The Grounding Objection for Molinism:

[Kenny]

In order to know the truth of a proposition, one must stand in some sort of appropriate causal relationship with that proposition. According to LFW, however, the future decisions of free agents are not in any way causally determined and so it is impossible for any being (even God) to stand in appropriate causal relation to the truth of propositions about LFW decisions prior (temporally, logically or in any other sense) to their instantiation. Thus, no being (not even God) can know future LFW decisions.

What are the responses to this?

-- Kenny

P.S. I believe that God does know the future free decisions of His creatures, but I’m a compatiblist who doesn’t believe in LFW.

[geebob]

What are the responses to this?

Amen.

[geebob]

In order to know the truth of a proposition, one must stand in some sort of appropriate causal relationship with that proposition.

Actually, this doesn't seem to be obviously correct. What causal relation is there between me and the iraqi war. I didn't cause it, but it's existence and the sufficiently faithful news media causes that knowledge in me. That is the causal relation I assume your hinting at?

If this is so, then I think your missing the part in your explanation about presentism? yes no?

Perhaps you feel you've covered it in your statement that future lfw decions are not caused and this somehow implies presentism? If so, then would you say that a B theory of time indicates causation? Is the causation by virtue of the fact that in being part of a B theory of time it couldn't be any other way, ie the existence of all of time causes it?

Also, this throws me for a loop. I would assume this arguement is correct assuming presentism, but what about your statement that says that knowledge cannot be had even when it is logically prior? This is a term I've seen thrown around and I'm not sure what it means in this context.

[Dee Dee Warren]

According to LFW, however, the future decisions of free agents are not in any way causally determined and so it is impossible for any being (even God) to stand in appropriate causal relation to the truth of propositions about LFW decisions prior (temporally, logically or in any other sense) to their instantiation.

No problem for you cited a truism... If God did not causally determine it, then He is not standing in causal relation. That is like saying wherever you go, there you are.


Thus, no being (not even God) can know future LFW decisions.

No.. you just did a switcheroo, switching knoweldge with causation. All you "proved" in your first statement is that God cannot cause LFW acts, and then shifted to say thus it is proven He cannot know them. That is a non sequiter.

[Gavin]

uh oh guys dee dee is pulling out the whole vocabulary now - truism, non sequiter, and even the "switcheroo"!

:thumb:

[Kenny]

Today @ 04:03 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=67546#post67546)
geebob: Actually, this doesn't seem to be obviously correct. What causal relation is there between me and the iraqi war. I didn't cause it, but it's existence and the sufficiently faithful news media causes that knowledge in me. That is the causal relation I assume your hinting at?

The causal relation between you and the Iraqi war is, as you say, that there is a causal connection between the war and the news media faithfully (or even only partially faithfully) reporting it to you. I’m not saying that in order to know something one must be causally responsible for it (one could merely be causally affected by it or causally related to processes which determine it but processes which one is not responsible for). I’m only saying that one must in some sense be casually related to the truth of the proposition one knows. This seems intuitively obvious to me.


If this is so, then I think your missing the part in your explanation about presentism? yes no?

Perhaps you feel you've covered it in your statement that future lfw decions are not caused and this somehow implies presentism? If so, then would you say that a B theory of time indicates causation? Is the causation by virtue of the fact that in being part of a B theory of time it couldn't be any other way, ie the existence of all of time causes it?

Actually, my critique here is quite independent of presentism or actualism, an A theory of time or a B theory of time. My critique here is simply that, regardless of the view of time one takes, if one holds to LFW, it is meaningless to say that God knows what decisions a free agent will make “prior” (in any sense) to that agent making them. If a B theory of time is correct, for example, and God knows our future actions simply because God sees them as they actually happen, then it is still not the case that God knows our actions prior to our doing them. God still knows them only “after the fact” in terms of logical and metaphysical priority. And temporally speaking, if a B theory of time is correct and God experiences no temporal succession in His being, then it is also meaningless to say that God knows things temporally “before” they occur (since to God there is no temporal before, during or after), but rather God simply knows them as they occur.

Molinism, however, wants to say that God does somehow know future LFW decision prior (in some meaningful sense) to when they occur. But I don’t see how this could be if it is the case that LFW decisions are not in some sense causally determined, because then there could simply be no causal relationship whatsoever (whether we speak of God’s determining them or God’s being affected by them or God’s being related to other processes which determine them but God is not responsible for) between God’s knowledge of LFW decisions prior (in whatever sense you want to take it) to their instantiation. The only plausible way I could think of to get around this is if backwards temporal causation occurs. I suppose I could get information about a causally undetermined future event if someone from the future were to send me a news report (via tachyon particles lets say) concerning that event. I have no philosophical problem with the idea of backwards temporal causation (in fact, I think it’s quite plausible that it sometimes occurs at a quantum level), but the idea of backwards causation seems to presuppose a B theory of time. And, as I’ve already pointed out, if a B theory of time is correct then it is meaningless to say that God knowledge is temporally prior to events as God would simply know them as they occur.

God Bless,
Kenny

[Kenny]

Today @ 04:10 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=67550#post67550)
Dee Dee Warren: No problem for you cited a truism... If God did not causally determine it, then He is not standing in causal relation. That is like saying wherever you go, there you are.

Actually, you’ve stated the case must more strongly than I have. I’m not arguing here that God’s standing in a causal relationship with something entails that God determined it. I grant for the sake of argument that God might be causally related to events which God has not causally determined but is merely affected by or merely related to via being related to other processes which God is not responsible for. But, since your stronger position entails my weaker one, I’m glad you agree with my premise.


No.. you just did a switcheroo, switching knoweldge with causation. All you "proved" in your first statement is that God cannot cause LFW acts, and then shifted to say thus it is proven He cannot know them. That is a non sequiter.

No, you’ve misunderstood my argument. Hopefully my post to geebob clarifies. I agree that knowledge and causation are not the same thing and that merely knowing something before it occurs does not entail that one is causally responsible for it. I know that (probably) the Sun will rise tomorrow, for example, but my knowledge does not cause the Sun to rise. But, I know that (probably) the Sun will rise tomorrow because I stand in some sort of causal relation to the processes which make it true that (probably) the Sun will rise tomorrow. Even if I were unaware of those processes, those processes have caused all my past observances of the Sun rising which has allowed me to make the inductive inference that the Sun will rise tomorrow. If I was in no way causally related to the truth of the proposition that (probably) the Sun will rise tomorrow, I would not know it.

But, according to LFW, there are no processes which determine future free will decisions. Thus, there is no way to be at all causally related to what makes propositions about LFW decisions true prior to their instantiation. In fact, if LFW decisions are not in any sense determined, the only thing that makes propositions about LFW decisions true is the fact that they have occurred and so all causal relationships to the truth of those propositions must be “after the fact.”

God Bless,
Kenny

[Dee Dee Warren]

Kenny I will get back with you soon hopefully.. these discussions make my head hurt. Eschatology now is a different matter... but am exploring these things, and am very attarcted to Molinism, thus, my interest in this thread.

[themuzicman]

Molinism and the closed view come from man's fear that God might not be able to bring about His prophecies, if He doesn't already know exactly what's going to happen in every detail.

It's like someone being worried that he bet on Kobe Bryant to beat my 10 year old son in 1 on 1 basketball with a final score of 15-0. Kobe doesn't know in exact detail what's going to happen, so it might not!

Total lack of faith.

Michael

[Kenny]

Today @ 07:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=67982#post67982)
themuzicman:

Molinism and the closed view come from man's fear that God might not be able to bring about His prophecies, if He doesn't already know exactly what's going to happen in every detail.

It's like someone being worried that he bet on Kobe Bryant to beat my 10 year old son in 1 on 1 basketball with a final score of 15-0. Kobe doesn't know in exact detail what's going to happen, so it might not!

Total lack of faith.

Michael

Actually, I reject both Molinism and the open view because I think that they are both contrary to Scripture and logically incoherent. Lack of faith has nothing to do with it.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Dee Dee Warren]

And I would agree with your reasoning behind your position Kenny. Lack of faith nor fear has anything to with my conclusions. I am bound by what I believe the Scriptures to be teaching, and I have a proven track record of being able to change my mind and embrace unpopular doctrines... so, my flirtation with Molinism is based upon Scripture. If it is wrong, so be it. Actually it some ways I can see how it would be more fearful to think that the future was absolutely in all details written in stone. A classical theist could then say that my interest in Molinism is driven by that fear or a desire to feel more in control. I mean people from any view can come up with possible psychological reasons for almost any opposing position. I trust that most of the people here (and I daresay the OVers that I know well such as yxboom) are not coming at their positions because of psychological needs or issues but a sincere desire to seek God.

[Kenny]

Amen. I think that attributing psychological motives for an opposing position rather than presenting good arguments against it is generally bad argumentative strategy. I too have been known to change my mind and embrace unpopular doctrines when persuaded by Scripture and sound reasoning (my Calvinism being a case and point – I used to be a staunch Arminian but became persuaded, much against my inclinations at first, otherwise).

I would also like to clarify my above post. I think that if Molinism were simply the statement that God knows the truth values regarding counterfactual conditionals concerning human action then it would have ample Scriptural support and be logically coherent. However, in addition to this, Molinism affirms LFW and an Arminian soteriology. Since I believe LFW to be an incoherent concept (I may elaborate in another thread someday), I believe that open theism (insofar as it depends on the idea of LFW) is incoherent and that Molinism inherits this incoherency as well as additional incoherencies such as the one I am exploring on this thread. Also, since I believe that Scripture teaches a Calvinist soteriology, I believe Molinism to be unbiblical. However (since I think Scripture constrains but underdetermines, to a certain extent, our views of freewill), if one were to affirm a Molinist style view of divine foreknowledge concerning LFW decisions but were to affirm a Calvinist soteriology (and there are some that go this route), then I think that such a view would be merely incoherent but not unbiblical.

I would also like to note, for the record, that I do affirm that there is a meaningful sense in which it can be said that humans have free will (in a compatiblistic sense) and that I deny that God is directly responsible for every event that occurs. Contrary to popular belief, Calvinism does not necessitate the view that God simply controls us all like puppets. In fact, I think my particular view of freewill is logically consistent with an Arminian soteriology; I don’t think that issue can be settled on the basis of a philosophical analysis of free will and divine foreknowledge but must be settled on other Scriptural and philosophical grounds.

Developing all of these views would no doubt require several more threads, but I just wanted to let everyone know where I am coming from so as to set a backdrop for the current discussion.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Jaltus]

In order to know the truth of a proposition, one must stand in some sort of appropriate causal relationship with that proposition. According to LFW, however, the future decisions of free agents are not in any way causally determined and so it is impossible for any being (even God) to stand in appropriate causal relation to the truth of propositions about LFW decisions prior (temporally, logically or in any other sense) to their instantiation. Thus, no being (not even God) can know future LFW decisions.

I think someone needs to catch up on their reading.

Firstly, this is actually a misapplication of the term "Grounding Objection," for it is actually a little bit different than the Grounding Objection as stated.

The Grounding Objection is generally cited as, "What, if anything, is the ground of the truth of the counterfactuals of freedom? (1)" Of course, this has been answered many times (2).

Secondly, your position leads to incoherence. The question itself is flawed, as it means nobody can ever make a LFW decision. You see, if someone cannot not know an LFW decision before it is made, due to infinite regression, they can in fact never make a decision. After all, you actually do know your LFW decision the moment before you make it, for LFW is about self-determination. The problem with your quandry is that the self is now unable to decide as well.

Thirdly, DDW was totally correct in saying that your objection, as stated, requires causality in order to know. This is inherently false, as trust would no longer be an issue.

Fourthly, as to your comments above, it seems you have dropped your objection against Molinism itself and have shown what you really object to is LFW. If that is the case, I am happy to debate you on that as well.

- Jaltus
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(1) William Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge, 29.

(2) Ibid., 29-30. See also William Lane Craig, "The Middle-Knowledge View," eds. James K. Beilby and Paul K. Eddy, Divine Foreknowledge, Four Views, 140-143.

[Kenny]

Yesterday @ 10:57 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=68149#post68149)
Jaltus: I think someone needs to catch up on their reading.

Perhaps. I don’t claim to be an expert on Molinism. That’s one of the reasons why I post on these boards, so that I can learn, test my knowledge, and alter my views or refine my objections if need be.


Firstly, this is actually a misapplication of the term "Grounding Objection," for it is actually a little bit different than the Grounding Objection as stated.

Fine, but I think my objection is very much related to the Grounding Objection which you state below.


The Grounding Objection is generally cited as, "What, if anything, is the ground of the truth of the counterfactuals of freedom? (1)" Of course, this has been answered many times (2).

What answers do you find plausible or convincing?


Secondly, your position leads to incoherence. The question itself is flawed, as it means nobody can ever make a LFW decision. You see, if someone cannot not know an LFW decision before it is made, due to infinite regression, they can in fact never make a decision. After all, you actually do know your LFW decision the moment before you make it, for LFW is about self-determination. The problem with your quandry is that the self is now unable to decide as well.

I think that’s a good argument against the coherence of LFW! On what basis does one know a LFW decision before one makes it?


Thirdly, DDW was totally correct in saying that your objection, as stated, requires causality in order to know. This is inherently false, as trust would no longer be an issue.

Please elaborate.


Fourthly, as to your comments above, it seems you have dropped your objection against Molinism itself and have shown what you really object to is LFW.

I think that the advocate of LFW and EDF holds an incoherent position over and above the incoherency inherent in LFW, and since Molinism is basically the position that both LFW and EDF are true, I think the Molinist has a problem here.

In Christ,
Kenny

[geebob]

Thanks for the answer Kenny.

I'd just like to add that I look forward to you posting a discussion on a supposed incoherence of libertarian free will, and my preference would be for others to hold off on that here in this thread. But that's up to you, as the topic starter at this forum has a significant degree of control over permission to go off on tangents. then again, maybe it is too closely related, specifically the point that Jaltus made about knowing future free will decisions, and if that is the case I would like to address it here. Otherwise I'd like to hold off on it.

[Kenny]

Today @ 03:03 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=69378#post69378)
geebob:

Thanks for the answer Kenny.

I'd just like to add that I look forward to you posting a discussion on a supposed incoherence of libertarian free will, and my preference would be for others to hold off on that here in this thread. But that's up to you, as the topic starter at this forum has a significant degree of control over permission to go off on tangents. then again, maybe it is too closely related, specifically the point that Jaltus made about knowing future free will decisions, and if that is the case I would like to address it here. Otherwise I'd like to hold off on it.

Yeah, I think I want to wait and see how it plays out. If Jaltus holds that we know our own LFW decisions a moment before we make them, then an answer to how that is so may hold the key to answering my objection on this thread and so it would be entirely relevant to the current discussion. That being said, the more I think about it, the less sure I am that I see Jaltus’ point here. I don’t understand why one would have to know the outcome of a LFW decision before one makes it in order to avoid an infinite regress. I fail to see why at the moment just prior to when the decision is made, one might not merely be weighing all the available options, and when the weighing comes to a resolution and one knows which option one has chosen, it is not simply because one has made the LFW decision. So, upon reflection, I think that if what Jaltus were claiming here were true, it would be a good argument against the coherence of LFW, but I fail to see why his claim must necessarily be true.

In Christ,
Kenny

[Jaltus]

Kenny,

When is a choice made? When the choser decides or when the choser acts?

You see, I can make and remake a decision endlessly, but until I act each decision is meaningless. Thus, you MUST know your decision before you make it.

As for the argument from infinite regression, is the decision made before or after I narrow down the options to one? Ok, what about the instant before my choice is made, and the instant before that? You would need to make such a strong separation of the before and after concept within the decision making process that it is no longer coherent.


What answers do you find plausible or convincing?

The best answer is Plantinga's, but I like WLC's explanation given above in note 2. Essentially, he says that the Grounding Objection assumes not only correspondence theory of truth, but the truth-maker theory of correspondance theory. I can type out the entire argument, if need be (it is 3 pages long).

Trust is no longer an issue in a deterministic setting (referring to your original statement of the problem, not general determinism) because something must be cause in order to be known. Thus, I cannot take someone's word for something because I can only know what they are saying if it is caused by something else. In other words, trust, based on a lack of knowing causes, is now erased since I can only know that which is caused and I am related to that cause. Hence, trust is no longer needed.

Besides, if we can only know through causes, God cannot be known since He is, by definition, uncaused.

[geebob]

Besides, if we can only know through causes, God cannot be known since He is, by definition, uncaused.

I think it's coherent to say that God is his own cause.

Actually, to get closer to the fact, God's existence is the cause of our knowledge.

[Kenny]

Hi Jaltus,

Thank you for your response.


Today @ 06:14 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=70466#post70466)
Jaltus:When is a choice made? When the choser decides or when the choser acts?

I would say that “choose” and “decide” are synonymous. To say that the choice is made when the chooser decides is tautological in my view. I would say that, with respect to the choice to engage in an action (there may be choices which do not entail action, depending on how one construes the notion of ‘action,’ but this matter is best left aside for the moment), the decision has been made whenever the will of the chooser volitionally assents to one course of action among multiple available possibilities and resolves to carry that action out. I leave open the possibility that one could negate a previous decision with an additional decision thereby “changing one’s mind.”


You see, I can make and remake a decision endlessly, but until I act each decision is meaningless. Thus, you MUST know your decision before you make it.

It’s not meaningless; it just means that you can change your mind, or more precisely that you are capable, in certain circumstances, of overriding previous decisions with other decisions. I see no infinite regress here. If I choose a course of action A at time t and I do A at time t+n, then I made the decision at time t and the consequence of that decision was realized at t+n. If I would have done A at time t+n given that I decided to do A at time t, but at time t+n-1 I decided to do ~A instead so that ~A is realized at time t+n, then I merely made another decision which overrode my decision to do A.

But to turn your argument back on you, if it is meaningless to say that I have made a decision until I act, then do I really know that I will make a certain decision until I have acted? If the possibility of my choosing not to do an action is always alive until I act and I haven’t made a decision until I have acted, then it seems the only way to confirm to myself that I have in fact made a decision to act in a certain way is to observe myself acting in that way.


As for the argument from infinite regression, is the decision made before or after I narrow down the options to one? Ok, what about the instant before my choice is made, and the instant before that? You would need to make such a strong separation of the before and after concept within the decision making process that it is no longer coherent.

I don’t think so. One is in the process of decision making when one is consciously (or perhaps subconsciously on some levels) weighing between various possible courses of action and one has made the decision when one has resolved to do one of those possibilities. It may be that there is never any further weighing of options before the time one actually caries out an action (that one’s mind has been “made up” so to speak) and so no further decision process. Or it may be that upon making a decision, one begins to consider whether or not to change one’s resolve and override a previous decision – but here the options differ because the previous resolve to carry out an action is considered. No doubt this is a bit too simplistic, as the human mind is incredibly complex, but I think that such considerations are sufficient to show there is no logical necessity of infinite regress in the decision making process.


The best answer is Plantinga's, but I like WLC's explanation given above in note 2. Essentially, he says that the Grounding Objection assumes not only correspondence theory of truth, but the truth-maker theory of correspondance theory. I can type out the entire argument, if need be (it is 3 pages long).

I found a paper by WLC on line about it. I will read it when I have some extra time. I do assume a correspondence theory of truth. At least, I affirm that in order for a (non-tautological) proposition to be true, there must be something in the nature of the world to which it accurately refers.


Trust is no longer an issue in a deterministic setting (referring to your original statement of the problem, not general determinism) because something must be cause in order to be known. Thus, I cannot take someone's word for something because I can only know what they are saying if it is caused by something else. In other words, trust, based on a lack of knowing causes, is now erased since I can only know that which is caused and I am related to that cause. Hence, trust is no longer needed.

I did not claim that in order to know something, one had to be aware of the causal relationships that allow one to know it (I am an externalist with respect to my views on epistemology), only that there must be some sort of appropriate causal link betwee one’s belief in the truth of a proposition and the truth of said proposition. Testimony is actually a good example. I hold that in many situations beliefs based on testimony are properly basic with respect to warrant. It seems to be part of our cognitive design plan to simply believe testimony when we are children and this tendency (subject to possible defeaters and overriders) continues into adulthood, though appropriately nuanced, of course. Most of the time our belief in testimony is non-inferential. When my wife tells me about the events of her day, I don’t think to myself: “Well, my wife is generally honest and reliable in what she says, and she has told me that event X has occurred, therefore probably X did occur.” I could reason that way and in some cases we do reason in that way, but most of the time I just believe what she says without even giving it a second thought.

Still, however, there must be some sort of appropriate causal link that connects my wife’s testimony concerning the truth that X has occurred to the fact that X has occurred in order for my belief in her testimony to be warranted and thus for my belief to count as knowledge. Suppose, for example, that my wife told me that Susie was in the mall today. Naturally, on the basis of my wife’s testimony, I form the belief that Susie was in the mall today. Now suppose that, instead of Susie, it was Susie’s identical Twin sister, Sally, that my wife saw but that both of us were unaware that Susie had such a sister. Suppose also that Susie really was in the Mall, but in a different area where my wife never saw her. My belief that Susie was in the mall today is true, but it is not warranted and therefore it is not knowledge, because something has gone awry in the causal network that links my belief back to reality. Note, this has nothing to do with the issue of trust as my wife was being trustworthy in this case and I trusted her.

In general, I propose that only true beliefs with appropriate causal links back to the reality that makes them true can count as knowledge. Its difficult to see how things could be otherwise.


Besides, if we can only know through causes, God cannot be known since He is, by definition, uncaused.

This doesn’t follow at all. As Christians, we hold that we would not know anything about God unless God revealed Himself to us and so our knowledge is causally dependent on God’s revelation. God’s self knowledge is causally dependent on God’s self-awareness which is in turn grounded in God’s being which is in turn uncaused. God’s self knowledge thus stands in an appropriate causal relationship with a reality which is itself uncaused – no problem, since it the knowledge itself is still appropriately caused.

God Bless,
Kenny

[Kenny]

I read Craig’s online (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/grounding.html) paper concerning the grounding objection. I agree with Jaltus that my title misappropriates the term ‘Grounding Objection,’ (GO) though there is some relationship between this objection and the one I am making here. So, I would like to christen my objection ‘The Grounding of Knowledge Objection’(GKO). GO states that counterfactual conditionals of libertarian freedom have no metaphysical grounds for their truth and thus either have no truth value or are uniformly false. GKO leads into the conclusion of GO in the following manner:

1.) If a statement, X, has a truth value, God knows the truth value of X (by the doctrine of divine omniscience).
2.) Counterfactual conditionals of libertarian freedom are such that God does not and can not know their truth values (GKO).
3.) Therefore, counterfactuals of libertarian freedom have no truth values.

As far as Craig’s rebuttal of GO itself is concerned (note: I’m simplifying in places), much of Craig’s argument is based on Plantinga’s observation that it seems more intuitively obvious that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom exist than it does that every true statement must have some condition in the world that makes it true. I’m not sure if I agree with that assessment. I have very strong intuitions regarding a correspondence view of truth. But, I’m not too concerned with this objection since I believe that there is a way to salvage both – namely, drop LFW and adopt a compatiblist view of free will. On compatiblism (at least on the form I adopt), our choices are functions of our character and present life circumstances. Our character is, in turn, a function of our essence and our total life circumstances. Counterfactual conditionals of creaturely freedom would then be grounded in individual creaturely essences. Furthermore, if one were to adopt a Platonic view of essences (as I do) that the essence of any given object metaphysically precedes its instantiation, then God’s knowledge of such essences would be included in His natural knowledge and would thus be logically prior to God’s creative decree. Even as a Calvinist, I hold that God’s knowledge of counterfactual conditionals of creaturely action is logically prior to God’s creative decree. I am decidedly of an infralapsarian mindset.

Craig’s other main line of rebuttal of GO argues that if propositions require truth makers to be true, then there are plausible candidates available. With respect to counterfactuals of libertarian freedom, Craig argues that their truth makers are analogous to the truth makers involved in propositions concerning tensed facts. Craig states that what makes the proposition ‘X will happen tomorrow’ true (if it is true) is the fact that X will happen tomorrow (Craig refers to this as the “disquotation principle”). Likewise, for counterfactuals of libertarian freedom, what makes statements such as ‘S in counterfactual circumstances, C, would have done A’ is the fact that had S been in counterfactual circumstances, C, S would have done A.

I have already argued here, however, that if future actions are indeterminate or if counterfactual conditionals are not some how based in the causal structure of the world, then God would not be able to know them because there would be no adequate causal grounds for God’s knowledge. Since God knows the truth value of all truth determinate statements (via the doctrine of omniscience), if my argument is sound, it follows that such statements have no truth values. Thus, there are no metaphysical facts associated with these statements. The only way out for the Molinist who is bent on retaining LFW that I see here is to either deny that knowledge of any given proposition must be adequately causally related to whatever it is that makes said proposition true, or to become an open theist.

With respect to the former alternative, numerous difficulties in analytic epistemology in characterizing knowledge arise without some sort of causal requirement for knowledge (e.g.. the Gettier problem), and so it has been widely agreed that any definition of knowledge must involve some sort of appropriate causal relationship between one’s belief ‘that p’ and the fact that p, even if this relationship is very indirect. If we deny this requirement for divine knowledge then we not only make a radical break between divine knowledge and creaturely knowledge (perhaps some would see that as a theologically desirable result), but we make God’s knowledge out to be completely and utterly mysterious and incapable of characterization. I suppose here it comes down to theological method. I have no problem accepting mystery if there is good Scriptural warrant for doing so, but where such warrant is lacking, I see such a move as nothing more than a cop out. Arbitrary acceptance of mystery would allow us to adopt just any apparently incoherent theological position that we might like, but surely this is not a desirable result.

With respect to the later alternative, it may have the advantage of being coherent, but it has the decided disadvantage of being unbiblical. But, I suppose that’s another thread topic and I suspect that the Molinist would agree with me on this point anyway.

God Bless,
Kenny