Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Blake Ostler on the impossibility of Middle Knowledge/Molinism in Latter-day Saint Theology

 In the Mormon view, God does not decide which of all possible worlds to make actual. God never had the choice of which possible essences to instantiate. The actual world and all intelligences of all persons who can exist already existed prior to God’s choice to create. Thus, if anything can be clear in philosophy, it is clear that, given the Mormon rejection of creatio ex nihilo, God cannot know which counterfactuals of freedom are true base on his decision about which possible persons he chooses to create. It follows that God’s knowledge as to which personal intelligences are actual is dependent upon which of them already exists. God can know what it is possible for the actually existing intelligences to choose, but he cannot have middle knowledge as to which of these possibilities will be actualized based on his decision to create an intelligence. The Molinist description as to how God knows which of all possible worlds is the actual world is impossible given the Mormon view of creation.

 

Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001), 178-79