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CalvinnHobbes
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| Posted 11/29/2008 5:01 PM (GMT -6) |   |
Hi, all. Haven't been here in awhile. I'm glad to see you're still processing the cool issues. :-) I have two questions:
(1) Do Molinists (e.g., Craig, Freddoso) believe God has libertarian free will (LFW)?
(2) If so, how do they make sense of God's "options" when they take his omniscience to be exhaustive, definite, and immutable (if, in fact, they do)?
I'd appreciate some clarification. Feel free to direct me to another discussion thread if this has been addressed elsewhere.
Shane
"There is no fit search after truth which does not, first of all, begin to live the truth which it knows." ~Horace Bushnell | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/2/2008 12:26 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Shane.
I've only read Craig. So on your Q's:
1) Craig does believe God possesses LFW (with respect to, say, creating, not with respect to evil).
2) As far as I understand, Molinists explain the 'options' by positing a 'logical' (not a temporal) sequence in the ordering of considerations/events leading up to the choice to create THIS particular world. So first there's God's knowledge of all logical possibilities. Then there's God's knowledge of everything any agent "would" do in this or that world. From among all the possible worlds God could create, God chooses which world to created based on his knowledge of what agents "would" do. All he has to do is create the world with the specified circumstances in which, say, Peter denies Christ and--poof--he gets that world. So to answer your question: God is libertarianly free with respect to WHICH world he chooses to create AND he has EDF of that world because the free choices in it are foreknown based on God's knowledge of what each of us "would" (freely) do in this or that situation. When God says, "OK, I want to create THIS world," then he foreknows all that will ACTUALLY come to pass.
I think this is untenable of course. The problem is that if Peter's choice to deny Christ in circumstances Y is libertarian, then there's a possible world in which Peter denies Christ in circumstances Y and a possible world in which Peter acknowledges Christ in circumstances Y. That's what it MEANS to say he's free with respect to his choice. Both worlds are IDENTICAL leading up to Peter's choice. In one world Peter denies and in the other he acknowledges. In one world denying Christ is what Peter does in Y and in the other acknowledging Christ is what Peter does in Y.
So what happened to the truth that if placed in Y Peter "would" deny Christ? That has to be true in just ONE world for God to guarantee that Peter denies Christ simply by putting Peter in Y. But the problem is that IF Peter is free in Y, then being in Y can't guarantee that he denies Christ. There's also a possible world in which Peter acknowledges Christ in Y.
Molinists say the truths of would-counterfactuals aren't grounded in anything (circumstances, character, etc.). They're just "out there" eternally. But it's still self-defeating, since there's an eternally true proposition that tells God "If placed in Y Peter would do X" and another proposition that tells God "If placed in Y Peter would do -X." Since Molinists agree that these eternally true propositions are HOW God knows WHICH world (which "set of circumstances" ) to create, the question is what information there can possibly be in these two props that tells God WHICH world to create? Both props describe the SAME world, the SAME Y. In one Peter does X and in the other Peter does -X.
You can ask Alan how Molinists get around it. I'm sure they'll posit some mechanism by which they suppose God is able to differentiate--based on these eternally true would-counterfactuals alone--between the world in which Peter denies Christ in Y and that in which he acknowledges Christ in Y. They'll say the Y's aren't REALLY the same. But if they're not the same, then LFW vanishes.
I honestly don't see how Molinism ever got off the ground. If IT can survive and grow after a few centuries, open theism's future is at least as bright.
TomPost Edited (Tom) : 12/2/2008 11:39:26 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
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| Posted 12/2/2008 3:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi Shane and Tom,
Molinists do believe that God has LFW. As for how God's options are to be understood, there are two ways a Molinist can go.
First, it seems like Molinists like Craig who appeal to bivalence and conditional excluded middle to argue that all "would freely" counterfactuals have truth values and that some are true, are committed to saying that all counterfactuals of divine freedom have definite truth values and that some are true. But, as Tom points out, this is paradoxical, for these counterfactuals supposedly have their truth values and are known by God (logically) before his free creative decision. If that's right, then it's hard to see how God can be free since the truth of the counterfactual describing what world God "would" create is, by hypothesis, independent of God's will, whereas it shouldn't be if God is free.
Craig, I believe, would contest this by saying that which world God "would" create itself depends counterfactually on God's free decision. So if God freely decides to create world A, then it was true that God "would freely" decide to create A, whereas if God freely decides to create world B, then it was true that God "would freely" decide to create world B. The main problem with this manuever is that it generates an explanatory loop. The truth values of the counterfactuals of divine freedom are explanatorily prior to God's decision, which in turn is explanatorily prior to the truth values of those counterfactuals.
Second, a Molinist may take the approach recently advocated by Keith Wyma in Philosophia Christi (2007). He rejects the idea of appealing to bivalence or CEM or other quasi-logical principles to establish the truth of "would freely" counterfactuals. Instead, he thinks that God runs a series of instaneous experiments with different creaturely essences to find out what they would freely do in various circumstances and that it is those experiments that ground the truth values of the corresponding counterfactuals. A Molinist who takes Wyma's approach would simply deny that God had middle knowledge of his own free decisions. I take this version of Molinism to be more defensible than Craig's.
Regards,
Alan | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/2/2008 11:32 PM (GMT -6) | | Like you said, Alan, I think Craig is still entangled in an explanatory loop. God's choice to create this as opposed to that world is informed by his knowledge of the counterfactual that says he would freely create that world in those situations.
And remember Craig's interesting belief that you can pray about past events so long as you don't KNOW the outcome. This would have some application to how Craig is able to account for how God's choice to create is informed by the counterfactual describing his choice to create. The real problem is that the fact that LFW generates contradictory possibilities given identical worlds leading up to the choice. And this applies to Wyma too I should think. Even if God ran a test on a creaturely essence/haecceity to see what it would do in situation Y, a second test might produce a contradictory result. If the choice is libertarian, it's BECAUSE haecceities don't entail a particular choice.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Violin for God
Luke, I am your father. --Nooooooooo!!!!!
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| Posted 12/3/2008 10:45 AM (GMT -6) | | Alan wrote: " Instead, he [Wyma] thinks that God runs a series of instaneous experiments with different creaturely essences to find out what they would freely do in various circumstances and that it is those experiments that ground the truth values of the corresponding counterfactuals. A Molinist who takes Wyma's approach would simply deny that God had middle knowledge of his own free decisions. "
Heather: Just a thought... Would God then have to run an experiment on himself to find out if he would freely run those experiments (on creaturely essences... aka CE)? Then would God have to run an experiment on himself to find out if he would run an experiment on himself to find out if he would freely run those experiements (on creaturely essenses)? Am I making sense here? (Now I'm going to take my much needed nap.)
IOW, if God (runs experiment on CE), then is it necessarily follow that God (runs experiment on God (running experiment on CE))? Wouldn't that lead to an infinite regress of having to run experiements before getting to the actual experiments on CE?
Post Edited (Violin for God) : 12/3/2008 9:49:32 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/3/2008 2:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Ha! Yeah, Heather. Good point. Big explanatory loop.
T | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/3/2008 2:24 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Alan Rhoda
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| Posted 12/3/2008 8:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Heather,
An insightful suggestion, but actually Wyma wouldn't say that God has to run any experiments at all, so there's no vicious regress. If God doesn't run an experiment, however, then he doesn't have middle knowledge of the corresponding counterfactuals. As Wyma himself admits, this means that prior to running any experiments God's pre-volitional knowledge is the same as on open theism.
Tom,
You've put your finger on the chief difficulty with Wyma's view. He has to downplay the indeterministic nature of libertarian freedom. And since libertarian freedom is inherently indeterministic, it looks like he's implicitly denying libertarian freedom. To his credit, he does consider your objection at some length. To the charge that repeated "replays" of the same test might yield different results, he says that if the test situation and the actual choice situation are alike in all relevant respects, then there is no reason to think that the actual person would choose differently. But even if that's right, it's not enough. For God's knowledge is infallible and so for the tests to ground God's middle knowledge it must be impossible that the actual person choose differently, and that is definitely incompatible with libertarian freedom.
I give Wyma a lot of credit for taking the grounding objection seriously and for coming up with a creative and substantive response, but as I said earlier, I don't think it works.
AlanPost Edited (Alan Rhoda) : 12/4/2008 2:31:56 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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JET
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| Posted 12/4/2008 12:52 AM (GMT -6) | | I have previously attempted to argue that there is a subtle difference between the Molinist's and the Open Theist's conception of LFW. Although subtle, this difference lurks in the background of much of the debate between Molinism and Open Theism such that there is a certain apples/oranges element to any discussion about LFW under the two systems. Simply stated, the difference is between an emphasis, on the one hand, of "being able to do otherwise" [hereafter, LFW-1] versus an emphasis on "self-determining freedom" or "being the ultimate source or originator of one's choices" [hereafter, LFW-2].
For example, in reading Craig or Freddoso, one finds that creaturely freedom is discussed almost exclusively in terms of "being able to do otherwise" (or LFW-1). But if you read Boyd's "Satan and the Problem of Evil", you find that creaturely freedom is discussed predominantly in terms of "self-determining freedom" (LFW-2).
The Molinist largely ignores LFW-2 and this paves the way for the Molinist to say that an agent is "able to do otherwise" even if it is true from the time of creation that the agent "will not" do otherwise. Thus, the Molinst ends up with a settled view of the future. The Open Theist has a different conception of the future precisely because the Open Theist has a more robust conception of LFW. (Note: LFW-2 is the larger or broader concept in that it includes LFW-1 -- at least for continent creatures; see below.)
Similarly, the Molinist, focused as she is on LFW-1, to the neglect of LFW-2, does not feel the full force of the grounding objection. To the Open Theist, however, the grounding objection seems obvious and intuitive in light of his LFW-2 conception of creaturely freedom.
Tom and Alan, as I recall, did not agree, and maintained that "being able to do otherwise" and "self-determining freedom" are one and the same thing. Perhaps I can help my case with a quote and link:
"Contemporary discussions of free will often emphasize the importance of being able to do otherwise. Yet it is plausible (Kane 1996) that the core metaphysical feature of freedom is being the ultimate source, or originator, of one's choices, and that being able to do otherwise is closely connected to this feature." plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#3.2
Now, to get a little closer to the point of this thread, it is interesting to note that, while LFW-2 entails LFW-1 for contingent creatures, LFW-2 does not necessarily entail LFW-1 for necessary beings. Thus, if (per Open Theism) LFW-2 is the sine qua non of freedom, it may not be necessary for the Open Theist to answer how a perfectly good God could "do otherwise" with respect to creation or anything else. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/4/2008 1:24 PM (GMT -6) | | JET:
I have previously attempted to argue that there is a subtle difference between the Molinist's and the Open Theist's conception of LFW. Although subtle, this difference lurks in the background of much of the debate between Molinism and Open Theism such that there is a certain apples/oranges element to any discussion about LFW under the two systems. Simply stated, the difference is between an emphasis, on the one hand, of "being able to do otherwise" [hereafter, LFW-1] versus an emphasis on "self-determining freedom" or "being the ultimate source or originator of one's choices" [hereafter, LFW-2].
For example, in reading Craig or Freddoso, one finds that creaturely freedom is discussed almost exclusively in terms of "being able to do otherwise" (or LFW-1). But if you read Boyd's "Satan and the Problem of Evil", you find that creaturely freedom is discussed predominantly in terms of "self-determining freedom" (LFW-2).
The Molinist largely ignores LFW-2 and this paves the way for the Molinist to say that an agent is "able to do otherwise" even if it is true from the time of creation that the agent "will not" do otherwise. Thus, the Molinst ends up with a settled view of the future. The Open Theist has a different conception of the future precisely because the Open Theist has a more robust conception of LFW. (Note: LFW-2 is the larger or broader concept in that it includes LFW-1 -- at least for continent creatures; see below.)
I would say there is a a bi-polar assymetrical relational unity between self-determination (Higher Level) and having power to the contrary (Lower Level) which are unified in the actualization of choice. Two apparently separable aspects of the same reality of freedom, whose true unity is brought forth in the moment of decision. (The power of "Now", leap of faith, etc. ) We see this in God with that choice to create and incarnate himself; we see this in humanity with the choice to relate to God in relating ourselves to ourselves.
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JET:
Now, to get a little closer to the point of this thread, it is interesting to note that, while LFW-2 entails LFW-1 for contingent creatures, LFW-2 does not necessarily entail LFW-1 for necessary beings. Thus, if (per Open Theism) LFW-2 is the sine qua non of freedom, it may not be necessary for the Open Theist to answer how a perfectly good God could "do otherwise" with respect to creation or anything else.
Some thoughts...may be relevant or not. If not, don't worry about it. 
What if we started with God's self-determining freedom from his own nature (infinite, all-knowing) demonstrated in a freely chosen Incarnation (Creation is FOR Incarnation.) God exhibits his freedom by transcending his transcendence to incarnate into a created order. This is the core of our faith. Christ is the firstborn of all creation...
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
In this God freely "determined himself" with respect to whether or not to be "Immanuel". (He could have just remained "I Am" in eternal ecstatic love as he was san Creation) God has ultimate self-determinination, exercising unconditioned freedom. Being in this God's image...and having God's Spirit within us, it would make sense that we have something like this freedom...within limits. (TWT #6 for Greg) And the created order is the context in which this "imaged freedom" can exist (lending itself to "might/might not" aspect of reality)
However, one thing is important here. If the "core metaphysical feature of freedom is being the ultimate source, or originator, of one's choices"...the question has to be asked: Who IS the ultimate source of our capacity for and exercise of choice? Who is the originator par excellence in whose "originating" image we are made...who actively grounds our interiority and exteriority in Grace? Is it really us? A fundamental ground of our created being is no-thingness. (Creatio ex nihilo). So how can we be the ultimate source of anything of anything enduring and/or eternal? Eternity ONLY belongs to God. Perhaps this is why we HAVE to relate to the "Power that sustains us" in order to be continually self-creative. Cutting ourselves off from God allows us to consummate our inclination towards our actual no-thingness...while being connected to God redeems our no-thingness into new recreated being.
Let's look at things this way. In the Garden of Gethsemane, we would say that Christ Jesus, as faithful human being, was the ultimate source and originator of his choice to face the Cross. It's our faith that Jesus FREELY GAVE HIMSELF for us, not under any compulsion. From a creaturely perspective, we don't look any further that the person of the Incarnate Word as the source of that all-too-human choice. That's real. But, at the same time, by what we see of Jesus, he did all things ONLY by the Father's Spirit, the source of ALL freedom. Wisdom and Possibility from that Eternal Spirit proceeded and grounded his creaturely decision, giving it eternal import. "Not my will, but your will be done." Jesus did not look to himself as "source" or "originator" of anything he did in the ultimate sense.
Basically, I'm talking about God's "prevenient Grace" for any creaturely self-determination. And this same Spirit is how God is not "bound" by some ultimate prescience (like the counterfactuals before creation that Tom spoke of)
The Freedom of the Spirit grounds "indeterminability". The wind of the Spirit blows where it wills...
Ok. Random moment over. 
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/4/2008 12:28:33 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/4/2008 6:47 PM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
It's being libertarian requires both that there be 'options' to choose between and that the agent is the final arbiter who determines which option is chosen. Those are the two aspects in view.
What is the dynamic context for the "options to choose" (possible worlds of meaning for the human spirit to compose) and the "self-transcending agency" (the meaning-making human spirit). Restated, what grounds the dynamics of consciousness and awareness that provide for the actualization of choice, undeniably necessary for any type of libertarian choice? It cannot be the "options" placed before the agent, nor can it just be the agent itself, for both of these require a context that sustains the dynamic, open relationship between the two. Otherwise, there can be a despairing relationship that emerges. So what is it? I'd say it's the Creator Spiritus, the Divine Presence and uncreated "presenter of possibility" without which there would be neither "options to choose" nor "chooser."
All this means that the created self-transcendent agency has relative independence from Creator God such that when the agent doesn't recognize it's primary relationship to Creator God as source of it's being, it's meaning-making ability dissipates into nothingness, it loses its relational integrity, and it's freedom to choose as chooser is bound to unreality. But this just make sense: the Holy Spirit is part of human composition and the active ground of the "power to choose." At any rate, all this makes the agent of choice to be the penultimate source of one's choices. God the Holy Spirit is always previous. Again, the prevenient Grace thing.
I don't think this is disagreeing totally with the "final arbiter" idea...more than putting it into necessary Christian theistic context.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." Post Edited (One Love) : 12/4/2008 5:57:13 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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CalvinnHobbes
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| Posted 12/4/2008 9:32 PM (GMT -6) | | [Shane]: Sorry for the delayed response here. I haven’t had enough time to sit down and respond yet. Thanks a lot for the replies, friends. I appreciate it. And I’ll continue using numbers throughout for additional questions. Feel free to respond wherever you wish. Don’t feel obligated to respond to all of my questions.
Yeah, Tom, I’ve been at least somewhat acquainted with the general Molinist perspective regarding God’s natural and middle knowledge, counterfactuals, the issue of logical priority, and such, although I admittedly haven’t read a lot here. I guess I asked (2) because I have failed to see, given Molinism, how there was/is ever any “time” or sense in which God, if classically omniscient, did/does not know what actually will/does happen (which includes all of his choices). It seems to me that he would always and eternally have to know this according to classical omniscience (in which case the actual would seem to me to be the only option really possible, which would seem to me to be a world without true possibility). Perhaps you’re getting at the same idea in speaking of God knowing what he would do if presented with all of these possible worlds and such. (3)Are we getting at the same idea from different directions maybe? Maybe so, given your statement: Those same counterfactuals include the truth of what God does (i.e., create, and which world he creates) when considering “would” counterfactuals.
[Tom]: So Molinists make God’s [counterfactual? actual?] creating both the grounds for and result of God’s [counterfactual? actual?] choice to create. But how can that be?
[Shane]: (4) Are we being careful to keep the possible propositional combinations of counterfactual and actual here distinct? I find myself getting confused the longer I reflect on your proposition as stated.
If I’ve followed you, you’ve at least said (in as many words) in your post(s) that God’s counterfactual choice to create/act thus, for Molinists excluding Wyma perhaps, apparently grounds his actual choice to create. (5) Are you/they also saying that his actual choice to create reciprocally grounds his counterfactual choice to create (providing grounding, though CF’s usually lack grounding)? (6) If not, then are you/they merely saying that his counterfactual (actual) choice to create grounds his counterfactual (actual) choice to create (which says nothing)? If the latter, then I’m wondering if the problem is simply a refusal to offer grounding (i.e., the standard objection), rather than the offering of reciprocal grounding proper. (7) Am I making any sense at all here? I’m definitely not as sharp on this stuff (or in general) as you guys are, so I might be tangling everything up.
[Alan]: The truth values of the counterfactuals of divine freedom are explanatorily prior to God's decision, which in turn is explanatorily prior to the truth values of those counterfactuals.
I could probably ask the same questions here. Your particular articulation, Alan, suggests that the correct answer to my question 5 would be “yes.”
[Alan]Instead, he thinks that God runs a series of instaneous experiments with different creaturely essences to find out what they would freely do in various circumstances and that it is those experiments that ground the truth values of the corresponding counterfactuals. A Molinist who takes Wyma's approach would simply deny that God had middle knowledge of his own free decisions. I take this version of Molinism to be more defensible than Craig's.
[Shane]: It seems to me that God must either know what he will do, know what he would do, know both, or know neither. So even if Wyma drops God’s counterfactual self-reflection (option 2), it seems to me that God still either knows exhaustively what he will do or he doesn’t know it. The former, to me, drops his LFW, while the latter drops classical omniscience. Which just takes me back to my initial question/concern. But maybe I’m missing something.
[JET]: Now, to get a little closer to the point of this thread, it is interesting to note that, while LFW-2 entails LFW-1 for contingent creatures, LFW-2 does not necessarily entail LFW-1 for necessary beings. Thus, if (per Open Theism) LFW-2 is the sine qua non of freedom, it may not be necessary for the Open Theist to answer how a perfectly good God could "do otherwise" with respect to creation or anything else.
[Shane]: (8) Don’t Calvinists/determinists basically register their satisfaction with LFW-2 by appealing to God’s necessarily perfect being (thus, his necessarily perfect “choices”)? They might not believe God needs, or can even have, “options” (plural), since anything other than the option that he chose would be less than perfect. I doubt OT’s would want to restrict their definition of LFW to something a Calvinist/determinist would be happy with. What Tom says about LFW incorporating both dimensions (LFW-2 and LFW-1) strikes me as more accurate (or at least more helpful/distinctive).
[One Love]: At any rate, all this makes the agent of choice to be the penultimate source of one's choices. God the Holy Spirit is always previous. Again, the prevenient Grace thing.
[Shane]: Admiral von Post, it's good to "see" you again. turn I hope you're doing well these days. I've been thinking about God as empowerer these days and what that means for the sovereignty/freedom issue. The contextualization issue you remind us of is important. I certainly doubt anyone wants to say that the buck stops entirely with them.
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"There is no fit search after truth which does not, first of all, begin to live the truth which it knows." ~Horace BushnellPost Edited (CalvinnHobbes) : 12/5/2008 11:08:24 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 12/5/2008 12:58 AM (GMT -6) | | |
Shane: I have failed to see, given Molinism, how there was/is ever any “time” or sense in which God, if classically omniscient, did/does not know what actually will/does happen (which includes all of his choices).
Tom: I think Craig would agree that there never was such a time when God didn’t know what would actually occur.
Shane: It seems to me that he would always and eternally have to know this according to classical omniscience (in which case the actual would seem to me to be the only option really possible, which would seem to me to be a world without true possibility).
Tom: Craig would just say that God’s middle knowledge is ‘logically’ prior to his knowledge of what will actually occur. Middle knowledge informs his decision to create this world, but that ‘informing’ doesn’t take time. I have trouble with this of course.
Shane: Perhaps you’re getting at the same idea in speaking of God knowing what he would do if presented with all of these possible worlds and such. (3)Are we getting at the same idea from different directions maybe? Maybe so, given your statement: Those same counterfactuals include the truth of what God does (i.e., create, and which world he creates) when considering “would” counterfactuals.
Tom: ‘I’ think God’s middle knowledge would include counterfactuals describing God’s choices, especially a counterfactual describing God’s choice to create the world he actually creates. I’m not sure Craig would agree. Maybe he does. But I have seen him try to explain his way out of the explanatory loop.
Shane: [Tom] So Molinists make God’s [counterfactual? actual?] creating both the grounds for and result of God’s [counterfactual? actual?] choice to create. But how can that be?
Tom: They make God’s ‘actual’ choice to create both the grounds for and result of the ‘counterfactual truth’ that describes that same choice to create.
Shane: (4) Are we being careful to keep the possible propositional combinations of counterfactual and actual here distinct? I find myself getting confused the longer I reflect on your proposition as stated.
Tom: Welcome to Molinism. Ha. As I understand it, God (in Craig’s ‘logical’ ordering) says, “I think I’ll freely create some world. Let’s see, which world best suits me?” God then turns to his files of counterfactual propositions describing what free agents (God included) ‘would’ do in this or that situation and there finds a counterfactual proposition describing what he would do when faced with the situation he’s in, namely, facing the decision to create. That counterfactual says, “When in atemporal, sans creational context Y facing the choice to create at all, God ‘would freely’ create world X.” In response (not a temporal response, but a logical response—go figure) God says, “Ah, good, that’s the best world to create,” and then he creates our world.
Shane: (5) Are you/they also saying that his actual choice to create reciprocally grounds his counterfactual choice to create (providing grounding, though CF’s usually lack grounding)?
Tom: I think at this point Craig would say, “The truth of counterfactuals doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with the actual events they describe, so there’s no sense in which counterfactuals are ‘informed’ or ‘based on’ or ‘grounded in’ those events, or any actual event.” That would be how Craig would try to get out of the explanatory loop. Craig’s already admitted in debating Greg that counterfactuals are metaphysical surds. They ‘just’ are what they are. They’re eternally existing truths that have NO explanation for their existence. He HAS to say that. If he even tries to ground their truth in some actual state of affairs, Molinism is dead in the water.
Alan: The truth values of the counterfactuals of divine freedom are explanatorily prior to God's decision, which in turn is explanatorily prior to the truth values of those counterfactuals.
Tom: Craig would probably deny that God’s actual decision is explanatorily prior to the counterfactual of divine freedom that describes God’s actual decision. He’d want to argue that nothing explains counterfactuals. That’s what it means to deny the grounding objection I should think.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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| Posted 12/5/2008 11:49 AM (GMT -6) | | Shane:
[Shane]: Admiral von Post, it's good to "see" you again. I hope you're doing well these days. I've been thinking about God as empowerer these days and what that means for the sovereignty/freedom issue. The contextualization issue you remind us of is important. I certainly doubt anyone wants to say that the buck stops entirely with them.
Good to see you as well, sir! I pray things are going well for you and yours. Blessings on you richly!
And on your statement, yes. That is certainly my HOPE that no one here would say that.
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Shane:
I'll admit the whole 'logical priority' thing seems a bit sketchy to me. And I wonder how much my problem here has to do with my connecting 'choice' with temporality. It seems to me that there has to be a change from unchosen to chosen if we're going to talk about 'libertarianly free choosing' in any meaningful sense. But like I said, I haven't read much on all of this.
That's right. Unless Creation was eternally assured, there had to be some logical state of God's unchosenness on whether or not to create...which gives the "context" for the libertarianly free choice to create. I submit that this is best explained by the "indeterminacy" in the freedom that is God's Spirit. The buck ULTIMATELY stops there!
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Shane:
For Craig, it seems that the explanatory buck stops at these posited counterfactuals. I'm curious, where would you say explanation stops for the (non-Haskerian, perhaps) open theist? Is there anything (controversial) in your view that your opponents are forced to accept without explanation? I should probably already know the answer to this, having read most of what Alan has published on the open view (including his article with you and Greg).
Great question, Shane. I'd like to know the answer to this too.
In my view, Greg could go back to his OWN WORK and answer this question. The Spirit of God...the Divine Dispositional Reality of the Father's "dispositional actuality"...is the source for all creativity and all possibility. God is not "trapped" by counterfactuals, responding to eternally known potentia of circumstances, but freely chooses as he wills from the freedom that God is.
See what I'm saying?
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 12/5/2008 12:06 PM (GMT -6) | | Amen, bro.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
"I love, therefore I am in I Am." | | Back to Top | | |
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