{"id":1145,"date":"2023-10-27T09:24:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T14:24:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2023-11-10T11:51:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T16:51:12","slug":"the-metaphysical-muddles-of-molinism-some-thoughts-on-macgregor-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alanrhoda.net\/wordpress\/2023\/10\/the-metaphysical-muddles-of-molinism-some-thoughts-on-macgregor-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Metaphysical Muddles of Molinism \u2013 Some Thoughts on MacGregor (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a long-planned continuation of a previous post<\/a> from several months ago in which I commented on chapters 1\u20133 of Kirk MacGregor\u2019s book, Molinist Philosophical and Theological Ventures<\/em><\/a> (2022). MacGregor is one of the most active contemporary defenders of Molinism, a fairly popular model of divine providence that aims to reconcile a meticulous model of providence (according to which God specifically<\/em> ordains everything<\/em> that happens) with creaturely libertarian freedom. In my first post, I argued that MacGregor’s first two chapters, in which he explicates Molinism and develops a Biblical argument for the view, are of decent quality but also fall short in some important respects. (I would give them a “mid pass” grade.) As for his third chapter, which tackles the well-known grounding objection<\/a> against Molinism, I gave it a failing grade because it never seriously engages with the objection.<\/p>\n

In this post, I comment on MacGregor’s chapter 4, which tackles another well-known objection against Molinism, specifically that Molinism generates a vicious explanatory circle and is, therefore, internally inconsistent. I’ll call this the explanatory circularity objection<\/strong>. In what follows I walk through chapter 4 and explain where I think MacGregor gets it right and where he gets it wrong.<\/p>\n

1. The Adams\/Hasker version of the objection<\/strong><\/p>\n

MacGregor begins by briefly recounting the history of the explanatory circularity objection as initially presented in the 1990s by Robert Adams and William Hasker. The objection, as MacGregor presents it\u00a0(p. 57), begins as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. According to Molinism, the truth of all true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (CCFs) about us is explanatorily prior<\/em> to God’s decision to create us.<\/li>\n
  2. God’s decision to create us is explanatorily prior<\/em> to our existence.<\/li>\n
  3. Our existence is explanatorily prior<\/em> to all of our choices and actions.<\/li>\n
  4. The relation of explanatory priority<\/em> is transitive.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The objection then attempts to derive a contradiction from 1\u20134 by pointing out that, if we are libertarian free agents, as Molinism affirms, then our actual choices must also be explanatorily prior<\/em> to the truth of CCFs about us. This closes the explanatory circle. Given transitivity, it follows that all<\/em> of these terms (the truth values of CCFs, God’s creative decision, our actual existence, and our free choices) are explanatorily prior to each other. A contradiction can then be derived by noting that some of these things cannot<\/em> plausibly be explanatorily prior to others. For example, our choices and actions cannot plausibly be explanatorily prior to our own existence\u2014obviously, we can’t do anything if we don’t exist! Nor can our existence as creatures plausibly be explanatorily prior to God’s creative decision. It follows from there that some things in the circle both are<\/em> and are not<\/em> explanatorily prior to each other, and that’s a contradiction. Since it is Molinist assumptions together with a seemingly neutral<\/em> explanatory priority relation that generates the contradiction, it appears that Molinism is the culprit and so should be rejected.<\/p>\n

    Obviously, for this objection to work, the relevant notion of explanatory priority<\/em> must be univocal and transitive throughout<\/strong>, and this is where MacGregor rightly focuses his attention. He contends that, however the objection may be developed, the notion of explanatory priority at work will either be equivocal or non-transitive. Let’s see if he’s right about that.<\/p>\n

    2. MacGregor rebuts Adams and Hasker<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Let’s now consider MacGregor’s rebuttal to the Adams and Hasker. Hasker defines explanatory priority as follows: “p<\/em> is explanatorily prior to\u00a0q<\/em> iff\u00a0p<\/em> must be included in a complete explanation of why\u00a0q<\/em> obtains” (p. 58). According to MacGregor, this won’t do because (quoting William Lane Craig) it renders premise 1 false: “God may well have chosen to create us even if some or all true counterfactuals about us were false or even if no counterfactuals about us were true. Thus the truth of all true counterfactuals about us or even there being true counterfactuals about us need not be included in a complete explanation of God’s decision to create us” (p. 58). This line of rebuttal misses its target, however, for Craig has uncharitably switched the explanatory scenario from one in which the actual<\/em> truth-values of CCFs inform God’s actual<\/em> creative decision to a counterfactual<\/em> one in which different CCFs are true. Adams and Hasker, however, can simply concede that God might have still created, say, Adam and Eve, even if (counterfactually) different CCFs had been true about them while still maintaining that the actual<\/em> truth-values of the CCFs, which define the range of “feasible” worlds on Molinism, inform and are thus explanatorily prior to, God’s actual<\/em> decision to create\u00a0this<\/em> world.<\/p>\n

    A better objection is that a “complete explanation” of God’s decision to create this<\/em> world need not “include” information about Adam and Eve’s CCFs at all. Perhaps God chose\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>world for reasons entirely independent of those<\/em> CCFs. But even if that’s true for Adam and Eve, it’s surely not true for every <\/em>created free being in the actual world. Otherwise, middle knowledge is rendered irrelevant for divine providence concerning the actual<\/em> world, something no Molinist can accept. So, even on this objection, the Adams\/Hasker argument remains viable. To defend premise 1 all they need is one<\/em> created individual whose CCFs are<\/em> part of the complete explanation of God’s actual<\/em> creative decision. They can then generate a vicious explanatory circle centered around that individual.<\/p>\n

    MacGregor’s second line of attack, again following Craig, is that Hasker’s conception of explanatory priority is subject to counterexample: “Suppose \u2026 John is going to the party [in part] because Mary is going, and Mary is going [in part] because John is going. It follows [assuming transitivity] that \u2026 John is going to the party [in part] because John is going to the party, which conclusion is obviously wrong” (p. 58). But this objection is unconvincing as well, for it’s not clear that the counterexample scenario (as described) is coherent. If John and Mary are each going only because<\/em> the other is going, then that leads to the same sort of “obviously wrong” conclusion (viz., “John and Mary are going because John and Mary are going”) that MacGregor objects to. To avoid a vicious circle we must suppose that either John, Mary, or both have other<\/em> reasons for going as well, which explains my parenthetical insertion of “in part.” In a coherent scenario we might suppose that John will go if and only if Mary goes and that Mary knows this<\/em>. For her part, Mary is willing to go partly because John will go if<\/em> she does and partly because she has non-decisive independent reasons for going. In this case, the complete explanation for John’s going must include Mary’s actually going, but the complete explanation for Mary’s going doesn’t include John’s actually<\/em> going, but rather John’s going if<\/em> Mary does. Applying transitivity, we get John goes because Mary goes, Mary goes [in part] because John goes if<\/em> she goes, therefore, John goes [in part] because John goes if<\/em> Mary goes. There’s no vicious circle here, and so I conclude that MacGregor (like Craig) has not successfully refuted Hasker.<\/p>\n

    In any case, MacGregor thinks<\/em> he has refuted the Adams\/Hasker version of the explanatory circularity objection and, since there are other versions of the objection to address, he shifts his focus to recent work by Philip Swenson and Andrew Law.<\/p>\n

    3. Swenson and Law on explanatory dependence<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Swenson and Law (S&L) understand explanatory priority in terms of explanatory dependence<\/em>, which Law defines as follows: “a fact, F<\/em>1, is explanatorily\u00a0dependent on another fact, F<\/em>2, just in case\u00a0F<\/em>2 at least partly explains\u00a0F<\/em>1″ (p. 59). MacGregor quotes Swenson saying that explanatory dependence is “the broad or generic notion that captures what all \u2026 different cases of dependence have in common” (p. 60). The cases of dependence Swenson has in mind include, but are not limited to, logical, conceptual, metaphysical, and natural dependence. Law adds in nomic\/causal explanation as well. If S&L have correctly identified a generic notion of explanatory dependence broad enough to include the various relationships in premises 1\u20133, then the explanatory circularity objection will be immune to charges of equivocation. If this generic notion is also transitive, then the objection succeeds. Two relevant questions, then, are how generic explanatory dependence relates to explanatory priority and whether it is in fact transitive.<\/p>\n

    MacGregor doesn’t spell out what S&L take the connection between explanatory priority and explanatory dependence to be. The most obvious idea (which may not be exactly what S&L have in mind) is that A is explanatorily prior to B just in case A “at least partly explains” B, or in other words, A is explanatorily prior to B just in case B is explanatorily dependent on A.<\/p>\n

    MacGregor objects that if explanatory dependence so understood is broad enough to include both logical and conceptual dependence, then it is “equivocal,” “incoherent,” and not transitive (p. 61). But he both overstates the problems and makes his case rather poorly. Drawing on Swenson’s examples, MacGregor says that “the mark of logical dependence is necessity” and “the mark of conceptual dependence is sufficiency” (p. 60). But this is false. Broadly understood, logical and conceptual dependence are the same thing<\/em>. Both are a matter of what Hume called “relations of ideas,” and necessity and sufficiency are relevant in both cases.<\/p>\n

    Note: There is a way to differentiate between logical and conceptual dependence, but it requires narrowing “logical” dependence to contexts in which conceptual relevance doesn’t matter. In standard truth-functional systems of logic, for example, every<\/em> proposition\u00a0follows from, and is thus logically “dependent” on, every<\/em> false proposition, even if the two proposition are conceptually irrelevant to each other. This is the ex falso quodlibet<\/em> principle: from the false, everything follows. The conceptual absurdities to which this principle leads were a major motivating factor prompting the development of non-truth-functional logical systems, like modal and relevance logics.<\/p>\n

    In any case, MacGregor follows with an even more dubious claim, namely, that logical and conceptual dependence are clearly “incompatible” and “have nothing in common” (p. 60). This is grossly overstated. Across a wide range of cases, at least, logical and conceptual dependence are clearly compatible and have a lot in common. In fact, aside from explicitly truth-functional systems of logic, it’s not easy to distinguish between them.<\/p>\n

    MacGregor then makes another claim that he neither explains nor defends: logical\/conceptual dependence is (in some cases) symmetric<\/em> whereas no “legitimate” relation of explanatory dependence can be symmetric (p. 60). On the surface <\/span><\/span>this is a plausible claim that might be used to drive a wedge between logical\/conceptual dependence and explanatory dependence proper. After all, we typically think of explanatory sequences as unidirectional, like a dominoes falling in sequence, not symmetric or bidirectional. But if MacGregor means to say that no<\/em> legitimate explanatory dependence relation can ever, in any instances, be symmetric, then not only does that conflict with his (and Craig’s) John and Mary example above\u2014as presented, the example is clearly symmetric\u2014but it verges on question-begging. For, absent some independent defense of a global anti-symmetry requirement on explanation, it amounts to stipulating a requirement that blocks any version of the explanatory circularity objection by fiat. One can also turn things around and argue that Molinism<\/em> requires symmetry\u2014explanatory relations have to run in both directions in order to accommodate both meticulous providence and creaturely freedom.<\/p>\n

    4. The fixity of the independent<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The fundamental issue that the explanatory circularity objection brings to light isn’t circularity<\/em> as such, but the seeming incoherence<\/em> of Molinism. More specifically, there is a tension between Molinism’s commitment to both (a) meticulous providence and (b) creaturely freedom to do otherwise in the actual<\/em> circumstances in which those choices are made. What closes the explanatory circle, recall, isn’t anything in premises 1\u20134, but rather the implications of creaturely freedom. So, on the one hand, if God’s providence is meticulous, then things like God’s middle knowledge and creative decree must be relevantly, and presumably explanatorily, prior to<\/em> creaturely free actions. Whereas, on the other hand, if creatures are actually free to do otherwise, then it must in some sense be up to them<\/em> whether God chose\u00a0this<\/em> world to create and whether their CCFs say they would freely do this<\/em> rather than something else. The point of the explanatory circularity objection is ultimately to argue that, if<\/em> one holds both meticulous providence and creaturely freedom true at the same time, then<\/em> one lands in a vicious circularity wherein certain things are both “up to us” and not<\/em> “up to us.”<\/p>\n

    We can capture this notion of “up to usness” by distinguishing between things that are fixed independently of our free choices, such that we have no “say” about them, and things that are fixed by<\/em> our free choices. In this context S&L introduce the notion of the fixity of the<\/em><\/strong> independent<\/strong><\/em>. As Swenson explains, the “independent” with respect to A is that which is “not even partially explained” by A. If B is not even partly explained by A, then B is explanatorily independent of A and therefore “fixed” from the perspective of A. In other words, if B is fixed independently<\/em><\/strong> of A, then A has no “say” about B and it is not “up to A” whether B is or is not the case.<\/p>\n

    Put in these terms, the challenge for Molinism is that, given meticulous providence, the content of God’s middle knowledge and the content of God’s creative decree are fixed independently of all\u00a0actual<\/em> creaturely choices whereas, given creaturely freedom, the content of God’s middle knowledge and the content of God’s creative decree remain, in some respects, up to us and thus are\u00a0not<\/em> fixed independently of all actual creaturely choices. So far as I can see, Molinists have no good answer to this dilemma. If they affirm that the content of God’s middle knowledge and creative decree are (to some extent) up to us, then they undermine the Molinist commitment to meticulous providence. If, however, they affirm meticulous providence, then they must admit that we have no “say” about the CCFs concerning us or what God has decreed that we do. In short, either meticulous providence or creaturely freedom has to go. The Molinist can’t have his cake and eat it too, or so the objection runs.<\/p>\n

    5. MacGregor on counterfactual dependence<\/strong><\/p>\n

    MacGregor’s strategy for rebuttal (which he doesn’t clearly articulate) is to soften the requirements on what it means to have “say” about something by asking “whether any form of counterfactual dependence counts as even partially explanatory” (p. 61). If we say, yes, then following Craig, Plantinga, and other Molinists, he’s going to maintain that we have all the “say” about the CCFs, God’s decree, etc. that we need. Because God is meticulously provident, the CCFs, God’s decree, etc. are actually<\/em> prior to our choices. But because we are free and could have chosen otherwise, our choices are counterfactually<\/em> prior to the CCFs, God’s decree, etc. In short, MacGregor and other Molinists rely on so-called “counterfactual dependence” to avoid the appearance of vicious circularity. In one direction (CCFs \u2192 God’s decree \u2192 our existence \u2192 our choices) we’re dealing with an actual<\/em> explanatory sequence, whereas in the other direction (our choices \u2192 our existence \u2192 God’s decree \u2192 CCFs) we’re dealing with a counterfactual<\/em> explanatory sequence. Because one is actual and the other counterfactual, the two sequences can’t conflict, and so there’s no vicious circularity, or so the thought goes.<\/p>\n

    It may be worth noting that this is the same strategy classical compatibilists employ in the free-will debate over against classical (leeway) libertarians. Classical libertarians affirm that genuine moral freedom requires the ability to choose otherwise and thus is incompatible with determinism. Classical compatibilists, in contrast, challenge this inference. They affirm both that moral freedom is compatible with determinism and that we could have chosen otherwise even if we were causally determined to do exactly what we actually did. They way they square this circle is precisely by going counterfactual, just like MacGregor and other Molinists do. “You could have chosen otherwise,” says the classical compatibilist, simply means that “if<\/em> you had wanted to chose otherwise, then you would have chosen otherwise.” From the libertarian perspective this is what Kant famously called a “wretched subterfuge.” It amounts to changing the topic and hoping we don’t notice that a merely counterfactual<\/em> ability to choose otherwise has no actual<\/em> relevance.<\/p>\n

    In any case, the correct answer to MacGregor’s question about whether any form of counterfactual dependence counts as even partially explanatory is an emphatic “no,” for reasons I give in this post<\/a>. Counterfactual dependence is merely a kind of necessary correlation<\/em>. It is not, in any fundamental sense, explanatory, for the same reason that correlation doesn’t imply causation.<\/p>\n

    But, says MacGregor, if we answer his question negatively, then the principle of the fixity of the independent is false because “Facts are abstract objects and therefore causally effete. Facts about what A would do in a situation have no power over A to make A do accordingly in that situation. Hence A could do something incompatible with the CCFs.” (p. 62) Again, this misses the point. The issue isn’t whether facts that are fixed independently of what we do somehow constrain or causally compel us to do what we do. The issue is whether they can be<\/em> “fixed facts” if they (a) they entail that we do A and (b) we can nevertheless do not-A. Keeping our focus squarely on the actual<\/em> sequence, if we have the power to “do something incompatible with the CCFs,” then we have the power to nullify the facthood<\/em> of those CCFs and the power to nullify the facthood<\/em> of the relevant aspects of God’s meticulous creative decree. And if that’s the case, then Molinism collapses into Ockhamism. It no longer retains any providential advantage over simple foreknowledge and open theist models of divine providence.<\/p>\n

    6. Swenson’s dilemma for Molinism<\/strong><\/p>\n

    As we have seen, Molinism appears to be internally inconsistent. Meticulous providence requires that the content of God’s middle knowledge and the content of God’s creative decree be fixed independently<\/em> of creaturely actions, whereas creaturely freedom requires that the content of God’s middle knowledge and the content of God’s creative decree be fixed in part by<\/em> creaturely actions. Swenson poses this as a dilemma by asking “Are the CCFs involving our actual choices explained by our choices or not?” (p. 63). If we answer negatively, then we say that the content of God’s middle knowledge (so far as it concerns us) is explanatorily independent<\/em> of our actual choices. It’s not at all up to us which CCFs are true. But then since those CCFs specify precisely how we freely choose in every circumstance in which we find ourselves, we cannot do otherwise then how they specify, and so we aren’t free. If we could do otherwise, then it would be up to us which CCFs concerning us are true after all, contrary to the supposition. But if we answer affirmatively, then we say that the content of God’s middle knowledge (so far as it concerns us) is explanatorily dependent<\/em> on our actual choices. In that case the content of those CCFs is fixed by<\/em> our actual choices and so isn’t available to God independently of those choices. The result is that God can’t\u00a0use<\/em> that information providentially.<\/p>\n

    MacGregor doesn’t see the matter this way. He thinks a negative answer to Swenson’s question falsifies<\/em> the fixity of the independent principle on the grounds that it (falsely, in his view) entails that we have no counterfactual power over our own CCFs (p. 64). I’ve already explained above why this isn’t a good rejoinder. Merely counterfactual power is no power at all. As for an affirmative answer to Swenson’s question, MacGregor thinks this renders the explanatory priority relation equivocal and non-transitive (pp. 65\u201368). In broad terms, his strategy is to argue that the backward<\/em> explanatory relations (our choices \u2192 our existence \u2192 God’s decree \u2192 CCFs) can be understood in purely counterfactual<\/em> terms, and therefore do not conflict with the forward<\/em> explanatory relations (CCFs \u2192 God’s decree \u2192 our existence \u2192 our choices). Again, I’ve already explained why this isn’t a good strategy. Merely counterfactual explanations do no real explanatory work, and so they can’t capture creaturely freedom actually <\/em>to do otherwise.<\/p>\n

    7. Wrapping up<\/strong><\/p>\n

    We’re not even halfway yet though MacGregor’s chapter, but rather than continue with a detailed fisking (and there’s plenty left to fisk), which would probably bore most of my readers to tears, I’m going to wrap things up.<\/p>\n