If you want to convince someone of a good football team and you have 3 DVD's which one will you show of that team? One shows the team got clobbered. The other was fairly even but still won. And the third the team blew the other team out of the water. Even though the third video has some terrible penalties and virtually naked cheerleaders it is still the best video of the three to be shown. Even the best video is less than ideal. This is like how God picks His world ensemble but has to put up with some things He doesn't like such as suffering. God deals the hand He is dealt. James White responds and says, "I want to talk to who is dealing the deck." This is an expression that James White is not a Christian because He takes issue with God's design.
At the end of the day any criticism of Molinism is ultimately reduced to a criticism of free will or libertarian freedom. So we are back to square one.
Molinism is very simple. Ask someone if you chose to do something else today, do you think God could account for that and know how to respond accordingly? Well that's Molinism.
The Bible is ultimately a story of choice so the reason why there is rape of children and the holocaust is because if there wasn't this would not be the best world ensemble to choose from. It could be a possible world but it would not be a feasible world because it would not fit with God's desires and goals. What is it about these horrible crimes against humanity that make them permissible? It seems to me human beings would be less human if we did not have the free choice to commit these crimes.
Without free will you don't get genuine sacrifice and genuine love. it even takes into account natural disasters, because man had a free choice to live in those hot spots.
What would make a more preferable world for God? Obviously nothing. Anything you might suggest could be torn down as incompatible with God's goals and desires.
In Molinism God chooses the world that evangelizes the most to Christ. In a world where the holocaust happens fewer people come to Christ. Perhaps it is the case that this evil made aware to people causes them to question life and then give their lives to Christ. Since the Bible denigrates these things, He is using evil for good. But in Calvinism since God decrees all then God applauds these evils.
The OSAS Arminian God sees down the corridor of time and responds accordingly to our freedom of choice. The Calvinist God just does everything. How does God know down the corridor of time our free-choices?
A Theory of Time says:the past doesn't exist and the future doesn't exist yet, but present is happening now. Time travel is not possible then.
B Theory of Time says: the whole span of time exists right now simultaneously (using that word loosely). It all exists at once. God can observe time as if like a snow globe. He can see the year 2027 just as easily as the year 80 AD. I can't accept this theory because both events would be happening right now. The B theory of time would not work for Molinism because these are possible worlds not actual worlds all happening right now. God would be evil to actualize any world not perfect.
The way God knows what people will choose is a property of His omniscience that transcends our ability to understand how He does it. If you and I can know the truth value of a comic store so can God to say YES or NO to it being true. Likewise, He can know our free-choice in the same way. But ultimately that doesn't answer the question how can God know our free choice? God can say Yes or No to the truth of a comic store and so can we, so all of this is just a property of God's omniscience. It doesn't answer the question because we are left with it being a property of God's omniscience as the Bible says it happens in Scripture and we observe freedom of choice daily in our own self-consciousness.
If we can know some counterfactuals how much more must God be able to! But we have know idea how God can give us free choice. That's the conclusion I came to over 6 years ago when I was introduced to Molinism.
Some things can be by determinism by the Holy Spirit to achieve God's ultimate direction. Calvinists should not think just because one thing might be determined that all things are determined. God sovereignly brought about the crucifixion and the resurrection, but that doesn't mean everything is under determinism.
Why do people have to do anything if Calvinism is true? Can't God be a player in the story? Can't people be players in the story? Calvinists believe if God can't control everything, He can't control everything. It's a ridiculous extreme one way or the other.
"But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased" (Ps. 115.3). "The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD'S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men" (v.16).
OSAS Arminian Molinism
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