Predestination, etc

[Jac3510]

Molinist?

I wonder if WLC has any idea just what he has unleashed on evangelical theology.

[SonofAletheia]

Molinist?

I wonder if WLC has any idea just what he has unleashed on evangelical theology.

Sad face?

Imo WLC has done so much for Christianity in recent years.

Without him I'm not sure where I would stand with Christianity (and two of my best friends would say the same).

From a philosophical/intellectual standpoint he is on a different level than most. The guy is brilliant.

You can probably tell I'm a big fan of his

[Jac3510]

You can probably tell I'm a big fan of his

By and large I am as well. His pushing of Molinism, however, will have some serious consequences. To take but one example, consider Bruce Ware's article, "A Evangelical Reformulation of the Doctrine of the Immutability of God". I've commented on that article elsewhere, saying,

• Bruce Ware and Jay Richards . . . both reject the classical view of absolute immutability. Both think that while God is ethically immutable, there is a sense in which God is ontologically immutable as well. . . . it is not merely that God happens to always keep His promises, and therefore He is ethically immutable. Rather, God always keeps His promises because His nature or essence is such that He always does so. Ware’s position, while similar, is even stronger. He states,
  
  • God is immutable not only with regard to the fact of his eternal existence but also in the very content or make-up of his eternal essence, independent of the world. He does not depend for his existence on anything external to him. . . . The line of dependence between God and the world is asymmetrical. God exists in the fullness of his own intrinsic perfection from all eternity, and his creation of a temporal and contingent reality ex nihilo only expresses ad extra what is intrinsic to the very nature of God. . . . Thus in affirming God's ontological immutability the true and living God is attributed with the changelessness of his own independent existence, essence and attributes, which qualities of being have ever been his alone and to which no further quality or value can possibly be added. Thus, for Ware, God exhibits an “onto-ethical immutability,” although His emotions, relation to the world, and even decisions can all change.

Now I can applaud Ware's desire to preserve immutability, but the fact that he's having to address the issue at all should tell you something. Moreover, while I'm happy that he "does not depend for his existence on anything external to him"--that's something I think we have to embrace--it is unclear how he can maintain that in light of the fact that God is in any sense mutable (which he argues is the case in his article).

Again, that's just one issue. Molinism entails a rejection of some important issues, and the rejection of those issues entail some other very serious problems. As far as Craig being a great philosopher, I would just say that he is great on some issues, and not so much on others, which is the case with all of us. I have spent some time with him (he has a regular Sunday school class at a church very close to me), and he confessed ignorance on several of the finer points of Thomistic philosophy. What he does know, he is very good at explaining. But this area of philosophy . . . I'm just not sure he's the go-to guy here.

Bottom line: I just think Molinism is a Trojan Horse, and the fact that WLC embraces it so publicly is, I think, the main reason most people have embraced who have done so. And, unfortunately, I just don't think that WLC really appreciates the nuances of the Thomism/Molinism debate.

[SonofAletheia]

Bottom line: I just think Molinism is a Trojan Horse, and the fact that WLC embraces it so publicly is, I think, the main reason most people have embraced who have done so. And, unfortunately, I just don't think that WLC really appreciates the nuances of the Thomism/Molinism debate.

Exactly what in Molinism would you disagree with though?

And I've listened to most of Craig's Defenders podcast. I have probably heard you if you've asked a question

[Jac3510]

Exactly what in Molinism would you disagree with though?

Well that's part of the problem. Which version of Molinism are we talking about? When someone says, "Molinism teaches . . ." they may as well be saying, "Protestantism teaches . . ." Are you talking about Molinism as Molina taught it, or Molinism as Suerez later taught it? Are you talking "classical" Molinists (who at least pretend to agree with the tenants of classical theism) or are you talking about "modern" Molinists, who openly abandon a multitude of fundamental positions (being, as they are, highly influenced by process philosophy)?

The issues are rather technical. For instance, in Molina's view, there is an absolute, though unintended, denial of the existence of free will, insofar as he had God knowing us so well that He knew what we would do before we would do it based on what we are. But the ancient philosophers (e.g., Aristotle and Cicero) have long held, and I think rightly, that foreknowledge so construed entails absolute determinism. That, by the way, was the reason Aristotle denied free will, but that's another matter entirely. The only thing more I'll say about this is that this version of the argument is much more important than the ridiculous notion most atheists today put forward that if God knows the future then you don't have a choice to choose other than what you would, and thereby try to deny free will. That's just stupid.

Anyway, there have been many, many interpretations of Molinism, which is one of the reasons I'm hardly impressed by the position at all. When someone claims to be a Molinist, I feel rather like talking to someone who claims to be non-denominational. I know they are trying to tell me something, and they probably think what they are saying is rather meaningful, but it really isn't at all.

But besides all that, by own objection to Molinism of all stripes (if there can be such a thing as "all stripes" of Molinism, and it certainly seems that my objection applies to WLC's version) is that it entails potentiality in God. But if God is potentially other than what He is not, then a whole host of errors quickly follow--which, sadly, you will see Craig embracing several of. For instance, God becomes temporal, really related to the world, mutable, open to the possibility of ignorance of future contingencies, not sovereign (in the classical sense, anyway), and certainly not a se. More, I argue that potentiality in God necessarily entails that God is not the First Cause after all. Ethics are damaged, because the natural implications are that the only way to avoid ethical relativism is to embrace some sort of Platonic realism, and on that view, there is no way out of the Euthyphro Dilemma (which further confirms God's non-aseity). And if all that were not enough, it only takes a clever atheist (thankfully, trying to find one of those is like trying to find a needle in a haystack) to debunk all arguments of God's existence by appealing to Cleanthes’ Gambit--for an excellent paper discussing this final issue, I highly recommend this paper.

The common thread in all of this--the least common denominator, if you will--is that classical theism was formulated for a particular reason, and any position that entails a rejection of classical theism (which Molinism certainly does, often explicitly--which Craig admits to--but as far as I can tell, always implicitly) brings with it all the problems that classical theism attempts to overcome. We're only just now seeing the impacts of this negligence on the academic level, but I'm afraid that things are gaining steam, and the theology that comes from Craig's Molinism is starting to make its way into major journals (as Ware's article illustrates).

All in all, it's a rather dangerous game we're playing--one I don't approve of at all.

And I've listened to most of Craig's Defenders podcast. I have probably heard you if you've asked a question

My conversations with him were personal. I have had the pleasure of asking him a few questions during the Q&A sessions of his presentations and formal debates, but the issues I'm raising here come from private conversations.