Browsing by Author "Pretorius, Richard Matthew"

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    Molinism and divine aseity : a review of ontological commitment
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-03) Pretorius, Richard Matthew; Forster, Dion Angus; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The doctrine of Molinism seeks to reconcile God's sovereign predestination with humanity's free will by postulating a middle knowledge between God's natural knowledge and God's free knowledge. God's natural knowledge is taken to exist prior to the divine decree and consists of all necessary truths. Through this knowledge, God comprehends the possible so that God knows all ways in which things could be. God's free knowledge exists after the divine decree and is thought of as the knowledge of contingent truths which God determines by creating our world. The Molinist's proposed middle knowledge slots in between God's natural and free knowledge, but before the divine decree. Through God's middle knowledge, God knows all contingent truths which exist apart from God's control. It is through God's middle knowledge that God comes to know how any free creature would act were they to be left free in any specific set of circumstances. By combining natural knowledge and middle knowledge, the Molinist believes that God is empowered to select and create a feasible world in which all events which transpire do so because God created a world in which they would. Molinism postulating middle knowledge presents a potential problem: if God's middle knowledge exists prior to the divine decree it must take the form of prevolitional and contingent subjunctive conditionals. If these subjunctive conditionals, taking the form of propositional statements, exist in the metaphysically heavyweight sense, then God would have to draw from outside of the triune Godhead in order to complete middle knowledge. This would seem to undercut God's aseity by making God something other than wholly selfexistent and independent. To address this issue, ontological commitment with respect to abstract objects is investigated. Three broad approaches to abstract objects, namely realism, arealism and anti-realism, are presented. In encountering the platonist's realist view of abstract objects, the Molinist must either defeat the Singular Term argument or find a way to affirm that abstract objects do exist - but as entities which depend upon God in some way or another. To this end, non-platonic realist views and anti-realist views are investigated, both from the perspective of their philosophical content and their theological suitability.