On God’s Knowledge of Counterfactuals of Freedom

Document Type : Original Research

Authors
Farid al-Din Sebt 1
Ebrahim Azadegan 2
Mahdi Esfahani 3
Azam Ghasemi 3
1 Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Philosophy of Religion, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran.
2 Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy of Science, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
3 Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy of Religion, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies (IHCS), Tehran, Iran.
10.30497/prr.2021.241053.1684
Abstract
To answer the problem of incompatibility between divine providence and creaturely freedom, Molinism suggests the theory of middle knowledge, a theory that claims by assuming God’s knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom, we can resolve the problem without giving up neither divine providence nor creaturely freedom. Through His knowledge of the conditionals and actualizing their antecedents, He knows what creatures will freely do. In this way, God’s foreknowledge and sovereignty can be compatible with creatures’ freedom. The present paper attempts to show that there is a sort of incoherency in Molinism. For, while Molinism presupposes divine immutability thesis, it attributes a will to God that requires moving from possibility to actuality in divine nature. We argue that because counterfactuals of freedom need to be actualized by divine will, claiming God's knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom leads to a rejection of divine immutability thesis which makes Molinism incoherent. We conclude that the proposed objection to the theory of God’s middle knowledge of counterfactuals of freedom is a crucial objection regardless of the success of its proponents in answering the objections concerning the truth-makers of such counterfactuals.
Keywords
Divine Providence
Molinism
Middle Knowledge
Counterfactuals of Freedom
Divine Will
Immutability
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