Exegetical and philosophical concerns with Molinism and Open Theism

[Gavin]

Open Theism is often called "neo-molinism" because, like its catholic predecessor, it denies EDF (exhaustive divine foreknowledge). Both systems, to my knowledge, posit that God is actually moving along in time with us, experiencing moment by moment consciousness, as opposed to the more traditional view that God is outside time altogether and sees all from his eternal perspective (Boethius, Augustine, reformed circles, C. S. Lewis, et.al.).

I would like to articulate two concerns with this view. I will just articulate them briefly and then look for feedback.

1) Philosophical concern - if God is inside time, then the whole appeal of the kosmological argument and other theistic arguments based on God's timelessness are thrown out the window. The objection is basically this: when did time start? If time never started, then there was an infinite amount of time in the past. But if there was an infinite amount of time in the past, then how did we ever reach the present moment? Its impossible to cross an infinite amount of time through successive addition. Try counting backwards from negative infinity to zero - no matter how many billions of years have passed, you won't make any progress. That is because you cannot even get started by finding negative infinity - its like trying to jump out of a bottomless pit.

On the other hand, if time did begin at some point, then how did it? Who created it? God cannot have, becuase he is inside time.

So I don't see that God being inside time accounts for origins. That is my philosophical concern. Thoughts?

2) Exegetical concern.

Some passages seem to teach that God is outside of time, imo.

1Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.

2Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3You return man to dust
and say, "Return, O children of man!"[2]

4For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.

2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Psalm 90:2 says that God is "from everlasting to everlasting" - that sure seems like God is outside time to me.

And for a thousand years to just a day or a watch in the night - that seems to me to be saying that short amounts of time and long amounts of time are the exact same from God's perspective - which again seems like another way of saying that God is outside time.

I hope I have not misrepresented molinism and open theism, since I am still in the basic stages of learning them.

What are your thoughts?

[geebob]

Open Theism is often called "neo-molinism" because, like its catholic predecessor, it denies EDF (exhaustive divine foreknowledge).

no and and no.

it's sometimes called that because Greg boyd wants to call it that because they can share the common ground in which God is said to know all possibilities. But they differ in that molinism says that God knows what you will do in any situation and open theism would say that God knows fully the range of possibilities of what you would do in any situation but unlike molinism, there is not in every possible situation a specific fact about what you would do.

furthermore, in molinism, you do have edf because God knows every circumstance that will in fact happen, thus he always knows what choice you will make.

1) Philosophical concern - if God is inside time, then the whole appeal of the kosmological argument and other theistic arguments based on God's timelessness are thrown out the window.

I don't know about this, for one thing, William lane Craig has made his claim to fame because he has revived a specific type of cosmological arguement, specifically, the kalamm cosmological arguement.

The objection is basically this: when did time start?

Craig would say that time started with creation and God wasn't in time until creation. Open theism really does not have to commit itself on this question and I believe that Nicolause Wolterstorff claimed that we can't know this in his essay in God and Time: four views.

I prefer to think that God was always in time, but that's just me. As for your problem you raise of infinite regresses, I'll give you my objection to it, but I'm about to run off and watch dragon ball Z.

[GODISNOWHERE]

This is a subject of which I have been investigating for quite sometime. I have some questions and propositions that may help all of us think through this subject.

1. The standard reformed or orthodox view has been commonly described when revealing the divine forknowledge of God as "The Eternal Now".

I find the Eternal Now view slightly disturbing because of the necessary conclusion that "God was always a man", or that "Jesus is suffering on the cross right now as much as He is at the right hand of the Father". In other words in the Eternal Now view no one single moment or measure of time is greater or lesser in the Divine and Pure Actuality of God. All is. God views all of time from a divine vantage point where all of time is before Him.

Again the necessary conclusion is that specific events such as Creation, crucifixtion, or tribulation are all equally and fully present before God.

The myriad of problems with the orthodox view can be realized by simply asking the question "Where is Jesus NOW?"

2. The other aspect of this debate perhaps is more focused if the cosmological reality of all things that exist (including God) is that the future does not exist. The current theological term for this is called "Presentism". Presentism is realized in what I have termed "Divine - Human Simultaneity".

Those that are against "open theism" typically suggest that the opentheist is "limiting God". And the open theist is guilty of wrongly declaring that "God doesn't know the future".

Conclusion:
The detractors of the open view as well as the proponents need to invest their efforts in making an effort to interpret scripture while recognizing that "The Future Does Not Exist", and "How does God know the future in a cosmology where the future does not exist?"

I do not believe God has to exist outside of time to know the future. I do not accept that the future is pre-written.

Do the scriptures teach that He is outside of time?
Does scripture teach that the future is prewritten (not to be confused with pre-determined)?

Presentism is the presupposition I come to scripture with and as of this moment have not been presented with scriptural support that negates this view.

Thoughts?

http://www.godisnowhere.org/Articles...0debate2.1.pdf

Daniel

[geebob]

Thank you for your comments GODISNOWHERE. I agree with your observation that if God experiences everything in the now, he is still on the cross and that is too strange view for me.

As for your link, It sounds interesting but I have two comments. For one, I couldn't access anything. A blank acrobat page came up. Maybe it's just my old computer as it also froze.

The other is that we discourage our members from relying too much on links, so any arguements you'd like to be considered on this thread and discussed in depth should be reconstructed here.

[geebob]

Gavin,

If time never started, then there was an infinite amount of time in the past. But if there was an infinite amount of time in the past, then how did we ever reach the present moment? Its impossible to cross an infinite amount of time through successive addition. Try counting backwards from negative infinity to zero - no matter how many billions of years have passed, you won't make any progress.

As I said, the open theist need not take a position on God's status to time before creation. We hold at minimum that God placed himself in time when he created time.

I am simpathetic to the notion that God always was in time and that is primarily because I think libertarian free will requires time, (and God is libertarian free), and because God is a living dynamic community of three persons and the actions and reactions in that community I believe would involve a succession from before to after.

with regard to the infinite regress arguement, It seems to me that it fails because of the part I emboldened above. When I say that God has always existed in time, I mean that he has no temporal begining, (making time coeternal with him, naturally a logical conclusion if it plays an essential role in the trinity).

When you say that we should start counting from negative infinity(from here on out, symbolized as -%) you are treating negative infinity as a begining and as a point in time like all the other points. That simply cannot apply to a view of time that says there is no beginning and the infinite regress is dependent upon the treatment of -% as a beginning and a point like any other point and as there is no point that can be labeled -%, no beginning, the type of problematic regress that you suggest never can occur.

Some passages seem to teach that God is outside of time, imo.

It can be easy for us to read various views of timelessness in scripture because we are preconditioned to view it there with all of our wacky zany science fiction on the subject and the theological tradition, but there is a big problem with this. For one, it is recognized by many scholars that the Jews did not hold this view as it was introduced into from the greeks (Jaltus may disagree and he is a scholar, but there are to my knowledge scholars who hold to timelessness that do not believe that scripture is clear on it). The second most glaring problem is that timelessness involves a significant and massive metaphysical scheme which simply is not present in scripture.

now as for the scriptures you cite,
[quote]2Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.[quote]

It's not clear that timelessness was in view here. everlasting could mean from unending time and this could very well could be taken as a statement that God always was God (into the infinite past) and he always will be God (into the infinite future.

4For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night.

because a thousand years to one who has existed forever is not a very long time compared to how long he has existed.

2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

And a day is like a thousand years to God because he is so intensly involved in creation, the passage of even short amounts of time is no limit to what he accomplishes or how intensly and fully he experiences it. God can accomplish in a day what would take us thousands of years.

[Gavin]

Geebob,

ok, thanks for your great reply.

But they differ in that molinism says that God knows what you will do in any situation and open theism would say that God knows fully the range of possibilities of what you would do in any situation but unlike molinism, there is not in every possible situation a specific fact about what you would do.

All right I think I see it. So for the OVer God does not know what an individual will in a certain circumstance, but he knows everything that they could possibly do. I am glad I got the distinction between the two cleared up.

furthermore, in molinism, you do have edf because God knows every circumstance that will in fact happen, thus he always knows what choice you will make.

Is that EDF? That God knows all counterfactuals? Because I thought EDF conveyed the idea of simple foreknowledge as well, not just God knowing all counterfactuals.

I don't know about this, for one thing, William lane Craig has made his claim to fame because he has revived a specific type of cosmological arguement, specifically, the kalamm cosmological arguement.

True. I wonder how he does it consistently.

Craig would say that time started with creation and God wasn't in time until creation. Open theism really does not have to commit itself on this question and I believe that Nicolause Wolterstorff claimed that we can't know this in his essay in God and Time: four views.

I prefer to think that God was always in time, but that's just me. As for your problem you raise of infinite regresses, I'll give you my objection to it, but I'm about to run off and watch dragon ball Z.

I will look at your reply. I have read some of Wolterstorff. What I don't buy at all is the notion that God can be outside of time and then, at creation, somehow "enter in" to time. What does that mean? How can you go in and out of time?

More later.

[Gavin]

Dear Godisnowhere,

thanks for the reply.

This is a subject of which I have been investigating for quite sometime. I have some questions and propositions that may help all of us think through this subject.

Cool.

1. The standard reformed or orthodox view has been commonly described when revealing the divine forknowledge of God as "The Eternal Now".

I find the Eternal Now view slightly disturbing because of the necessary conclusion that "God was always a man", or that "Jesus is suffering on the cross right now as much as He is at the right hand of the Father". In other words in the Eternal Now view no one single moment or measure of time is greater or lesser in the Divine and Pure Actuality of God. All is. God views all of time from a divine vantage point where all of time is before Him.

Again the necessary conclusion is that specific events such as Creation, crucifixtion, or tribulation are all equally and fully present before God.

The myriad of problems with the orthodox view can be realized by simply asking the question "Where is Jesus NOW?"

We who hold to the "eternal now" idea would say that Jesus, of course, entered into time in the incarnation. So Jesus the man is no longer dying.

As for God himself, as the first person of the trinity, I don't think there are any problems with being outside time. Being outside time does not restrict God's action in time - we hold that God can (and does) spontaneously "break into" time and interact with creation (e.g., miracles). That does not mean he suddenly becomes in time, it just means he is free to act spontaneously in time (from outside). Hope that is at least a little clearer than mud.

2. The other aspect of this debate perhaps is more focused if the cosmological reality of all things that exist (including God) is that the future does not exist. The current theological term for this is called "Presentism". Presentism is realized in what I have termed "Divine - Human Simultaneity".

Those that are against "open theism" typically suggest that the opentheist is "limiting God". And the open theist is guilty of wrongly declaring that "God doesn't know the future".

Conclusion:
The detractors of the open view as well as the proponents need to invest their efforts in making an effort to interpret scripture while recognizing that "The Future Does Not Exist", and "How does God know the future in a cosmology where the future does not exist?"

Thats fine for you to believe that, but I would disagree on the future not existing (thus not agreeing with your conclusion that we must all interpret Scripture in that light). The future does not yet exist to us, i.e., from our perspective - but to a timeless agent (assuming that God is timeless, of course) words like "not yet" are meaningless.

Do the scriptures teach that He is outside of time?

. . .

Presentism is the presupposition I come to scripture with and as of this moment have not been presented with scriptural support that negates this view.

Care to comment on the verses in my first post?

Sincerely,
Gavin

[Gavin]

Geebob,

Thank you for your comments GODISNOWHERE. I agree with your observation that if God experiences everything in the now, he is still on the cross and that is too strange view for me.

See above. We believe, of course, that Jesus entered into time in the incarnation. This is a necessary implication from his entering in to history and space.

As I said, the open theist need not take a position on God's status to time before creation. We hold at minimum that God placed himself in time when he created time.

I do not understand that at all. Perhaps you could elaborate on how a timeless being can "come inside time".

with regard to the infinite regress arguement, It seems to me that it fails because of the part I emboldened above. When I say that God has always existed in time, I mean that he has no temporal begining, (making time coeternal with him, naturally a logical conclusion if it plays an essential role in the trinity).

When you say that we should start counting from negative infinity(from here on out, symbolized as -%) you are treating negative infinity as a begining and as a point in time like all the other points. That simply cannot apply to a view of time that says there is no beginning and the infinite regress is dependent upon the treatment of -% as a beginning and a point like any other point and as there is no point that can be labeled -%, no beginning, the type of problematic regress that you suggest never can occur.

Okay, that is the point: there was no beginning of time, according to your view. So the question stands - how did we ever reach the present moment? The appeal to negative infinity was just an analogy. The point is that if there were an infinite amount of time in the past, we would never have reached the present moment. Just as if you are counting to infinity by successive addition, you will never get there (whether you start or not).

It can be easy for us to read various views of timelessness in scripture because we are preconditioned to view it there with all of our wacky zany science fiction on the subject and the theological tradition, but there is a big problem with this. For one, it is recognized by many scholars that the Jews did not hold this view as it was introduced into from the greeks (Jaltus may disagree and he is a scholar, but there are to my knowledge scholars who hold to timelessness that do not believe that scripture is clear on it). The second most glaring problem is that timelessness involves a significant and massive metaphysical scheme which simply is not present in scripture.

As for the first point (that timelessness was introduced by the greeks), I am not sufficiently qualified about what the Jews and the Greeks believed about this to really comment, except to say that I do not see Jewish and Hellinistic thought in general as the final word on the subject, if the Scriptures unambiguously teach on the subject (and I think they do).

As for the second part, that timelessness involves a massive metaphysical scheme, I am not sure what exactly you mean by this phrase, but I disagree that it is not present in Scripture.

As for your comments on the verses I cited:

And a day is like a thousand years to God because he is so intensly involved in creation, the passage of even short amounts of time is no limit to what he accomplishes or how intensly and fully he experiences it. God can accomplish in a day what would take us thousands of years.

One day being the same as a thousand years from God's perspective merely on the basis of what he accomplishes? If he accomplishes so much in a day, wouldn't that mean that he accomplishes all the more in a thousand years?

The verse does not say anything what God can accomplish in a short amount of time. The context is about the judgement to come at the end times, and God not being "slow". I remain convinced that a short amount of time being the same thing as a long amount of time to God implies God is timeless.

8"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."

because a thousand years to one who has existed forever is not a very long time compared to how long he has existed.

It doesn't say anything about "relative to how long God has existed". I do not see any reason to import that assumption onto the text. But I won't quibble about this one because the passage could be interpreted your way (although I do not think this would be the most natural reading of this passage).

It's not clear that timelessness was in view here. everlasting could mean from unending time and this could very well could be taken as a statement that God always was God (into the infinite past) and he always will be God (into the infinite future.

Well at least you admit he is eternal. It comes down to, of course, what is meant by "everlasting".

Blessings,
Gavin

[Gavin]

Great C.S. Lewis quote that may help you understand my position:

C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, p. 147, "If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn.".

[geebob]

Is that EDF? That God knows all counterfactuals? Because I thought EDF conveyed the idea of simple foreknowledge as well, not just God knowing all counterfactuals.

it allows for edf as the molinist claims that God has determined what situations will arise. in light of that determination, he will know the free actions of men.

I do not understand that at all. Perhaps you could elaborate on how a timeless being can "come inside time".

not really. I don't take a position on that and it simply is not necessary to open theism. Whether or not God was or was not in time prior to creation, it makes little difference to the open view as we are only commited to the view that he is in time now.

I will say that if God entered time where he previously wasn't in time, obviously timelessness was just a fact of his relation toward existence and not something that was necessarily apart of him. similary, that he was without creation was equally contingent and not necessary to his being.

So the question stands - how did we ever reach the present moment?

that there is an infinite past necessitates that there is a present moment. Without a present moment from whence you can look back and say there's an infinite past, no infinite past can be claimed. Thus you must contradict yourself when speaking of an infinite past and then claim that there can be no present.

The appeal to negative infinity was just an analogy.

there is a bit of a mystery to this concept of an infinite past and the large part of the theological tradition says mysteries are good. That's quite alright until they try to give nonsensical incoherencies a description of mystery in that positive sense. But apart from the claim of incoherency or in light of significant information, you can't authoritatively claim that the mystery is bad. The closest you come to identifying an incoherency in the infinite past claim is that notion there of the impossibility of starting with negative infinity and working toward the present.

Just as if you are counting to infinity by successive addition, you will never get there (whether you start or not).

I'll admit that there is an asymetry here between the infinite past that has been traversed by God and the infinite future of the fullness of which we will never reach.

if the Scriptures unambiguously teach on the subject

and they are not unambigous. The scriptures in fact depict God within time as he is claimed to act and react, to remember, to plan. He says he will do this and that. This does not prove that he is not timeless but it all has to be qualified and that qualification is not found in scripture.

For example, you are puzzled about how a timeless God can enter into time, but before you said that, you said that God entered into time in the incarnation. The massive explanation that is required to make sense of this is not found within scripture, and some philosophers, specifically Wolterstorff have claimed that God cannot be in time because a God who redeems and is incarnated is in time.

As for the second part, that timelessness involves a massive metaphysical scheme, I am not sure what exactly you mean by this phrase, but I disagree that it is not present in Scripture.

If we were to ignore the problem of incarnation, the metaphysical story required to uphold God's timelessness is to say that all of the scriptures that portray God acting in time are really just from our perspective and what really happens is that God is timelessly acting and he is acting in such a way that those actions manifest at certain times, but he is not acting at those times. God is did not act to free the israelites at the time of their captivity though the scriptures portray that, but he was acting timelessly in such a way that at the time of the captivity, the israelites were freed because of his timeless captivity. But this is a significant story that is not told in scripture and if it is true, you cannot come to that conclusion on the basis of the scriptures that do not even hint at such a mechanism.

One day being the same as a thousand years from God's perspective merely on the basis of what he accomplishes? If he accomplishes so much in a day, wouldn't that mean that he accomplishes all the more in a thousand years?

There is no quantitative limit to what God can do in any given amount of time and an excellent way to convey this to us for who complain that there are only 24 hours in a day is that he's got more than 24 hours. But to insist on timelessness or to make the claim that your making is to abuse the metaphore. This is metaphorical language and though your original take on it has been the norm, you cannot be conclusive about it.

It doesn't say anything about "relative to how long God has existed". I do not see any reason to import that assumption onto the text.

the assumption is clearly as reasonable if not more than the one that you are importing into the text.

The context is about the judgement to come at the end times, and God not being "slow".

in the master plan and grand scheme of things, he's not. if it takes you ten hours to make a 5k post here, in the scheme of things, you are slow. If it takes two to three weeks for the US to topple the iraqi regime, in the grand scheme of things, considering how long wars can go on, that is quick. so your ten hours is slow and yet the us's 3 week war is quick.

I remain convinced that a short amount of time being the same thing as a long amount of time to God implies God is timeless.

To say that a slow amount of time is the same as a long amount of time is meaningless, unless we are talking about a metaphore and varying perspective.

Well at least you admit he is eternal. It comes down to, of course, what is meant by "everlasting".

but I mean the same thing about eternal as I do everlasting. God has always been.



I know the following was addressed to Godisnowhere, but I want to share an observation.

The future does not yet exist to us, i.e., from our perspective - but to a timeless agent (assuming that God is timeless, of course) words like "not yet" are meaningless.

the thing about this is that if the future does not exist to us, than I fail to see how we will be in the future if it does exist to a timeless being. That we exist in something entails that that something exists to us.

[Jaltus]

I'll get back to this thread when I am not so busy (perhaps after I die?), but I would like to point out to GODINOWHERE that many believe the future does exist (B-Theory), as I am one of those.

I believe the future exists for one major reason, Minkowskian space-time, which is a mathematical model of physics abstractions. Due to my diverse (probably bizarre) educational background, I put a lot of stock in physics.

And yes, OV is not a form of Molinism, since Boyd's change of a single word undermines the entire concept. He changes the idea that God knows what we would do in any circumstance to God knows what we might do, turning it into a game of statistics instead of holding to any form of surety.

[Gavin]

geebob,

it allows for edf as the molinist claims that God has determined what situations will arise. in light of that determination, he will know the free actions of men.

The claim could be made that God is no less evil or coercive, then, in molinism, as he allegedly is in Calvinism. Since God is bringing about circumstances that cause sin, and he knows full well that people will sin in those circumstances, someone with a high regad for human autonomous free will would probably claim that God is as morally repugnant in molinism as he is (supposedly) in Calvinism.

not really. I don't take a position on that and it simply is not necessary to open theism. Whether or not God was or was not in time prior to creation, it makes little difference to the open view as we are only commited to the view that he is in time now.

I will say that if God entered time where he previously wasn't in time, obviously timelessness was just a fact of his relation toward existence and not something that was necessarily apart of him. similary, that he was without creation was equally contingent and not necessary to his being.

Since you don't believe that God came inside time, we don't need to dissuss this. Suffice to say that I find it totally nuexplainable for God to "come inside time" at creation.

that there is an infinite past necessitates that there is a present moment. Without a present moment from whence you can look back and say there's an infinite past, no infinite past can be claimed. Thus you must contradict yourself when speaking of an infinite past and then claim that there can be no present.

No, you misunderstand me. I am not claiming that there was an infinite past. I am claiming that, because there is a present moment, there cannot have been an infinite past. It sounds like you agree on that point.

there is a bit of a mystery to this concept of an infinite past and the large part of the theological tradition says mysteries are good. That's quite alright until they try to give nonsensical incoherencies a description of mystery in that positive sense. But apart from the claim of incoherency or in light of significant information, you can't authoritatively claim that the mystery is bad. The closest you come to identifying an incoherency in the infinite past claim is that notion there of the impossibility of starting with negative infinity and working toward the present.

If the infinite past theory is demonstrably illogical, then the appeal to "mystery" is useless, right? After all, that is what Arminians say to Calvinists regarding human responsibility/divine sovereignty.

I'll admit that there is an asymetry here between the infinite past that has been traversed by God and the infinite future of the fullness of which we will never reach.

What kind of "assymetry" would that be?

you are puzzled about how a timeless God can enter into time, but before you said that, you said that God entered into time in the incarnation. The massive explanation that is required to make sense of this is not found within scripture, and some philosophers, specifically Wolterstorff have claimed that God cannot be in time because a God who redeems and is incarnated is in time.

Its really not a problem at all. When God becomes an man, he is entering into history and space, so of course he in entering into time. But for God himself, the first in the trinity, to enter into time, is a whole different ball game. For one he did not become a man, and for another there is no evidence that he did enter into time in Scripture's account of creation.

If we were to ignore the problem of incarnation, the metaphysical story required to uphold God's timelessness is to say that all of the scriptures that portray God acting in time are really just from our perspective and what really happens is that God is timelessly acting and he is acting in such a way that those actions manifest at certain times, but he is not acting at those times.

Not necessarily. I do believe that many times when God appears to change his mind or something like that it is only from our perspective, but it need not always be like this. As I said, for God to be outside time does not restrict his activity in time. If God is above time, that should not mean that he bound by the limits of time - just the opposite.

There is no quantitative limit to what God can do in any given amount of time and an excellent way to convey this to us for who complain that there are only 24 hours in a day is that he's got more than 24 hours. But to insist on timelessness or to make the claim that your making is to abuse the metaphore. This is metaphorical language and though your original take on it has been the norm, you cannot be conclusive about it.

How is it metaphorical? It sure sounds like your forcing your assumptions on the text in order to avoid the conclusions that come from the most natural reading. If a short amount of time is that same as a long amount of time to God, i.e., from his perspective, it does not follow merely that God is recourceful in donig a lot in a little amount of time. That may be true, but the fuller meaning of the text seems to be that time is all the same to God.

the assumption is clearly as reasonable if not more than the one that you are importing into the text.

I am not aware of any assumption being imported onto the text in my view. I am simply trying to read it straightforward. It honestly does not say anything relative to how long God has existed.

To say that a slow amount of time is the same as a long amount of time is meaningless, unless we are talking about a metaphore and varying perspective.

Its meaningless unless God is outside of time.

Jaltus,

And yes, OV is not a form of Molinism, since Boyd's change of a single word undermines the entire concept. He changes the idea that God knows what we would do in any circumstance to God knows what we might do, turning it into a game of statistics instead of holding to any form of surety.

Maybe so, but still, it is common usage to refer to OV as "neo-molinism", given the similarities.

Blessings,
Gavin

[Gavin]

btw Jaltus are you a molinist?

[Gavin]

My basic point in my philosophical concern with the view that time has always existed is that if it had, then we would never have reached the present moment. For the record.

[Jaltus]

Yes, I am a Molinist.