Molinism's Olive Branch Becomes Its Scourge

I think in their zeal to fling wide the gates of Molinism to Calvinists by saying that we can also affirm Molinistic Middle Knowledge, some Molinists like Hernandez and Stratton have inadvertently provided the death blow to their own view. 

Stratton has said that a Calvinist could affirm that God could have middle knowledge of what Libertarianly free creatures would do in any circumstances and yet chose to create a Calvinistic Compatibilistic world instead where all our free choices are determined. (They could say that we could affirm Middle knowledge but think that God decided to create a Deterministic Incompatibilist world where our choices are determined but therefore not free and responsible, but then that would be to say that a Calvinist could adopt Molinism by denying Calvinism which I doubt is their point.) 

While I appreciate them trying to mend the fences between our two theological camps, I think they will need to retract that sentiment on pain of falsifying their own view. That is, they seemingly can make that argument IFF Molinism is in fact false. Here is why. 

If Compatibilism is true in even one possible world (the actual world as they grant), then it's true in every possible world. This is because Compatibilism is merely the claim that some variety of determinism and some kind of freedom sufficient for responsibility are possibly compatible with each other. That is, they are not, in principle, contradictory. Incompatibilism claims that they are, in principle, contradictory – that there cannot ever be an instance of a determined and yet free action.

Yet, there cannot be something that is in principle a contradiction and yet true in some possible world. There is no logically possible world where a contradiction is logically possible. So once they’ve granted Calvinism is even possible in some logically possible world, then they’ve granted that determinism and freedom are not in principle a contradiction and thus in every possible world they are not a contradiction. This means that Incompatiblism is necessarily false in every possible world. And since Libertarian Freedom is an Incompatibilistic view, the Libertarian freewill view becomes necessarily false. But Libertarian freedom is a necessary component of what Stratton calls “mere Molinism.” And as such Molinism would be false. 

Now, it seems to me that they will more likely just bite the bullet and admit that one cannot be a Calvinist and affirm Molinism in any meaningful way (that is, affirm it in any way that isnt already accounted for in Reformed theology and Classical Theism), but they could also admit that Molinism is just absurd. Here’s to hoping! 

For more of my articles on Molinism, see HERE.

For more of my articles on Calvinism and Reformed Theology, see HERE.