TULIP and Molinism: An Unlikely Pairing

This blog post is going to assume that one has an understanding of what the systems of Calvinism and Molinism are. Perhaps at a later time I'll will briefly go over the workings of both of these systems, but for now, if you wish to learn about both of these things, I recommend you check out the article on Molinism here and the article on Calvinism here.

The purpose of this entry is to see if Calvinism, or rather the Doctrines of Grace, are compatible with a Molinist understanding divine omniscience. I submit to you that they are compatible

Free Will and the Doctrines of Grace

The main hangup that I suspect Calvinists would have with Molinism is the notion of "free will". Historically, Calvinism has been deterministic, but does this actually mean that Calvinism, therefore, is deterministic? Obviously not. Just because persons have applied a divinely causal deterministic understanding to the Doctrines of Grace does not imply that it therefore presupposes divine causal determinism. Instead, we should feel free to interpret the Doctrines of Grace against our preferred anthropology. In this case, I will be presupposing the truth of libertarian free will (a later post will be defending the notion of free will) and presenting a model that, if successful, will allow for the conjunction Molinism and Calvinism. For now, we will assume that libertarian free will is the idea that some agent S is able to perform some action A so that A is not a result of S's being causally determined to do A by some factors outside of S's control.

The Calvinist understanding of salvation is as follows: man is naturally unable to assent to God's commands and laws due to the effects of sin. As such, man is hopelessly lost and so needs assistance in order to be able to assent to God's laws and commandments. This is where the work of regeneration, by the Holy Spirit, enables any elect person to salvation to actually respond favorably and voluntarily to God's calling. Furthermore, this response cannot fail to happen, since God does not fail to save those whom He has chosen. The Holy Spirit then preserves this person in the Faith and continually works in them so as to keep them from falling away.

What we want to focus on are the following: that God must be the one to enable a person to favorably and voluntarily respond to God's calling on their life to salvation, and that this person will not fail to be saved once they are enabled to respond. These are the Calvinist doctrines of Regenerative Grace and Irresistible Grace. More simply, we can say that God enables, or regenerates a person to be saved, and then this regenerated person will infallibly be saved. Herein lies the difficulty.

If libertarian free will is true, there appears to be a problem here. For if it is certain that a regenerate person will be saved, it would seem that the regenerate person really didn't really have a libertarian choice concerning it. But, is this necessarily the case on Molinism? As we will see, there is no reason to think so.

Molinism and Calvinism 

Molinism is often times confused with its Arminian application. What this means is that Molinism is confused as the understanding that "God wants the most amount of people to be saved" or "God actualizes the world where the greatest amount of people are freely saved." Whether or not this is true is irrelevant to this entry. Rather, Molinism simpliciter just is the doctrine of middle knowledge. So while this "Arminian-Molinism" relies on Molinism for its coherence, Molinism itself does not, in any way, imply that this is how Molinism ought to be understood. Molinism is a way to understand how God saves people, not why. This is an important distinction.

Molinism and Unconditional Election/Limited Atonement

With this in mind, we can now move forward. Because Molinism is just how God saves people and not why, we should therefore come to realize that there isn't any explicit or implicit contradiction between middle knowledge and the Doctrines of Grace. One is thus free to accept the doctrines of Unconditional Election and Limited Atonement, as these doctrines answer the important why question. One can easily say that God unconditionally elects a limited few, and we need not assume that God doesn't use His knowledge of who would freely accept Him as the basis of His election; just that whomever God elects will freely come to faith, and that how a person comes to faith is via these circumstances that God has placed them in so as to bring about their response to the Gospel.

Molinism and Total Depravity

At first glance, it seems that total depravity and Molinism are incompatible; after all, according to total depravity, man is completely unable to follow God and to choose the things of God due to the effects of sin. But Molinism affirms that man is entirely able to choose God. So how can these two things be reconciled? Simply put, total depravity and Molinism are incompatible insofar as one considers Pelagianism and Molinism. However, there are ways to escape this, as the Arminians have successfully done. One could affirm that God preveniently works in a person so as to enable them to follow Him. God must be the one to initiate faith, so that any person could freely respond to the command of the Gospel. In this way, we've successfully escaped the charge of Pelagianism, since there isn't anything in us that could please God without God's working in us first.
 

Molinism and Irresistible Grace

In fact, we can affirm that this "prevenient grace" is actually just regenerative grace, if God does in fact unconditionally elect a limited few people from the mass of humanity. This is the caveat; on this Calvinist-Molinist model, while this regenerative grace operates similarly to prevenient grace as it does on Arminian-Molinist models (so that this grace, though regenerative, is not effectual, merely enabling and so non-determinitive), this grace is bestowed upon only the Elect. But this presents a problem, namely, in what sense then is this grace "irresistible?" If this grace doesn't determine that a person would be saved, then how can it be irresistible? The answer to this is simple: on Molinism, God knows the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom whereby any creature would be saved if bestowed this grace. If God, then, bestows this grace on His elect, it follows that God knows that if He were to do so, this person would be saved! And because God is necessarily correct in His knowledge, it follows then that this person would not fail to be saved. 

Summarizing the Model

As we've seen, Molinism and Calvinism are in fact compatible. God has unconditionally elected a limited number of persons that are totally depraved and so cannot respond to Him favorably. In order to save them, He utilizes His middle knowledge and places them in circumstances that He knows would result in their repentance and belief in the Gospel if regenerated beforehand and enabled to respond favorably. This model seems entirely coherent and yet works with libertarian free will. Nothing is causally determined, and yet God's purposes are thoroughly accomplished according to the Calvinist. As we've set out to demonstrate, it seems then that TULIP and Molinism are in fact compatible.


Special thanks to my good friend Andrew Harland-Smith for his work in this area. It isn't an exaggeration to say that this entry is heavily influenced by his thoughts on the subject. I don't have any links of his work, but will add some as they become available.