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Providence and Evil: Three Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

William Hasker
William Hasker
Affiliation:
Huntington College, Huntington, IN 467050-1299
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Extract

The last two decades have seen an unprecedented amount of philosophical work on the topics of divine foreknowledge, middle knowledge, and timelessness in relation to human freedom. Most of this effort has been directed at logical and metaphysical aspects of these topics – the compatibility of foreknowledge with free will, the existence of true counterfactuals of freedom and the possibility of middle knowledge, the conceivability and metaphysical possibility of divine timelessness, and so on. Far less attention, in contrast, has been devoted to the broader theological ramifications of these theories. Yet insofar as they are theological theories, they are properly appreciated and indeed fully understood only when placed in the appropriate theological context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 91 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 At least, of God's possible reasons; certainly any theist is well advised to leave open the possibility that God may have other and better reasons for what he does than any we have been able to think of. For an outstanding selection of recent work on the problem, one which I think supports the generalization given in the text, see Adams, Marilyn M. and Adams, Robert M., eds., The Problem of Evil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

2 Those who define orthodoxy more narrowly – say, in terms of agreement with a consensus of major medieval theologians – may not be disposed to regard all of my three theories as orthodox. This raises major questions which cannot be pursued here. I do not believe, however, that these more restrictive conceptions have a good claim to the title of Christian orthodoxy – as opposed, for example, to ‘high medieval’ orthodoxy.Google Scholar

3 For a finely detailed account of the first two of these as they have been discussed in the Roman Catholic context, see Thomas Flint, ‘Two Accounts of Providence’, in Morris, Thomas V., ed., Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 147–81.Google Scholar

4 For some attempts to deal with these issues on the basis of Calvinism, see Feinberg, John S., Theologies and Evil (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1979), and Kathryn Tanner, ‘God’s Unconditional Efficacy and Human Freedom to do Otherwise' (forthcoming).Google Scholar

5 Helm, Paul, Eternal God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 162.Google Scholar

6 Ibid.

7 See for example Romans chs. 1–3.Google Scholar

8 ‘Divine-Human Dialogue and the Nature of God’, in Divine Nature and Human Language (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 148.Google Scholar

9 Ibid. p. 149.

10 The primary source for Molinism is Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge (Part IV of the Concordia), translated, with introduction and notes, by Freddoso, Alfred J. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

11 There are also said to be ‘counterfactuals of divine freedom’, specifying what God would do in any situation in which he might make a free decision. But these counterfactuals are quite different in several respects from those with which the theory of middle knowledge is concerned. References herein to counterfactuals of freedom will pertain exclusively to counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.Google Scholar

12 It should be noted that the ‘choice situation’ is construed to include, not only the external circumstances and the internal character of the agent, but also any divine gracious influences which may be exerted at the time the choice is made.Google Scholar

13 Introduction to Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, p. 1. The source-question contrasts with the ‘reconciliation-question’, ‘How is this divine foreknowledge to be reconciled with the contingency of what is known through it?’Google Scholar

14 Here and elsewhere, references to what is ‘prior’ and ‘posterior’ in the divine will should be understood in terms of explanatory rather than temporal priority.

15 Introduction to Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, p. 3.

16 According to Robert Adams, Suarez assumed that ‘for every possible honorable free act of every possible free creature, in any possible outward circumstances, there are some incentives or helps of grace that God could supply, to which the creature would respond favorably though he could have responded unfavorably’ (‘Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil’, in The Virtue of Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 90). To be sure, it will still be true that there are possible worlds God cannot actualize; the worlds, for instance, in which a person fails to receive ‘congruous’ grace but still responds favourably to God. But the significance of this limitation is much less serious than the limitations imposed on God by counterfactuals of freedom are often supposed to be.Google Scholar

17 See Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, p. 199n.; also Mourant, John A., ‘Scientia Media and Molinism’, Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol. 7, pp. 338–9.Google Scholar

18 Limited atonement seems to be ruled out, in that a sinner for whom Christ did not die could hardly be said to have received ‘sufficient’ grace. It is true, furthermore, that Molinists would deny that grace is in any case ‘irresistible’. But I should think that many followers of Calvin would settle for the assurance that, while it remains possible for the human subject to resist God's grace, it is nevertheless infallibly guaranteed that the grace will be efficacious.Google Scholar

19 On this see Adams, Robert M., ‘Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil’, American Philosophical Quarterly, xiv (1977), 109–17, andGoogle Scholar ‘An Anti-Molinist Argument’, forthcoming; also Hasker, William, ‘A Refutation of Middle Knowledge’, Noûs xx (1986), 545–57, andCrossRefGoogle ScholarGod, Time, and Knowledge (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 29–52.Google Scholar For replies, see Plantinga, Alvin, ‘Reply to R. M. Adams’, in Tomberlin, James E. and van Inwagen, Peter, eds., Alvin Plantinga, Profiles Volume 5 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985), pp. 371–82; and Alfred J. Freddoso, Introduction to Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, pp. 62–81. See also Thomas Flint, ‘Hasker's God, Time, and Knowledge’, andGoogle ScholarHasker, William, ‘Reply to Thomas Flint’, both in Philosophical Studies lx (12 1990), 103–15 and 117–26.Google Scholar

20 Freddoso, who is one of the leading contemporary exponents and defenders of Molinism, nevertheless states, ‘I freely admit that the positive task of elaborating a metaphysical and semantic foundation for this doctrine is enormous and has hardly yet begun’ (Introduction to Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, P.75).Google Scholar

21 Actually, Plantinga introduced the counterfactuals of freedom into his free will defence as a concession to the atheologian – specifically, as a way of understanding Mackie's suggestion that God could have brought about a world in which free agents always freely choose to do what is right. See Plantinga, Alvin, ‘Self-Profile’, in Tomberlin, James E. and van Inwagen, Peter, eds., Alvin Plantinga, Profiles Volume 5 (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1985), pp. 47–52.Tom Flint has suggested to me, however, that the free will defence may not work without counterfactuals of freedom. For it may well be that God's essential nature is such that he is extremely reluctant to take risks of any kind; if so, then it may be that, lacking counterfactuals of freedom to guarantee the outcome of his creative activity, God would necessarily have refrained from creating any free beings at all. If this is so, then if there are no true counterfactuals of freedom God's existence is not logically consistent with the existence of moral evil, and the defence fails. I shall leave it to the reader to evaluate the plausibility of this suggestion. The suggestion in any case has important ethical implications; it implies that human beings who are extremely risk-averse (possibly including some Molinists?) are more nearly in the divine likeness than the rest of us.Google Scholar

22 Introduction to Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, p. 3.

23 Ibid.

24 See Hick, John, Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978).Google Scholar

25 Stump, Eleonore, ‘The Problem of Evil’, Faith and Philosophy ii (1985), 392–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 ‘Divine-Human Dialogue and the Nature of God’, p. 150.Google Scholar

27 Here I must acknowledge that I am seeking to ‘understand Alston better than he has understood himself’. As Alston views the matter, it is not middle knowledge but rather foreknowledge which incurs the difficulty, and he uses this point in order to argue that divine timelessness is better than temporal foreknowledge from the standpoint of divine–human dialogue (‘Divine–Human Dialogue and the Nature of God’, pp. 150–61). I believe, nevertheless, that the point made in the text is correct and that the real villain here is middle knowledge. But if the reader is inclined to agree with Alston that foreknowledge as such is incompatible with dialogue, I have little reason to dispute the point.Google Scholar

28 For this see God, Time, and Knowledge, chs. 3, 9.Google Scholar

29 Free will theists among philosophers include Lucas, J. R. (The Freedom of the Will, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970Google Scholar, and The Future: An Essay on God, Temporality, and Truth, London: Basil Blackwell, 1989),Google ScholarGeach, Peter (Providence and Evil, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), andGoogle ScholarHasker, William, (God, Time, and Knowledge, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).Google Scholar Theologians espousing this view include Pinnock, Clark (‘God Limits His Knowledge’, in Basinger, David and Basinger, Randall (eds.), Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom, Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1986Google Scholar, and The Grace of God, the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism, (edited), Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989), andGoogle ScholarRice, Richard R. (God's Foreknowledge and Man's Free Will, Minneapolis: Bethany, 1985).Google ScholarWright, John H., , S. J. (‘The Eternal Plan of Divine Providence’, Theological Studies, xxvii (1966), 27–57, andCrossRefGoogle Scholar‘Divine Knowledge and Human Freedom: The God Who Dialogues,’ Theological Studies xxxviii (1977), 450–77) is a Roman Catholic eternalist theologian who would seem to be a free will theist in the present sense. (I am indebted to David Burrell for the reference to Wright.)Google Scholar

30 For an approach to theodicy which stresses the notion that God employs such general strategies, see Hasker, William, ‘Suffering, Soul-Making, and Salvation’, International Philosophical Quarterly, xxviii(03 1988), 3–19; for full-blown theodicies embodying this idea,CrossRefGoogle Scholar see Farrer, Austin, Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited (London: William Collins and Son, 1966), andGoogle ScholarPeterson, Michael, Evil and the Christian God (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1982).Google Scholar

31 There remains, to be sure, the question why God does not prevent certain especially grievous evils. But I believe this question is far more manageable for the free will theist than for the Molinist.Google Scholar

32 Another challenge concerns the possibility of accounting for the biblical phenomenon of prophecy without ascribing to God comprehensive knowledge of the future. On this, see God, Time, and Knowledge, pp. 194–6.Google Scholar

33 I am indebted to Fred Suppe for this point, and to Robin Collins for the example.Google Scholar

34 The notion of transworld damnation was introduced by Craig, William in ‘“No Other Name”: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ’, Faith and Philosophy, vi (1989), 172–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 God, Time, and Knowledge, p. 192.Google Scholar

36 Flint would reject this; he writes, ‘Properly understood, Thomism [i.e. Bañezism – a subspecies of Calvinism] involves no rejection of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom; on the contrary, the Thomist will insist that there are such truths, and that God knows them’ (‘Two Accounts of Providence,’ p. 155).I must disagree. Both the Molinist and the Calvinist may hold that God knows propositions which could be expressed by sentences of the form, ‘If A were in circumstances C, she would freely do X.’ But the concept of freedom involved is different in the two cases (in one case libertarian, in the other soft determinist) and so the propositions God knows according to Calvinism are not the same as the ones he knows according to Molinism – and only the latter are ‘counterfactuals of freedom’ in the sense which is relevant here. In corroboration of this point, note that the Molinist's counterfactuals of freedom are contingent, whereas Flint himself has shown that the corresponding propositions for Calvinism are necessary truths (Ibid. p. 164).

37 I am indebted for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper to Thomas Flint, Alfred Freddoso, Michael Peterson, David Basinger, and to all the participants in the philosophy of religion reading group at Notre Dame.Google Scholar