imascholar

What can God know? Thomas Aquinas' view or Traditional View
1.
Things that are actual, have definite truth or falsity of being actual (if they actually happen its true that they actually happen)
2.
Things that are possible, known as truly possible, anything that is actual is possible.

Contingent counterfactual of freedom. Ex. if I watch TV tomorrow I will watch firefly. If I do watch TV and I do watch firefly, then its definitely true that both parts are true but whole sentence is compound, second part depends on first. If free will is ability to do otherwise than u actually do, then it's not clear that right now not having made decision there is any definite truth value to the claim of first part of sentence, it's possible I won't do it. Its contingent, its not necessary true, and implies free choice. Suppose I do something different, don't watch TV at all. It's a possibility b/c of free will I can do many number of choices, then first part of conditional and second are false. So it's a counterfactual proposition, ends up being false.

So is this statement a claim of possibility or of something actually true. Possible or actual? Mercy. One might say, there is no necessity in the link b/w two parts, I might watch something else. So even if I do watch TV, it doesn't follow I'll watch firefly. So, there is no definite truth value in connection b/w parts. No necessary connection in the link. Sentence is neither true nor false.

Molina suggested, suppose there is something true of false. Traditional view said that we have meaningful sentence that could be true or false but isn't actually true or false. So, suppose, this sentence is true or it's false. Not an absurdity. They won't divine knowledge to be as board as possible.

Traditionalist would say, there is a problem, you'd deny free will if you claim it is def true or false. My decision to go to store will logically imply me buying milk. If this is actually true, then we don't have free will. Molina had to reconcile two things. He denied all God's knowledge division into two categories. God's knowledge of vision (that are actual) and his self-knowledge (things are possible)

Possible natural knowledge (god knows his own power and thus all possibilities)
Middle Knowledge (wassup with that? Molina is not very clear about it)
Actual Knowledge of vision (nothing can exists unless god allows it to exist)

He sometimes refers to it as super comprehension. God knows your free will so well; he knows what you will do. Is it determinism? So what you would do is prior to your choice. Molina doesn't want to be a determinist. The way in which god knows our ability to choose freely is important, when he creates the world, he knows all possibilities the world can take, so God deliberates on all this possible orders of nature and he chooses one of them and creates the world that particular way and in this way it makes this sentence def true or false. God creates all universe from begin to end in one instant of creation.

Traditionalist will still say its determinism.

Molinism - Jesuits vs Dominicans - traditionalists. Another opponent of molinism are Jansenists. Strong view of divine predestination. They are determinists. Free will that is compatible to everything happening by divine determination. Dispute b/w Jansenists and Jesuits.

Leibniz develops his new view, he is a compatibalists (Jansenists) but he takes some things from molinists. For his this is the best possible world. There are a lot of possible worlds, order of nature, god can choose among them. God can only choose the world with simplest laws and richness of the effect, an intersection point b/w those two. L thinks that god has individual concept of every person. This concept contains what you did, doing and will ever do. When god creates u he actualizes this concept. Its true of me that I talk while in Russia somebody shot a bird. U r related to everything in the world in some way, so ur individual concept includes the entire world. When god chooses the world to create he picks one and creates you, in doing so he creates entire universe. If things were different then god would create someone else who is very similar to you. L kinda accepts middle knowledge, but on L view there are infinitely many possible Brandons and each is different, but very similar. In creating universe he creates only one Brandon. L is a compatibalist.

Mavpertuis is a physicist agreed with Leibniz about final causes in the world. He discovered the least action principle. Simplicity of laws is part of God's aim, purpose.

L's position on miracles (???). Everything in universe happens necessarily b/c god created it as best possible world. Since every individual concept contains truth about all others, L denied that there is any strong diff b/w miracles and ordinary operations of laws. Basic idea is that all truths in individual concept follow necessarily but not all are equally central to the individual. Some truths are more fundamental, like parents or feeling of hunger, there are degrees of centrality to the truths that are within one's nature. Very central things to me impose sharp limits on what I can do. Miracles relate to being in best possible world, it doesn't follow strictly from central core of individual concept but more from general high order laws of which we are ignorant. Creation and incarnation are two strict miracles that happened. They follow only form god himself, not from nature of this world.