What is Molinism? Middle Knowledge? Eli Ayala Explains.

I asked Eli to break down Molinism as if I were an 8th grade new convert. He did an excellent job! What do you think about the Molinist perspective on God's knowledge?

I will make a Saints Edified post for this episode on the website, so please stay tuned.

[spacemanspiff]

I read the same book by Dr Keathley. It was an excellent presentation of the Molinist view.

[campgroundmanagement]

The basic foundational belief of Molinism is that God did not create all things. Time, space, consciousness are all forces enacted upon God for him to choose from. Therefore those three are either superior to, or predate God.

That’s heresy

[johnrambo]

So everything that happened isn’t a divine decree

[therealzacharnold]

I just recently heard of Molinism and I find it very intriguing, but I have an issue with the system that is just racking my brain. Maybe I just don't understand what the belief fully entails. I have some questions-

1. First of all, DID God consider many different worlds through His natural and middle knowledge or did He create the world without looking at other options?

2. If He looked at many different worlds to choose one for His ultimate will to be done, would that not be determinism?

3. If Billy would have freely chose and ended up in heaven in one possible world through various influences and events, but chose hell instead in the real world that God picked, how is that truly free will?

Again, maybe I'm misunderstanding Molinism, which is very possible. I'm just trying to figure out how the process went between His middle knowledge and the decree. Did He review all of the possible worlds and choose only one?

[johnrambo]

So with this theory God doesn’t decide everything And some people going to hell wasn’t according to his plan

[someperson]

Does Molinism imply that what people would do in certain circumstances determines what God ordains? Does it imply that something outside of God determines what God ordains?

[paullaymon]

Molinism can not account for where the “eternal” facticites come from. Agents other than God could not will them to exist, because agents are not eternal. How can we meaningfully say that that agents could have done otherwise if all they shall ever do, and all they would have ever have done in any possible world, is an unalterable fact an eternity before they even exist?

How can agents be self determining when they are not the ones that ground the facticity of what they do and ever would have done in different circumstances?

The facticities eternally preceded them, created by nothing. If agents posses self determining or libertarian freedom, they must be the ones who resolve possibilities into facts.

[bouncycastle]

It's not clear how Molinism hopes to salvage free will with an omniscient creator. If god knows what you will do in every counterfactual, then you can't possibly do otherwise or else god doesn't have knowledge, he has false belief. If you can't possibly do otherwise, in what sense do you have free will at all? Certainly not libertarian.

[gabrielcalderon]

Hello brother where does the chart come from that was used to indicate the logical moments?

[victorcritelli]

Now I don't don't much about molinsim except i had been accused on molinism, But I believe in the word of God as it is written, Unfortionaltly I think so much of the problem is men trying to understand God as men understand men . Do you really think God experience Time like a Here is what I know and the word really does not go further then these
1 God declares the end from the beginning
2 God ordains the times and places for me to live (acts)
3 Time is not a preordained decrees set of actions, There are possibilities 1 Samuel 23:7-29
4 We as sinners are slaves to sin and in Christ we are bondservants so there is not complete free will, People are controlled by the spirit they are givin up to (we wrestle not against flesh and blood) (we were slaves to sin)
5 however we do have the ability in freewill to respond to the gospel or not, as constantly are taught in scripture to choose this day whom we will serve, to him who believes to those who receive him, Turn repent and live, Why will you die, and on and on and on for miles and miles there is nothing that has more scripture
6 However again there is a certain level of Blindness that can hinder this choice but this blindness is not random it is based on our level of pride, sin and how much we suppress the truth and refuse to receive the love of the truth

[timmy]

It sounds like dialectical materialism at places

[krzyszwojciech]

If our choices are *fully reducible to and explainable by* God's decree to create this rather than a different reality - how could the will be free? At best, only God's will would be free, although if he's omniscient, he should also know all of his future actions.

[Ramon-kwrh]

What's the different between natural knowledge and middle knowledge? What's the the difference between could and would?

[JohnCamacho]

While its good to philosophize about God's knowledge, at the end of the day when it comes to God-matters we don't know what's true and what isn't. God can lack all omniqualities and we just would not know.

[tonijesus]

Just one question, why the triangle/pyramid… this is a new age symbol big time… why? 😭😭

[memphisakan]

God knows all because all would be past to God

[danielvso]

It seems Ayala is wrong about some historical information, at least.

[johnrambo]

This doesn’t explain if God knows what’s gonna happen before it happens and is everything God’s plan everything

[victorcritelli]

what is the difrence before could happen and would happen ?

[johnrambo]

This is a delusional concept. God knows what could happen? What does that even mean? Another vague riddle by Christians. Doesn’t anybody know what could happen with your imagination? Or how is could happen different from would happen. And are you saying God doesn’t have free knowledge where he knows what you’re gonna do before you do it? And why would God wanna know what would happen or could happen when he knows what is