Journal of the History of Philosophy

Molina on Divine Foreknowledge and the Principle of Bivalence RICHARD GASKIN 1, ACCORDINGTOTHE DOCTRINEof divine foreknowledge developed by the Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina ~ and defended by Fransisco Sufirez,' God's foreknowledge of the course of events in the world may be divided into three moments: in the first moment, He knows by His natural knowledge all metaphysically necessary truths; in the second moment, He knows by His so-called m/dd/e knowledge what each created free agent would do in any conceivable situation; in the third moment, He knows by His free knowledge which situations He is going to bring about and how He Himself is going to intervene in history.s These three moments of knowledge give God complete foreknowledge of the history of the created world, and, in particular, yield foreknowledge of future contingencies, including free human actions.4 Molina stresses ' Liberi Arbitrii cure Gratiae Donis, Divina Praesdentia, Providemia, Praedestinatione et Reprobatione Concordia, Part 4 (Paris, 1876). Part 4 has been translated by A. Freddoso, who also supplies an excellent introduction: Luis de Molina: On Divine Foreknowledge (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988). 9 De Scientia Quam Deus Habet De Futuris Contingentibus (Mainz, 1618); De Divina Gratia (Mainz, x6~o). sSee, e.g., Coneord/ad.5~.9 (with Freddoso's nA3, op. cit., x68);William Craig, The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge from Aristotle to Sudrez (Leiden, 1988),ch. 7. 4Does God have middle knowledge in respect of his own actions? Molina denies that He does, on the ground that foreknowledge of His own action at a moment logically prior to decision destroys freedom (Conzord/ad.52nx-xs). But if God is to plan providentially the course of history, He must at some stage in the planning process know what He would do in different situations; otherwise He would have no way of comparing alternative complete world histories with one another and deciding which to actualize. Molina overcomes this difficulty by arguing that this hypothetical knowledge comes in the third moment rather than the second moment. In the third moment God dec/deswhat He would do in any possible situation, and decides which [55a] 552 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3~:4 OCTOBER 1994 that the three moments occur at a point prior, both in time and in eternity, to the creation of the world;5 and that ille three moments themselves are not temporally ordered: rather, their ordering relation is one of logical or conceptual dependence of "later" on "earlier. ''6 The doctrine that God foreknows future contingencies requires that the principle of bivalence (PB)--the principle that every meaningful assertoric statement is either true or false-- be applied without restriction to the domain of statements about the future, including statements about future contingencies (FCSs). There can be no doubt about Suarez's position: he is absolutely clear that both foreknowledge and middle knowledge require unrestricted PB3 Recently, two prominent commentators, Alfred Freddoso and William Craig, have tried to assimilate Molina's position to that of Suarez in this particular ; they have suggested that Molina does not seek any change in the unrestricted status of PB. I shall argue that this interpretation of Molina is incorrect, that his position contains inconsistent commitments to divine foreknowledge of the future on the one hand, and to the restriction of PB with respect to FCSs on the other_ The dispute centers on two texts: C0ncord/a 4, d-59-6 and 37 (the fifth argument and response); and the commentary which Molina wrote on Arismile 's De Interpretatione (DO 9, which has been usefully reproduced by Stegmtiller, together with two quaest/on~ which follow it in the manuscript. 8In both of these texts, according to Freddoso and Craig, Molina argues, or implies , that FCSs can be true or false without being determinately true or false, situations to actualize. So God does indeed have knowledge of His own hypothetical future actions, hut this knowledge comes too late to generate the determinism from which Molina rightly recoils; for, like HIS free knowledge, this hypothetical knowledge is consequential on God's decisions rather than anterior to them (cf. here D. Alvarez, De A,_,.,ri/_.~_rGra~ae et Humani Arbitrii [Cologne...