Philosophical Thoughts on Free Will, Foreknowledge, and Predestination

This article follows up on my article outlining Catholic teaching on free will, grace, and predestination.

The Nature of Free Will

There are two areas of philosophical confusion which, in my observation, tend to make it difficult for people to understand Catholic teaching regarding issues surrounding free will, grace, and predestination.  The first area of confusion has to do with the idea of free will itself.  There is a tendency sometimes for people to focus so much on the freedom of the will that they forget that the will is not completely unpredictable and uncontrollable.  They cannot see how the idea of free will is compatible with the idea that God knows the future and even plans the future.  In Catholic theology, the entire future unfolds, down to its last detail, exactly according to God's foreknowledge and plan (the plan of "predestination").  If that is so, many wonder, how in the world can we really have free will?  For (it would seem) if God infallibly knows everything I am going to do in the future and even has planned everything I am going to do in the future in some way, then it is impossible for anything to happen differently than God knows and has planned, and so I can't make any different choices than the ones God knows and has planned for me to make.  So I would seem to have no free will at all.  So how can Catholic theology hold together free will, foreknowledge, and predestination?

At least part of the answer is that while, of course, coercion, force, certain psychological conditions, etc., can override or circumvent the will and so limit or remove its freedom, there are ways in which the will can be moved and directed which don't override or destroy freedom.  It can be helpful here to distinguish between "necessity" and "certainty."  As with many words adapted to abstract, philosophical use, people don't always use these words in the same way, so we don't want to be so rigid in our use of these words that we can't recognize differences of meaning in how we and others use them and so end up getting into meaningless, semantic fights.  Nevertheless, in some philosophical/theological circles, these words have been used in a way that can be helpful at capturing an important distinction.  We can think of the will being moved "necessarily" or "with certainty but not necessarily."  For the will to be moved necessarily is for the will really to be obliterated by having its options removed, so that the person willing can really only do one thing and it is impossible for him to do otherwise.  For example, say you want me to eat a cucumber.  It so happens that I hate cucumbers, so it is not going to be easy to get me to eat one.  You might attempt to get me to eat a cucumber by forcing me to eat one necessarily, removing my options and so circumventing my will.  You could tie me down and force the cucumber down my throat.  Or you could use a supercomputer to take over my brain and force my body to eat the cucumber.  Etc.

On the other hand, it is possible to move the will with certainty but without necessity, without removing legitimate options and thus circumventing and destroying the act of free choice.  Going back to the cucumber example, you might get me to certainly, yet freely, eat the cucumber by using persuasion, which involves appealing to my motives so that I freely alter my choice.  You might offer me $1,000 to eat the cucumber.  If you did that, I would certainly eat it (all other things being equal).  I would still hate the taste of the cucumber, but my distaste for cucumber would lose the battle with my desire to win $1,000.  If I really hated cucumbers and wouldn't do it even for $1,000, you could offer me $1,000,000, if you happened to have that kind of money on hand (and were that bizarrely obsessed with getting me to eat a cucumber for some reason).  In a case like this, you have performed an action that caused me to do something you wanted me to do, and made it certain I would do it, but without any overwhelming or circumventing of my will.

This can happen because acts of will, while free in some ways, are not arbitrary or groundless.  This is evident both from the law of causality as well as from a simple psychological examination of how the will actually works.  The law of causality does not allow that something can come from nothing.  If an effect occurs, it must have a cause sufficient to explain the effect.  The only alternative to this would be to have something coming from nothing.  But "nothing" is nothing and so does nothing.  It has no reality, and so cannot originate anything or exert any energy or activity to cause anything to happen.  It cannot be the explanation for why anything happens.  So if anything happens, if anything in reality undergoes change, some cause must have effected that change.  If there is anything in the universe that cannot explain itself, it must be explained by something outside of itself and not by "nothing."

And with regard to the psychology of willing, consider for yourself how you make choices.  When I examine the activity of my own will, I see this basic pattern:  1. I am aware of various states of affairs that could come about or be brought about.  I call these my "options."  2. My mind begins to examine its own desires.  What do I like?  What do I dislike?  What do I want to happen?  What do I not want to happen?  3. As this process continues, I recognize that, among the things I have some desire for, there are things I want more than other things.  In other words, I find that I have "preferences."  I prefer some states of affairs to other states of affairs.  Out of the complexity of my views, ideas, and desires, my mind attempts to sort out what I truly prefer to have come about or to bring about, all things considered, in that moment.  4. Finally, I am successful at determining my true preference in the current situation, and I settle on that preference.  This act of my mind settling on a preference is what I call the act of "choice."  5. Then, if what I have chosen is to perform some action, my body (or my mind) responds to the act of choice by performing the action (or at least attempts to do so).

Is this not how the action of choosing goes for all of us?  We can see, then, by looking at it, that the act of choice is not arbitrary or outside a nexus of causation.  My choice flows from my preference.  My preference is what I most desire or value in that moment.  (And I would add that, when I am thinking of "desire" here, I don't mean mere non-rational instinct, but what my rational mind values.)  And what I desire is a product of many, many things--my personality, my beliefs and values, all the circumstances that exist around me and inside of me at the time of my choice, the earlier circumstances that led to those circumstances, all my previous experiences, the entire previous history of my life, my DNA, the choices of my parents, the choices of their parents, the entire history of the universe, etc.  At the moment of my choice, I choose what I prefer, and the desires, values, beliefs, ideas, etc., that determine what I prefer do not spring out of nowhere.  They are what they are because of prior causes.  This is why you can cause with certainty, but without will-circumventing necessity, that I will choose to eat that cucumber.  This is why, if you happened to know everything about me and all the circumstances affecting my choice at any given moment, you could always predict with 100% accuracy what I would choose.  This is why, if you happened to have control of all the causal factors in the entire universe, you could ensure that I would always choose what you wanted me to choose.

Now consider God's relationship to the creation.  God is the First Cause, the Source of all reality.  There is no being in the universe that does not derive from him.  There are no chains of causes in the universe which do not ultimately trace back to his action.  And God is also omniscient, or all-knowing.  There is nothing in all of reality which he does not know thoroughly.  If that is the case, then it cannot be otherwise than that the history of creation will unfold according to God's perfect foreknowledge and plan.  When God created the universe, he knew exactly what he was creating, and he created exactly what he wanted.  And he knew everything that would result from that creation down through the entire chain of universal history from beginning to end.  He knew all the free choices that all creatures would make.  He knew all the free choices he himself would make as he would continue to interact with creation as its history continued to unfold, for he knew himself and his own preferential tendencies perfectly as well.  So God could not have created the universe without, at the same time, perfectly knowing and planning its entire history, down to the smallest detail.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it (#308), "[t]he truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator."

And none of this is in any way inconsistent with free will, for God's foreknowledge and predestination, understood in this way, do not at all overwhelm, obliterate, or circumvent anyone's free choices.  Just as you did not obliterate my free will when you offered me money to eat the cucumber, neither does God obliterate free will when he creates a universe and ordains a history in which he knows I will choose all the things I will choose in my life.  (See here--and particularly time index 17:00-20:53--for a helpful discussion of this same issue by Bishop Robert Barron.)

The Problem of Evil

All of this leads us to the second major problem a lot of people have with Catholic teaching in this area.  Even if I can see how God's foreknowledge and predestination are consistent with the freedom of my choices, yet if all of this is so, why does God's plan involve so much evil?  Why did he choose to create a world in which so much sin and suffering happen?  Why not create one where everyone makes only right choices and is always happy?  When we think of the will as outside of God's control, this can provide a kind of smokescreen, to an extent, against this second objection.  Why all the sin and suffering?  Well, God can't really do anything about it, because he can't control free will.  (Of course, this gets God off the hook from responsibility for evil only by removing his sovereignty as God, but people often don't press these sorts of things to their logical conclusions.)  But if God can control free will, if it is not outside the effects of his plan and foreknowledge, then how could God justifiably create a world in which all this sin and suffering happen?

I won't attempt to give a complete answer to this question here, because I have already dealt with it in a separate article to which I will refer you.  Sometimes this objection is expressed in terms of feeling like God is somehow still violating my freedom by exercising such absolute control over the history of my life.  I think this thought partly stems from a failure to fully recognize how different God's relationship with us is from our relationship with other creatures.  If you were to somehow gain absolute control over my life such that my entire life history became subject to your knowledge and plans, I would complain that you had violated my "free space," for no creature from outside of myself should have that kind of control over me, and you could only have gotten that kind of control by somehow conquering me from without and subjugating me illicitly.  But I make a mistake if I then transfer that feeling to my relationship with God.  God is my Creator.  His control over my life does not result from any kind of illicit conquest or manipulation or invasion of my "space."  His control arises from the fundamental fact of who he is and who I am.  The one who creates my fundamental essence and my entire world cannot but be the source of all that I am and cannot fail to exercise a kind of ownership and control over my life and my world that no mere creature could ever have.  It is his prerogative, and no one else's, to know fully and to determine the course of the universe's history and my history.  To complain about God's plan governing my life is like complaining against my mother for giving birth to me.  "If my next-door neighbor tried to give birth to me, I should be very upset!  So how I can tolerate you having given birth to me, Mom?"  Well, by the very nature of our relationship, my mother has a kind of role in bringing me into existence that my next-door neighbor can never have (unless, of course, my next-door neighbor happens to be my mother).  My mother's unique role is not a usurpation, but a natural and fully appropriate relationship.  And so is God's unique role in my life as my Creator and the one whose plan governs my life history.  

I talked above about how God's complete knowledge of and control over the factors that determine my choices make it so that I will choose precisely and only what God wants me to choose.  But does that mean that God wants me to choose to sin?  If a person should choose to commit a mortal sin, rejecting fundamentally a right relationship with God, and end up in hell as a result of this, was it God's will for this to happen?  The answer is: yes and no.  God hates sin and suffering.  He does not take delight in either of these things.  But he sees that the overall good of the universe, that which brings about the greatest overall goodness and happiness, is best achieved by allowing certain evils to occur.  So his design for the history of the universe was not set simply on stopping me from committing any sin or experiencing any suffering.  He saw that the best way to set up the universe was to ordain a set of circumstances such that it would come about that I would, at times, commit sin and experience suffering.  He did not produce sin in me (for sin is a negative thing, like darkness, rather than a positive being, like light), but he set up the world such that he knew the result would be that I would sin and that suffering would come to me--not because he delighted in the idea of my sin and suffering, but because he knew that allowing these things would bring about a greater good.  And this extends to all the sin and suffering in the universe, even to mortal sin and hell.  So God did not want me to sin, per se, but he wanted to create a universe in which I would be freely permitted by him to sin because he knew that this universe would be the one suited to accomplish his perfect purposes.

A Brief Note on Various Philosophical and Theological Schools of Thought

How does what I've said above relate to different philosophical schools of thought regarding the nature of free will?  There are two positions, broadly speaking, which are typically discussed--libertarianism and compatibilism.  I often find that there are ambiguities in terms of how these positions are defined that make it difficult to identify with either of the labels.  For example, sometimes the libertarian view of free will is defined as the idea that "it is possible to choose otherwise at the moment of a choice," and compatibilism is defined as the idea that "the will is free if, at the moment of choice, a choice is made according to one's own mind and will, voluntarily, even if it is impossible to choose otherwise because the will is determined by the strongest desires of the person."  But the phrase "able to choose otherwise" is ambiguous.  Are we talking about the ability of my mind to actually make choices between various options--that is, my ability to use my rational mind to settle on preferences?  Or does "able to choose otherwise" imply the idea that there is no certainty in choosing--that, at any given moment of choice, there is an absolute possibility that various choices might happen such that there can be no knowledge in principle about what choice will actually be made until the choice is actually made?  "Ability to choose otherwise" in the former sense is an idea that makes perfect sense and is an essential component of what it means to make an act of will.  "Ability to choose otherwise" in the latter sense is logically absurd (because it implies that totally uncaused events happen for no reason, thus denying the law of causality) and, far from being an essential component of the idea of a free act of the will, it is completely incompatible with how willing actually takes place.  It turns an act of will, which is really the act of a rational mind settling on a preference, and turns it into something fundamentally different--a totally random event which is independent of everything that comes before it (and therefore, absurdly, independent even of the person making the choice and any act of that person) but which produces actions and events in the world.

If we define "ability to choose otherwise" in the former, rational sense, then I could identify my position as libertarian.  But if we define "ability to choose otherwise" in the latter, absurd sense, then I would be inclined to say I am a compatibilist.  The libertarian view, taken in the absurd sense, is incompatible with Catholic faith, because it implies a fundamental incompatibility between the Catholic doctrine of free will and the Catholic doctrines of divine foreknowledge and predestination (not to mention that by obliterating the law of causality it destroys the very rational fabric of reality itself).

What about the various Catholic schools of thought pertaining to free will, grace, and predestination--in particular, Bañezian Thomism and Molinism?  I think that my account of free will above is consistent with any of the accepted Catholic schools of thought.  It doesn't take sides in the details of the disputes between these schools.  For more on my views regarding the Bañezian-Molinist dispute, and in particular how I understand Molinism, see here, here, and here.  All the historic, approved Catholic schools of thought agree on the fundamental theological points of Catholic doctrine regarding free will, grace, and predestination.  Here is how Catholic philosopher Alfred J. Freddoso describes the traditional Catholic teaching on free will and predestination and how both Bañezian Thomism and Molinism agree on this teaching:

According to the traditional doctrine of divine providence, God freely and knowingly plans, orders and provides for all the effects that constitute the created universe with its entire history, and he executes his chosen plan by playing an active causal role that ensures its exact realization. Since God is the perfect craftsman, not even trivial details escape his providential decrees. Whatever occurs is specifically decreed by God; more precisely, each effect produced in the created universe is either specifically and knowingly intended by him or, in concession to creaturely defectiveness, specifically and knowingly permitted by him. Divine providence thus has both a cognitive and a volitional aspect. By his pre-volitional knowledge God infallibly knows which effects would result, directly or indirectly, from any causal contribution he might choose to make to the created sphere. By his free will God chooses one from among the infinity of total sequences of created effects that are within his power to bring about and, concomitantly, wills to make a causal contribution that he knows with certainty will result in his chosen plan's being effected down to the last detail. 

This much is accepted by both Molina and the Bañezians. They further agree that it is because he is perfectly provident that God has comprehensive foreknowledge of what will occur in the created world. That is, God's speculative post-volitional knowledge of the created world -- his so-called free knowledge or knowledge of vision -- derives wholly from his pre-volitional knowledge and his knowledge of what he himself has willed to do. Unlike human knowers, God need not be acted upon by outside causes in order for his cognitive potentialities to be fully actualized; he does not have to, as it were, look outside himself in order to find out what his creative act has wrought. Rather, he knows 'in himself' what will happen precisely because he knows just what causal role he has freely chosen to play within the created order and because he knows just what will result given this causal contribution. In short, no contingent truth grasped by the knowledge of vision can be true prior to God's specifically intending or permitting it to be true or to his specifically willing to make the appropriate causal contribution toward its truth.

For more, see my problem of evil article, and my predestination article this article follows up on.  To see arguments relative to the deeper, most fundamental philosophical issues involved in all of this, see my case for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity in general here and here.

Published on the feast of St. Raymond of Peñafort.

Clearing Up Another Concern about Molinism

I postponed making a decision in the matter of de auxiliis [the great controversy between the Molinists and the Dominicans] for three reasons: the first, in order to be conscientious, and also considering that time teaches and shows the truth about everything, acting like a great judge and censor of all things. The second, because both parties are in substantial agreement with Catholic truth, namely that God through his efficacious grace makes us act and turns us from unwilling to willing subjects, bending and changing human will. There is disagreement about that, but only concerning the manner in which God does this: the Dominicans say that he predetermines our wills in a physical manner, namely, really and efficaciously, while the Jesuits claim that he does so congruously and morally. Both opinions can be defended. The third reason is that in our day and age, in which there are many heresies, it is most appropriate to preserve and uphold the reputation and credibility of both religious orders, since to discredit either one may turn out to be greatly harmful. If we were to ask what we are to believe in this matter, I would say that we must uphold and follow the teachings of the Council of Trent, Session VI, On Justification, which are very clear and straightforward about what was the error and heresy of Pelagians and Semipelagians, as well as Calvin's.  This session also teaches the Catholic doctrine according to which it is necessary for human free will to be moved, excited and helped by God's grace, and that the will can freely assent or dissent.  The Council did not entertain the question of how grace works, but merely touched upon it and left the explanation alone, regarding it useless and unnecessary, thus imitating Pope Celestine, who, having, defined some issues or propositions on this matter, said he did not want to condemn or elaborate on more difficult or subtler ones.  (Footnote 114:  "Denzinger, 1997 a.")

- Pope Paul V, explaining to the Spanish ambassador why he did not make a formal decision regarding the De Auxiliis controversy (from Guido Stucco, The Catholic Doctrine of Predestination: From Luther to Jansenius, p. 198)

Following up from my previous two articles (here and here) on the rehabilitation and defense of Molinism from an Augustinian point of view, I wanted to address another concern that I have had in the past and that often arises about the orthodoxy of Molinism.  Again, I have not read Molina directly, except for a few excerpts here and there.  (Most of his Concordia has not been translated into English yet.)  I am dependent for my knowledge of Molina's views and the views of his followers on several sources, especially the work of Dr. Alfred J. Freddoso, Fr. John Hardon, and Dr. Guido Stucco.  Dr. Stucco in particular has been immensely helpful as his book, The Catholic Doctrine of Predestination: From Luther to Jansenius, contains a blow-by-blow account of Molina's Concordia and a blow-by-blow account of the De Auxiliis controversy (the incredibly detailed and long-lasting debate between the Jesuits and the Dominicans over Molinism and related issues), as well as a wonderful collection of primary text translations that provide a very helpful window into the thinking of the people involved in the debates of that time.  I also, just the other day, came across a fascinating article by Dr. Kirk R. MacGregor arguing that one can be a Calvinist Molinist.  It was actually reading that article that was the immediate trigger for the writing of this post.

Anyway, I wanted to address another objection that has been made against the Molinist position.  Molina was very concerned about the idea, present in the Dominican ideas about predestination as well as elsewhere, that God decides by his free choice what a particular person will choose in a given situation and then makes that choice happen by his direct action.  So, if Bob chooses X, Molina was very concerned about anyone saying that the reason Bob chose X is because God, by a free choice of God's will, decided to cause Bob to choose X.  Instead, Molina wanted to say that Bob's choosing of X was a given characteristic of the world that God did not directly freely bring about but which he found in the world as a natural part of it.  For obvious reasons, this idea of Molina's struck his critics as a threat to God's sovereignty and his status as the one First Cause, as well as a threat to the graciousness of salvation.  It seemed as if Molina was making Bob's choice a First Cause in its own right, which would mean that there is something in creation that doesn't come from God, and it would also mean that Bob's good choices (especially his choice to follow Christ) are not gifts from God but are owing ultimately solely to Bob himself, providing Bob a ground for boasting.

I dealt with this to some degree in my previous post, where I pointed out that Molina is not opposed to the idea that God's grace is the source of our good will; he was simply concerned that we not talk about God's being the source of our good will in such a way as to give the impression that God directly causes our actions in the way of a kind of physical cause that would circumvent or even go against the free will of the person.  We don't want to say that God overrode Bob's will or circumvented it, taking him over and directly causing his acts or forcing him to do them.  Instead, we want to recognize that God's moving of Bob's will towards good is a kind of movement consistent with the nature of the will - a movement of effective persuasion, whereby Bob will certainly choose to follow the prompting of grace but where he is left free to choose otherwise if he wanted to.

But let's go a little deeper.  Molina talks about three aspects of God's knowledge.  Now, of course, Molina knew and accepted (I presume) that God is a simple being, outside of time, etc.  So when we make distinctions in God's knowledge, or in the order in which God does things, or in any other aspect of God's nature, we are not saying that God is in time, or that God has actual divisions in his nature.  It is simply helpful for us, with our human spatio-temporal limitations and the limitations of our language, to make distinctions in order to help us to get a better idea of the logic of God's nature.

The first aspect of God's knowledge is his natural knowledge.  This refers to God's knowledge of necessary truths - truths that couldn't have been otherwise.  For example, 2+2=4.  It is not as if 2+2 could have equaled five, but God simply decided to have it equal 4.  No, 2+2 has to equal 4 by definition, necessarily.  So this is a truth that is not a result of God choosing among multiple possible options which to actualize.  It is a necessary truth of God's own logical nature.

Free knowledge, on the other hand, refers to God's knowledge of contingent truths - that is, truths that might have been otherwise.  In this case, we can imagine God choosing among multiple options which to actualize.  Perhaps the greenness of the grass might be an example here.  For all we know, the grass might have been red instead of green.  We cannot perceive a logical necessity in the grass being green.  Well then, why is the grass green rather than red?  Because God chose freely (non-necessarily) to actualize that option rather than the other.

(It is important to note that both the objects of God's natural knowledge and of his free knowledge are derived from God.  There is no idea of anything here coming from any ultimate source outside of God.  The question is only whether these objects are contingent or necessary realities.  Necessary realities are just as grounded in God as contingent realities are, but in a different way.  Necessary truths flow from how God necessarily sees things when they could not be seen otherwise.  Contingent truths flow from God's choice to actualize certain states of affairs among other possibilities.  Of course, even here, we must recognize the limitations of human language and human categorization.  These are helpful and valid distinctions, but we are describing things from our limited, divisible human point of view and not from God's single, undivided point of view.)

Molina famously added a third category to the two above: middle knowledge.  God's middle knowledge is his knowledge of hypotheticals.  We can imagine him asking, "If I were to actualize some particular contingent state of affairs, what would happen then?"  So middle knowledge is logically derived from natural knowledge.  It is God's awareness of the logical consequences of the various possibilities.

So let's apply all of this to Bob's choice to follow Christ to the end and be saved.  God knew all the possible worlds with all their possible histories he might create.  (This is God's natural knowledge.)  In one of those worlds (at least), God knew that if it was actualized, one of the things that would happen is that Bob would choose to follow Christ and be saved.  (This is God's middle knowledge.)  God then chose to actualize that particular possible world.  Then, having made that choice, God knew that Bob would in fact choose to follow Christ and be saved.  (This is God's free knowledge.)

Now we can understand Molina's concern about the Dominican viewpoint.  The Dominicans were saying that God directly and freely caused Bob's choice to follow Christ.  Molina objected to this, because it sounded to him like this would mean that Bob's choice to follow Christ was disconnected from Bob himself, as if even within the possible world that God chose to actualize, Bob might or might not have chosen to follow Christ, and God had to step in and directly intervene to create Bob's specific choice ex nihilo.  Molina wanted to say instead that Bob's choice to follow Christ was a given that God "discovered" by means of his middle knowledge.  In other words, according to Molina, God did not arbitrarily cause Bob to choose to follow Christ.  Rather, that choice flowed from Bob himself, as a logical consequence of the world God chose to actualize - a world in which a person named Bob would come to be, would be given the ability to choose, would have a particular life history, a particular personality, particular desires and motives, and a particular set of circumstances at any given moment of his life history.  Given all of that, God deduced - not decided arbitrarily - that Bob would choose to follow Christ.  In yet other words, it is not, said Molina, that God simply randomly decided to make Bob follow Christ.  It is that God knew that if he actualized the particular possible world he in fact did end up choosing to actualize, one of the things that would happen in it would be that Bob would choose to follow Christ.  Bob's choice was not some arbitrary add-on, but flowed logically and naturally from the characteristics of Bob himself combined with the circumstances in which Bob found himself.

Molina's critics found this way of thinking very suspicious, because it made it sound like the fact of Bob's choice was something God had to discover rather than being an effect of his will, and this sounded for all the world like saying that God is not the ultimate First Cause of all things, because he is not the ultimate cause of Bob's choice, and also that, as Bob's choice to follow Christ was not a result of God's free choice to cause him to do so, Bob's good choice could not be considered a gift from God, contrary to established Catholic doctrine.

I don't think that these criticisms of Molina's perspective are ultimately successful.  Here are two reasons why:

1. First, Molina never said that Bob's choice to follow Christ was something that came out of nowhere, ex nihilo, as if it were itself a First Cause rivaling God's unique First Causal status.  If he had said this, or if his system implied it, the critics would, of course, have been right in condemning Molina's view as fundamentally contrary to Catholic doctrine.  In fact, the very idea of middle knowledge implies the exact opposite.  If Bob's choice to follow Christ was an ex nihilo, First Causal act, God could not deduce it from his natural knowledge.  That is, he could not look at one particularly hypothetical world, not yet existing, and say, "If I were to actualize this world, then I know it would happen that Bob would choose to follow Christ."  God could only make this deduction if Bob's choice was logically related to and derived from the various givens in the possible world God had in mind.  Bob's choice does not come out of nowhere; rather, it is a natural (and, indeed, infallible) consequence of Bob's personality, his desires and motives, his past history, his memories, and all the details of his particular circumstances at the time of his choice.  The Bob that God has in mind has a particular personality.  He has particular desires and motives and a particular life history.  If put in certain circumstances, with particular influences, this particular Bob is the sort of person who would in fact choose to do some things and not other things.  Bob's choice are not disconnected from but flow logically from all the truths about Bob combined with all the truths about the circumstances he is in.  (Think of an author inventing a character.  Given the invention of a particular character, with a particular personality, particular motives, a particular history, etc., certain actions would be, as we say, "in character" for that character to do, and other actions would be "out of character."  Once the author has the idea of this particular character in mind, he can deduce from that what the character would do in various circumstances.)

Of course, one of the most important factors in the life of Bob would be the grace of God.  God knows that without grace, Bob could never and would never choose Christ.  Grace is necessary to bring Bob's will to the point that it will accept Christ.  And God knows, in his middle knowledge, that if he gives particular graces to Bob in particular ways at particular times and in particular circumstances, grace will successfully persuade Bob to choose Christ.  Bob will not be necessitated to choose Christ.  He will always have the option of rejecting Christ, and he could really do this if he wanted to.  Bob has to freely choose to follow Christ among other possible options.  But God knows that if he gives grace to Bob in a certain way, etc., it will infallibly have the effect of persuading Bob to choose freely to follow Christ.

So there are no First Causes other than God here.  All the truths involved in all of this flow ultimately from God - all the truths of natural knowledge which are rooted in God's being, all the truths of middle knowledge which flow logically from natural knowledge, and, of course, all the truths of free knowledge that flow from the possibilities God finally decides to actualize.

2. Secondly, remember that in Molina's view, although the truths of God's middle knowledge flow logically from the truths of God's natural knowledge, yet it is God's free choice that determines which possibilities are actualized.  So it may be that Bob's choice to follow Christ flows logically from the realities in existence in Possible World A.  But it is also true that Possible World A and all the other possible worlds are contingent.  It is up to God's free choice among all the existing options which possible world he will choose to actualize.  So if God chooses to actualize Possible World A, all the events in that world, including the event of Bob's choosing to follow Christ, are freely chosen by God and only actually happen because of his free choice to actualize them.  So it is not only that God knows that Bob, given a certain personality and history, put in particular circumstances, and given grace in particular ways, will choose to follow Christ; it is also that God has freely chosen to actualize the possible world in which all these things actually come to be and to happen.  So it is due to God's free choice that Bob exists, that he has the personality that he has, that he is put in the particular circumstances that he is put in, that he is given the particular graces he is given, etc.  Thus, although Bob's choice to follow Christ follows logically upon all these conditions, yet God, being the free actualizer of the conditions, is the one who has freely chosen to bring it about that Bob will choose to follow Christ.  This is why Molina insists that predestination is ultimately unconditional.  There is nothing in Bob that is the cause of God's choice to actualize the world in which Bob will choose to follow Christ and be saved.  How could there be, since Bob does not exist until God decides to actualize the particular world in which he will come into existence?  God freely actualizes the world he wants to actualize, and in doing so he freely preordains all the events that will happen in that world, including Bob's choice to follow Christ to the end and his consequent eternal salvation.

So I see no problem with Molina's view from an Augustinian point of view or from the point of view of Catholic doctrine.  God is sovereign.  He is the First Cause of all reality.  All other realities come from him.  He has freely preordained all that comes to pass, including who will and who will not be saved.  His predestination of individuals to receive the particular graces that will lead them effectively to come to Christ and follow him to the end and thus end up in eternal salvation is not caused by anything in the individual, for all that individuals have is the result of God's free preordination of all things. The good will of the saved, whereby they choose to follow Christ, is a gift of God's ultimate free predestination, and is also a product of God's grace as that grace is given freely and infallibly persuades the will to choose aright.  I do not say that one must see things just as Molina saw them, or that I prefer Molina's view to other views (like the Dominican view), or that I agree with Molina's criticism of other views.  Up until now, I have not yet seen a good reason to side definitively with one side or another, so long as all hold to the fundamental teachings of Catholic doctrine.

For more on the doctrines of predestination and grace in Catholic theology, see here.

Clearing Up Some Concerns about Molinism

See here for a general account of the Dominican-Molinist controversy.  I will assume a basic knowledge of that controversy here.  And see here for some previous thoughts of mine on Molinism.

CONDITIONAL OR UNCONDITIONAL PREDESTINATION

Some of the Molinists held that the predestination to eternal life of individuals is not unconditional but is rooted in God's foresight of the use these individuals would make of the grace God would provide them.  Other Molinists, the Dominicans, and others, argued that predestination to eternal life is unconditional, not based on any foreseen good acts of the will.  Some of these latter accused the former group of compromising the sovereignty of God and salvation by grace by their theory, but I am not convinced that is the case.

The Dominicans argue that predestination to eternal life must be unconditional, because the very reason why God gives efficacious grace to some people is in order to bring them to eternal life.  Any good use of the will towards salvation individuals possess is a product of efficacious grace, and therefore an effect of predestination, since efficacious grace is given in order to fulfill the purpose of predestination.  Some Molinists respond that God may decide first of all to grant efficacious graces to certain individuals for a variety of reasons, and then having decided that, he sees that they will therefore make a good use of the graces given and on that ground decides to predestine them or elect them to eternal life.

My opinion is that this argument is actually, for the most part, absurd and unnecessary.  The reason is that both sides are trying to decide which parts of history God ordained first and which parts he ordained secondarily in order to accomplish the things ordained first.  But this is a fallacious way of envisioning God's ordination of the events of history.  In fact, God sees all things as a complete, unified whole, in one single vision.  That means that he doesn't first see one part of history and then, after that, see other parts.  He sees all the parts at once, including their connections to all the others.  So, for example, he doesn't envision an individual's attainment of eternal life and only after that envision means to attain that goal.  Nor, on the other hand, does he see the gifts of grace he will give in a person's life and only after that see the end that these graces will lead to--eternal life.  Rather, he sees both of these at once and in the light of each other.  Therefore, it is absurd to ask which one was made for the other.  The real answer is that both were made in light of the other, without any having any priority.  God didn't just ordain a person to eternal life, nor did he just ordain efficacious graces for a person.  Rather, he ordained an entire life history for that individual involving both the efficacious graces given and the eternal life these graces will lead to.  What God envisioned in his ordination is not one part or another by itself, but the whole thing altogether, with all of its parts functioning as parts of the larger whole.  So there is no point arguing about which part has first priority.  They are all parts of one whole in God's vision, and are never seen separate from the others.

What we do need to say is that, in formulating his plan by which he ordains all that comes to pass, including the efficacious graces he will give, who will attain eternal life, and all other things, he does not receive input ultimately from some source outside of himself.  Since God is the First Cause of all reality, there can be no such thing as any reality that is not ultimately rooted in him.  He does not learn something new from some source coming ultimately from outside of himself.    This includes the free choices of creatures as well.  Our choices are not First Causal events which derive their existence ultimately from something outside of God--whether that be ourselves, or chance, or whatever.  Any positive being or goodness in our choices ultimately derives its existence from God, while any negative thing or evil derives from God's free and sovereign permission by which he allows defect to exist.  If we grant this, we can say that, in an ultimate sense, predestination is unconditional, because the ultimate explanation for why some people are saved and others are not is God's plan rooted in God, not in anything coming from outside of him.

Molina agreed to this.  Fr. John Hardon, in the article linked to at the beginning of this post, quotes Molina acknowledging as much:

[P]redestination has no cause or reason on the part of the use of the free will of the predestined and the reprobate, but is to be attributed solely to the free will of God. This follows logically from the fact that the will to create a certain order of things and to confer upon individuals certain aids, provides the basis for the predestination of adults, which depends on the use that God had foreseen they would make of their free will.  (Taken by Fr. Hardon from Luis de Molina, Concordia Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratiae Donis, Divina Praescientia, Providentia, Praedestinatione et Reprobatione [Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1876), p.549)

In other words, predestination is ultimately unconditional because, although God elects certain people to eternal life on the basis of the good use he foresees that their free will will make of his grace, yet the entire plan of history which includes all the graces given, the good use of that grace by free will, and the attainment of eternal life by those who make good use of grace, is a plan freely chosen by God based only on his sovereign will.

INTRINSICALLY OR EXTRINSICALLY EFFICACIOUS GRACE

Another controversy was engendered by Molina's argument that God and his grace cannot force the will to do anything, so that no matter what graces God gives, it must be possible for the will to accept or reject them.  One thing Molina certainly had in mind when formulating this idea is the teaching of the Council of Trent, which said this (page number removed):

The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace: in such sort that, while God touches the heart of man by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, neither is man himself utterly without doing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight. Whence, when it is said in the sacred writings: Turn ye to me, and I will turn to you, we are admonished of our liberty; and when we answer; Convert us, O Lord, to thee, and we shall be converted, we confess that we are prevented by the grace of God.

So grace is needed to move the will to choose God, but that grace may be rejected.  The will is not moved as if it were an inanimate object, and so is always capable of consenting or refusing to grant consent.

Molina took this idea and worked out a system.  Fr. Hardon describes Molina's system (footnote removed):

According to Molina, “God knew before the free act of His will what the crated [sic] will would do in all circumstances, if He, God, decided to place such created wills (men and angels) in a particular set of circumstances. And to the contrary, He also foreknew if the created will should decide on an opposite course of action. On the basis of this principle, the freedom of the will is compatible with divine foreknowledge.” This means that through the scientia media God knows from eternity what reaction a created will would make to every conceivable grace He might confer. When, therefore, in the light of this knowledge, He actually bestows a grace, this grace will turn out to be efficacious or merely sufficient, according as God foresees whether a man will freely accept or resist the divine aid. He has absolute power to give or withhold His graces in each individual case, depending on His own free decision.

The idea is this:  In every situation, the will can move however it wills.  So when grace is given, the will can either accept or reject it, choose to cooperate with it or to resist it.  If the will resists the grace, the grace remains merely sufficient and not efficacious (that is, it provides only the power to act but not the act itself).  If the will cooperates with it, the grace becomes efficacious.  God, as he determined upon his overall plan for all history, decided freely what situations to put all his creatures in and what graces to give them, and he knew from eternity how his creatures' free will would respond in every possible situation.  Thus, his plan from eternity included all the free decisions of his creatures without his determining those free choices in such a way as to nullify their freedom.  This idea of God knowing what creatures would do in any situation Molina called scientia media, or "middle knowledge."

The Dominicans objected to this because they thought that Molina was implying that God cannot turn the will, but that the will is a First Causal power that can only turn itself, so that it is not grace that gives us a good will but rather the goodness comes ultimately from the will itself and not from grace.  They were also concerned that attributing such First Causal power to the will violates the sovereignty of God over creation and his status as the one First Cause.

But I think the Dominicans got it wrong here.  I have not seen any indication that Molina intended to attribute First Causal power to the will, or deny that grace is the cause of goodness in the will.  Molina believed himself to be in accord with St. Augustine on these matters.  He had no intention of denying established Catholic doctrine, which clearly affirms the sovereignty of God, his unique First Causal status, and the attribution of good salvific will to the supernatural grace of God merited through Christ.  All Molina was attempting to do was to safeguard the freedom of the will as that was defined by the Council of Trent--a concern the Dominicans fully shared.  In fact, Molina's idea of the scientia media actually precludes the human will being a First Cause in its own right.  If God can foreknow how we would certainly react in any situation, our choices cannot be First Causes, free from all prior causal determining of any sort.  If they were, then God could not know what we would choose without actually watching us make the choice, so that middle knowledge, which is only hypothetical and not actual, would be impossible.  If God knows how different circumstances will produce different choices, it can only be because our choices are not independent of those circumstances but are in some way determined by them.  This is why those who really do want to see our choices as First Causal, like the Open Theists in the Protestant world, often object to the concept of middle knowledge (and even to any foreknowledge of the future by God).  They think--rightly--that it smacks too much of the horrid idea that God predestines all things that come to pass, including our free choices, by his own sovereign will and that he can change a will from bad to good efficaciously.

I think the confusion arose because it is very difficult, using human language, to describe adequately how the will is both free and moved.  To say that God "causes" or "determines" the will to choose good can easily make it sound like the will is being treated as an inanimate object, and that it has no power to resist God's causal power or determination.  On the other hand, Molina found that describing the will as able to consent to or resist grace can make it sound like grace is not the cause of the good will.  So we have the Molinists objecting to the Dominicans, accusing them of denying the freedom of the will, and we have the Domincans accusing the Molinists of denying the efficacy of divine grace.  But I don't think that either of them were right in their accusations of the other.  (The Domincans might have taken a hint from the fact that Calvinist Protestants had always objected to Trent's language on the very same grounds that the Dominicans objected to Molina's language.  The Calvinists tend to read Trent as affirming the freedom of the will in such a way as to deny the efficacy of divine grace, even though the Dominicans would protest--rightly, I believe--that that was not Trent's intention.)

Both sides, I think, wanted to hold together the efficacy of grace (so that the good will can be attributed to the grace of God, as St. Augustine so strongly emphasized against the Pelagians and the Semipelagians) and the true freedom of the will.  Let me try to express the congruence of these two things by distinguishing between "causing" and "motivating."  Let's use "to cause" to mean "to bring something to pass without the cooperation of the will," either because there is no will involved (as in the moving of an inanimate object) or because the will is circumvented or even opposed and the action is accomplished anyway.  On the other hand, let's use "to motivate" to mean "to bring motives to bear on the will such that the will is persuaded to embrace a certain course of action freely without being circumvented or forced."  Motivation can be just as infallible as causality, but it leaves the will free to refuse consent.  I think Fr. Hardon articulates this well in another article:

By a truly efficacious grace is meant one that will be (is) infallibly followed by the act to which it tends, e.g. contrition. If you receive such a grace, even before your will consents to it, that grace is infallibly “sure of success;” it will infallibly procure your consent, produce that act – of contrition. But although it infallibly procures your consent, it does not necessitate you to consent: it leaves you free to dissent. Your will will infallibly say "yes" to it, but it is free to say "no.”

So, using my language defined above, we would say that grace does not "cause" the will to choose good, but it infallibly "motivates" it to do so.  The will can always say no, but if the grace is efficacious it will always say yes, successfully persuaded by the grace.  I think both sides in the Molinist-Dominican controversy would have agreed with this, and I think they could have granted that given this agreement, the fundamental points of Catholic faith need not to have been seen to be in conflict between them.  Both sides acknowledged, in accordance with established Catholic doctrine, that the good will is a gift of grace, granted efficaciously and supernaturally, and also that grace leaves the essential freedom of the will intact.  (I have defined "cause" and "motivate" in a special way here, but once we've seen what is being said by both sides, I don't think it is necessarily required that we must use the terms in this way.  In fact, I think that it is necessary for useful dialogue that everyone learn to recognize the flexibility of language and not jump to conclusions about the other side merely because of the difficulties of word choice.  Surely, in a broader sense, "motivation" is a kind of "cause," in the sense that when the will is motivated to do something we can say that that which persuaded it produced the effect of the will actually doing the action, but in a way consistent with the nature of the will.  Inanimate objects are "moved" or "affected" in certain ways, and free wills are "moved" or "affected" in other ways, consistent with their various natures.)

A good hint that we are on the right track can be seen in the fact that even Calvinists recognize the need to be careful with our language in order to preserve the balance between efficacious grace and free will.  A great example is the famous Calvinist philosopher Jonathan Edwards.  He was concerned in his time and place about people using Calvinist ideas about grace and free will to excuse themselves in their refusal to obey God.  So he was concerned, as Molina was, to show carefully how efficacious grace does not destroy free will.  To do this, he distinguished between what he called (and others had called before him) "moral" vs. "natural" inability:

We are said to be naturally unable to do a thing, when we cannot do it if we will, because what is most commonly called nature does not allow of it, or because of some impeding defect or obstacle that is extrinsic to the Will; either in the Faculty of understanding, constitution of body, or external objects. Moral Inability consists not in any of these things; but either in the want of inclination; or the strength of a contrary inclination; or the want of sufficient motives in view, to induce and excite the act of the Will, or the strength of apparent motives to the contrary. Or both these may be resolved into one; and it may be said in one word, that moral Inability consists in the opposition or want of inclination. For when a person is unable to will or choose such a thing, through a defect of motives, or prevalence of contrary motives, it is the same thing as his being unable through the want of an inclination, or the prevalence of a contrary inclination, in such circumstances, and under the influence of such views.  (Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will, Part I, Section IV)

In other words, Edwards is saying, there is a difference between a situation where a person is truly unable to do a thing even if he wants to (or, in reverse, if he is forced to do a thing that he does not want to do), and a situation where it is certain that a person will do or not do a thing but only because he wants to or doesn't want to.  But in both cases, there can be an infallibility, a certainty that certain things will happen.  As Edward says, "Moral Necessity may be as absolute as natural Necessity. That is, the effect may be as perfectly connected with its moral cause, as a natural, necessary effect is with its natural cause."  This happens when we are effectively persuaded of something, so that it is certain that we will do what we are persuaded to do, such as when God's efficacious grace converts the will.  But Edwards notes that language can be misleading here:

But it must be observed concerning moral Inability, in each kind of it, that the word Inability is used in a sense very diverse from its original import. The word signifies only a natural Inability, in the proper use of it; and is applied to such cases only wherein a present will or inclination to the thing, with respect to which a person is said to be unable, is supposable. It cannot be truly said, according to the ordinary use of language, that a malicious man, let him be never so malicious, cannot hold his hand from striking, or that he is not able to show his neighbor kindness; or that a drunkard, let his appetite be never so strong, cannot keep the cup from his mouth. In the strictest propriety of speech, a man has a thing in his power, if he has it in his choice, or at his election: and a man cannot be truly said to be unable to do a thing, when he can do it if he will. It is improperly said, that a person cannot perform those external actions, which are dependent on the act of the Will, and which would be easily performed, if the act of the Will were present. And if it be improperly said, that he cannot perform those external voluntary actions, which depend on the Will, it is in some respect more improperly said, that he is unable to exert the acts of the Will themselves; because it is more evidently false, with respect to these, that he cannot if he will: for to say so, is a downright contradiction; it is to say, he cannot will, if he does will. And in this case, not only is it true, that it is easy for a man to do the thing if he will, but the very willing is the doing; when once he has willed, the thing is performed; and nothing else remains to be done. Therefore, in these things, to ascribe a non-performance to the want of power or ability, is not just; because the thing wanting, is not a being able, but a being willing. There are faculties of mind, and a capacity of nature, and every thing else, sufficient, but a disposition: nothing is wanting but a will.

Because of the difficulty of human language on this point, it is easy to get confused about what is being said.  If a person says that the will cannot resist grace, he may mean that the will is forced to a certain action in such a way as to circumvent its freedom, or he may mean simply that grace efficaciously persuades the will to do something freely.  Only context can tell, which is why we have to be very careful.  I think that this kind of difficulty in communication may account for much of the Dominican-Molinist controversy on this question of the efficacy of grace and the scientia media.  So long as it is recognized that supernatural grace is the source of the good will, and that the human will does not act in a First Causal manner but is under the sovereignty of God and does not constitute a power coming ultimately from outside of God, there need be no fundamental argument, although there might be disagreement on lesser matters.  This is, in fact, what Pope Paul V seems to have concluded and was one of the reasons why he decided to leave the controversy alone after spending a huge amount of time considering it:

I postponed making a decision in the matter of de auxiliis for three reasons: . . . The second, because both parties are in substantial agreement with Catholic truth, namely that God through his efficacious grace makes us act and turns us from unwilling to willing subjects, bending and changing human will. There is disagreement about that, but only concerning the manner in which God does this:  (Guido Stucco, The Catholic Doctrine of Predestination from Luther to Jansenius [Xlibris, 2014], 198)

By the way, having brought up the Calvinist position, I should note that I believe that Catholics have often seriously misrepresented the Calvinist position by saying that it denies free will, makes the will to be forced by grace, etc.  In fact, I think the same kind of language confusion is at work here as well.  Listen to how the Westminster Confession, a premier Calvinist statement of faith, describes the working of efficacious grace (footnotes removed):

All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.

Calvinist theologians like Francis Turretin have always made distinctions on these matters similar to those made by Catholic theologians.  There is much more agreement here than is often acknowledged.

GRACE IN THE CONTEXT OF CONGRUENT CIRCUMSTANCES

There is one more point I wish to address before concluding.  The Molinists often speak about how, in his middle knowledge, God sees how people will respond in various situations.  Some of them sometimes make comments to the effect that sometimes the same grace might be given to two individuals but in one case it is efficacious and in the other it is not.  This raises a red flag with the Dominicans, who reason, "If the same grace is given to two people, and one is converted and the other not, grace must not be the cause of the good will, contrary to Catholic teaching."

But this need not be the case, and I have not seen evidence that these Molinists wished to oppose settled Catholic doctrine on this matter.  On the contrary, as I've mentioned, Molina believed his view would be acceptable to St. Augustine.  The fact that two people in different circumstances might be given the same grace and yet one is converted and the other not does not necessarily mean that it is not grace which produces the good will to convert.  In order to have its full effect on the will, grace must actually reach the will.  Whether it reaches the will or not depends on all kinds of circumstances, such as whether the gospel has been heard and understood, whether it is seen in its true and full light, etc.  Imagine Fran and Marie.  Both of them are in a position to encounter the gospel and its grace.  But when that encounter occurs, Fran is in such a state of mind, or in such external circumstances, that the full power of grace never really hits her head on.  Perhaps she doesn't understand the gospel, or she is distracted, or her mind is cluttered up with other things in a way that she only absent-mindedly considers what is being presented to her (whether by the gospel externally presented or by her own mind presenting her with reasons to follow God), or any number of things.  Marie, on the other hand, is in the right external condition, frame of mind, etc., so that grace comes home to her mind with all its power, and so, unlike Fran, Marie is persuaded and converted.  It is grace indeed which had the power to move both their wills, and which actually produced conversion in Marie.  It didn't produce conversion in Fran not because it lacked efficacy but because there were obstacles external to it which prevented it from being able to exert its full effect on Fran.  I think this is the kind of thing Molinists have in mind when they talk about the various circumstantial factors that can influence the will to resist or cooperate with grace.  Efficacious grace is still efficacious, and conversion and non-conversion are still under the sovereignty of God (because it is God, ultimately, who determines what external obstacles exist when grace is presented to any person, this being a part of his larger plan which includes all the details of history).  So I think that here as well, there need be no cause of concern about the Molinist position.  It is fully in accord with fundamental Catholic teaching.

For more on predestination and efficacious grace in Catholic doctrine in general, see here.

Published on the feast of St. Philip Neri

ADDENDUM 8/17/18:  I have just written up a third installment of my "defense of Molinism" articles, which can be found here.

Was Molina Actually Wrong?

I've just been reading a very thorough account of the teachings of Molina and the early Molinist Jesuits, Banez and the anti-Molinist Dominicans, and the drawn-out controversy they carried on during the time of the Congregation De Auxiliis.  (You can read about the controversy here)  My reading has come from an excellent book by Guido Stucco, The Catholic Doctrine of Predestination from Luther to Jansenius (Xlibris, 2014).

Up until now, I have believed that Molinism teaches a view of the will and of grace which is similar to that espoused in Arminian Protestantism, where the will is deemed to be independent from any causal factors beyond itself which might determine what it will choose.  In this view, the will acts basically as a First Cause, and its decisions do not in any way flow from the providential plan of God.  God can only know about them by discovering them as something coming from outside himself.  Since the will cannot be caused to make any choices by anything outside itself, the good will that chooses Christ for salvation cannot be a product of grace but is produced from the native power of the will itself,  Grace merely opens the door for the will to produce from itself its own goodness.  Arminians hold the independence of the will so highly that some of them (such as the Open Theists) have even ended up denying that God has foreknowledge of the future, because God knowing the future would imply that our decisions are already determined and cannot be turn out otherwise than God already knows they will be.  According to these extreme Arminians, God cannot know our choices until we make them, since they are First Causes and thus cannot be predicted on the basis of anything that precedes them, and thus God cannot know the future until it happens.

But I am not now sure that Molinism has taught or teaches any such ideas.  Here's the basic idea of some of what Molina taught about the will, predestination, and grace, as I have understood his views from Guido Stucco's (very thorough) representation of them (so keep in mind that what this is is my interpretation of Guido Stucco's interpretation of Molina):

God has middle knowledge.  "Middle knowledge" refers to God's ability to know not only what will in fact happen but everything that could possibly happen and everything that would happen if other things happened.  Since that came out very confusing, let me illustrate by an example:  Let's say Bob decided to go to Denny's to eat dinner.  At Denny's, he ordered a hamburger.  However, he could have decided to go to Red Lobster for dinner, and if he had done that he would have ordered fish and chips.  God knows not only what Bob will actually do but what Bob would have done had things gone differently.

So picture God in eternity past (of course, God is not actually in time, but we can use time as a proxy for logical sequences in God's thought and will).  He has before him all possibilities, all possible worlds he could create.  In each of these possible worlds, there is distinct historical narrative.  God chooses to actualize the possible world he prefers to all the rest.  Part of what gets decided when God decides which world to actualize is who will end up being saved in the end and who will not.  Consider two of these possible worlds.  In Possible World A, Bob will encounter Set of Circumstances X, and through all the things that Bob experiences in that set of circumstances God knows that Bob will choose to accept Christ, persevere to the end, and receive eternal salvation.  However, in Possible World B, Bob will encounter Set of Circumstances Y, and God knows that through all the things that Bob would experience in that set of circumstances Bob will choose to reject Christ to the end of his life and end up in eternal damnation.  But Bob, of course, is not the only person in the world.  In Possible World A, Jerry will end up deciding to reject Christ and will be damned, while in Possible World B he will be saved.  Let's say that God freely decides, sovereignly and of his own good pleasure, that he will actualize Possible World A and not Possible World B.  In that case, God has freely elected and predestined Bob to eternal salvation while rejecting and reprobating Jerry.  God could very well have freely decided to do the opposite, or he could have actualized yet another possible world in which both Bob and Jerry would have been either saved or damned.  Since God's choice was free and unconstrained, based on his own good pleasure and not drawn by any necessity outside of himself or by any merits in either Bob or Jerry which determined his choice, we can say that God's eternal decrees of predestination and reprobation were unconditional.  However, Bob received salvation because he chose to accept Christ and persevere to the end of his life of his own free will.  He could have rejected Christ, but it just so turned out that he didn't.  God's eternal ordination of Bob to eternal salvation took into account the foreknown fact that Bob would choose to accept Christ when he could have chosen to reject him, so in that sense we can say that God's election of him was based on Bob's foreseen future choice; but since the whole historical narrative in which Bob made that choice was actualized by God freely, and God was perfectly free to actualize a different narrative, we can still say that Bob's predestination was ultimately unconditional.

The Dominicans severely attacked this Molinist teaching on a number of grounds.  One of their chief complaints was that Molina was making it sound like Bob's choice to accept Christ was something Bob produced on his own as opposed to being something produced in him by grace.  Molina wanted to say that both Bob and Jerry received grace sufficient to save them if they would have accepted it.  In fact, Molina would even grant that perhaps Jerry might have received more graces than Bob, but he rejected his grace while Bob accepted his.  The Dominicans interpreted Molina and the Molinists as saying that the difference between Bob and Jerry was not a matter of divine grace but of some difference stemming ultimately from their two wills, and they pointed out that this would make Bob's good choice a product of his own will ultimately and not of God's grace, contrary to the Catholic doctrine (see, for example, the Second Council of Orange) which strongly affirms that all good will, along with all things that lead to or are a part of salvation, are entirely a gift from God.

So the big question is, What was it, ultimately, that caused Bob to choose to accept Christ while Jerry rejected Christ?  It seems to me that if the Molinists will grant that it was divine grace that made the difference here and it was divine grace that produced Bob's choice for Christ, I can see no grounds for opposing the Molinist point of view.  One might still quibble with bits and pieces of it, or with the terminology of its formulations, but there would be nothing in it that would be obviously contrary to anything in Catholic faith or in the Augustinian doctrines of grace affirmed by the Catholic Church.  In all my reading thus far, I can't tell for sure what the Molinists were attempting to do here.  I expected to find clear Arminian-type statements from the Molinists, but they keep coming short of making such statements.  Granted, they sometimes talk in ways that sound less Augustinian and more "Arminian," but they never seem to actually get there.  Also, they frequently make comments that sound more Augustinian than I would have expected.  The concept of "middle knowledge" itself, far from implying the sort of situation where God's predestination is not the ultimate explanation for all that happens, actually seems to imply exactly that, for if our free choices came ultimately only from ourselves and were in no way produced by God, then God could not know about them except by seeing what we actually end up choosing.  Middle knowledge, on the contrary, has God knowing what we would choose before we actually make a choice, which implies that our choices are not uncaused, first-causal events but are explained as parts of a larger coherent causal nexus (so that God could know exactly what we would choose).  This is why Open Theists object to middle knowledge, and want to replace it instead with the idea that God knows not what will happen in various circumstances but only what could or might happen.  To say that God knows for sure what would happen implies that our choices are part of a causal nexus that is ultimately set in place by God when he actualizes the universe he wants--unconditional predestination.  So middle knowledge requires predestination.  So long as the Molinists also acknowledge that the very structure of reality which creates the possibility of middle knowledge--the laws of logic and causal relations and in general how the world works--is not a given that comes from outside of God but is rooted, along with all of reality, in him, and so long as they acknowledge that when the will chooses to enter into a state of grace as well as to remain in a state of grace, these good choices are a product not of natural free will but of supernatural grace,  then at this point I see no real theological problems with the Molinist paradigm.

So, at this point, I'm not sure I have enough information to draw a clear conclusion on this matter.  What I will say is that the Molinist-Dominican controversy is more complicated than I previously thought.  I agree with the Dominicans' arguments as they are directed against what they construed Molinists to be saying, but I'm not sure anymore that it's what the Molinists were actually saying.  The Molinists, in turn, accused their Dominican opponents of being fatalists, of denying free will, etc., and I'm quite sure from what I've read that this was false.  So perhaps the whole controversy will turn out to have been more rooted in misunderstanding than any greatly substantial or significant theological disagreement.  Perhaps, to my surprise, it will turn out that nobody in this controversy was actually arguing for an Arminian-like viewpoint and that everyone was affirming a basically good Augustinian viewpoint.  At any rate, what I've learned has given me a new appreciation for why perhaps the Church refrained from officially deciding the controversy or condemning the Molinists.  There may not have been anything there that really warranted being condemned after all.

On pp. 194-195 of his book, Guido Stucco articulates eleven propositions put forward by Jesuit theologian Achille Gagliardi during the time of the Jesuit-Dominican controversy that Gagliardi believed to be affirmed by both the Jesuits (the Molinists) and the Dominicans.  The list is very enlightening (I've added spaces between the points for easier reading, since I couldn't exactly reproduce the formatting in Stucco's book):

1)  God has a distinct and perfect providence of all acts of human free will, and concurs in each of them effectively and directly. 

2)  The creaturely will requires help to receive the supernatural ability to act and to produce a supernatural deed in union with God's help. 

3)  Creaturely will is also in need of prevenient grace, so that through it, it may be stirred and dispose itself to produce such deeds. This happens not only extrinsically, through an external object/action proposed to the human will, but also intrinsically, by enlightening the mind and inclining the will to consent. 

4)  This prevenient help is given exclusively out of God's good pleasure and will; therefore, the beginning of faith and of Justification derives from God alone and not at all from our free will. 

5)  Besides this, the supernatural concurrence of God is required, so that, acting in unison with free will, it may directly produce as the first and main cause man's free determination and consent. 

6)  Sufficient grace, in virtue of which a man is able be [sic] converted, is one thing; efficacious grace, by which God ensures he is infallibly converted, is another. Thus, we read in Scripture expressions such as man "is drawn," "the will is prepared by the Lord," (Pr. 8:35); "God works in us the willing and the doing" (Phil 2:13). Also, according to Augustine, "This grace, therefore, which the divine generosity gives in a hidden manner to human hearts is not rejected by any hard heart" (Predestination of the Saints 8,13); "It turns a person from unwilling to willing" (Against Julian III, 122); "God does whatever he wants of the human will." All these things are true, as the human will remains free and un-violated. 

7)  This efficacious help derives from God's efficacious intention and from his absolute intention to convert a person. This is brought about exclusively by God's good pleasure and by nothing else: there is no other cause which is in man's power. 

8)  God predetermined with an absolute decree and good pleasure of his will those who will consent to his grace; only these will be infallibly saved, and nobody else. 

9)  There is no cause of predestination on the part of the human will. 

10)  Predestination involves the following: a) God prepares all the efficacious means of grace necessary for salvation; b) through it, the elect are distinguished from the reprobate, so that no one has any reason to rejoice in themselves; c) As Paul said: "It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy" (Rom 9:16); d) The number of the elect established by it is certain; e) No one, other than the predestined, will be saved; f) It is to be attributed to the higher and inscrutable nature of the divine mind why this person will be saved, but not that one. 

11)  The human will, albeit moved and stimulated by grace, can consent or dissent to it.  [Footnote 109:  "Serry, Historiae congregationum, (1709), 202-207. Serry found these theses in the Biblioteca Augustinina, vol. fig. H.")

If the Jesuits and the Dominicans really agreed on all of these points, then it is not easy to see why Molinism should be considered Semipelagian or "Arminian."  (And note that a Jesuit wrote this list!)

On p. 198, Stucco records some comments made by Pope Paul V to the Spanish ambassador regarding why he did not make a final decision in the controversy:

I postponed making a decision in the matter of de auxiliis for three reasons: the first, in order to be conscientious, and also considering that time teaches and shows the truth about everything, acting like a great judge and censor of all things. The second, because both parties are in substantial agreement with Catholic truth, namely that God through his efficacious grace makes us act and turns us from unwilling to willing subjects, bending and changing human will. There is disagreement about that, but only concerning the manner in which God does this: the Dominicans say that he predetermines our wills in a physical manner, namely, really and efficaciously, while the Jesuits claim that he does so congruously and morally. Both opinions can be defended. The third reason is that in our day and age, in which there are many heresies, it is most appropriate to preserve and uphold the reputation and credibility of both religious orders, since to discredit either one may turn out to be greatly harmful. If we were to ask what we are to believe in this matter, I would say that we must uphold and follow the teachings of the Council of Trent, Session VI, On Justification, which are very clear and straightforward about what was the error and heresy of Pelagians and Semipelagians, as well as Calvin's.  This session also teaches the Catholic doctrine according to which it is necessary for human free will to be moved, excited and helped by God's grace, and that the will can freely assent or dissent.  The Council did not entertain the question of how grace works, but merely touched upon it and left the explanation alone, regarding it useless and unnecessary, thus imitating Pope Celestine, who, having, defined some issues or propositions on this matter, said he did not want to condemn or elaborate on more difficult or subtler ones.  (Footnote 114:  "Denzinger, 1997 a."; hyperlink added)

From what Pope Paul V says here, and from the list of agreed-upon propositions given by Jesuit theologian Achille Gagliardi, it appears that both the Jesuits and the Dominicans agreed that the predestination of the elect is unconditional, rooted in God's sovereign purpose and not man's free will, and that while sufficient grace is given to all men to be able to accept Christ, yet God gives only to his elect an efficacious grace which infallibly converts the will and causes it to persevere to the end and so actually receive eternal salvation.  Those who receive this efficacious grace will be saved, while those who don't won't be.  What more could a good Augustinian ask for?  There is no problem with saying that sufficient grace is given to all men to accept Christ or that the will can either accept or reject grace.  Bob the elect and Jerry the reprobate have enough given to them so that, if they want to, both can choose Christ and persevere to the end.  But only Bob will in fact do so, while Jerry will not, and the difference between them ultimately stems not from some native ability that Bob has and Jerry doesn't but from the predestination and efficacious grace of God which is given to Bob and not to Jerry out of God's good pleasure and sovereign mercy.

I want to quote one last time from Stucco's book.  On pp. 169-170, Stucco mentions another list of propositions the Jesuits proposed at one point during the de auxiliis controversy as points in which they were in agreement with the Dominicans:

1) Man is given the help of prevenient efficacious grace, through which God brings about that man does what is good; 2) This help is a peculiar gift of God, distinct from sufficient grace; 3) This help is intrinsic to both man's intellect and will, consisting in the stimulation of both, which is to say, in the illumination of the intellect and in the motion of the will; 4) This help is supernatural and sent by God; 5) This help does not only exist on the part of the object, but also on the part of the power; 6) The motion of the will is real and precedes the application of the will to a specific action; 7) Once this efficacious help is put in place, it infallibly converts man.

Stucco mentions the response of the Dominicans to this list:

Ripalda recorded the Dominicans' satisfaction with these statements, saying that "They had no question about this convergence of views; instead, they were amazed that we agreed with them about these things, and said that if Molina and the Spanish Jesuits had said this much, there would have been no quarrel with their theologians."  [Footnote 51:  "Ripalda, 525."]

Again, what more could an Augustinian ask for?  And yet, the two parties continued to debate, and they never did reach a mutually-satisfactory agreement.

In conclusion, my previous thinking was that the Catholic Church has clearly affirmed salvation by grace alone, but that it refrained (for whatever reason) from condemning a particular view (Molinism) which, in its logical implications, contradicts this (though it did not declare this view correct either or promise not to condemn it in the future).  But now I'm thinking it may be that the Catholic Church never has refrained from condemning any Arminian-type viewpoint proposed seriously to its consideration.  I should remind readers, though, that I am still in no way an expert on Molinism, and I need to do much more research before I could declare any conclusions dogmatically.

ADDENDUM 2/23/16:  On pp. 298-300 of his book, Stucco provides another list by a theologian involved in the de auxiliis controversy of theological positions he thought both sides could agree on.  The theologian was Giovanni Antonio Bovio, a Carmelite who leaned in favor of Molina's doctrine and was a strong defender of the orthodoxy of the Jesuit position.  Once again, it is striking what Jesuit or Jesuit-leaning theologians thought that both sides could agree on (as before, I have adjusted spacing, etc.):

1)  Human nature has been so wounded by the Fall, that without the grace of God healing it, man cannot fulfill the whole natural law, nor avoid all mortal sins that are committed against it. 

2)  The same grace of God acting through Christ Jesus, is simply necessary to perform individual acts of belief, hope, love, penance as well as any other good deeds (no matter how easy they may appear), so that they may be fitting of God and of salvation--and not just as to make them easier to be carried out. 

3)  The necessity of exciting, healing, cooperating, prevenient and consequent grace must be acknowledged and upheld by everybody. 

4)  The very beginning of our justification must be attributed to the prevenient grace of God through Jesus Christ, which is bestowed on us by God in a simply gratuitous way, not because of any of our works, not because we want it, but so that we may want it. Anything that precedes that grace plays no role or has no merit in the bestowal of God's grace or in the attainment of salvation. 

5)  God gives to some people only his prevenient sufficient grace, with which they may truly and properly do what is good; thus, if they do not do it, their damnation must be attributed to them alone, and in no way whatsoever to God. 

6)  To some people God gives not only the ability to want and to do good, but by the help of his grace which we call "efficacious" he makes sure that they most surely and infallibly may want and do that which is good. 

7)  Likewise, to all the just he gives the help by which they are able not to sin, not to depart from goodness and to persevere to the end, if they want to. But to the saints predestined to the kingdom of God through his grace, is given such a help that without it they couldn't persevere and unfailingly want that which is good. 

8)  God gives his efficacious grace without playing favorites and not even according to his distributive justice, but rather to those whom he wants and out of his good pleasure and will; therefore, the reason he gives to some and not to others lies in his hidden and inscrutable judgments, and no cause whatsoever can be assigned on man's part. 

9)  Through this grace, God not only leads men, but draws them, turns them willing from unwilling, agreeing from dissenting, loving from fighting; he works in them the willingness and the working; transforms their wills and inclines their heart to what he wants and when he wants it. 

10)  This grace is: a) That divine benefit by which all those who are liberated are most certainly liberated; b) the calling according to God's purpose, which no elect can spurn; c) a high and mysterious calling that brings about one's consent to God's law and teachings; d) a hidden and mysterious doctrine that not only inclines people to do good, but persuades us to do it--by which God not only shows us the truth, but also engenders love in our hearts, giving to his elect to know what they are to do, and to do what they know ought to be done; e) the illumination and the inspiration which not only makes apparent that which was hidden, but also makes appear sweet that which one did not love before; f) through it, God not only illuminates the mind, showing us what needs to be done, but also inspires a good affection for it, giving us most efficacious strength to our will. 

11)  When grace begins to operate by itself, it brings about the intended result by himself, but by simultaneously cooperating with the human will. It is for this purpose that the will is prepared by the Lord, so that by assisting and cooperating with exciting and helping grace it may freely produce acts by which the will may dispose itself and move in virtue of its own freedom towards justice. 

12)  Through the efficacious grace of God the human free will is not taken away; likewise, without it, man has sufficient help to which, if he wants to, is able to assent. Once it is given, the ability to assent or dissent is still in place, so that man can still resist it, if he wants to (Serry's Appendix, pp 152, 153).

On pp. 295-301, Stucco describes how Bovio tried to defend the Jesuit position from Dominican attacks.  He asserted that the Dominicans had fundamentally misunderstood what Molina was saying on a number of points, and that he was more orthodox (from an Augustinian point of view) than they realized.

ADDENDUM 5/15/16:  Catholic Philosopher Alfred J. Freddoso comments here on how the Dominicans (following Dominican theologian Domingo Bañez) and the Molinists agreed on the absolute nature of God's providence--that everything that happens in history, good and evil, has been specifically ordained by God to come to pass:

According to the traditional doctrine of divine providence, God freely and knowingly plans, orders and provides for all the effects that constitute the created universe with its entire history, and he executes his chosen plan by playing an active causal role that ensures its exact realization. Since God is the perfect craftsman, not even trivial details escape his providential decrees. Whatever occurs is specifically decreed by God; more precisely, each effect produced in the created universe is either specifically and knowingly intended by him or, in concession to creaturely defectiveness, specifically and knowingly permitted by him. Divine providence thus has both a cognitive and a volitional aspect. By his pre-volitional knowledge God infallibly knows which effects would result, directly or indirectly, from any causal contribution he might choose to make to the created sphere. By his free will God chooses one from among the infinity of total sequences of created effects that are within his power to bring about and, concomitantly, wills to make a causal contribution that he knows with certainty will result in his chosen plan's being effected down to the last detail. 

This much is accepted by both Molina and the Bañezians. They further agree that it is because he is perfectly provident that God has comprehensive foreknowledge of what will occur in the created world. That is, God's speculative post-volitional knowledge of the created world -- his so-called free knowledge or knowledge of vision -- derives wholly from his pre-volitional knowledge and his knowledge of what he himself has willed to do. Unlike human knowers, God need not be acted upon by outside causes in order for his cognitive potentialities to be fully actualized; he does not have to, as it were, look outside himself in order to find out what his creative act has wrought. Rather, he knows 'in himself' what will happen precisely because he knows just what causal role he has freely chosen to play within the created order and because he knows just what will result given this causal contribution. In short, no contingent truth grasped by the knowledge of vision can be true prior to God's specifically intending or permitting it to be true or to his specifically willing to make the appropriate causal contribution toward its truth.

ADDENDUM 5/26/16:  I have just written up another article which argues further that the Molinist position is Augustinian and in accord with Catholic doctrine and that the Dominicans misunderstood it.

Also, this article by Fr. John Hardon contains a very helpful account of the Dominican-Molinist controversy and a very helpful description of the Molinist position and its nuances and various forms.

ADDENDUM 1/22/19:  Here is a summary of some of the main positions advocated in the Church on predestination and grace and the Church's attitude towards them.  The summary is from Pope Benedict XIV in 1748 in a letter to the Grand Inquisitor of Spain.  The Church's attitude towards these positions has not changed since that time.  The text is from Fr. John Hardon's article, History and Theology of Grace. Chapter VIII: Analysis of Efficacious Grace, found here (footnote 7 from text inserted into text).

You know there are manifold opinions in the schools on the famous questions about predestination and grace, and on the manner of reconciling human liberty with the omnipotence of God. The Thomists are said to be destroyers of human liberty and followers not only of Jansenism but of Calvinism. However, since they meet the charges with eminent satisfaction, and since their opinion has never been condemned by the Holy See, the Thomists carry on without hindrance in this matter, and it is not right for any ecclesiastical superior in the present state of affairs to force them to change their opinion. 

The Augustinians are reported as the followers of du Bay and of Jansenism. They represent themselves as defenders of human liberty, and strenuously answer their critics. Since their opinion, too, has not been condemned by the Holy See, no effort should therefore be made to compel them to give up their theory. 

The followers of Molina and Suarez are condemned by their adversaries as Semi-Pelagians. But the Roman Pontiffs have not passed judgment on the Molinist system, which they presently defend and may continue to do so.  (DS 2564)

ADDENDUM 4/16/19:  Further research seems to me to indicate that Arminius, the founder of the "Arminian" school of thought, held views similar to those of Molina, and so, like Molina, was not as bad as I had previously assumed.  For more, see here.