An anti-Molinist argument

Abstract

Molinism seeks to reconcile divine providence with an incompatibilist conception of human freedom through the doctrine of middle knowledge. This theory posits that God possesses eternal, infallible knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom—propositions detailing how any possible creature would freely act in any possible situation. These counterfactuals are considered explanatorily prior to God’s decision to create the world. However, this explanatory order undermines the very freedom it intends to preserve. If the truth of a counterfactual of freedom is prior to God’s creative decree, it is necessarily prior to the existence and choices of the agent. Within an incompatibilist framework, a choice is not free if a truth strictly inconsistent with the agent’s refraining from that choice is explanatorily prior to the act itself. Because Molinism requires these truths to be settled independently of and prior to the agent’s voluntary activity, the agent lacks the power to determine the outcome of their actions. Thus, the existence of middle knowledge is logically incompatible with libertarian free will, as the explanatory antecedents of a choice cannot preclude its omission if the action is to remain free. – AI-generated abstract.