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Molinism and Circularity

Yesterday, I discussed Thomas Flint's response to the grounding objection in chapter 5 of Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Today, I want to discuss his response to Robert Adams in chapter 7.

Adams' objection turns on a notion of explanatory priority which, Flint complains, is not adequately defined. Flint argues that there is an equivocation in the argument, and that Adams relies on a transitivity assumption which is not plausible when applied across the different sorts of priority involved. I think, however, that Flint is mistaken on both counts: first, the notion in question is not equivocal. Rather, it is a genus containing several species. Second, transitivity is not actually required. What's required is just an anti-circularity principle. The anti-circularity principle is abundantly well-justified across the entire genus.

The notion of priority here corresponds to the notion of objective explanation. That is, A is prior to B iff B because A. That's simple enough. Of course, there are many different uses of 'because' and I'm inclined to agree that the anti-circularity principle won't apply to all of them. That's why we require that the because or priority here track objective explanation, i.e., that A really be a reason why B is true, and not merely a fact that helps make B intelligible to some particular mind. It is extremely plausible to suppose that there can be no cycles in chains of objective explanation.

The types of priority/explanation at issue include these:

1. The priority of reasons (and, more generally, considerations) to actions (whether divine or creaturely).


2. The priority of God's creative act to all creaturely activity.


3. The priority of causes to effects.


4. The priority of free choices to free actions.

Now, it is, as I said, extremely plausible that an anti-circularity constraint applies here. For instance, it is incoherent to suppose that I should choose to act in a certain way because I am going to act in that way. Similarly, if my action causes it to be the case that P, then P can't be among the reasons for my action, since (barring overdetermination, etc.) P won't be true unless I take the action. (Of course, I might take the action because taking the action will cause it to be the case that P. That's different.)

Now, let C be a proposition describing a total circumstance and let A be a proposition stating that a creature takes some free action in that circumstance. The Molinist is clearly committed to:

(1) C []-> A is prior to God's decision to weakly actualize C.
(2) God's decision to weakly actualize C is prior to the agent's having the reasons, considerations, etc., which lead her to choose A.
(3) The agent's reasons, considerations, etc., are prior to her choice that A.
(4) The agent's choice that A is prior to A.

But then why is C []-> A true? If the Molinist says, for no reason at all, she runs into the randomness objection. The anti-circularity constraint prevents the Molinist from saying it's because of the agent's choice or the agent's action. The Molinist obviously can't say it's due to God. If it's due to the agent's essence, nature, character, etc., then we're presupposing a compatibilist theory of freedom and don't need to bother with all the complexities of Molinism. There's a serious problem here, and Flint hasn't defused it.

(Cross-posted at The Prosblogion.)