Molinism

Molinism, named after 16th Century Spanish Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, is a religious doctrine which attempts to reconcile the providence of God with human free will. William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga, despite not being Roman Catholic, are some of its best known advocates today, though other important Molinists include Alfred Freddoso and Thomas Flint. In basic terms, Molinists hold that in addition to knowing everything that does or will happen, God also knows what His creatures would freely choose if placed in any circumstance.

Kenneth Keathley, author of Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach, states that Molinists argue that God perfectly accomplishes His will in the lives of genuinely free creatures through the use of His omniscience. After Luis de Molina, Molinists present God’s knowledge in a sequence of three logical moments. The first is God's knowledge of necessary truths or natural knowledge. These truths are independent of God's will and are non-contingent. This knowledge includes the full range of logical possibilities. Examples include statements like, "All bachelors are unmarried" or "X cannot be A and non-A at the same time, in the same way, at the same place" or "It is possible that X obtain". The second is called “middle knowledge” and it contains the range of possible things that would happen given certain circumstances. The third kind of knowledge is God's free knowledge. This type of knowledge consists of contingent truths that are dependent upon God's will; or truths that God brings about, that He does not have to bring about. Examples might include statements like "God created the earth" or something particular about this world which God has actualized. This is called God’s “free knowledge” and it contains the future or what will happen. In between God’s natural and free knowledge is His middle knowledge (or scientia media) by which God knows what His free creatures would do under any circumstance. These are truths that do not have to be true, but are true without God being the primary cause of them. "If you entered the ice cream shop, you would choose chocolate" is an example of a statement God knows via middle knowledge. This is very difficult for some to grasp.

Molinists support their case with Christ's statement in Matthew 11:23:

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