONS AND THE INCOHERENCE OF MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE
Here I will argue the simple point that simply asserting God has MK as a feature of his omniscience, is not an adequate explanation for how or what god knows. This serves as merely a simple assertion of a brute fact, but while trying to nuance it in such a way as to traffic a new kind of knowledge in that is needed to make the argument work. That is, it rejects previously held grounding explanations, while also eschewing the need to explain their view, in order to bring in a new concept to divine omniscience. This kind of maneuvers should be exceedingly suspect. It not only removes warrant for robust understandings of omniscience long held by theologians, but it then brings in a brand new concept under the guise of not needing to give any grounding explanation at all. I wonder if the Molinist would allow such maneuvers elsewhere in theological or philosophical discourse.
I will offer the alternative grounding objection that God does not possess MK, unless by MK we simply mean that God knows what would have been the case, had he decreed it. This means that God has exhaustive counterfactual knowledge precisely because God knows that whatever he decrees to come to pass, will in fact come to pass. So on historic Protestant conceptions of God’s Natural and Free knowledge, God’s decrees ground his free knowledge. He has absolute exhaustive knowledge of creation because he decreed what comes to pass and he knows what he has decreed. Thus, God can also know that had he decreed something else, some other set of facts, that that other set of facts would have certainly come to pass. Therefore, all of God’s counterfactual knowledge can all be prefaced by the subjunctive, “Had I decreed…” Therefore, God’s exhaustive counterfactual knowledge is just an aspect of his Free Knowledge rooted in his Natural Knowledge of the efficacy of his decrees in the worlds that he would or could actualize. We do not need to invent a third species of knowledge, especially when doing so creates an insurmountable grounding issue and gains us nothing (as we will continue to see throughout this paper).
On Molinistic conceptions of MK, then, there are no truth makers for counterfactuals and thus, no truths to be known. Since the truth makers that would be needed to make the propositions true (either God’s knowledge of what he would decree or his knowledge of his decrees of the actual world, grounded in his Natural Knowledge of the efficacy of his decrees) MK amounts to the claim of brute and yet inexplicable knowledge that had X happened, then X would happen. Possibly God would have such tautologous knowledge, but that would not be the same as knowing what could have happened, and cannot provide a grounding explanation for God’s MK. Would the Molinists and the advocate of Libertarian Freedom accept this form of argumentation from the Compatiblist? Imagine that the Compatiblist simply said that humans are free and God meticulously determined all things is simply a brute fact and no grounding explanation is needed and no truth makers for them possible. Imagine the incredulity to such rhetoric. And yet this is precisely what is provided in the service of defending Molina’s invention of this third species of knowledge.
GROUNDING OBJECTIONS AND THE ASEITY OF GOD
Here I will argue that on Molinism, God’s MK is logically dependent on the personal agency and contingent freewill decisions of yet to be creation persons (what are called Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom, CCF). While the Molinist will recoil at the objection and say that it is not that God “looks through the corridors of time” to learn anything, and will protest at what they think is a procedural slight, the issue is not one of procedure or process. The issue here is that God’s MK, and indeed his Free Knowledge that he possesses before creation, would be knowledge about the freewill decisions of personal agents. If the truth makers for the propositions that he knows do not rely on his decrees or anything internal to God, then the truth makers must rely on some aspect of the CCFs. This means that the truth of the CCFs grounds the MK of God and as such must be logically prior to God’s MK. This is a clear violation of the aseity of God.
Some Molinists will argue that Aseity should not be considered part of an orthodox conception of God. But should we allow theologians to start to pick apart aspects of God simply because they make their proposed theology false? Should we allow the Open Theist to start picking apart aspects of God’s omniscience?
FOR THE MAIN DIRECTORY OF RESOURCES ON MOLINISM, CLICK HERE.
Here I will argue the simple point that simply asserting God has MK as a feature of his omniscience, is not an adequate explanation for how or what god knows. This serves as merely a simple assertion of a brute fact, but while trying to nuance it in such a way as to traffic a new kind of knowledge in that is needed to make the argument work. That is, it rejects previously held grounding explanations, while also eschewing the need to explain their view, in order to bring in a new concept to divine omniscience. This kind of maneuvers should be exceedingly suspect. It not only removes warrant for robust understandings of omniscience long held by theologians, but it then brings in a brand new concept under the guise of not needing to give any grounding explanation at all. I wonder if the Molinist would allow such maneuvers elsewhere in theological or philosophical discourse.
I will offer the alternative grounding objection that God does not possess MK, unless by MK we simply mean that God knows what would have been the case, had he decreed it. This means that God has exhaustive counterfactual knowledge precisely because God knows that whatever he decrees to come to pass, will in fact come to pass. So on historic Protestant conceptions of God’s Natural and Free knowledge, God’s decrees ground his free knowledge. He has absolute exhaustive knowledge of creation because he decreed what comes to pass and he knows what he has decreed. Thus, God can also know that had he decreed something else, some other set of facts, that that other set of facts would have certainly come to pass. Therefore, all of God’s counterfactual knowledge can all be prefaced by the subjunctive, “Had I decreed…” Therefore, God’s exhaustive counterfactual knowledge is just an aspect of his Free Knowledge rooted in his Natural Knowledge of the efficacy of his decrees in the worlds that he would or could actualize. We do not need to invent a third species of knowledge, especially when doing so creates an insurmountable grounding issue and gains us nothing (as we will continue to see throughout this paper).
On Molinistic conceptions of MK, then, there are no truth makers for counterfactuals and thus, no truths to be known. Since the truth makers that would be needed to make the propositions true (either God’s knowledge of what he would decree or his knowledge of his decrees of the actual world, grounded in his Natural Knowledge of the efficacy of his decrees) MK amounts to the claim of brute and yet inexplicable knowledge that had X happened, then X would happen. Possibly God would have such tautologous knowledge, but that would not be the same as knowing what could have happened, and cannot provide a grounding explanation for God’s MK. Would the Molinists and the advocate of Libertarian Freedom accept this form of argumentation from the Compatiblist? Imagine that the Compatiblist simply said that humans are free and God meticulously determined all things is simply a brute fact and no grounding explanation is needed and no truth makers for them possible. Imagine the incredulity to such rhetoric. And yet this is precisely what is provided in the service of defending Molina’s invention of this third species of knowledge.
GROUNDING OBJECTIONS AND THE ASEITY OF GOD
Here I will argue that on Molinism, God’s MK is logically dependent on the personal agency and contingent freewill decisions of yet to be creation persons (what are called Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom, CCF). While the Molinist will recoil at the objection and say that it is not that God “looks through the corridors of time” to learn anything, and will protest at what they think is a procedural slight, the issue is not one of procedure or process. The issue here is that God’s MK, and indeed his Free Knowledge that he possesses before creation, would be knowledge about the freewill decisions of personal agents. If the truth makers for the propositions that he knows do not rely on his decrees or anything internal to God, then the truth makers must rely on some aspect of the CCFs. This means that the truth of the CCFs grounds the MK of God and as such must be logically prior to God’s MK. This is a clear violation of the aseity of God.
Some Molinists will argue that Aseity should not be considered part of an orthodox conception of God. But should we allow theologians to start to pick apart aspects of God simply because they make their proposed theology false? Should we allow the Open Theist to start picking apart aspects of God’s omniscience?
FOR THE MAIN DIRECTORY OF RESOURCES ON MOLINISM, CLICK HERE.
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