Schellenberg claims that God cannot coexist with a non-resistant non-believer, since God being love would ensure that everyone who is non-resistant would be given the conditions necessary for a personal relationship with God.
It seems to me that a Molinist has a nice answer to this. A loving God would not want to compel people to have a particular kind of relationship with him, and would hence leave them free. But now imagine a particular non-resistant non-believer, Alice. God could know of Alice that if she believed in God and were free with respect to a relationship with God, she would freely choose a bad relationship with God. Then here are God’s main options with respect to Alice:
Not create Alice
Ensure Alice believes in God but make it impossible for her to have a bad relationship with God
Ensure Alice does not believe in God
Ensure Alice believes in God and allow her to have a bad relationship with God.
For Schellenberg’s case to work, (3) has to be an unacceptable option for a loving God. But (3) seems better than (1) and (4), and (2) seems contrary to the way that love requires respect for the freedom of the beloved. So while (3) is not ideal, it seems better than the alternatives.
And it could be—this is parallel to Trans-World Depravity—that in every feasible world there is someone like Alice.
I think the main response would be that a person who would have a bad relationship with God counts as resistant—i.e., a disposition to a bad relationship with God counts as resistance. However, this misses the Molinist point. Molinist conditionals of free will are not grounded in present character. One can be such that one would have a bad relationship with God if one believed in God, without having a disposition to such a relationship. One’s present character might, for instance, be neutral or even favoring of a good relationship with God, but given Molinism, it could be that were one to come to the decision point, one would decide against the relationship.
One could redefine non-resistance as being such that were one to believe, one would be in a good relationship with God. But because Molinist conditionals are ungrounded, we wouldn’t know whether a particular non-believer is resistant or not.
It's a pity that Molinism is false.
13 comments:
Alex
(3) is not better than (1). In fact, for a Molinist, (1) would be the only available option for God.
Under Molinism it is impossible for Alice to have a good relationship with God, and if we are to assume that a truly loving God would want every created being to have a loving relation with him, the only way for Him to make this even possible is by not creating Alice or "someone like Alice".
The alternative is that God creates people who have no chance whatsoever of having a good relationship with Him. But, since God's love is supposed to be unconditional, a loving God could not do so, because He would then be willingly creating an evil person.
In short, the Molinist answer is not nice at all.
It seems you're thinking: If Alice is a person who, no matter what, wouldn't have a good relationship with God were she to believe in God, then Alice is a bad person.
That would be mistaken. The reason is that the Molinist conditionals float free from actual character. Being a good or bad person is a function of actual character, not of Molinist conditionals. Actual character, of course, makes some Molinist conditionals be less likely to be true. For instance, it is very unlikely to be true that Mother Teresa had the Molinist counterfactual property that were she asked for the time on January 11, 1983 by a child wearing green shoes and a red shirt, she would have yelled racial slurs at the child. But assuming she had freedom, then given Molinism, there is a possible world w2 that is categorically just like our world, but where Mother Teresa has the Molinist counterfactual property that were she asked for the time on a Tuesday by a child wearing green shoes and a red shirt, she would yell racial slurs at the child. Yet in w2, Mother Teresa would still have the same saintly character that she has in the actual world. She never yells at any such child as no such child (I assume) materializes. She does not have a disposition to yell at such a child. But she *would* in fact yell at the child if she *were* put in that position. This is no reflection on her character.
Now consider Andrei Sakharov. He was an atheist and as far as I can tell a good person. Nonetheless, there is a possible world w1 which is categorically just like our world--and in particular where Sakharov has the same decent character that he actually does--but at w1, the Molinist conditionals have such a nasty collection of truth values that if Sakharov were to believe in God, no matter how other things would go, and he were left free with respect to a relationship with God, he would have a bad such relationship. This would not be any reflection on Sakharov's *character* in w1. Indeed, in w1, he has the same character as he does in the actual world, a good character.
Suppose that w1 *is* the actual world. Then natter what God did, if Sakharov believed in God and had freedom, he would have a bad relationship with God. Yet Sakharov is plainly worth creating, notwithstanding these counterfactuals. It is not contrary to God's love for Sakharov to create Sakharov, despite God's knowledge of these counterfactuals. But it might be contrary to God's love for Sakharov to create Sakharov *and* get Sakharov to believe in God.
By the way, I think my Molinist response to hiddenness is different from Michael Thune's here: https://www.pdcnet.org/swphilreview/content/swphilreview_2006_0022_0001_0033_0041 .
Alex
A person who, no matter what, wouldn't have a good relationship with God were she to believe in God is a bad person, because in every possible world she would violate the first commandment. It is not a matter of actual character, it is a matter of possible chacacter.
An a person whose character is such that it is impossible for her to have a loving relation with God, is not worth creating, at least not if we assume God's concern for loving relations a primary reason for creation.
One isn't bad because of possible character. We all have really terrible character in some worlds, independently of Molinism.
Even if God's primary interest in creating people is A, he can create people who don't exemplify A for the sake of a secondary interest.
Alex
The point is that Alice has a "terrible" character in all possible world.
Since I don't believe in transworld depravity, I don't believe we have a terrible caharacter in some worlds.
Finally, the only real "interest" God has in creating people is A. Secondary interests are, at most, by-products of this primary one.
God has an interest in everything that is good, true and beautiful.
Alice may be beautiful, but she is not good nor is she true.
She may be good in all sorts of respects: she may be kind to her neighbor, she may pursue the truth as best she can, etc. She just has some really bad counterfactual properties.
She may have some good properties, but she is bad, because she necessarily fails to do what is most important for any creature, namely to have a loving relationship with God.
Now, maybe you think having a loving relationship with God is not that important, but Schellenberg's argument starts from the assumption that this loving relationship is of the utmost importance, and if that's the case, the molinist answer doesn't work.
Suppose I have a VW Beetle that is defective with respect to its primary function: it can't go anywhere. But it's been used as a canvas by Banksy and makes a really fine piece of art. Well, it may be a bad car, but as long as its aesthetic qualities are sufficient to justify the amount of space it takes up, it's better that it exist than that it not exist.
What you are describing now is why people might be need this Beetle to exist.
But God is Pure Act and doesn't need anything to exist.
God is said to create for the sake of the created objact, not for God's own sake.
And the created object, Alice, lacks an essential ability, without which its existence becomes meaningless. Having (the potential to) a loving relation wth the Creator is what gives Alice's life its essential meaning.
So, for God to create Alice would be extremely cruel and it would involve God knowingly and willingly creating evil.
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