Molinism and OSAS

[psimmond]

I've read several of William Lane Craig's articles on Molinism and I know that he believes that one who is saved can become an apostate in theory but won't because the world that God actualized will ensure that His sufficient grace is present to keep that from happening to the elect.

I suspect other Molinists do not hold to OSAS, but I could be wrong. So my question is this: Is Wesley's view that one can truly be saved but lose their salvation compatible with Molinism?

It seems that the Molinist could say God knew they would be saved and then fall away, so although they were saved for a time, God never considered them part of the elect. Perhaps the elect are only those who are saved and persevere in the faith till the end. (This is my current view "Wesleyan-Molinism" )

**Edit**
I just found this quote:
"Of course, Molinism does not imply the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The defender of middle knowledge could hold that logically prior to creation God knew that there were no worlds feasible for Him in which all believers persevere or that, if there were, such worlds had overriding deficiencies in other respects. Therefore, the warnings of Scripture do not guarantee the perseverance of believers, for believers can and do ignore them. Nevertheless, it does seem to me that those who interpret the warnings of Scripture as the means by which God ensures the perseverance of the saints have abandoned the classic understanding of that doctrine and have adopted instead a middle knowledge perspective on perseverance." William Lane Craig

[Paidion]

In my opinion, God's "middle knowledge" concerning what would have happened if something else had happened, does no more to permit freedom of choice that Calvinism or Arminianism. Maybe it moves it back a step so as to give the feeling of free will.

[psimmond]

If God surveyed all possible worlds and what every free-will agent would do in all possible worlds prior to actualizing the world that contained an optimal balance between saved and unsaved, He would have perfect knowledge of the future, including who would respond affirmatively to his grace and be saved and who would reject his grace their whole life and be damned.

How does this view infringe upon freedom of choice?

[steve7150]

If God surveyed all possible worlds and what every free-will agent would do in all possible worlds prior to actualizing the world that contained an optimal balance between saved and unsaved, He would have perfect knowledge of the future, including who would respond affirmatively to his grace and be saved and who would reject his grace their whole life and be damned.

How does this view infringe upon freedom of choice?




Because they could not respond any other way. They may think they have free will , but thinking it and having it are like day and night. What would make someeone respond affirmatively to Christ in this scenerio? It seems that the Holy Spirit or simply the way God created someone's heart, which would make God ultimately responsible for salvation.

[psimmond]

I would agree that God is "ultimately responsible for salvation."

I don't think we can say that God knowing how individuals would act in any given scenario necessarily means humans are not free-will creatures. If this is the case, then we have to believe in a God with limited omniscience to accept the existence of free will.

From William Lane Craig:
"Philosophically, I’m persuaded by arguments such as have been offered by Harry Frankfurt that free choice does not entail the ability to do otherwise. Imagine that a mad scientist has secretly wired your brain with electrodes so that he can control your choices. Suppose that in the last Presidential election, he wanted you to vote for Obama and had determined that if you were going to vote for McCain he would activate the electrodes and make you cast your vote for Obama. Now as it turns out, you also wanted to vote for Obama, and so when you went into the polling booth you marked your ballot for Obama, and therefore the scientist never activated the electrodes. I think it’s clear that you freely voted for Obama, even though it was not possible for you to do otherwise. What this thought experiment suggests is that the essence of free choice is the absence of causal constraint with respect to your choices; it is up to you alone how you choose.

Now in the case of God, if God is essentially good, then there is no possible world in which He does evil. But does that imply that God does not freely do the good? Not if Frankfurt’s analysis is right. For God acts in the complete absence of any causal constraint whatsoever upon Him. It is up to Him and Him alone how He acts. He therefore acts freely in doing the good. That God is acting freely is evident in the fact that His will is not inclined necessarily toward any particular finite good; He chooses to do whatever He wants."

[steve7150]

I would agree that God is "ultimately responsible for salvation."

I don't think we can say that God knowing how individuals would act in any given scenario necessarily means humans are not free-will creatures. If this is the case, then we have to believe in a God with limited omniscience to accept the existence of free will.




It seems to me if you believe people really have free will then they are to a certain extent responsible for their salvation to the extent they must respond to Christ.
If God is responsible for salvation and not men, then since it is his will that everyone be saved and according to Eph 1.11 he "works out all things after the counsel of his own will"
then God will bring his stated will to fruition when he chooses to.

[psimmond]

I agree. It seems were just asigning a different definition to the word "responsible." I do believe that God initiates through prevenient grace and saves, but I also agree with the Arminian view that humans must believe before they can be saved.

[Paidion]

From William Lane Craig:
"Philosophically, I’m persuaded by arguments such as have been offered by Harry Frankfurt that free choice does not entail the ability to do otherwise.

The ability to do otherwise is the very meaning of "free choice".

So Molinism implies no free will just as surely as does determinism of any kind including Calvinism. It is not that having free choice implies that God is not omniscient — only that God cannot know in advance what free will agents will choose, because there's nothing to know. For that choice has not yet been determined, and God does not determine it. The free will agent does.

[psimmond]

The ability to do otherwise is the very meaning of "free choice".

I think William Lane Craig does a good job in this article http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=7227 demonstrating that the "essence of free choice is the absence of causal constraint with respect to your choices."

It is not that having free choice implies that God is not omniscient — only that God cannot know in advance what free will agents will choose, because there's nothing to know.

Why is there nothing to know? Couldn't God know counterfactuals? Isn’t it possible that God knows the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom even though they are outside of his control?

"For by knowing how people would freely choose in whatever circumstances they might be in, God can, by decreeing to place just those persons in just those circumstances, bring about His ultimate purposes through free creaturely decisions. Thus, by employing His hypothetical knowledge, God can plan a world down to the last detail and yet do so without annihilating human freedom, since what people would freely do under various circumstances is already factored into the equation by God.

In the same way that necessary truths like 2+2=4 are prior to and therefore independent of God's decree, so counterfactual truths about how people would freely choose under various circumstances are prior to and independent of God's decree." William Lane Craig
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/New ... le&id=7720

(Between Steve Gregg and William Lane Craig I've come to believe that humans definitely have free will and that the providence of God can be reconciled with human free will. I've gone from Arminian to Open Theist and now it seems I'm becoming a Molinist .)

[Paidion]

I have read Craig, and I am not convinced.

God knowing "counterfactuals of creaturely freedom" is itself a contradiction. If God knows what we would choose under any possible conditions, then we do not have free will in the sense that we can choose something and make it happen.

If "the absence of causal constraint" is the essence of free will, then the stones sitting idle in the park have free will.