As a Calvinist, there have been times when I have been attracted to Molinism and sought to explore this alternative model of divine providence. For those who do not know, Molinism is named after a Spanish Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina, who was a counter-Reformer. His view is sometimes thought of as being somewhere between Calvinism and Arminianism.
Molinism teaches that God sovereignly controls everything that comes to pass (seemingly agreeing with Calvinism), but also holding that human beings have libertarian free will (seemingly agreeing with Arminianism). How can both ideas be reconciled? Molina accomplishes this by positing that God possesses scientia media or middle knowledge and that God is able to utilise this type of divine foreknowledge to have divine providential control over human free will choices (free in the libertarian sense).
It works like this (according to Molinism).
God has three logical "moments" of divine foreknowledge.
First, God has what is called natural knowledge. Natural knowledge is God's knowledge, in himself, of himself, and all logical possibilities that God could bring about. Natural knowledge contains everything that could happen.
Third, God has what is called free knowledge. Free knowledge is God's knowledge, after the divine decree of everything that will occur in the world God has decided to create. Free knowledge contains everything that will happen.
Divine natural knowledge and free knowledge are accepted by all classical theists, including in Reformed theology and these are not controversial.
Molina's unique idea was to suggest that between the pre-decree natural knowledge and the post-decree free knowledge of God, there is something called middle knowledge, which is before the decree and prevolitional, i.e. not something that originates in God's will, but precedes it. Middle knowledge contains God knowledge of everything beings with libertarian free will would do in any possible circumstances. The best way to think of it is as a subset of God's natural knowledge of all possibilities. Middle knowledge are all the possibilities that could happen if human beings have libertarian free will. Middle knowledge is often summarised as containing everything that would happen.
Another way these three moments are sometimes described is that natural knowledge comprehends all possible worlds, middle knowledge (with libertarian free will granted) comprehends all feasible worlds, and free knowledge comprehends the one actual world God decided to create.
This is a summary of what Molinism means. We will now outline the main reasons why Molinism is not a feasible view (pardon the pun) for the Bible-believing Christian in my view.
In summary, the problems with Molinism are the following:
1. Molinism denies God's absolute sovereignty and his exhaustive and unconditional decree.
2. Molinism teaches a form of creaturely independence which contradicts divine aseity.
3. Molinism requires libertarian free will, despite little biblical evidence for it.
4. Molinism smuggles in a kind of semi-Pelagian anthropolgy whereby sinners are able to do good, including saving good, in response to God's grace merely if put in the right set of circumstances.
5. Molinism undermines divine simplicity and immutability. It makes God's knowledge partly dependent on his creation and makes his decree reactive rather than eternal and simple.
6. Molinism weakens God's providence and efficacious grace.
7. Election in Molinism can only be a kind of conditional and impersonal election, in that God chooses those he knows will believe when put in certain circumstances. This is not the unconditional election of individuals whom God loves, as taught in the Scriptures.
8. Molinism rests on the concept of middle knowledge, which is not found in the Scriptures.
9. Molinism is unable to present an adequate explanation for why God has supposed middle knowledge or where it comes from.
We will explore these nine objections to Molinism, from a Reformed theological viewpoint, further in Part 2.
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