Molinism

Molinism, named after 16th Century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile God's omniscience with human free will. Key to the doctrine is the idea that God possesses what is called middle knowledge (or scientia media).

Related Topics:
Jesuit - Luis de Molina - Omniscience - Free will

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Under this doctrine, middle knowledge (so-called because it is the second of three types of knowledge God has) is total knowledge of how any possible free agent would act in any and all circumstances. Thus, given possible agent A and possible circumstances C, God is said to know what action that person would freely choose.

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Molinists support their case with Jesus's statement in Matthew 11:23:

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:And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.

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That is, Jesus claims knowledge of how the Sodomites would have responded under a different set of circumstances from those that actually occurred.

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This account allows God to arrange for a person to carry out a specific act, without overriding their free will; instead, God can arrange the circumstances surrounding the choice so that the act is both freely chosen and providential.

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An important feature in this account is that, although God knows how free agents will act in any situation, God does not determine or cause (at least exclusively) the actions and choices of the free agent; if he did, there would be no freedom.

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