Molinism & Calvinism: What's the Difference?

We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums:

[achristian]

All I know is that Calvinism is not true but if it is, I was determined to never believe that Calvinism is true.

[AidenRKrone]

I've been an Arminian, a Calvinist, and a Molinist. I've gone through all three forms of soteriology. It has been quite an interesting journey. I have respect for certain aspects of Arminianism and some doctrines of Calvinism, but I find Molinism to be the most biblically and logically coherent.

[nateauld]

I find this take more intriguing. It still feels like the blind spot is: if our free choices are known, how are they free? If a simulation has infinite possibilities that are all known and certain paths are avoided or cut off by the programmer in real time, is it freedom but only to a degree allowed by the programmer?

My solve for this is that we don't have truly 'free' will; we have many choices but not infinite choices; we can do this or that but we can't teleport, or time travel or fly, etc. Our will is bound by actual limitations physically but also metaphysically.

When I first became a Christian, I noticed all the predestination, foreknowledge, and election talk in the Bible that I didn't recall from church and was quickly swayed toward Calvinism. I have over time noticed how Calvinism blunts the thought processes of practicality (even if from an improper understanding: 'if I did this, I was meant to.' Thus to repent and believe is an act of God that we are responsible for not doing).


ALSO, I've noticed counterfactuals in the Bible, particularly in God's thought process; IF the Israelites are led by another path and see war, they MAY turn back to Egypt. I have yet to hear a good Calvinist or hard predestination take to explain this.

My current thoughts are that it is a paradox of BOTH free will AND predestination that we cannot understand to the degree that even David said "...I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me." I have an impression of how it might work, but seeing God is sovereign in scripture seems pretty clear so I will pray and hope and have faith in God's total power but I must act and respond to the world and life as though there is some degree of freedom and the Bible indicates that too. It's not like the elect have an 'E' on their back, so I wonder if knowing there is truth in both is as far as we should or even can go?

[PresbyterianPaladin]

I wish that more people would distinguish between Calvinism and people who affirm exhaustive divine determinism, they are not the same. While the majority of Calvinists affirm exhaustive divine determinism and compatibilist free will there is nothing wrong with a Calvinist affirming middle knowledge and libertarian free will. As Craig himself has argued elsewhere affirming middle knowledge seems to be the best way to make sense of the Westminster Confession when it states "God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

As a middle knowledge affirming Calvinist I really wish everyone would start to make a distinction here, not all Calvinists are divine determinists.

[MarkNOTW]

Romans 10:9: If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Calvinism: If God causes you to declare and God causes you to believe you will be saved (although God already saved you before the world began making the cross of Christ and this verse irrelevant.)

[kilgen]

People are free to live according to our fallen, sinful nature. We can’t hear the gospel unless the Holy Spirit breaks our sin hardened hearts in order to hear it. That is why Jesus taught in parables. Give thanks to God as he enables you.

[NathanSotoGuitar]

Are the any differences between Provisionism and Molinism?

[Trashbull]

When I found out about Calvinism's belief and that some of the Bible verse mentioned about predestined, my faith was shaken. It took my friends some help and pray to get me back on the track. I will never accept Calvinism's belief. God would be an evil one if He knew I was destined to go to hell but I asked to accept Jesus Christ as my savior and that this was all for naught. That my choice and decision has no bear on my end destiny... that I want to be saved, serve God, and so much... only to have me still go into the hell. No, Calvinism is a fake religious. God is too love to let this happen. Yes, God is omniscient and He know where we will ended up at but it's still ultimately our choice. And love let people make their own decision.

[mikeha]

is this the same argument? I find Molinism to be a bit hard to wrap the mind around, so I usually say this:

1. God exists outside of time. He knows the end from the beginning.
2. Because 1 is true, God knows all the choices everyone who ever existed made, before they made them. He had this knowledge the moment he created the universe.
3. Just because God knows what someone will choose freely, does not in any way mean that God forced them to do it.
4. There are certain events that God has pre-ordained to happen, which are written in the Bible, and nothing can stop those events from happening. So free will choices cannot in any way prevent any of those events from happening. That is the only limitation on free will if you want to see it like that.

I don't know how that squares with what you believe, but it's what I believe.

[GSpotter]

How could it be justified that we should be held responsible for what God has determined we would do?
Calvinism would be unjust, it would be outside of God's nature. God cannot be unjust.

[mac]

In Molinism, foreknowledge does not “necessitate” how creatures act. I wish WLC would get more into how important the word “necessitate” is in this debate.

[philblagden]

God's will alone is totally free and sovereign. Psalm 33 says he frustrates plans of both people and nations so that his own purposes will be established. There is no middle knowledge, only the decree of a sovereign God who is working ALL things after the counsel of his will (Eph 1:11). He declares the end from the beginning and promises to accomplish all his good pleasure (Isaiah 46:10-12), so he doesn't either now in the present or previously in the past have to choose between which world(s) to create. The difference between Molinism and Calvinism is that one is taught in scripture and the other isn't.

Did Jonah get to resist God's will? Did Paul when he was blinded and knocked off his horse? We have a will which God gave us. We are held responsible for our own actions. Grace affects our wills as God sees fit both to save and then to preserve us. I think God allows us freedom, but not freedom to resist his ultimate plans. This is how I understand what scripture teaches.

[Justas]

Ok. Where is the proof for this? Who taught this kind of philosophy in the Scriptures?

[MarcosBetancort]

And yet the kind of freedom that we experience as human beings is the kind of freedom that Calvinism teaches we have.

[StephenItanagar]

Please help understand Acts 13:48 according to Molinism

[timrodriguez]

I need help Any molinist here? I have a question,

Does molinism assume that people are who they would be in every possible world? … I’m under the impression that part of what makes us who we are is the world we are in… if so doesn’t it mean that God saw it fit to choose a world on the basis that he could accomplish his purpose and not on who we “actually” are?..

Another question…
Does molinism assume that God cannot accomplish his purposes in certain worlds? It seems to me that there isn’t a possible world where God can’t accomplish his purposes, that would undermine his sovereignty in my opinion…

Another question…
What would be the extent of God’s foreknowledge of peoples freewill, is there potential to have extreme molinism to the point that it becomes deism?



@Drcraigvideos

[dcouric]

Perhaps libertarian free will was annihilated at the fall, and compatibilist free will was then the case. That is, before the fall, angelic and human beings had libertarian freedom and so had the ability to act contrary to their good, unfallen natures. After the fall, they could act only according to their natures in compatibilist freedom, in the case of angels fallen or unfallen and in the case of humans fallen or fallen-and-redeemed, the latter implying an ability to act according to either of the two (old or new) natures until glorification at which time redeemed humans, like God and angels now, will have the ability to act only according to their one nature.

[TheBrunarr]

This view must necessarily reject that God is the universal cause of goodness, thus rejecting His universal causality and thus His simplicity, and this is no surprise from Craig who rejects simplicity

[ChrisMusante]

They are both the same. Someone who is of a molonist mindset is more calvanist than a calvinist in that all has been predetermined beforehand and the multitude of choices is the illusion of have a choice at all. Evil is just 'good' that isn't 'good yet'. It [evil] is a 'refining fire'... that can never be extinguished and will always serve it's purpose.

[talksonabox]

The Calvinist and Molinest agree on predestination, it is just the mechanism that they differ on.