Category: Eschatology

A draft of a paper I’m working on:

Table of Contents

Introduction. 

Molinism and the Contemporary Molinist Theodicy of Eschatology.
The Objection to Molinism Based on the Ontology of Alternative Pasts. 
The Unexplored Relation of the Ontological Objection to Molinism and Problems in Modern Cosmology and the Philosophy of Science. 
Modal Arguments Concerning Laws of Nature. 
Multiverse Cosmologies and the Reality of Other Universes. 
The Connection With Molinism
Alternative Universes and the Doctrine of Creation

Introduction

This paper examines Molinism as a form of eschatological theodicy in light of modal arguments concerning “laws of nature,” modern multiverse cosmologies, and the Christian doctrine of creation.  First, the paper will introduce the concept of Molinism and explain how it relates to modern eschatological theodicies.  Next, the paper will discuss one of the major philosophical objections to Molinism, which is based on the ontology of alternative pasts.  The paper will then examine a question that has not yet been explored in the existing literature:  how this ontological objection to Molinism connects with similar discussions in cosmology and the philosophy of science about laws of nature and the possibility of a multiverse.  The paper will conclude with a discussion of how these ontological questions present problems in connection with the Christian doctrine of creation.  The paper’s central claim is that Molinism is finally inconsistent with the classical Christian doctrine of creation.

Molinism and the Contemporary Molinist Theodicy of Eschatology

Molinism is a view about divine providence and human freedom attributed to Luis de Molina (1535-1600 C.E.).[1]  In modern philosophical theology, it is often proposed as a mediating position between Calvinist-Jansenist determinism and open theism.[2]  The strong Calvinist-Jansenist determinist position asserts that God meticulously ordains all things that happen, including the salvation or reprobation of human beings. [3]  The open theist position asserts that God allows the decisions of free creatures to decide at least some future events, such that God chooses not to know or cannot know some future events.[4]  Molinism asserts that God foreknows all possible future events and providentially arranges actual events such that God’s good plans are realized in a way that accounts for the actual or possible choices of free creatures.[5]

In addition to serving as a general theory of the relation to divine providence and creaturely freedom, for some conservative evangelical apologists Molinism supplies an eschatological theodicy.[6]  These apologists deploy Molinism as a response to the justice of consigning people to Hell who have never heard the Gospel.[7]  They argue that for this set of persons God in his “middle knowledge” knows who would not accept the Gospel.  God is then not culpable for failing to arrange for such persons to hear the Gospel, because such persons would not have responded in faith even if they had heard.  Molinists often use the term “transworld damnation” to describe people who would not respond to the Gospel in faith in any potential world known by God.[8]

This does not mean that Molinists think anyone who never hears the Gospel necessarily is damned.  These apologists recognize that the Old Testament saints and children who die in infancy have never heard the Gospel, but allow for the salvation of such persons, and they also acknowledge that some people who in the light of general revelation throw themselves upon God’s mercy can be saved without explicitly knowing of Christ.[9]  Nevertheless, they assert that God’s middle knowledge of how a person would respond defeats arguments against the justice of the damnation of people who never hear the Gospel.[10]

The Objection to Molinism Based on the Ontology of Alternative Pasts

One substantial criticism that has been leveled against Molinism is based on the ontological question of past events and causality.[11]  Molinism asserts that there are potential past events that never occur in history because God providentially orders history in such a way that those events are never actualized.  This raises the question of the ontological status of these “alternative pasts.”  Critics of Molinism argue that the concept of alternative, unrealized pasts that cause changes in future events (by influencing God’s decisions about the ordering of history) makes no logical sense.  Molinists respond that their proposal retains its logical force because it does not entail actual alternative pasts but only potential events known to God.[12]

The Unexplored Relation of the Ontological Objection to Molinism and Problems in Modern Cosmology and the Philosophy of Science

There is almost no reference in the philosophical theology literature connecting Molinism to related debates in scientific cosmology and the philosophy of science about modal arguments concerning the laws of nature and the possibility of a multiverse.[13]  This is surprising because the underlying metaphysical question is precisely the same:  what is the nature of other counterfactual universes?  This underlying metaphysical question relates to the central theological locus of the doctrine of creation:  what does it mean to posit, as Christian theology does, an ontological distinction between God and creation?[14]  By examining the doctrines of Divine providence and eschatology apart from the doctrine of creation, the Molinist eschatological theodicy introduces a systemic distortion into Christian thought about the integrity and contingency of creation.  It is the same kind of distortion produced by multiverse arguments proposed by atheist philosophers to explain the apparent fine-tuning of our universe against cosmological arguments for the existence of God.[15]

Modal Arguments Concerning Laws of Nature

Natural science is often described as a discipline that confines its investigation to the operation of the laws of nature.[16]  While this is a fair as a rough operative description, the question of whether “laws of nature” exist and how human beings might identify them is subject to significant debate in the philosophy of science.[17]  Many philosophers approach this question by making modal arguments based on counterfactual universes that are different than our observable universe.[18]  This method raises questions about the metaphysical status of these plausible alternative universes and of our observable universe.[19]  Some philosophers question whether imagined counterfactual universes relate to contingent facts of the observable universe, particularly given the context- and time-sensitivity of causal statements and the questions of the transitivity of causation and the preemption of events in a causal chain.[20]

Multiverse Cosmologies and the Reality of Other Universes

Another version of this modal problem results from cosmological theories that entail a multiverse.  String theory, for example, is a leading alternative to the “standard model” of big bang cosmology.[21]  String theory posits a number – perhaps an infinity – of universes.  If string theory is true, it could be that each of the alternative universes imagined in modal arguments about laws of nature actually exist.  Moreover, if any multiverse theory is true, the apparent “fine tuning” of our universe for carbon-based life would prove unremarkable, since the dice has been rolled, so to speak, until all probabilities are realized – indeed, the dice may have been rolled an infinite number of times.

The Connection With Molinism

The philosophical connection between Molinism and the cosmological questions mentioned above is striking.  In each case, a problem of contingency is addressed by universalizing all the possibilities and thereby isolating or perhaps even eliminating the contingency.  The specific premises of each argument differ, but the underlying assumption that possible alternative universes provide meaningful explanations is common across each argument.  Consider the following form of each argument:[22]

Laws of Nature	Multiverse	Molinism
1.       X is a “law of nature” if and only if X obtains of necessity in some conceivable universe within a range of conceivable universes. 2.      X obtains of necessity in conceivable universe abc. 3.      Therefore, X is a “law of nature.”	1.      The apparently contingent facts about this universe are remarkable if and only if the set of existing universes is so small that the ex ante probability of those facts occurring is very small. 2.      The set of existing universes is very large (infinite). 3.      Therefore, the contingent facts about this universe are unremarkable.	1.       God’s decision to damn a person is just if and only if the person has libertarian freedom to accept or reject God’s offer of salvation. 2.      Person y who never heard the Gospel in this universe would have had an opportunity to hear the Gospel, and would have rejected the Gospel, in universe abc. 3.      Therefore, God’s decision to damn person y is just.

In each argument, premise 1 is a contingent fact that requires explanation.  Premise 2 is an explanation based on possible alternative universes.  Premise 3 is a conclusion that is valid only if the possibility of alternative universes offers explanatory power.

A significant difference across the three arguments is that the multiverse argument apparently depends on the actual reality of alternative universes, while the modal laws of nature and Molinist arguments putatively remain valid even if the alternative universes are merely theoretical.  My qualification regarding putative validity here, however, is crucial.  It is hard to see why the theoretical possibility that some contingency in this universe might not obtain in an alternative theoretical universe should matter to the classification of that contingency as a “law” in this real universe.  Likewise, it is hard to see why the theoretical possibility of someone hearing the Gospel in a non-existent universe makes any difference to the question of God’s justice in the actual universe.  In the real universe the judgments of justice depend on our actual choices, which can include the choice not to act when action is theoretically possible.[23]  I conclude, therefore, that both the modal laws of nature argument and Molinism make sense only if their theoretical alternative universes, like those in multiverse cosmologies, are somehow real.[24]

This requirement is not as extreme as it might sound.  The alternative universes posited by multiverse cosmologies, after all, are by definition not subject to direct empirical investigation.  “The universe,” by definition, is everything we can possibly know by observation.  String theory and other multiverse theories can only infer the existence of other universes through mathematical models – that is, theoretical abstractions – that require alternative universes to balance the equations.  The metaphysical question is the same:  is the mathematical model reality itself, or a description of reality itself, or is it just an internally coherent argument with no referent in an external reality?  Of course, this metaphysical question relates to an epistemological problem:  is any kind of correspondence theory of truth necessary and valid, or is coherence the best we can do?  All of these questions lead us to the doctrine of creation.

Alternative Universes and the Doctrine of Creation

There are of course numerous Christian theologies of creation, but this paper assumes the core of the doctrine involves at least the following key claims:  (1) there is an absolute ontological distinction between God and creation; (2) creation is a free act of God’s grace and therefore is not necessary; (3) creation possesses an inherent contingent rationality that derives from its origin as God’s free, gracious act; (4) creation has a purpose that includes the flourishing of created things to the glory of its loving creator-God.[25]  I will add to these core elements of the Christian doctrine of creation what I take as a central claim of Christian eschatology:  (5) the fulfillment of God’s purpose for creation is central to God’s plan for the eschatological future.[26]  Multiverse theologies and philosophies, including Molinism, challenge each of these central claims.

First, the multiverse erodes the ontological distinction between God and creation by transferring God’s classical perfections from God’s own transcendent being into the immanent frame of the multiverse.  With an infinity of possibilities (or at least the finite sum of all real possibilities) actually realized in the multiverse, every power that could have been exercised, everything that could be known, every judgment that could be made, occurs in some immanent domain.  The multiverse is God, and God is the multiverse. Similarly, the multiverse eliminates both the contingency and the accompanying contingent rationality of creation, because all probabilities are realized.  Finally, the multiverse elides any notion of an eschatological future, and indeed contradicts the Biblical concept of “history” as an unrepeatable sequence beginning at creation and culminating in the eschaton.  As Mary-Jane Rubenstein notes in her fascinating study of history of multiverse ideas from the ancient world through modernity, modern multiverse cosmology resonates deeply with ancient and contemporary cyclical, fatalistic views of history.[27]  God here seems more like the infinite faces of Vishnu revealed to Krishna in the Baghavad Gita:  “I am time, destroyer of worlds.”[28]  It is a picture with a kind of terrible beauty, but in the end God is an all-consuming destroyer, not a loving creator and redeemer.

These same objections relating to the doctrine of creation apply to the Molinist eschatological theodicy.  The “free will” defense to the problem of eschatological evil depends entirely on the contingency and integrity of creation, and in particular on the free choices of human beings created with a unique capacity to accept or reject God’s love.  If the “choice” to reject God’s love is made by a version of myself in some alternative universe, then the possible range of choices available to the version of myself in this universe is determined rather than contingent on my actual history.  If God’s justice towards me is vindicated by God’s response to a version of myself in some alternative universe, then in the history of this universe I will not receive justice.  And if the eschatological future is the culmination of choices made by versions of myself and other agents acting in alternative universes, then this universe cannot reach its fulfilment as conceived of by Christian eschatology.  This universe would comprise a kind of accessory to events in other universes, with a history and eschatological culmination only remotely connected to what has happened in our time, here in this universe.  In the final analysis the notion of “transworld damnation” bears no relationship at all to the Biblical and traditional narrative of a gracious creator who acts to redeem and fulfill the creation He loves, and in particular to save the human beings who each bear magnificent value because they each are created uniquely in His image.  I conclude, therefore, that theological reflection about the problem of creaturely freedom and Divine foreknowledge, and about the availability of salvation to all persons given the relatively limited historical reach of the preaching and reception of the Gospel, should look for resources in concepts other than Molinism.[29]

As a concluding note, does my argument create a potential conflict between theology and science?  In response, I would suggest that multiverse cosmology is not well-established as a “natural science” because, by definition, it investigates things that are beyond the domain of empirical analysis.  Within the methodologies of the natural sciences, there may never be a way to know if a multiverse theory is true because empirical confirmation of alternative universes is closed to us.[30]  Nevertheless, according to my argument in this paper, some popular versions of multiverse cosmology would require significant modifications to the classical Christian doctrine of creation.  I would never suggest such modifications are impossible, and Christian theologians should continue to explore the possibilities on a theoretical basis.  But given the viable alternatives, solutions should be preferred which do not so radically distort the classical doctrine of creation.  The same is true concerning Molinism as an eschatological theodicy.

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[1] For a general description of Molina and his life, see the entry “Luis de Molina” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, (New York:  Encyclopedia Press 1912), available at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10436a.htm.  For an English translation of Molina’s key work on this topic, see On Divine Foreknowledge:  Part IV of the Concordia, trans. Alfredo J. Freddoso (Ithica:  Cornell Univ. Press 2004).

[2] See, e.g., Alving Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford:  The Clarendon Press, 1974); William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God:  The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom (Eugene:  Wipf & Stock 2000); David Paul Hunt, “Middle Knowledge:  The ‘Foreknowledge Defense,’” 28:1 The International Journal of Philosophy of Religion, 1-23 (August, 1990); Thomas P. Flint, “Molinism,” in Oxford Handbooks Online (Feb. 2015), available at http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935314.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935314-e-29?rskey=hS6tt9&result=1.

[3] For a summary of these three positions, see Thomas P. Flint, “Divine Providence,” in Thomas P. Flint and Michael C. Rea, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology (Oxford:  OUP 2011)(discussing “Thomism,” “Open Theism,” and “Molinism.”).  Molinism is only one of a number of possible mediating positions between determinism and open theism.  Another important set of views can be grouped under the label “Thomism.”  These “Thomist” views focus on the notion of “causality” itself and the differences between God’s “primary” causation and the “secondary” causation of creaturely freedom.  See ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] For a clear popular-level statement of this position, see William Lane Craig’s “Reasonable Faith” website, Q&A #23, available at http://www.reasonablefaith.org/middle-knowledge.

[7] Ibid.

[8] For a description of these views, see Flint, “Divine Providence,” supra Note 3; David P. Hunt, “Middle Knowledge and the Soteriological Problem of Evil,” Rel. Stud. 27:1, 3-26 (Mar. 1991).

[9] See Craig, supra Note 6.

[10] See ibid.

[11] See, William Hasker, “A New Anti-Molinist Argument,” Rel. Stud. 35:3, 291-297 (Sep. 1999); William Hasker, “Anti-Molinism Undefeated!,” Faith and Phil. 17:1, 126-131 (Jan. 2000); William Hasker, “Are Alternative Pasts Plausible?  A Reply to Thomas Flint,” Rel. Stud. 36:1, 103-105 (Mar. 2000); Hunt, supra Note 8.

[12] See articles by Hasker, supra Note 9 and responses by Flint in “Divine Providence,” supra Note 3.

[13] For one article that touches on the question, see Klaas J. Kraay, “Theism, Possible Worlds, and the Multiverse,” Philos. Stud. 147:355-368 (2010).

[14] For a general discussion of these aspects of the doctrine of creation, see Hans Schwarz, Creation (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans 2002); Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Creation and Humanity (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans 2015).

[15] For a good popular level presentation of this claim, see Tim Folger, “Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator:  The Multiverse Theory,” Discover (November 10, 2008), available at http://discovermagazine.com/2008/dec/10-sciences-alternative-to-an-intelligent-creator.

[16] See, e.g., The National Academies of Sciences, “Compatibility of Science and Religion,” available at http://www.nationalacademies.org/evolution/Compatibility.html (stating that “science is a way of knowing that differs from other ways in its dependence on empirical evidence and testable explanations. . . .  In science, explanations must be based on evidence drawn from examining the natural world.”).

[17] For a good overview, see John W. Carroll, “Laws of Nature,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Aug. 2, 2016), available at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/.

[18] See “Counterfactual Theories of Causation,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (February 10, 2014), available at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual/#Lew197CouAna.  For a good discussion of this thought experiment, see Ben Page, The Dispositionalist Deity:  How God Creates Laws and Why Theists Should Care, Zygon 50:1, 115 (March 2015).

[19] One of the leading proponents of this approach, David Lewis, defends modal realism, although most contemporary philosophers seek to employ this approach for explanatory purposes only.  See “Counterfactual Theories of Causation,” supra Note 18, § 2.1.

[20] See ibid, § 3.

[21] See Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics:  The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Boston:  Mariner Books 2007).

[22] It should be noted that these are not the only possible forms of the relevant arguments.  The form given below for “Laws of Nature,” for example, is a necessitarian argument, but not all philosophers who use this kind of modal analysis are necessitarians.  Space prevents elaboration of additional forms of the relevant arguments.

[23] The Molinist cannot object here that God’s justice is inscrutably different than human concepts of justice.  That is a standard Calvinist argument, but the Molinist has already committed himself to defending God’s actions under ordinary conceptions of justice.

[24] As noted in Footnote 19, David Lewis makes a similar claim about counterfactual universes.  The qualification “somehow” in relation to “real” here should be carefully noted.  As Lewis himself has suggested, the basic claim that other worlds are “real” does not purport to solve any broader problems in metaphysics or epistemology about what “real” means.  David Lewis, On the Plurality of Worlds (Oxford:  Blackwell 1986), ix.

[25] See Schwarz, Creation; Karkkainen, Creation and Humanity; David Fergusson, Creation (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans 2014).

[26] For a general discussion of this theme in Christian eschatology, see Hans Schwarz, Eschatology (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans 2000); N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope:  Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York:  HarperOne 2008).

[27] Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Worlds Without End:  The Many Lives of the Multiverse (New York:  Columbia Univ. Press 2014).

[28] Baghavad Gita 11:32, available at http://www.bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-11-30.html.

[29] There are ample resources for such reflection, I believe, in some varieties of what contemporary philosophical theology classes under “Thomism,” and in historical and contemporary theologies of death and of Christ’s descent into Hell.  See, e.g., David Burrell, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions (South Bend:  Univ. of Notre Dame Press 1993); Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?,” (San Francisco:  Ignatius Press 2014).  Velli Matti Kärkkäinen offers an interesting proposal on the question of freedom and providence that he calls a “Molinist-Pneumatological Solution,” which seems to coincide with some contemporary versions of Thomism (such as David Burrell’s).  See Velli Matti Kärkkäinen, Creation and Humanity (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans 2015), 365-368.  The affirmative case for those approaches, however, is beyond the scope of this paper.

[30] For a popular level discussion of some of these issues, see Sarah Scoles, “Can Physicists Ever Prove the Multiverse is Real?” Smithsonian.com, April 19, 2016, available at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-physicists-ever-prove-multiverse-real-180958813/.  Further, there are weaker versions of “multiverse” theories that are really theories about other “dimensions.” Theories about multi-dimensionality are not so problematic to Christian theology, which already recognizes that reality has a “spiritual” dimension.