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Counterfactuals of divine freedom

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Abstract

Contrary to the commonly held position of Luis de Molina, Thomas Flint and others, I argue that counterfactuals of divine freedom (CDFs) are pre-volitional for God within the Molinist framework. That is, CDFs are not true even partly in virtue of some act of God’s will. As a result, I argue that the Molinist God fails to satisfy an epistemic openness requirement for rational deliberation, and thus she cannot rationally deliberate about which world to actualize.

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Notes

  1. For the purpose of this paper I will be assuming that Molinism is committed to libertarianism. Though, see Perszyk’s (2000) attempt to reconcile Molinism with compatibilism. Moreover, I will also be focusing exclusively on actions that agents can avoid performing. While not all Molinists may affirm the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (Frankfurt 1969, p. 829), it is a standard assumption within the Molinist framework that the kinds of free actions in the consequent of CCFs are ones in which an agent does in fact have the ability to do otherwise.

  2. For a summary of such applications, see Perszyk (2013, pp. 764–765). Molinism has also been applied to areas outside of philosophy of religion, such as in Stump (2003, pp. 148–150) and Hartman (Manuscript).

  3. For a reply to this argument, see Flint (1998, pp. 121–137), Wierenga (2001), Craig (2001), and (Merricks 2007, pp. 146–55).

  4. For a reply to this argument, see Plantinga (1974, p. 178; 1985, pp. 377–378).

  5. For a reply to this argument, see Flint (1999).

  6. I employ ‘TR’ to refer to a truth in order to reserve the term ‘T’ to refer to a creaturely world-type.

  7. This is a modification of one of Flint’s (1998, p. 49) formulations of a creaturely world-type. I add the compossibility component in order to rule out logically inconsistent creaturely world-types. Note that I will assume that the law of conditional excluded middle is true in order not to unnecessarily complicate things further. To be clear, how exactly one defines a creaturely world-type does not affect the core of my argument.

  8. Flint (1998, p. 47) himself understands a counterfactual of creaturely freedom to include propositions in which a being is not properly speaking free. So Flint in fact already grants that the objects of God’s middle knowledge can include propositions other than the ones I am labeling as a CCF.

  9. Despite the somewhat misleading name, CCFs are really subjunctive conditionals that can have antecedents that are not contrary to fact (Lewis 1973, pp. 3–4).

  10. Plantinga’s reply to the ‘not true soon enough’ objection is also endorsed by Wierenga (1989, pp. 148–150).

  11. For simplicity’s sake, I bypass Plantinga’s (1974, pp. 169–174) weak/strong actualization distinction that is no doubt crucial for a full-fledged account of Molinism.

  12. Notice that Flint would presumably still want to grant the existence of what I’ll call local CDFs—CDFs that are more narrow in scope such as the following

    If Suzie were to freely request God to cure her of some illness, God would freely grant Suzie’s request.

    If one thought of God’s interaction with the world as one single, comprehensive act of will, but one also wanted to affirm the existence of such local CDFs, one may want to posit a kind of priority of the true global CDF over the true local CDFs. For reasons I will not discuss here, I think that the true global CDF is not in fact prior to the true local CDFs within the Molinist framework (Otte 2009; Plantinga 2009; Wierenga 2011, p. 130). Note, however, that I will be focusing on global CDFs rather than local CDFs merely for simplicity’s sake, as nothing I say below hinges on which kinds of CDFs are logically prior.

  13. I am indebted to Ed Wierenga and Kenny Boyce for helpful discussions on this issue.

  14. Thanks to Mike Rea for the suggestion that a proponent of divine timelessness might note as a relevant difference that the circumstances in the antecedent of a CDF are non-temporal, whereas the circumstances in the antecedent of a CCF are temporal. While the temporal/atemporal distinction certainly marks a difference between CCFs and CDFs (given divine timelessness), it is difficult to see how this difference is relevant to the issue of truth-making. And, until some reason is given for thinking it is, this difference cannot block the inference from (A) to (A*).

  15. Thanks to an anonymous referee for this suggestion.

  16. I certainly grant that gaining knowledge can enhance one’s abilities; see Shabo (2014).

  17. The point I am making here mirrors Patrick Todd’s (2014) claim (which is made in a more detailed and eloquent manner) that the alleged incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and creaturely freedom does not explain why divine foreknowledge does not exist, but only demonstrates that it does not exist (given the assumption that we are in fact free).

  18. For further discussion of this doctrine, see Craig (1988, pp. 178–183), Freddoso (1988, pp. 51–53), and Flint (1998, pp. 56–57).

  19. While I will focus on Pereboom (2008), see also Pereboom (2014, Chap. 5). For other defenses of an epistemic openness requirement, see Hampshire and Hart (1958), Ginet (1962), Taylor (1964, p. 75), Kaufman (1966), and Kapitan (1986, pp. 235–241).

  20. See also Clarke’s (1992) rejection of an epistemic openness requirement for rational deliberation, as well as Henden’s (2010) response.

  21. This point may be applied to cases that Clarke (1992, p. 108) and Pendergraft (2014, pp. 348–349) offer against (S). Henden (2010, pp. 323–324) makes a similar point in response to Clarke’s case.

  22. There is apparently no knowledge left for God to have that is to be categorized under God’s free knowledge given the existence of Pre-CDFs. This is an interesting consequence that I will not further explore here.

  23. In defense of the claim that intentional action requires rational deliberation, see Kapitan (1991, 1994), Basinger (1986), and Peterson, et al. (2009, p. 81). Against this position, see Reichenbach (1984), and Hunt (1992, 1996).

  24. It is worth nothing that the notion of deliberation Kvanvig seems to be focusing on is a temporal progress from a state of indecision to a further state in which the indecision is resolved. I think that we ought to think of the kind of deliberation that we undergo as strongly analogous to a progression in logical moments or stages (rather than temporal ones) from a state of indecision to a further state in which the indecision is resolved. Hence, Kvanvig’s remarks are consistent with the claim that it would be useful for God to rationally deliberate, if the notion of rational deliberation employed here is understood analogically (cf. Swinburne 1993).

  25. I am implicitly appealing to a principle that is defended, among others, by Haji (2012, p. 24): “If S has most reason to do something, A, and, thus, if S reasons-wise ought to do A, then S can do A.”

  26. It is surely also too big of a concession for the Molinist to assert that God just happens to have no use for rational deliberation, but very well could have if some other creaturely world-type were in fact true.

  27. Pendergraft (2014, p. 344) seems to accept premise (14), although perhaps a more charitable interpretation suggests he is only defending that claim that God has no use for rational deliberation if there is something God has most reason, all things considered, to perform. I accept this claim, but do not think it will help the Molinist given that, as explained above, premise (12) is possibly false if Molinism is true.

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Acknowledgments

For many helpful comments over previous drafts of this paper, I am very grateful to Kenny Boyce, Bob Hartman, Mark Heller, Kris McDaniel, Derk Pereboom, Michael Rea, Travis Timmerman, Patrick Todd, Edward Wierenga, an anonymous referee for this journal, participants at the 2012 Syracuse Working Papers Series at which an ancestral draft was presented, and participants at the 2015 Ryerson University Philosophy of Religion Work-In-Progress Group.

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    Yishai Cohen

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Cohen, Y. Counterfactuals of divine freedom. Int J Philos Relig 79, 185–205 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-015-9542-1

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