asaris

This has come up before, and I've given a few short summaries in other threads, but it's come up often enough that I wanted to give a fuller description of my views on the matter, and put them up for discussion. A warning: this is pretty complicated, and my post won't be able to fully discuss everything. For those interested, a fuller account can be found here, and in the book Divine Providence: A Molinist Account by Thomas Flint.

So, God is absolutely free. He is not limited by power or by intelligence, the way humans are. So take the set of possible worlds. God can create any of these he wants, right? Not really. Molinists hold that there is a very important subset to the set of possible worlds: the set of feasible worlds. And it is this set that God chooses among when he creates. You see, God has a very special kind of knowledge, called middle knowledge. He not only knows what happened, what is happening, and what will happen, but he also knows what would have happened. Consider the case of Eric. One day, Eric is out walking, and he walks past the pet shop. God knows, of course, that Eric is walking and walked past the pet shop. God also knows, beforehand, that Eric will walk past the pet shop. But Molinism maintains that God also knows that, if Eric had walked into the pet shop, Eric would have bought an iguana. More generally we can say that, for all cirumstances C, agents P, and actions A, God knows the truth or falsity of the claim "In C, P would have freely done A". These claims are called "Counterfactuals of Creaturely Freedom"

So what does this have to do with possible or feasible worlds? The feasible worlds are that set of worlds in which all of the actually true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true. Note, by the way, that this includes worlds in which C obtains and worlds in which C does not obtain. It includes worlds in which Eric walks into the pet shop and worlds in which Eric does not walk into the pet shop. But in all the feasible worlds in which Eric walks into the pet shop, Eric freely buys an iguana. So God simply chooses a feasible worlds to actualize, and all of the states of affair which obtain in that world, God either strongly actualizes (by, say, making the boiling point of water 100 degrees C) or weakly actualizes (by, say, creating the world in which Eric walks into the pet shop, so that he'll buy the iguana). That is to say, God has control because he has control over what the circumstances we're in are, and he knows what we will freely choose to do in those circumstances. But he doesn't make us choose either way, so we are still free -- whether or not Eric buys the iguana is up to him.

So, what do you think? Does this make sense to you?

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

CSflim

Sorry, I don't follow the idea of a feasible world. What logically possible world is unfeasible in this sense?

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noodles

very interesting and yes it makes sense. don't really know if i agree with it or not yet but i understand it.

asaris

Csflim -- the ones in which Eric goes into the store and doesn't buy the iguana (to put it simply, it's obviously more complex than that, but you're a smart guy, so that might help)

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

tiberry

Gets really complicated or simplifies itself, depending on how you look at it - when you consider "Who built the petshop?", "Who came up with the idea of domesticating Iguanas?", "Who decided to be a glass maker and subsequently made the window for the store front?"

Wouldn't this eventually require that every scenario be constructed of discreet (cannot be broken down any further) elements? Or for lack of a better term - absolutes such as your example of water boiling at 100 degrees C?

__________________
My life's work is to bridge the gap between that which is perceived by the mind and that which is quantifiable by words and numbers.

asaris

Yes, certainly there are different relevant counterfactuals depending on every other free action that impinges on Eric's actions in the pet shop. Since there are an awful lot of such counterfactuals (for example, just about every single one dealing with actions more than 100 years before Eric goes into the pet shop), it's a lot simpler to just look at the one.

I think you mean discrete, but minor grammatical points aside, I'm not sure I see your point. This view involves viewing a portion of reality discretely, but that's just because it's a point about human activity, which necessarily needs to involve the discrete unit of an individual person. Exactly how people exist, this view doesn't, as far as I can see, say anything about.

Just to make a quick point, that's probably obvious, this view assumes the existence of free will and providence (part of providence being 'pre-destination'), since it's an attempt to reconcile them.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

WillyPete

It might be me, but this sounds very much like a layman's explanation of God being like a quantum computer in nature of his knowledge.

Which I think is a good way of describing someone that is all-knowing.

asaris

If I understand your explanation in that other thread, it's not quite the same. It's not just that God's a very good guesser. He not only knows, he in some sense causes, though indirectly, everything which happens.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

CSflim

Yes, I understood that bit. My question is what is so unfesable about them? Where did this concept of feasability/unfeasibility come from? It appears to have been plucked out of thin air.
What makes a world "unfeasible" and why couldn't (or wouldn't) God create such a world?

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asaris

The world in which Eric goes into the store and does not buy the iguana is unfeasible because Eric freely chooses to buy the iguana. God cannot create a world in which Eric freely chooses not to buy the iguana, because the whole point of free will is that it's up to Eric, not God, whether or not he buys the iguana.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

CSflim

...because such a world is a logical impossiblility, right?

A world where Eric is forced to not buy the iguana is logically possible, but God chooses not to create such a world because it would not have free will in it.

Is that right?

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asaris

Exactly. God cannot force Eric to freely not buy the iguana.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

WillyPete

With the same argument, God cannot create a world in which Eric is free to buy the iguana.

Right?

asaris

No, I don't see how that follows. God cannot create a world in which, in circumstances C, Eric freely does not buy the iguana, because in circumstances C, Eric freely buys the iguana. But, since God can create a world with circumstances C, God can create a world in which Eric freely buys the iguana.

Now, as I mentioned above, this is an oversimplification. It should be clear that I can't really explain it in its full complexity, but I'll try to use an example to show quickly how's it's a little more complicated. This example is, of course, oversimplified. So, I said earlier in this post that God can create a world with circumstances C. But it may be the case that God cannot create a world with circumstances C. Suppose that circumstances C includes Mary freely choosing not to marry Eric in circumstances D. Suppose further that, in fact, Mary freely chooses to marry Eric in circumstances D. Then circumstances C cannot obtain. But, on the other than, there are probably many circumstances similar to circumstances C (call them C' and C'') in which Eric freely buys the iguana. So if it's really important to God that Eric buy the iguana, he can make sure C' or C'' obtain, even if C doesn't.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

John Henry

Prologue: The following was intended to be a short and neat illustration of a point, but I started getting into it and it all got a bit out of control. Funny when you consider its content. If you can't be bothered to read it - and I really wouldn't blame you - just skip to where it says "THE BOTTOM LINE"

Let us consider God by analogy with an engineer. Unoriginal, I know, but for good reason.


This engineer designs and builds a car. He then sells it to a gentleman who, though it be unknown to him, is mentally unbalanced. This man then decides to drive his car through a crowded high street, killing countless people.

Our engineer, ignorant of the event until after its passing is unable to intervene. Save for the fact that he could have checked this fellow's background before selling him the car, he is not culpable. He did not ever create the car with this end in mind. More importantly, he did not create or design the agent of this destruction. What the driver did was his own choice. He chose the action of his own free will. Although he was asked to give evidence in court, there was never even a thought of charging him.

And yet our engineer is struck with grief and guilt, because he is a kind man and a loving man. 'Never shall this happen again.' he says to himself. 'No vehicle of mine will ever be used to destroy human life from hereon. I will build a car that can pilot itself, and not just with one of those GPS thingies. This one will be dead clever.'

He loves cars so much that no disaster, no tragedy could ever stop him designing and making more. So he sets about planning and designing his car. 'This one will take in data from it's environment, it will learn, it will make judgements and decisions based on experience and available data. It will drive itself wherever it deems fit. Without the intervention of human mind, it can be used for no malice.'

Ten years pass as he develops this vehicle and finally it is ready to see the road. It emerges from the garage and, with much hesitation and a lot of small zigzags to begin with, it begins to make its way. With moist eye and a registered patent, he watches it leave, then heads back to his garage to begin designing a mass production process.

Ten more years and the car has seen a lot of road. It has learnt to refuel, maintain and recharge itself, driven on A-roads and motorways, covered the country from top to bottom and even ventured through the channel tunnel (Thats a big hole under the sea that connects Britain and France). Then one day, as it is driving past a crowded high street, whether because of a passing cosmic ray, a static charge on an IC, or perhaps a decaying capacitor, it makes the decision to rev down that high street, ploughing down tens of innocent people.

This time, our engineer is guilty. Although he did not program his car specifically to kill and although he was not responsible for the circumstances in which the event occured, or for the experiences his car had in those ten years of it's life, he was the designer and progenitor of the agent of death, not just the medium. And he chose to let it run free. Had he, at the time of creating the vehicle's artificial intelligence, been able to predict that exactly this would happen, he would have surely been all the more culpable.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

If God creates everything, that includes our free will, or whatever collection of phenomena we observe as free will.

If at the point of creating this free will, he knows what decisions it will cause it's posessor to make and chooses not to alter its form then, although he may not be 'responsible' in the most literal sense, any actions which result from it result from his own.

If God does not create our free will, then either all is not created by him or it does not exist.

If free will does not determine our actions, then it is not truly our 'will' and our actions must be determined by something other, meaning we are not free.

If the nature of our free will does not govern how it determines our actions, then it must be governed by something external and is therefore not truly 'free'.

__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

asaris

John Henry, you write that if God "knows what decisions [free will] will cause it's [sic] possessor to make and chooses not to alter its form[...]" You make two mistakes here. First of all, free will doesn't make us do anything. By means of our free will, WE do things. Saying Eric's free will makes him buy the iguana is like saying the light in the room makes me see. Eric freely buys the iguana by means of free will. Saying free will caused the murderer to kill that guy is like saying the gun made him kill that guy. Second, I don't know what you mean by 'alter its form', but I suspect that whatever you mean, it's either impossible, incoherent, or can't do what you need it to for your argument to go through. Or some combination of the above.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

John Henry

So God makes us and our actions are determined by our nature, but permitted by our free will. Same difference. Why not make people so that are able to choose how they act and act as they choose, but such they they simply wouldn't choose to do a, b or c?

__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

WillyPete

I see what you said now asaris. I didn't notice that it was important for God to have Eric buy the iguana.

Mind you, if Eric didn't buy the iguana, why not send someone to intervene and tell him he should do so.
Or keep letting Eric walk past the shop with the chance that he might buy it?

True. To a point.

God might know that were I to walk into a room to see my mother being molested by a man, that man would die. But what about less dramatic stuff?
What causes God to decide that certain actions fall within his defined set of feasible worlds?

Me stealing some candy from a store?
The president authorising a nuclear attack?

To me, that's what would really decide whether this was typical of god.
Correct me if I've got the wrong end again. I still need to read your link.

asaris

John Henry -- Because the notion of free will operative in this viewpoint is this "For any action A and person P, P freely performs A at t if and only if P could have performed not-A at t".

WillyPete -- Well, I'm not saying it's important for God to have Eric buy the iguana, only that it might be. Maybe God wants as many people as possible to own iguanas, since he really likes them. His ways are not our ways. <removes tongue from cheek> The other situations you mention would not be Eric buying the iguana in circumstances C, but rather circumstances D and E, since the changes you mention are pretty clearly relevant to whether or not Eric chooses to buy the iguana.

You also write "What causes God to decide that certain actions fall within his defined set of feasible worlds?" That's not actually a valid question. All actions that a free agent would choose to do in some circumstances are included in the set of feasible worlds, from God knowing whether or not you would steal some candy from a store to whether or not the president would authorize a nuclear attack. Even whether or not you choose to brush your teeth before or after you shave this morning. To put it more technically, "For every free action A, circumstance C, and agent P, God knows whether or not P will perform A in C". There are no unimportant choices to God, even if the importance of some seems minimal to us.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

John Henry

So we have a contradiction. If God can always know for certain exactly what this Mr P. fellow, the entirety of whom he has created, decision making process included, is going to do, then what Mr P. does is determined, albeit indirectly, by God's actions, so his choice can surely not be said to be truely free.

That is to say that if God has created everything which determines Mr P's actions in this scenario and knows what he will choose to do, then Mr P COULD NOT have chosen to 'not A'. Thus the freedom you speak of does not exist.

__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

asaris

That's just false. Mr P could have chosen not-A, he just didn't choose that way. In other words, it's up to Mr. P. I've said it before on these boards -- foreknowledge does not, in any way, hinder freedom. Freedom just means it's up to me; the fact that someone else, whether it's a human being or God, knows what I'm going to do has no effect on my ability to do it.

You make another point, that what Mr. P does is determined, though indirectly, by God's actions. You have to say more, since what we do determines indirectly each other's actions all the time. Say you come over to my house, and I offer you a beer. You freely choose to accept that beer. Now, my offering you the beer indirectly determines your taking the beer, since you would not have taken the beer if I had not offered. But no one would say that, for that reason, you weren't free. Similarly, God put Eric in circumstances where Eric would buy the iguana. But that doesn't mean that Eric wasn't free not to buy the iguana any more than you weren't free to decline the proferred beer.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

John Henry

I'm not saying that foreknowledge in itself restricts freedom, simply that absolute, certain foreknowledge precludes the possibility of free will. If you are truly free to choose to do A or B, there is a possibility, a non-zero probability, that you will do either. If A is a certainty, the probability of it happening is 1. The probability of any alternative event is 0, an impossibility. So B is necessarily impossible IF A is a certainty. We are not free to choose to do the impossible.

You will argue that until P makes his decision, there is still nonzero possibility of B, but then if God knows what the decision will be it is and has been determined. P might experience the sensation of having chosen freely, but if the outcome of his 'choice' was known beforehand it was never truly made.

As for your beer, you are not resposible for my choice because there are external factors affecting my decision. Whether I decide to take a beer or not is dependent on three things; my environment, my nature and my prior experience. Although you could affect, for example, my environment to such an extent that you would be resposible for me choosing to take the beer - by waving a gun in my face for example - generally you are right, my choice would not be yours. In the scenario of Divine Providence, however, God is responsible for all the factors affecting my decision, my nature, my environment, my experience, the purple headed mountain, the river running by. The lot.

__________________
"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit."

Livia Regina

I agree with John Henry.

Assuming we do have free will and God does have a plan, then he manipulates our choices according to his plan. How can he not be somehow responsible for our actions? And if God is all-good, why does he manipulate us into doing evil things?

It reminds me of the felix culpa. If God knew Adam would fall and could have prevented it (being all powerful) then he must have wanted Adam to fall as a part of his plan. How could Adam have sinned then since sin is going against God's will?

asaris

John Henry -- You're still making a couple of mistakes in your post. The only difference between God's knowledge and ours is a matter of degree. God knows everything, and we only know some things; moreover, God always knows that he knows something, while we often can be wrong about whether or not we know something. But knowledge just means "justified true belief". So the distinction you make between God's knowledge and ours is just inconsistent. You say that if you are truly free to choose to do A or B, there is a non-zero probability that you will do either. But this just confuses randomness with freedom. From the point of view of our limited knowledge, it makes sense to assign odds to future events. But in point of fact, free actions are fully determined. What makes them free is that they are determined by us.

You go on to write that God is responsible for all of the factors affecting my decision. But that's simply false. If there is free will, WE are responsible to some extent for our enviroment and nature.

Livia Regina wonders why God 'manipulates' us into doing evil things. Well, the best answer is that I don't know. I don't know if there was a feasible world in which God creates rational creatures who do not sin. If there wasn't such a world, then the answer is easy. If there was, perhaps there were other reasons why he created this world instead. Perhaps the only feasible world in which rational creatures do not sin is one in which there are only one such creature, and God wanted more than that. I don't know.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Livia Regina

So God knows that if he makes a being such as Eric that Eric will do certain things and when he makes Eric, he does in fact do those things freely? It still doesn't sound like free will to me. God has a plan and puts Eric in to situations where he will follow that plan. Is Eric ever able to go against the plan?

It's a bit more than that. If God is manipulating us into doing evil things then these evil things are still a part of his plan and for us to do them is not going against his will. Therefore sin cannot exist because everything happens according to God's plan and nothing can be against God.

asaris

Well, yes and no. It is logically possible for Eric to go against the plan; there are possible worlds in which Eric does not buy the iguana. But Eric freely chooses to go along with the plan; God's will is never thwarted only because he knows in advance what Eric will freely choose.

I really don't think this is the right way to look at it, though I think I understand the objection. There's a reason I put 'manipulates' in quote marks. First of all, having choosing to create a world, God had to create one of the feasible worlds. The other possible worlds were, if you'll excuse the pun, unfeasible. But since he knows everything that's going to happen, he had to 'manipulate' us one way or another. That's one of the differences between God's manipulation and ours. Secondly, you could just as well look at it the other way; God manipulates us into doing good things, and it's just our stubborn wills that cause evil. If God had his druthers, we would all be doing only good things, but presumably that world was not feasible. So he had to create a world that was pretty good. (And of course this world is pretty good. It has bacon in it.)

You might ask, is this the best of all feasible worlds? Well, that begs the question as to just what is the best of all feasbile worlds? Is it the world with the least evil or the most good? There's no reason to think that those two worlds are the same world, or that one is necessarily better than the other. To pick the starkest example, which is a better world, one in which 98 people go to heaven and 2 people go to hell, or one in which 10 million go to heaven and 1,000 go to hell? Or is the best world one with the 'best' balance between good and evil? What is the best balance between good and evil? I don't know the answers to these questions, and I suspect there isn't one, even for God.

Our evil actions are indeed part of God's plan, insofar as he planned for them. But they're not what he wants. I suspect, though nobody knows this, that there was no feasible world containing rational creatures he could have created without some evil. But that doesn't mean that God wanted to create a world with evil, or that he wants us to do evil.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Livia Regina

This is more of a side note but I just ran across this idea today. I'd never thought about it before. How can a perfect being create an imperfect world? If God is omnipotent then couldn't he make a feasible world with free will but without sin? Apologies if this has already been adressed.

__________________
Rule 37: There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload.'

asaris

Not if there's no such feasible world. Again, the point of free will is that it's up to us.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche