John Calvin

Unlikely Bedfellows: How Calvin andMolina were Pre-destined to be

TogetherAndrew Harland-Smith

University of Auckland – Department of Philosophy

(I am indebted to David Lewis, Tad Davis and John Bishopfor their helpful comments on this essay)

Luis Molina

A recurring feature of debates surrounding Calvinism is

the claim that it entails or at least pre-supposes that we

are not free, in a libertarian sense, to accept God’s

offer of salvation.1 2 In-fact, the assumption that

Calvinism is inconsistent with libertarian freedom is an

assumption that both sides of the debate seem to assume

almost un-critically. It is an assumption that is so

deeply ingrained, that most contemporary Calvinist

theologians accept it, and instead try to defend a form of

compatibilism. But for many Christians who feel that they

have a good argument for the incompatibility of

determinism and moral responsibility, this constitutes an

insurmountable obstacle for accepting Calvinism.

In this essay, I will explore whether Christians who find

themselves in this position are forced to reject

Calvinism. In short I want to argue that, without appeal

to divine inscrutability or mystery, there is room for a

Christian to accept Calvinism, and yet be a libertarian

about free will. But this will require doing the

unthinkable, marrying a Molinist view about divine

1 Knight, Gordon. “Molinism and Hell”. In “Hell: A Philosophical Anthology”. Edited by Joel Buenting. England. Ashgate Publishing Group. 2010. pp 1052 Craig, William Lane. “Yet Another Failed Anti-Molinist Argument”. In “Molinism The Contemporary Debate”. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 2011. pp 144

providence with Calvinism.3 Since Molinism is an

essentially libertarian doctrine, it follows that if I am

successful in coherently conjoining it with Calvinism, the

apparent tension between the latter and libertarian free

will is entirely illusory. Independently of whether or not

the two are inconsistent, you might have doubts about the

truth of Calvinism, and likewise you might have doubts

about the truth of Molinism. But my goal in this essay is

not to argue that these doctrines are true, it is merely

to argue that, contrary to popular assumptions, their

conjunction is coherent.

I proceed by way of four major sections. The over-arching

goal of the first section is to explain why Calvinism has

lead many to conclude that it is inconsistent with a

libertarian understanding of free will. I do this breaking

section one into three key subsections. In the first sub-

section, I spell out Calvinism in greater detail, taking

particular care to note the centrality of Regenerative

3 I trust that the irony of combining a Reformation theology with an anti-Reformation theology is not lost on anyone. If successful, this essay might be seen as the ultimate ecumenical act.

Grace in the process of bringing an elect individual to

saving faith. In the second sub-section, I provide an

explanation of what Libertarian Free Will is. By having an

understanding of what Libertarian Free Will is, we can

begin to see why some people have concluded that it is

inconsistent with Calvinism. In the third and final

subsection of section one, I take care to note the reasons

that have lead some to conclude that Calvinism and

Libertarian Free Will are inconsistent. In the second

major section, I explain what Molinism is, noting how it

is motivated by a libertarian understanding of free will.

In section three, I offer an interpretation of Calvinism

that is consistent with Molinism. I do this by way of four

subsections. The first three of these sub-sections is

dedicated to explaining how particular Calvinist doctrines

are consistent with Molinism. Thus for instance, the first

subsection of section three deals exclusively with the

com-possibility of Molinism and the Calvinist Doctrine of

Unconditional Election and Limited Atonement. Likewise,

subsection three deals exclusively with the com-

possibility of Molinism and the Doctrine of Regenerative

and Irresistible Grace. If I am successful in this regard,

a Molinist-Calvinist model emerges that I then summarize

in subsection four. In the fourth and final section of the

essay, I consider and reject a number of objections that

this model might face.

Section 1: CalvinismThe Five Points of CalvinismThe five major points of Calvinism are the doctrines of

Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited

Atonement, Irresistible Grace and the Perseverance of the

Saints.

1) Total Depravity: In short form, the doctrine of Total

Depravity claims that, in virtue of sin, humans are

in such a way that they do not deserve God’s favor.

To the contrary, humans are entirely deserving of

God’s wrath such that He would be acting in an

entirely just way were He to annihilate each of us.

Moreover, the doctrine claims that, without any

regenerative grace, humans are incapable of

responding positively to God’s offer of salvation.4

2) Unconditional Election: Put simply, this doctrine

claims that the reason that God saves any given

person S is not because of any fact about S. In other

words, it is not because S has done anything, or

would do anything to deserve it. Nor is it because

God foreknows that S will freely choose salvation.5

3) Limited Atonement: According to this doctrine, God

unconditionally elects a limited number of persons to

bring to saving faith such that there are two subsets

of persons, those who are elect, and those who are

non-elect.6 7

4) Irresistible Grace: This doctrine claims that it is

true to say of all unconditionally elect individuals,

that they will come to saving faith. To put it

differently still, once God has unconditionally

elected to save some person S, it is certain that S

will come to faith. It is often thought that it is4 Erikson, Milard. “Christian Theology Second Edition”. Grand Rapids Michigan. Baker Academic. 1998. pp 9285 Ibid. pp 9306 Ibid. pp 9297 Ibid. pp 955

this doctrine, in particular, that is inconsistent

with libertarian free will.8

5) Perseverance of the Saints: It straightforwardly

follows from the doctrine of Irresistible Grace that

once a person has been brought to saving faith, they

will remain saved.

So far we have a brief outline of the five key doctrines

of Calvinism, but we still do not have a complete picture.

To get a fuller picture, it helps to start by thinking

about how the doctrine of Total Depravity initially seems

to imply that no one will be saved. After all, what it

tells us is that in their natural state, humans are

incapable of responding positively to God’s offer of

salvation. Yet at the same time, the Calvinist asserts

that in order for some person S to be saved, S must

respond positively and voluntarily to God’s offer of

salvation. So given that no one would positively respond

to God’s offer (the Doctrine of Total Depravity), it would

seem to follow that no-one will come to a saving faith. In

order to resolve this tension, the Calvinist posits that

God must make His elect capable of responding to His8 Ibid. 930

offer. That is to say, God must extend a degree of grace

to His elect that mitigates the debilitating effects of

sin, and enables them to respond favorably to God’s offer.

This Doctrine is known as the Doctrine of Regenerative

Grace. It is this doctrine that, for the Calvinist, gives

rises to the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace. In

particular, the claim is that once an elect individual

becomes regenerate, it is certain that they will respond

favorably to God’s offer. As Milard Erickson puts it:

“Only when God comes in His special grace to those whom He has

chosen are they able to respond. Then seeing clearly and vividly the

nature of their sins and the greatness, glory and love of God, they

will most assuredly and infallibly turn to him”9

So we can break the Calvinist doctrine of Regenerative

and Irresistible Grace into two key theses:

(1). God regenerates the elect such that they are

capable of responding positively to His offer of

salvation

(2). A regenerate individual is certain to respond

positively to God’s offer

9 Ibid. pp 930

To see the significance of the second thesis, it helps to

contrast the Calvinist Doctrine of Regeneration with the

Wesleyan Arminian version thereof. Wesleyan Arminians do

not disagree with Calvinists about the Doctrine of Total

Depravity,10 nor do they disagree that a certain amount of

Regenerative Grace is required in order for anyone to even

capable of responding favorably to God’s offer. However,

for the Wesleyan Arminian, it is at least possible (though

never actual) for all people to come to saving faith.

Hence their notion of regeneration differs from the

Calvinists version thereof insofar as (a) it extends to

all people and not just to an limited elect, and (b) it is

not true to say of all regenerate people that they will

come to faith. This idea is popularly (though somewhat

loosely) summed up by the claim that the grace God extends

to us is “sufficient for all peoples salvation, but not efficient for all

peoples salvation”. That is, God enables all people to respond

favorably to His call, but not all people make the free

choice to follow Him, and hence not all are saved.

10 Ibid. 931

Wesleyan Arminians refer to this as the Doctrine of

Prevenient Grace.11

One thing that is important to notice, is that even on

Erickson’s characterization of the Doctrines of

Regeneration and Irresistible Grace, whilst it is

necessary that some person S be regenerate if S is to

respond favorably to God’s offer, and whilst it is true to

say of all regenerate persons that they will respond

favorably to God’s offer, regeneration by itself is not

sufficient to guarantee a favorable response. Even after

an elect individual has become regenerate, there still

needs to be an additional step of seeing ‘the nature of their

sins and the greatness, glory and love of God’.

Hence the Calvinist Doctrines of Regenerative and

Irresistible Grace do not end up being all that different

to the Wesleyan-Arminian version thereof. On both

accounts, regeneration by itself is not a sufficient

condition for ensuring that anyone comes to saving faith.

Additional steps are required after regeneration in order11 Ibid. pp 933

to bring a person to faith. Where the Calvinist and the

Wesleyan-Arminian part ways, is in the formers insistence

that (a) God extends this grace only to a limited elect

and (b) that He ‘finishes the job’, as it were, by

ensuring that those whom He has regenerated come to

salvation.

Libertarian Free WillIf we are to have a good idea of why so many people have

conclude that Calvinism is inconsistent with Libertarian

Free Will, we had better have a good idea of what

Libertarian Free Will is.

Minimally, libertarianism conjoins three key theses: (1)

Indeterminism, (2) Incompatibilism, and (3) the thesis

that we are morally responsible for our actions. Looking

at each of these theses in turn. The first thesis, in-

determinism, is the thesis that determinism is false.

Broadly speaking, determinism is the thesis that all

events, including our actions, are entailed or

necessitated by antecedent events and conditions. Thus

physical determinism would hold, for instance, that all

events are entailed by the conjunction of some early state

of the universe together with the laws of nature.12

Likewise, theological determinism would hold that all

events are entailed or efficiently caused by an act of

God.13 The second thesis, incompatibilism, is the thesis

that moral responsibility and determinism are logically

incompatible. That is, if our actions are causally

determined by prior events or conditions outside of our

control, then we are not morally responsible for our

actions.14 Notice, that you might be a determinist and an

incompatibilist, in which case you would hold that we are

not morally responsible for our actions. This position is

referred to as “Hard Determinism”. The third thesis is

fairly self-explanatory, but notice that it is not

logically entailed by a conjunction of the other two

theses. After all, as well as thinking that determinism is

inconsistent with moral responsibility, you might also12 Vihvelin, Kadri. “Causes, Laws and Free Will: Why Determinism Doesn’t Matter”. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 2013. pp 1 13 Eshleman, Andrew. “Moral Responsibility”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed: 24/10/13. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/ 14 Vihvelin, Kadri. “Arguments for Incompatibilism”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed: 24/10/13. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incompatibilism-arguments/

think it (moral responsibility) to be inconsistent with

indeterminism. In which case you would have to hold that

moral responsibility for our actions is literally

impossible. After all, determinism and in-determinism are

strict contradictories such that if one is false, then the

other is true. Hence if moral responsibility is

incompatible with both determinism and in-determinism,

then we just cannot possibly be morally responsible for

our actions.15

As I mentioned just a moment ago, Libertarians insist that

free will is logically inconsistent with determinism. They

maintain that for some person S to be ‘free’, S must in

some sense be the ‘first cause’ of her own actions such

that if there were any prior efficient causes that

necessitated S to act as she did, then it would be false

to say that S is ‘free’.

15 Vihvelin, Kadri. “Compatibilism, Incompatibilism and Impossibilism”. In “Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics”. 303-319. Edited by Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne and Dean Zimmerman. 303-318. Malden MA. Blackwell Publishing ltd. 2008. pp 304-305.

Some have suggested that for S to be ‘free’ to perform

some action A, S must have been ‘able to do otherwise in

the same circumstances’. In other words, the suggestion is

that for S to be ‘free’ it must be the case that if S were

given the chance to repeat her actions, S would have been

able to refrain from performing A. This has aptly been

called the “Principle of Alternative Possibilities”

(hereafter PAP). 16 However, Frankfurt-type counterexamples

might give us reason to reject (PAP). Nevertheless, as

philosophers such as Derk Pereboom have pointed out, even

granted the success of Frankfurt-type counter examples,

the option remains open to the libertarian to suppose that

for S to be ‘free’ to perform A, A must not have been

necessitated by a deterministic causal chain whose source

begins with factors outside of S’s control. This kind of

incompatibilism is aptly referred to as “Source

Incompatibilism”. 17 Thus it would be a mistake to define

16 Frankfurt, Harry. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”. The Journal of Philosophy. Vol 66. No 23. 1969. 829-839. pp 82917 Pereboom, Derk. “Source Incompatibilism and Alternative Possibilities”. Last Seminary. Accssed: 4/10/13. http://www.lastseminary.com/display/Search?searchQuery=Moral+Responsibility+and+Alternative+Possibilities&moduleId=4798594 .pp 2

libertarianism in terms of (PAP). Rather, it is better to

define it in terms of the three theses that I delineated

previously.

The Perceived Tension with Libertarian Free WillAs we saw in the first sub-section of section one, the

Calvinist Doctrine of Regenerative Grace differs from the

Wesleyan-Arminian version thereof insofar as the former

gives rise to the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace. As I

noted, it does this by claiming that a regenerate

individual is certain to respond favorably to God’s offer

of salvation. Typically it is this particular doctrine

that has been the proposed flashpoint between libertarian

free will and Calvinism. After all, if it is certain that a

regenerate individual S will respond favorably to God’s

offer of salvation, then at first blush, it may seem that

S lacks a libertarian choice about the matter.

So part of my task in this essay will be to offer an

interpretation of how it might be true to say that S (a

regenerate individual) is ‘certain’ to respond favorably

to God’s offer, and yet it remain the case that S is not

‘determined’ to so respond. Granted that a determinist

interpretation of the Doctrines of Regeneration and

Irresistible Grace would make it true to say hat S is

certain to respond favorably, but it is unclear whether

such an interpretation is required in order to render this

claim true.

Before I continue, it is important to note that my efforts

are specifically to make “Calvinism” consistent with

libertarian freedom. This is not a trivial point, as some

efforts to make the doctrine of Irresistible Grace

compatible with libertarian free will end up eschewing the

doctrine of Unconditional Election. For instance, a

Molinist-Arminian view might claim that God elects all and

only those individuals who He foresees will freely choose

faith.18 In that case, something like the doctrine of

Irresistible Grace comes out to be true, since God is then

successful in bringing to faith all those that He has

elected. Nevertheless in virtue of the fact that the

faithful are elect on the basis of some fact about

18 Erikson, Milard. “Christian Theology Second Edition”. Grand Rapids Michigan. Baker Academic. 1998. pp 933

themselves, it comes at the cost of the doctrine of

Unconditional Election, and hence is inconsistent with any

form of Calvinism worth the name. In contrast, I want to

suggest that the Calvinist is not logically required to

eschew the doctrine of Unconditional Election in his

endeavor to make the Doctrine of Irresistible Grace

consistent with Libertarian Free Will.

Section 2: Molinism

In its most fundamental form, Molinism is a view about how

God providentially orders events that seeks to combine a

strong notion of Divine Sovereignty with a thoroughly

libertarian understanding of free will. That is to say, it

attempts bring together the biblical notion that God

foreordains all events without thereby committing itself

to theological determinism.19

It does this by distinguishing between three kinds of

Divine Knowledge: namely God’s natural knowledge, His free

knowledge, and His middle knowledge. ‘Natural knowledge’

19 Flint, Thomas. “Divine Providence: The Molinist Account”. Ithaca New York. Cornell University Press. 2006. pp 11

picks out God’s knowledge of necessary truths such as

mathematical and logical truths over which He has no

control. Included in God’s ‘natural knowledge’ would be

His knowledge of all possible worlds, since by the S5

axiom of modal logic, what is possible is necessarily

possible. By contrast, the propositions that populate

God’s ‘free knowledge’ are those contingent propositions

whose truth-value He controls. More particularly, it

refers to God’s knowledge of which possible world actually

exists. This knowledge arises after God’s creative

decision, i.e. His decision of which possible world to

actualize. Consequently, God’s ‘free knowledge’ is thought

to be ‘post-volitional’. For instance, God’s knowledge

that the Earth is round is part of His ‘free knowledge’

insofar as He knows it as a result of His creative choice

to actualize a world in which the Earth round. 20

Now evidently if humans are to be free in a libertarian

sense, then God’s knowledge of how some person S would act

in any given situation cannot belong to either his Natural

or His Free knowledge. After all, if God’s knowledge of20 Ibid. pp 37-38

how we freely act is part of His natural knowledge, it

follows that how we act is logically necessary and so is

not, in the libertarian sense, ‘free’.21 Likewise if His

knowledge of how we freely act is part of God’s free

knowledge, it follows that ultimately, God is in control

of how we act, and hence humans cannot be ‘free’ in a

libertarian sense.22 For instance, suppose that the

following counterfactual is true:

(1). If Andrew Harland-Smith had not been a student of

John Bishop, then he would not have chosen to write

on the compatibility of Calvinism and Libertarian

Free Will

Recall that, for the Molinist, the propositions that

populate God’s free knowledge are those contingent

propositions whose truth-value He controls. So if God

knows (1) via His “Free Knowledge”, it follows that God

has control over its truth. That is, a choice of God makes

it true that if Andrew were not a student of John Bishop,

21 Ibid. pp 4122 Ibid. pp 123

Andrew would choose to write on something other than the

compatibility of Calvinism and Libertarian Free Will.

Evidently, if God is what makes (1) true, then a choice of

God is the determining condition of Andrew choosing to

write on the compatibility of Calvinism and Libertarian

Free Will, hence his choice to do so cannot be ‘free’ in a

libertarian sense.

Thus to make room for libertarian freedom, Molinists posit

a third kind of Divine Knowledge that they refer to as His

‘Middle Knowledge’. The propositions that populate God’s

‘middle knowledge’ are propositions the truth-values of

which he cannot control, but which are contingent.

According to the Molinist, this includes God’s knowledge

of “The Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom”. That is,

how any given person S would freely choose act in any

given set of circumstances C.23 The counterfactual (1) that

we considered previously would be one example of a

counterfactual of creaturely freedom. Thus God has middle

knowledge only if for any given person S and set of

circumstances C, God knows how S would freely act in C.23 Ibid. pp 42

Evidently if the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom

are to serve the libertarian purposes that Molinists hope

they will, the antecedents of these counterfactuals must

not state conditions that determine their consequents. For

if they did state such conditions, the way in which the

agents act would be determined. Nevertheless, as Perszyk

notes, if these counterfactuals are to be action guiding

to God, the antecedents must be ‘complete’ in that they

truly state the circumstances under which some person S

freely chooses to act as they do. For instance, recall the

counterfactual (1) that we considered earlier. The

antecedent “If Andrew were not a student of John Bishop”

does not causally determine Andrew to write about something

other than the compatibility of libertarian free will and

Calvinism, but it does state the complete circumstances in

which Andrew chooses to write on something else. To put it

differently, it must be fact that if Andrew were not John

Bishop’s student, he would have written on something other

than the compatibility of Libertarian Free Will and

Calvinism.24 25 The importance of this point will later be

crucial to understanding how the Calvinist Doctrine of

Regenerative Grace is compatible with libertarian freedom.

On Molinism, the thought is that when deciding how to

produce a desired world, God uses of His knowledge of the

counterfactuals of creaturely freedom to bring about that

desired world. Suppose, for instance, that God desires

that some person S to come to faith in Christ. God uses

His knowledge of the circumstances under which S freely

chooses faith, and then places S in those circumstances.

So rather than manipulating the internal desires of S, the

Molinist suggests that God manipulates the external

factors around S in such a way that that S freely chooses

an end consistent with God’s. One way to illustrate this

line of thinking would be to consider a man who tries to

woo a woman. Suppose that, unlike any real life scenario,

this man happens to have perfect knowledge of what would

24 Persyk, Kenneth J. “Introduction”. In “Molinism the Contemporary Debate”. Edited by Kenneth Persyk. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 2011. pp 2 25 Craig, William Lane. “Yet Another Failed Anti-Molinist Argument”. In “Molinism The Contemporary Debate”. Oxford. Oxford University Press. 2011. pp 144

make this woman fall in love with him. In such a scenario,

the man has done nothing to manipulate the woman’s inner

will, but rather has used his knowledge of the

circumstances in which she would respond favorably to

bring it about that she loves him in return.

So understood, the impetus for Molinism is clearly a

libertarian account of human freedom. After all, it is the

assumption that we have libertarian freedom that seems to

compel Molinists to posit middle knowledge. Of course it

is possible that there might be a form of Molinism that

does not incorporate this libertarian notion of human

freedom, and indeed it is possible for a Molinist to be a

compatibilist.26 After all, Molinism is true if and only if

God has middle knowledge. That is, if there are contingent

propositions such that God knows their truth-value, but

exercises no control over their truth-value. It does not

automatically follow from this that human have freedom in

a libertarian sense. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see

what the motivation for positing middle knowledge might be26 Persyk, Kenneth J. “Molinism and Compatibilism”. International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion. Vol 38. No 1. Aug 2000. 11-33. pp 20

if in-fact we do not in-fact have libertarian free will.

So it seems safe characterize Molinism as an essentially

libertarian view.

Section 3: Molinism as Consistent with

Calvinism

So now that we have explained what Calvinism is, why many

have concluded that it is inconsistent with Libertarian

Free Will, and now have an idea of what Molinism is, we

can move on to developing a model of Calvinism that is

consistent with Molinism.

Molinism as Consistent with Limited Atonement and Unconditional ElectionMany contemporary Arminian-Molinists tell us that God

actualizes that possible world in which the greatest

number of people freely choose saving faith. Whilst it is

clear that this relies on a Molinist understanding of

Divine Providence, it does not follow from Molinism just as

such. From what we have seen so far, Molinism merely tells

us that God has middle knowledge of how any given person S

would freely choose to act in any given set of

circumstances C. Nothing follows from this about the

reasons why God might choose to save S. After all bare

knowledge of how to save S does not, by itself, give God

any reason to save S. Hence Molinism scarcely entails the

Arminian notion that God saves those whom He foresaw would

freely choose saving faith. Molinism rather, is an add-on

that tells us how God saves people.

Insofar as the Calvinist Doctrine of Unconditional

Election seeks to answer the question of why we are saved,

it seems that Molinism and the Doctrine of Unconditional

Election seek to answer different questions. Understood in

this way, Molinism and Unconditional Election are not

answering the same question with competing answers, rather

they are answering entirely different questions.

Since Molinism, by itself, does not entail anything about

the reasons that God elects or saves anyone, it seems

entirely open to the Molinist to suppose that God

unconditionally elects a limited few. In other words, it

is open to the Molinist to suppose that whilst God has

Middle Knowledge of the conditions under which any given

person S would respond favorably to His call, God does not

use this knowledge as a reason to elect anyone. So we can,

it seems, have a Molinist account of Unconditional

Election.

But of course merely noting that that there can be a

Molinist account of Unconditional Election does not by

itself entail that Molinism and Calvinism are logically

consistent. All we have shown so far is that Molinism is

consistent with at least one essential feature of the five

points of Calvinism. We still need to show that Molinism

is consistent with Total Depravity and, perhaps more

importantly, the Doctrines of Regeneration and

Irresistible Grace.

Molinism as Consistent with Total DepravityAnother thing that might lead us to think that Calvinism

and Molinism are inconsistent is that, at first glance,

they seem to offer competing accounts of human ability to

reach God. Whereas the Doctrine of Total Depravity makes

it clear that humans are incapable of making the choice to

follow God by themselves, Molinism seems to paint a

picture of humans that are capable in precisely this

sense. After all one of the purposes that the

counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are supposed play,

is in instructing God on what conditions He needs to

actualize in order for people to come freely to faith.

Hence Calvinists are often wont to argue that the fatal

flaw with the ‘wooing’ analogy that I used to illustrate

Molinism is that it neglects the role that God’s

Regenerative Grace must play within the agent even before

they can come faith. It may seem that if we take the

‘wooing’ analogy just by itself, it might be seen to

suggest that humans are capable of responding to God’s off

of salvation without any regenerative grace.

This objection to the Molinist picture is instructive. In

part because it is not really objecting to the Molinist

picture just as such, but rather, it is objecting to the

conjunction of Molinism with a Pelagian view of human

ability. That is to say, it rejects a Molinist picture

that is combined with the assumption that humans are

capable of responding favorably to God even in the absence

of any Regenerative Grace (Pelagianism).27 But understood

just as such, the Molinist picture does not logically

demand a Pelagian view of human ability. Indeed many

contemporary Molinists such as William Lane Craig escape

Pelagianism by building into their account the Wesleyan-

Arminian notion of Prevenient Grace that I mentioned

earlier. This grace is required in order for anyone to

respond to God’s offer of salvation, but, importantly, it

does not causally determine a favorable response. In short

the idea is that God provides each person with enough

grace that they are free in a libertarian sense to choose

faith, whereas prior to God’s gift of Prevenient Grace,

they lacked this ability.28 In this way, Molinist-Arminians

avoid committing themselves to a Pelagian view of human

ability and affirm with Calvinists the doctrine of Total

Depravity. But at the same time, in true Molinist style,

they can say that God uses His knowledge of the

counterfactuals of creaturely freedom to bring about the

kind of world that He desires.

27 Hägglund, Bengt Vilhelm. “History of Theology: Fourth Revised Edition”. St Louis. Concordia Publishing House. 2007. pp 13328 Craig, William Lane. “Middle Knowledge and Christian Exclusivism”. Sophia. v34. No. 1. 1995. 120-139. pp 120

Of course as I mentioned earlier, insofar as it has God

electing the saved on the basis of His foresight of their

free choice of faith, this Arminian-Molinist view ends up

denying the Doctrine of Unconditional Election, and as

such, is inconsistent with Calvinism. Nevertheless, the

fact it is coherent to conjoin Molinism with the Doctrine

of Total Depravity is sufficient to indicate that Molinism

does not entail a Pelagian view of human ability.

Molinism as Consistent with Regenerative and Irresistible GraceThe fact that Molinism does not demand a Pelagian view of

human ability means that it is open to the Molinist to

suppose that, having unconditionally chosen a limited

elect, God provides some kind of Regenerative Grace to

that limited elect such that they are free in a

libertarian sense to respond to God’s call. To put it

differently, the Regenerative Grace that God bestows on

the limited elect would have to be rather like the

doctrine of prevenient grace that Arminian-Molinists use

to avoid a Pelagian view of human ability. The key

difference would be, that whereas Molinst-Arminians claim

that this Prevenient Grace extends to all persons, the

Molinist-Calvinist would have to claim that it extends

only to those who are unconditionally elect. So the first

part of the Calvinist Doctrine of Regenerative and

Irresistible Grace, namely the claim that God’s grace must

make the elect able to respond, is consistent with

Molinism. But of course the point of Prevenient Grace, at

least for the Molinist-Arminian, is that it does not

causally determine a regenerate individual to respond

favorably to God’s offer of salvation. Indeed for

Molinist-Arminians, it is false to say of all regenerate

individuals that they will respond favorably to God’s

offer. So if the Regenerative Grace that God extends to

the unconditionally elect is like the Doctrine of

Prevenient Grace in the sense that it does not determine

the elect to respond favorably to God’s offer, the

question then arises, “in what sense is God’s grace

irresistible?” The answer to this is fairly simple: ‘we

import Molinism’. As I mentioned in subsection two of

section one, both the Wesleyan-Arminian and the Calvinist

agree that regeneration by itself is not sufficient to

bring a person to salvation. Even for the Calvinist,

additional steps are required after regeneration in order

to ensure that an elect individual is successfully brought

to faith. The difference, as I noted, was the Calvinists

insistence that God ‘finishes the job’. So for the

Calvinist, there needs to be a ‘second stage’ to God’s

grace. That being the case, the question arises as to why

we cannot suppose that God uses His knowledge of the

counterfactuals of creaturely freedom to bring the newly

regenerate unconditionally elect to faith. In other words,

God, in His foreknowledge of the circumstances in which a

regenerate elect individual freely comes to faith, simply

actualizes the relevant circumstances, and thereby brings

the individuals in question to faith. Now if such a

picture is true, the second part of the Doctrines of

Regenerative and Irresistible Grace turns out to be true.

After all, God’s knowledge of the counterfactuals of

creaturely freedom is supposed to be infallible. Hence if

God were to use this knowledge to bring a newly regenerate

individual to salvation, He would always be successful. So

we can truly to say of all newly regenerate persons that

they will certainly respond favorably to God’s offer of

salvation. It would be false to say however, that God’s

Regenerative Grace causally determined the favorable

response. Likewise, it would be false to say that God

causally determined the positive response of the

regenerate elect.

The model summarized So to summarize, the idea is roughly this: God

unconditionally elects a limited few of ‘totally depraved’

individuals, on whom He bestows non-determining

Regenerative Grace. Making use of His infallible middle

knowledge of the circumstances in which these newly

regenerate individuals choose salvation, God successfully

brings this limited few to faith. If this model is true,

so are each of the five points of Calvinism. This notion

seems entirely coherent, and yet it involves a thoroughly

libertarian account of free will. QED the conjunction of

Calvinism and Libetarian Free Will is coherent.

ObjectionsIn his latest book “Good God” Professor Jerry Walls writes

that the Calvinist is committed to compatibilism. In an e-

mail exchange between Professor Walls and myself, Walls

objected that the Molinist-Calvinist model I have painted

requires there to be circumstances in which a person will

freely accept God’s grace, something that may not be true

of all people. In other words, it may be that there are

people who would never freely choose salvation. To put it

in Molinist terms, it may be the case that for some person

S there is no true counterfactual in which the S freely

chooses faith. William Lane Craig refers to this category

of persons as the ‘transworld damned’.29

If it is true that there is a subset of persons who would

never freely choose faith, it would seem to follow that,

in forming His limited elect God, would be forced to

choose from that subset of persons for whom there is at

least one circumstance in which they freely choose faith.

In other words, given that there are some who would never

29 Knight, Gordon. “Molinism and Hell”. In “Hell: A PhilosophicalAnthology”. Edited by Joel Buenting. England. Ashgate Publishing Group. 2010. pp 110

freely choose faith, God’s choice in forming His limited

elect would have to be restricted to those who would,

under the right circumstances, choose faith. Now if that

is true, the doctrine of Unconditional Election would turn

out to be false, since now it is the case that people are

elect because of some fact about themselves, namely that

there is some circumstance in which they freely choose

faith.

There seem to me to be two lines of response to this line

of criticism. The first point is that the possibility of a

group of ‘transworld damned’ seems to me to be dubious at

best. Intuitively it seems difficult to accept the notion

that, when confronted with the reality of God, a

regenerate individual could turn away. One way to think

about this would be to think of Plato’s allegory of the

Cave. Once someone has exited the cave, seen reality for

how it truly is, and has returned to the cave, it seems

implausible to suppose that it is possible for this

returnee to take the shadows dancing on the wall as

reality. Likewise, it seems intuitively difficult to

accept the notion that once someone has been confronted

with the beatific vision, (that is once God has appeared

to that person in His full glory, love and splendor) that

this person could somehow reject God and persist in such

sin. At the very least, it seems unclear why such

abilities would be at all valuable. This notion that no-

one could turn away from God once He has revealed Himself

to some individual no more threatens the idea of

libertarian freedom than does the notion that we are, in

an important sense, ‘un-free’ to choose to cease believing

in the external world.

In any event, even if we grant that there are these

‘transworld damned’, I remain unconvinced that spells the

death knell for the Calvinist-Molinism that I have

presented. It remains open at this point, to the Calvinist

to suppose that the subset of those who are elect is

smaller than the subset of those who would, under some

circumstances, freely choose faith. To put it more clearly

still, it helps to envisage four possible subsets of

persons:

1) That subset of persons who would never freely choose

salvation

2) That subset of persons who would, in circumstances,

freely choose salvation

(This second subset of persons breaks down into two

further constituent sub-categories)

3) That subset of persons who would, in some

circumstances, freely choose salvation that God

elects

4) That subset of persons who would, in some

circumstances, freely choose salvation that God does

not elect

Provided that those who comprise (3) are not chosen on the

basis of any feature they possess, it remains true that

they are ‘unconditionally elect’. Some person S in (3)

could compare himself to some other person S* in (4) and

ask: “why I am I saved whilst he is not?”, and the answer

would still rightly be that there is no feature about S

that merited his election above that of S*. Moreover, it

would be incorrect for S to say that he is elect because

he is a member of (2), because notice that those who

comprise (4) are also members of (3), and yet they are not

elect.

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