Molinism with Tim Stratton

Dr. Leighton Flowers, Director of Evangelism and Apologetics for Texas Baptists, is joined by Dr. Tim Stratton of Free Thinking Ministries to talk about Molinism, Calvinism and Provisionism.

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[PsychoBible]

Don't take TULIP, kids. It will give you a bad case of EDD.

[bridgetgolubinski]

I was wondering what the difference was between provisionism and molinism!! So grateful for this vid!

[primeobjective]

51:06 -- *"The self vanishes, the "I" disappears ..."*
Yes!! This is *exactly* what I calculated & why I departed Calvinism. I thought to myself, *"If true, I have no agency, no spirit, no soul. I'm just an involuntary recipient, much like a pebble in a river, guided by the forces of nature."*

[tacticalfilmfightingacadem]

Our fight is not against flesh and blood. However; false doctrine should be taken seriously especially if its trying to influence and become a major part of the church.

[slamrn]

Dr. Stratton explains things well and I really appreciate that. Thanks all!

[spacemanspiff]

It was Dr Craig’s book on time and eternity that fortified my rejection of Calvinism as the best possible explanation of sovereignty and freedom.

[tacticalfilmfightingacadem]

The problem is that Calvinists put their theology over Scripture

[isaiahkerstetter]

I really struggled with E.D.D. (or as I call it "Theo Deterministic Nihilism") about 2 years ago. I ultimately rejected it due to it's inability to answer the problem of Evil without; 1. Blaspheming the character of YHWH. or 2. Answering Euthyphro's dilemma in favor of the second option.

[tacticalfilmfightingacadem]

TULIP is not God's Not who He is. To follow Determinism one is equating evil acts to the work of the Holy Spirit.

[jarednel]

Excellent discussion! 😉👍

Leighton has come up with a new word - a combination of concise and succinct - conscinct! 🤣

Interestingly, I've never had a problem with God's omniscience because I've always understood God to be eternal and outside of time, and so He can know the future because He is already there.

The past, present, and future are all in His present. He knows exactly how everything will work out because He's not bound by time and not stuck in the present. He can flip through all of human history - past and future - like a magazine. 😉

[tacticalfilmfightingacadem]

Im not a Calvinist and never have been because of Piper

[isaiahtusing]

Saw this a couple of days ago and couldn’t wait! Great discussion!

[delbert]

As soon as I heard the word “Omnibenevolent” in the syllogism I was like “Nope nope nope nope nope. Calvinists do NOT believe in omnibenevolence. Some of them admit it, some do not, but omnibenevolence MUST go out the window on Calvinism. We already know they do not believe in omnibenevolence even without a lengthy syllogism.” I was not familiar with Tim Stratton before this interview, but I do agree with him and he seems like a smart guy. He’s also right about James White being uncharitable, which is a habitual problem with Dr. White unfortunately, as I really like him on other topics.

[kennysebastian]

Molinism seems to be a version of soft determinism extended to salvation in which God doesn't force people to choose either to believe in Christ or not, but rather God manipulates them into choosing exactly the way God has chosen for them. How does that make God any less responsible for their ultimate fate? Does God know the answer to every hypothetical question? God "can" answer every hypothetical question but the answer might not be what you think. His answer might be, "That is an invalid question for the circumstances you outlined in your question will never happen." I believe C.S. Lewis said, "Hypothetical questions do not present real problems and do not have real answers."

A young trophy wife marries a rich old man and she wants him dead so she can have all his money. He falls asleep in his recliner so she places his gun beside him on the end table. She calls her young lover and invites him over knowing he will find this scene and choose to shoot and kill the old man. Assuming he in fact does that, the wife is just as guilty of murder as her young lover. Molinism and soft determinism portrays God playing the role of the trophy wife, manipulating humans into evil choices he wants them to make. If that is true, then God is just as guilty.

[ht]

First of all, thank you very much Drs. Flowers and Stratton for this extraordinary talk about Molinismo.
I really like the idea of God’s middle knowledge; I think it's an interesting idea and opens up a range of questions that can be answered with good rational explanations starting from there. It is at least much more exciting than Calvinism. However, my problems with Molinism are basically the following:
1) The way it is stated God decided to actualize our universe. It is just too similar to how we, human beings with limited knowledge, solve optimization problems in science. And, to tell you the truth, I fear we may be making ourselves an “image” of God from the image of who we are. The approach closely resembles an optimization methodology or what is done in mathematical/computational modeling. If God had to make an evaluation of “what-if” scenarios to select the world he wanted to actualize, it implies He does not know “instantaneously” prior (i.e., just right before) what would happen, if he simply decided not to do such simulations.
2) I think the idea of exhaustive predestination (I’m more in favor of Dr. Flowers’ definition of the term “predestination”) is as deterministic as EDD. The only difference is that Dr. Stratton assumes “exhaustive predestination” is synergistic - both God and free agents determine what will happen, but in the actual world exhaustive predestination is still a form of determinism. In other words, the exercise of free will would occur in the simulation (in God’s mind), but not in the real world. I am not freely deciding now, in this world, because I am determined to the decision God evaluated I would freely decide in His mind.
3) If God actualized our universe in the way explained by Molinism, then God’s love we enjoy today would not be really spontaneous. It would be spontaneous in the simulation God made in His mind of the scenario He later actualized, but not in the actual world. So, how can God’s love be actually spontaneous in this world?

As I said before, I like the idea of middle knowledge, and I believe God must have it, but I don’t know if I am missing something, but these are my doubts.
Thanks both of you once again.

[RichLuciano]

Dr. Stratton should do serious sounding video spoofing "the God of the bible is evil" videos and title it "Is Dr. Strange the Most Evil Super Villian in the MCU?"

[Franci]

To me Molinism just sounds like a much more convoluted form of Calvinism. My issue is not with Him having foreknowledge (knowing what we will do) which I definitely believe He has, or even middle knowledge, in the sense that He knows what I’d most likely do in any given circumstance (since He knows me even better than I do) and using that to achieve His good purposes (like I would with my children for example), my problem is with the “possible worlds” scenario.

If God premeditatedly thought of different worlds and possibilities before creating this one, and only actuated a world in which people in some given circumstances will respond the way He wants them too (even without causing them to), He is effectually predetermining who will be saved and who won’t, because freedom would just be an illusion since He chose to create this particular world and rejected the other worlds, so He would ultimately be the author of evil and sin because, given many options, He would have predetermined to create the world in which Adam and Eve sinned. And since we know that God is not the author of sin we cannot postulate that He premeditatedly created the world where they would sin.

I personally don’t think that God picked and chose one specific world, because the only way that all this is not just a big game, is that if God just created one world (without considering other possible worlds) and gave us all free will, period. Because if you make God to be someone who picks and chooses between different possible worlds in order to accomplish his purposes, you definitely end up in determinism (albeit a more disguised and convoluted one compared to Calvinism), and you’d also grossly underestimate God’s power as well as taint His intentions. God is not like a big computer that spews out the best possible scenario just to win some sort of game, God created us out of love and in order to have a relationship with us and He made us in His image and our life is immeasurably valuable to Him, and He is so powerful that He can create just one world and still achieve His ultimate purpose. Or it would all really sound like cheating, wouldn’t it?

[DrChrisPM]

10:30 - 10:50
I'd say that God would have known the future differently if we would have chosen otherwise.

[richardholt]

I am new to these discussions. I find lacking in them the following thought, under what circumstances does God desire to be loved. Does He actually want us to see Him as He is and there live Him, or does He want to shape us in some way to love Him even if that shaping might go against our freedom to choose without His interference? There is a difference between being led in a way that we have choice and being led in a way where we have no choice.

[enonknives]

Open Theism does *not* contradict God's omniscience -- whether Open Theism is true or not (I'm making no claim here because I don't know their claims). OT only violates a *bad* understanding of omniscience. That's because God knows everything that is TRUE. God knows everything that has ever happened because it DID happen, and He was there. God knows everything that is happening now because it is IS happening, and He is there. The future is not true -- it does not and has never existed.
God can know with perfect knowledge *His* *plans* for the future, because He is in active control of them. He won't stop until He reaches the destination that He has chosen. And since God is eternal, He is not on a strict timetable. He literally has all the time in the world. God can also adapt His plan to the circumstances caused by the free actions of His creatures and still reach that destination.
For example, God commanded Israel to enter the Promised Land and occupy it. They refused. That didn't destroy God's plan; He just took them on a forty-year detour. He still got what He wanted because He is in active control. God is driving the bus of history.
Determinism is nearly Deism, implying that God set everything in motion so that everything unfolded as he decided beforehand so that He could be a passive observer. God's knowledge of the future is not a prediction.