Featured Modeling Molinism

Wait right there. Where do you see in the Molinist model that all things have been predestined???

“Imagine you wake up and discover that you are in an ambulance being transported to the emergency room. You clearly require serious medical help. If you do nothing, you will be delivered to the hospital. However, if for whatever reason you demand to be let out, the driver will comply. He may express his concern, warn you of the consequences, but he will abide by your wishes. You receive no credit for being taken to the hospital, you receive all the blame for getting out. This is a picture of the Molinist view of salvation.”

The only thing that has been predestined is that God has a plan for salvation for all His creatures. The Molinist model gives an example how God foreknows all things yet how salvation is not pre-determined. You seem to continue to start your argument on a premise that is not within the Molinist model.

 

Oh, on the contrary, I answered your questions of "self identity" in a nut-shell. I said you do not have the kind of freedom to choose your own world.

I explained God's judgment would be just, His offer true, no matter what world you begin in.

2Co 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

 

You have once to live and once to die buddy. God be the Judge of how you doing during that process. You don't have the option to continue forever. What, you think you should have the freedom to choose your worlds all along the way and unlimited worlds to choose from??? That is God's job, He is the Judge in the matter. It seems you're thinkng beyond the freedoms of LFW to genuinely repond to "His" offer. The Calvinist ought to like hearing me say this: God is Sovereign! :laugh: But you need to understand that sovereignty is not Deterministic but Providential control, that is the Molinist model of Divine Sovereignty.

 

Got a quote for you HT, from a clip out of Keathley's book on Sovereignty and Salvation:

Even open theist William Hasker, who is no friend to Molinism, admits, “If you are committed to a ‘strong’ view of providence, according to which, down to the smallest detail, ‘things are as they are because God knowingly decided to create such a world,’ and yet you also wish to maintain a libertarian conception of free will—if this is what you want, then Molinism is the only game in town.

 

I'm sure Hasker left some room for ambiguity in how his admittal could be taken. Was that supposed to be a trick question? :smilewinkgrin: It certainly isn't a model of how God's Provident Sovereign Control maintains both LFW and foreknowledge and Lasker is probably being sarcastic, duh. But the point is it is the only model (game) in town that has a "strong view of Sovereign Providence" and maintains all these things down to the smallest detail. Obviously you don't want that?

I will work off of this model to demonstrate how all these things are maintained:


“Imagine you wake up and discover that you are in an ambulance being transported to the emergency room. You clearly require serious medical help. If you do nothing, you will be delivered to the hospital. However, if for whatever reason you demand to be let out, the driver will comply. He may express his concern, warn you of the consequences, but he will abide by your wishes. You receive no credit for being taken to the hospital, you receive all the blame for getting out. This is a picture of the Molinist view of salvation.”


Put your "self identity" in the ambulance...Go for it!

 

OldRegular, concerning free will I think you are correct in that Molina was seeking to rationalize "free will" (or what could more accurately be termed a neutrality of will) with the sovereignty of God.

Is it asinine? I don't know, we tend to think our minds and our thoughts are quite significant and profound when they're quite pathetic and ignorant. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use our minds to try to understand what we see in scripture. If we don't we're in trouble.

Also, we should not be afraid to look at other's ideas and test them against scripture, and against our understanding of revelation. Truth is not dependent upon our ability to know it, understand it, or grasp it. I believe our understanding of scripture and knowledge of truth can even be strengthened by studying error and understanding why it is error. We should be honest in this endeavour and not fear it. We should also allow that we do not know all there is to know and the systems we have developed to understand and systematize scripture are useful but those systems themselves are man made constructs and are fallible and only approximate the scriptural truth they are designed to explain. Nevertheless, I also believe we can only know and understand what God gives us to know and understand whether we derive it logically, use a man made system to understand it or just read and accept the simple truths of the Word of God. All of these are potentially legitimate means to understand revealed truth. Incidentally, I believe it is those simple truths that are the most profound, not the secret hard to be understood things. "Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am chief" Not that hard to understand but incredibly profound. "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." How could such verses as these not fill the saint with great comfort, hope and excitement regardless of whether he is a democrat, republican, dixiecrat or boll weevil. Sure, there is much theology in these verses too, and we should study that, but to me the most profound ideas are not the esoteric theological questions about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin but the simple truths of these kind of verses.

I think a lot of ideas and systems are like planets in orbit around the sun of scripture. Some orbit much closer, and other's are like Haley's comet, doing a quick flyby every once in a while with the truth then heading off into the heliopause where it is cold and dark and the sun's gravity is weak.

 

I'm not sure you are in agreement with Cypress' point, but...

The Creator is in “Provident Sovereign Control” meaning He is managing the worlds as the creatures change the circumstances. You seem to want your cake and eat it too. You do not have the kind of freedom to create your own world, …that is God’s job as the Provident Sovereign Controller.

The creature can only select from within the worlds God has provided. God does His job of providing worlds perfectly that His judgment of you WILL be genuine and Just. AS a matter of fact.

Like I said your ideas of the freedoms involved in LFW go way beyond the abilities to freely respond. Seems you think you need to create the worlds too for God’s judgments to be fair. Maybe in "your" view of LFW you should be able to help God out a bit in His judgment of your salvation by picking a few worlds yourself so he can get His purposes right???

I'm about to expand on this issue you've been raising big time:

 

Before we go forward I want to contend with this because I don’t want to be continually casing after misdirected beliefs while trying to maintain “necessary truths” that I feel you are becoming more and more willing to relinquish to hold to seriously messed up OVT view. It seems you are much further from getting my meaning than I supposed you might be.

I was being somewhat indirect as to not unnecessarily raise red flags, but apparently I need to be blunt here and explain in much more detail because I consider this this an important point and apparently you missed it and believe when I tell you I do not wish to go in circles.

First, telling you “God is Sovereign!” had a purpose that could/should have better been explained. BTW, is doesn’t bother me to say, “God is Sovereign”, I don’t see God’s Sovereignty as a Deterministic Divine characteristic, nor do I accept that Determinists have monopolistic ownership of this phrase any more than the phrase “Doctrines of Grace” for that matter. I will freely use these phrases in commonly preaching the Word and very few people would or have ever recognized any connection to Deterministic views, if they did I would be sure to distinguish the difference, trust me, LOL. It is only odd to use them here because of they could/would commonly be perceived here.

Look, I am a “card carrying LFWer” and as far from Calvinist/Determinist soteriological values as one can get but I do not believe in any way, shape or form that we have anything to with saving ourselves! That suggestion, which is often used to facilitate an assault upon those who believe in true LFW, is often used by our “Calvy friends” and amounts to nothing more than a fallacious false dilemma. To me, it’s even rather ludicrous if they use that false dilemma because if they believe that to be true then they have just pinned themselves to Determinism and thereby strict fatalistic theology through denying LFW, but I digress.

In no way do I believe we save ourselves because I stress we truly have the ability to freely respond to the influences of God; God’s grace comes through faith, it is the “gift” of God. That “gift” is upon the condition of faith, God looks at your heart and gives you all the things you need to come to faith, BUT He does not determine that you have faith, on this we should agree.

In my view His judgment in the world we live in is under His “Provident Sovereign Control” concerning those things He gives us to come to faith, to influence us with, and all His ways of “sovereignly managing” this process WILL be Just and True. All His ways are “Judgment in Truth” and therefore “MUST” logically be genuinely based on our true LFW ability to response in your love of His Truth that He gives us and I set out to maintained these things in truth. God’s gift of salvation, is according to His Gracious and Just plan, is available to every creature in the world because of His Nature and Love in creation, it is exclusively freely given at His discretion based on His Judgment of His creature’s response to His influences which He places into the world for all His Divinely Designed volitional creatures. Again, this gift is according to His plan upon which He provides His Sovereign Judgment in the matter of His uniquely designed creatures responding in love of His Truths which comes from “their own heart”. Every creature has the ability in their heart to respond to His influences or it would make His entire plan from the beginning of creation in which He Perfectly made everything in the world Good, “Very Good, actually. Otherwise, these things would be absolutely meaningless and would amount to making us His puppets and His ways being other than Judgment in Truth. Such things which lead to a view of Deterministic Sovereign Control lead straight into theological fatalism, on this I believe we also agree. This is why I say God is in Sovereign Control; but distinguish that it is not in a Deterministic way but through Provident Sovereign Control of His Divinely Designed LFW creatures.

This (importance of retaining God’s Sovereignty as well as all His Attributes and Nature) cannot be overlooked in a discussion like this and I will not ignore these things needing to be necessarily upheld as truths, thus my references to “Necessary Truths”. Therefore, this shouldn’t be skipped by because it is “very” important that you get what I said and we come to an understanding about it. It is important to establish this based understanding if you have taken a view, which seems to me you have, that in some way, any way we “help” in God saving us other by than freely responding to His influences which He only rests His Judgment on “our own hearts”. In going beyond simple LFW freedoms which amount to helping in salvation one would have big (heretical) problems during his efforts to come to an understandable logical soteriological view. Let me be clear, you have ABSOLUTELY NO freedom in helping God come to His judgments, period! Your comments seem to express otherwise. ANY thoughts that you possess “that kind of freedom go WAY beyond a reasonably considered libertarian conception of free will” and would unavoidably fall into “major theological difficulties”, hence why I addressed it this way, albeit apparently in overly short and not direct enough form.

This goes to show another reason why OVT is serious messed up because it’s view of LFW leads into heretical belief that are equivalent to that you are some kind of little god that helps God come to His Judgments and actually have that kind of freedom to do so! That is a totally different view of LFW than I hold and will object to as it goes too far. That kind of presumed LFW freedoms amounts to heretical Pelagianism views and THAT is exactly why Molinists do not care to be thought of as being in the same camp as Open Theists. Sincerely, I cannot caution you enough about the consequences of getting caught up in OVT and their dogmatic arguments.

I have observed you since coming on this board and watched you learning about Calvinist/Determinism, rejecting determinism and in turn drifting into to Open Theism to try to make sense of it all in a very short time. I hope you will consider my advice that you have not found an easy way out of Determinism through OVT, there is no easy way, the important thing is maintain a goal to conserve all “necessary truths”; and if you’re not careful you’re going to find yourself on the path to buying into multiple heresies in trying to logically maintain that view. I have been trying to tactfully explain this to you, but I’m often way to blunt and truthful to be considered tactful and I understand how I can come across, but that is me. Once more, there is a reason OVT is so widely rejected: It should be!

In this process you have gone through I have also watched you begin to reject other Divine Attributes to hold to that compensating (OVT) view which, yes, logically abolishes Determinism but has other serious problems it holds to to get there. You seem to think, as per what typical OVTs dogmatically love to argue, that other than their view Determinism cannot logically be abolished. I’m here to tell you not ONLY “CAN” IT BUT IT “MUST” and this “MUST” be done without these terrible sacrificial laying down and rolling over on maintaining the True Nature of God and His Truths about His plan of salvation. You seem to be becoming more and more willing to do this and I am concerned about this and very aware of where these thoughts come from and what they are rooted to, whether you believe it, or appreciate the way I put it or not.

So, in your questions I have taken note that now you appear to be objecting to God’s Provident Sovereign Control through these OVT leanings you have got caught up in concerning the type of freedom that you believe you logically need to have which would be needed to support that view. Understand any of this thus far. LOL.

 

Okay, you felt I didn’t address your questions. I did, but I tend to go at a fast pace and presumed you knew what I was referring to when I answered your questions in a nut shell. I apologize for that and now after what I hope is a thorough enough explanations above I will break down your entire paragraph. Please don’t take offense at my style of using somewhat rhetorical replies which are meant to help me to get my points across, nothing more:

Here they all are. You said:

(Your “self” belongs to God, period; you don’t need to be maintaining it in the sense you seem to be thinking, a person needs to be surrendering his self, his pride, they need God to give them “His free gift of Grace”! There is apparently a difference to the depth between us in how we are looking at “maintaining the self” and exactly what freedoms we possess that need to be maintained as necessary truth.)

(God’s plan of salvation IS in True and Just regardless of what you “find hard to believe” no matter when or where you are born. Otherwise, you are unavoidably headed into a belief of limited atonement which hinges on Deterministic Sovereign Control and that view’s consequences. God knowing you before you were born placed you in the world where He knew you belonged and none of this changes a thing about His Just plan of salvation for all His creatures. You may not be able to recognize your self in another world, but you are not God, and He CAN recognize you in any world He decides to put you in and it changes nothing concerning all the truths and promises to us within His loving creational design that He said He has made. )

(Who are you, little god, to judge God’s judgment? His judgment WILL be righteous and according to His Just ways. You WILL be given everything you need to respond in faith and WILL have no excuse not to.)

(God knows this. He is longsuffering in bringing you to the point you are today. That a person might be more susceptible to respond to His influences today than they were before goes to His Glory while showing His achievements of drawing “you” closer in love for “His” Truths. God demonstrates the power of Love to His Glory.)

(Not if you don’t neglect to give God the credit for bringing you through your choices to who you are now. It is an on-going process of God’s influence and your response; He did the work, all of it, so that you could freely choose to accept His gift of Grace. The fact that you have grown into a different person today and would choose differently testifies to His Glory and the power of His Love while working on you.)

(Why is this a problem, because they couldn’t have enough freedom to come to God on their own??? It seems you are back to “helping” God out in your salvation. It doesn’t work that way. God will not force beings in His processes, but He will be Just (Providently so) in giving every being all the influences any being needs to respond; as the word says none will have an excuse for that in they knew Him they did not glorify Him and were not thankful for the things they were made to understand. They will be judged according to the righteous process God long-sufferingly put them through and His Judgment in the matter of what those beings have become through their free responses to His freely given influences will be Divinely Just as “only” He can decide.)

(Exactly, that is all part of God’s plan of salvation to bring you to Him through His powerful loving influences. It (the new experiences and changed attitudes) is His doing and He gets all the credit. Like the Molinist model says, if you stay in it for the ride you get none of the credit for arriving, but you will get all the blame for getting out. Why, because God has given you everything you need to believe in His love, the love He has told us He had in creating the world and His Divinely Designed creatures, and some were not thankful for that ride, thus they get the blame for getting out.)

(And to God be the Glory!)

(Here is where you really demonstrate missing the point. You need to dispose of that “I” became who “I am” stuff; you neglect that God gets the all the credit for who you have become, He did all the work through His influences and did so Justly according to your (LFW) free responses. The process He put you through WILL be sufficient for you to freely respond to His free gift of Grace, God’s Judgment WILL be Just and Genuinely based on your free responses to His freely given influences that brought you to faith in love of His Truths. God has all the possibilities (infinitely) He needs to Righteously Judge your (LFW) responses toward becoming the person. Once again, little god, you who are you to judge God’s judgment of whether or not He is able to keep the process going long enough with enough possibilities to do “HIS JOB” righteously and in Truth? God is Truth in all things. I hear you expressing difficulty believing He is able to do all the things He says He can do and I find that problematic. Especially if you are than willing to sacrifice on any aspect of His nature to have these abilities or on any of His attributes before you will accept that He does do all He says He does in Truth. I see this un-acceptance being done merely in the pride of self; i.e., wanting the “freedom to help” which is rooted in and the consequences of the OVT thoughts you have engaged in to escape the consequences of Determinism.)

If you don’t like Molinism’s model you don’t even need a complex system to maintain all of God’s necessary Truths you just believe them and hold to them! But, if you want to have a system that strives to logically argue how all of God’s Truths can be maintained Molinism is the only game (model) in town.

(Says you, I have been plugging in all kinds of different scenarios and it’s upheld all the necessary truths I’ve needed it to.

(Because all God’s are judgment in truth and He has a plan of salvation for every patient that comes into His ambulance. His desires are not the patient’s desires and the patient should be thankful for the opportunity. Some aren’t.)

Rom 1:20-23 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: (21) Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. (22) Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (23) And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

(If you did you it seems to me you were unthankful for what you have been given (life, in the world you have been placed in) and maybe in pride you don’t want to surrender your “self identity” and be seen in Christ with Him as your Lord. The reality is that you, not of your own doing, have woke up in an ambulance (you’ve been created) and you seem to be second guessing His purposes (love in creating the world) and ability to righteously judge your heart.)

(Yes, God is the Manager of the influences He will freely give you to freely respond to which according to His plan which WILL be Just and is based on His choosing and judgment alone along the way. He is able to do accomplish His plan through His providence down to the smallest detail.)

(“You” might think maybe the world you are in could have happened otherwise, but it’s God’s job to choosing and put you in the world He wants you and I happen to think He does His job perfectly. So you will be in the best possible world to freely respond to influences and that’s what you will be judged on, Truthfully, Righteously, and Justly.)

Continued:

 

(Behold, here you are again, complaining about the world you have been placed in, not liking your choices, thinking it could have been better, not trusting in that God knows what is best to reach Righteous and Just judgment. Wanting a higher degree of freedom, to be like a little god who thinks he should be the judge between what is good and what is not, and have a desire to second guess that it could have been better.)

God has Provident Sovereign Control ; that does not void LFW.


Gen 3:22-24 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: (23) Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.


I'm adding this back in here because it gives another good exaample of what I am addressing here and completes the example I've been trying to make about too high a view of freedom while thinking such is what LFW needs consist of as per OVT thought.

I'm not sure you are in agreement with Cypress' point, but...

The Creator is in “Provident Sovereign Control” meaning He is managing the worlds as the creatures change the circumstances. You seem to want your cake and eat it too. You do not have the kind of freedom to create your own world, …that is God’s job as the Provident Sovereign Controller.

God does not determine the outcome of your salvation based on His desires, He determines the creature's salvation based on His righteous judgment from within the worlds He righteously chose. Your conclusion reveals a belief the creature being lmited in the freedom to select his own world voids LFW. The creature can only select from within the worlds God has provided. God does His job of proviing worlds perfectly that His judgment of you WILL be genuine and Just. AS a matter of fact.

Like I said your ideas of the freedoms involved in LFW go way beyond the abilities to freely respond. Seems you think you need to create the worlds too for God’s judgments to be fair. Maybe in "your" view of LFW you should be able to help God out a bit in His judgment of your salvation by picking a few worlds yourself so he can get His purposes right???

 

Just a quick note, that question is intreresting!!! coming from you, because I remember a thread you started some time ago where I was arguing on the side that God could be logically known against opponents who thought otherwise. Not sure if you were on my side on this one. Think you bugged out. But I would contend that logically knowing God in truth is a necessary truth. You???

SO, I'm curious to hear what you think on this in regards to your question because you have seemed to often be arguing about what is a "necessary truth" in this thread. I feel the circles I've been chasing you in may very well be rooted to going back that far (Is God known as logically Truth)? If so it makes no sense to me to argue logically against an opponent who would step back that far to avoid accepting logical necessary truths in the discussion. I have yet to see any agreement from you on any of what I've referred to as "necessary truths", only avoidance on the issues and believe that is how circular arguments stay circular. Doesn't leave room for any progress to made concerning logically drawing out the truth in an argument if the opponent doessn't believe logical truth can be known. ...Know what I mean?

 

Well!, ...then! ....to start with "Provident Sovereign Control" IS a Molinist phrase. So that shoots down your belief that in Molinism there is no "managment of worlds" as well as your suggestion that I part from them on this issue. Hmm, doesn't it now? :smilewinkgrin:

Sheesh! Managing of possible worlds within God's Divine knowledge and maintain LFW through CCFs is what Molinism is all about! Seems you are out to deny the system exists, that I am not in mainstream, and are actually still in the process of misrepresenting the Molinist so you can then argue against a strawman. Hmmm. I tire of that circle for sure!

 

Take your time there 'Humble-Thinker" ...I will only be able to take a peak at the thread today and may not have sufficient time to respond until tomorrow...

 

Why make this all so complicated though? NOTHING exists that god is not in control over fully, either he caused it to happen, or permitted it to happen, that he knows ALL things known, as everything to Him is already seen as happened, and that he saves based upon Him having the Sovereign Will to exercise and redeem lost sinners!