From Molinism to Existentialism

A Treatise on the Metaphysics of Freedom, Agency and Volition

by John Davenport

Ph.D. Candidate

University of Notre Dame

I. Introduction: Molinism vs Existentialism

Alvin Plantinga's Curley example; intuitive warrant for the Molinist presupposition; the contrasting Existentialist position; the meaning of 'existence precedes essence;' two theses attributable to Heidegger; outline of the paper.

II. The Existentialist Critique of Molinism

(A) The Preliminary Objection

Tom Flint's definition of Molinism; the analogy between causal modality and Molinist feasibility; Plantingian transworld depravity; the 'ephemeral' nature of counterfactual power to do otherwise.

(B) The Haskar/Adams Anti-Molinist Strategy, and the Molinist Response

Comparison of the preliminary objection to Haskar's and Adams's critiques of Molinism. The difficulty with Haskar's 'Power Inference Principle;' Adams's "New Anti-Molinist Argument;" William Lane Craig's recent response to Adams; Craig's defense of the 'emphemeral' Molinist logical possibility of doing otherwise; the two stages of the Existentialist's alternative strategy against Molinism.

(C) A Theory of Synthetic Modalities and the Truths of Middle Knowledge

The error of misinterpreting Molinism as Essentialism; Flint's axiom: the truth of counterfactuals of freedom as logically contingent; the actuality of sub-maximal states of affairs 'prior' to the complete actuality of as the only possible explanation for the world-neutral status of truths of middle knowledge; transworld depravity reinterpreted; synthetic modalities as 'existential modalities' that arise from the 'prior' existence of sub-maximal states of affairs (with diagram); feasibility as a kind of synthetic modality; comparison to nomological modality again; the unsaturated sense of the metaphysical 'priority' (P) implied by Molinism.

(D) The Truths of Middle Knowledge as 'Hard Facts'

Response to Craig's first objection: proof that the truth of counterfactuals of freedom are univocally 'prior' to the actions they are about, if P is a transitive relation; why the Molinist cannot assume that P is intransitive; response to Craig's second objection: an argument to show that the Molinist must presuppose that P is transitive.

(E) Why Molinism Must Attribute Truths of Middle Knowledge to Our Agency

The Existentialist's moral responsibility test; the initial objection to the Molinist counterfactual 'power to do otherwise' renewed; William Alston's objection interpreted; the Molinist's only remaining option: atttribute even hard fact truths of middle knowledge to our agency.

(F) The Existentialist Refutation of Molinism

The common objection to Molinist metaphysics; the Existentialist's two conditions for moral responsibility; the Existentialist's moral responsibility objection to Molinism: the 'Antinomy of Authenticity'; David Lewis's analysis of Molinism criticized; the best Molinist response refuted; formal summary of the Existentialist's argument against Molinism; historical explanation of how the Molinist error came about.

III. Feasibility Without Molinism: Our Pretheoretical Modal Intuitions About Volition

(A) The Ground Underlying Molinist Intuitions

The ubiquity of intuitions for counterfactuals of freedom; the characterological ground of our modal intuitions of feasibility; the morally significant level of 'character'; volitional dispositions.

(B) The Challenge to Existentialism

Simplistic Existentialist libertarianism; the intuition of a synthetic modality of volition; Tom Morris's concept of moral capability; Harry Frankfurt's concept of volitional necessity; the danger of picturing agency as pure negative liberty.

(C) Molinism as an Atomistic Conception of Feasibility

Theoretical conceptions of pretheoretical modal intuitions as interpretations of the ontological grounds delimiting the relevant sphere; the simplest theoretical ground of feasibility model (S). Molinism reinterpreted as the theory of the supervenience of feasible worlds on the primitive feasibility of individual acts (theory P); the metaphysical primitive problem; 'atomistic' supervenience and the impossibility of any reason for patterns of feasibility; David Lewis's criticism of Plantinga's free will defense; Molinism (theory P) as the default 'minimal theory' of feasibility; the possibility of alternative conceptions.

IV. Existentialism vs Other Conceptions of Feasibility

(A) Original Sin

The first (O) conception of feasibility; inconsistency with Molina's distinction between sufficient and enabling grace; critique of an Adam-centered interpretation; impossibility of theodicy on this theory; critique of transworld depravity as a feasibility model for original sin.

(B) Strong Providence

The (SP) conception of feasibility; Hugh McCann's defense of (SP) and its Thomistic roots; critique of McCann's argument that we are responsible for our decisions brought about by God's creative fiat; Dominic Báez's version; Kathryn Tanner's version of the Thomist theory; the impossibility of theodicy on this theory.

(C) The Kantian Approach

Kant's notion of the ultimate 'disposition' in the Religion; link to his theory of spontaneity; single ultimate character as a restrictor of feasibility; comparison to Frankfurt's conception of care and volitional necessity; Philip Quinn's analysis of Kant's theory; theory (K) as a 'Noumenalist' version of Molinism; the possibility of revolution in ultimate moral character vs theory (K).

(D) Kant and the Eschatological Requirement of Openness for Ultimate Moral Character

The joint pedagogical significance of radical evil and the possibility of moral revolution; relation to the moral significance of eschatology; the theme of good works in moral religion; an argument for the 'eschatological requirement' of the possibility of revolution in ultimate moral character.

V. The Habit-Based Approach to Feasibility

(A) Intuitive Features of the Characterological Approach

Advantages of the habit-based approach; the problem of an atomistic habit-based conception;

(B) Robert Adams's Criticisms and the Necessity of Probabilistic Qualification

Adams's argument for irreducibly probabilistic (IP) qualification of the relation of habits to particular actions; the critique of theory (R), a non-probabilistic attempt to accomodate the appearance of probabilistic qualification in a habit-based approach; a moral argument for the IP axiom.

(C) The Incompleteness Problem for Atomistic Habit-Based Truths of Feasibility

The problem of the acquisition of volitional dispositions; Aquinas's notion of habit; argument for a level-interactive (LI) conception of the habit-action relation and a broader ontological basis for truths of feasibility; the problem of altering one's habits of will; Aristotle's habit-based model (A); critique of Aristotle's conception by the 'eschatological requirement'.

VI. The New Existentialist Characterological Theory of Feasibility

The IP and LI principles as distinctive of the Existentialist habit-based approach.

(A) The Concept of Volitional Difficulty

The interpretation of the character-grounded irreducibly probabilistic truths of feasibility for particular actions as difference in openness of logical alternatives; the phenomenon of volitional difficulty contrasted with other sorts of obstruction; the compatibility of Existentialism with the existence of volitional difficulties.

(B) The Universalistic Conception of Feasibility

The anti-atomistic implications of level-interactivity; laws of feasibility equally true for all possible persons as the ground of truths of feasibility for the acquisition of habits, the change of habits, and the relations of habits to volitional difficulty; the 'spiritual sphere' of worlds; Kant's objection to synthetic truths not based on particular natures but holding for all possible persons; response to Kant by way of the phenomenological model of morally significant personhood; summary of the moral personhood theory of feasibility (M); theory (M) as inherently compatible with Existentialism.

VII: Conclusion: Existentialism and Spiritual Laws

Summary of the Existentialist view of personal volition; the inalterability of spiritual laws of feasibility; the example of 'Faustus's Law;' Existentialism as compatible with a kind of moral teleology; conclusion on the warrant for accepting non-simplistic Existentialism as the best possible framework for conceiving feasibility.

In analytic philosophy of religion today, it is well-known that the particular conception of libertarian free will offered by Luis de Molina and Francis Suárez has been revived and plays a controversial role in the analysis of several problems. Although its classical purpose was to provide a way to reconcile libertarian freedom with providence and divine omniscience, the Molinist idea that there are contingent 'counterfactuals of freedom'⁽¹⁾--facts about what free creatures would do in any completely specified circumstance they could be in--is also critical to the best currently available formulation of the free will defense against the logical problem of evil. Although he does not emphasize its role in his versions of the free will defense, as presented in his God, Freedom, and Evil⁽²⁾, The Nature of Necessity⁽³⁾, and other articles, Alvin Plantinga's argument relies on the Molinist intuition that some logically possible worlds are not feasible or "weakly actualizable,"⁽⁴⁾ because they include at least one choice of a particular alternative by a free agent, which in fact that agent would not make if she were in the circumstances.

Plantinga's now-famous example is a certain Curley, who has been offered one bribe but would have accepted a lesser one.⁽⁵⁾ As Plantinga explains this case, there is a maximal segment of a (logically) possible world in which Curley is offered the lesser bribe: i.e. a segment complete in every possible respect excepting Curley's decision either to take or not take this bribe, which is left open, and excepting the truth-value of whatever propositions are logically dependent on that. This world-segment (S) exists, as Plantinga says, in two different worlds, W and W', such that W = S + Curley's accepting the bribe, and W' = S + Curley's refusing the bribe.⁽⁶⁾ Now comes the Molinist part. Professor Plantinga then suggests that we accept, hypothetically, that if this maximal world segment S obtained, Curley would have taken the bribe. Plantinga admits, however, that the viability of this premise rests on the assumption that there is some truth about what Curley would have done in the counterfactual situation, at least when it is sufficiently specified: "a state of affairs that includes Curley's having been offered $20,000, all relevant conditions--Curley's financial situation, his general acquisitive tendencies, his venality--being the same as in fact, in the actual world."⁽⁷⁾ Yet Plantinga makes a persuasive plea that this assumption accords with some of the deepest modal intuitions involved in moral experience:

There is something Curley would have done, had that state of affairs [as just specified] obtained. But I do not know how to produce a conclusive argument for this supposition, in case you are inclined to dispute it. I do think it is the natural view, the one we take in reflecting on our own moral failures and triumphs...⁽⁸⁾

On the contrary, Existentialists (myself included) are more than inclined to believe that Plantinga's Molinist premise must misrepresent our modal intuitions in some fundamental way. In fact, Existentialism is the conception of negative liberty which takes the rejection of this Molinist premise as its first principle.

Virtually all major Existentialist authors⁽⁹⁾ hold not only that moral freedom requires some range of liberty to choose among different logically possible alternatives, but also that a person can only be morally responsible for choices that are not completely determined by factors other than broadly logical necessity. Limitations imposed by physical laws, physiology, and perhaps even innate predilections must not be deterministic, but must allow at least some alternative "possibilities" (in the physical sense, physiological sense, etc.) if the decision is a responsible one. Existentialist authors have thus generally followed Kant's Anselmian interpretation of the ought-implies-can principle. For example, because I can be held morally responsible for my career choice, even though I have been socialized and nurtured to enter into one particular field, it follows that I am free to do otherwise, even if choosing a different career may be very difficult for me. In the same way, an Existentialist denies that there can be any absolutely determined particular facts about what a given individual would choose in a given situation, prior to that individual's being actualized and making the choice.

Thus it turns out that we can gain a more perspicuous understanding of Existentialism itself by thinking of it as the antithesis of Molinism. The most an Existentialist could accept is that, if there are counterfactuals of freedom for particular choices such as Curley's, then these counterfactuals themselves must be determined by the individual's other free choices in time. This is the rigorous meaning behind the enigmatic existentialist motto that a free being's existence precedes their essence. By "essence," the Existentialist does not mean logical essence in Plantinga's sense, but rather the ultimate character of the person over a complete life. The Molinist's idea of the total set of a person's true counterfactuals of freedom not only expresses the person's ultimate character in this sense, but also suggests that this ultimate character is metaphysically prior to the person's being actualized and living their life. Existence precedes essence reverses the Molinist priority, since it means that ultimate character is posterior to existing and leading a life. The Molinist and Existentialist are thus diametric opponents within the general ambit of metaphysical libertarianism.

In support of this interpretation, consider Martin Heidegger's claim that "Dasein's 'Essence' is grounded in its existence."⁽¹⁰⁾ By Dasein, Heidegger means the kind of being constitutive of personhood. Heidegger holds that what makes an entity a person capable of personal identity is not any sort of soul-"substance" or "Being-what-it-is" (Aristotelian essentia), but rather a certain kind of agency with a volitional structure that makes the entity able to relate itself volitionally to itself, to others, and to its world: "These entities, in their Being, comport themselves towards their Being."⁽¹¹⁾ This is shown partly in the fact that only for Dasein can questions of Being be an issue--or, to translate, only persons are so constituted (ontically) that they have the sort of ontological relations to themselves, to their world, and to others that involve modal intuitions with ontological import. As he explains in more detail:

And because we cannot define Dasein's essence by citing a "what" of the kind that pertains to a subject matter, and because its essence lies rather in the fact that in each case it has its Being to be, and has it as its own, we have chosen to designate this entity as "Dasein."⁽¹²⁾

The term Dasein is explicitly chosen to contrast with Sosein. The type of agency necessary for personhood is not a "Sosein" or multiply instantiable essence, precisely because it requires first-personal individuality, self-possession, in order to "comport" itself towards itself--or, in the language of analytic philosophy, to establish a reflexive volitional relation.⁽¹³⁾ Dasein is individual being as distinct from a kind-essence that makes an entity 'what it is.'

Dasein's individual existence, however, should not be misunderstood simply as the medieval concept of existentia that contrasts with essentia. Heidegger certainly does not mean that Dasein is a bare entity without color or quality or character. Rather, the existence which is proper to or distinctive of Dasein is free being, with others persons, in a world of natural environments and artifacts. Heidegger explains the 'existence' which characterizes Dasein as the ontological condition in which free will expresses itself:

Dasein always understands itself in terms of its existence--in terms of a possibility of itself: to be itself or not itself. Dasein has either chosen these possibilities itself, or got itself into them, or grown up in them already. Only particular Dasein decides its existence, whether it does so by taking hold or neglecting. The question of existence never gets straightened out except through existing itself.⁽¹⁴⁾

For Heidegger, Dasein is faced with possibilities that are not yet closed or determined (or "actualized" to speak Plantingian). In existence, an individual's social identity and ultimate personal character are still open, and do not become finalized except through his or her own choice.⁽¹⁵⁾ Moreover, even the range of future possibilities for one's being are determined existentially, or in time, both by what the individual contingently inherits from the past and by their own response to these conditions.

In his later Letter on Humanism, Heidegger makes clear that his focus on the existence of Dasein is not intended simply as a metaphysical reversal of Plato's doctrine that "essentia precedes existentia."⁽¹⁶⁾ In a look back at the crucial passage in Being and Time, Heidegger rephrases his earlier statement by saying that "What man is..the 'essence' of man--lies in his ek-sistence".⁽¹⁷⁾ "Ek-sistence" here "does not coincide with existentia in either form or content," but means "standing out into the truth of being;" it designates an irreducible capacity for awareness of ontology, an access to the significance of ontological questions, that is constitutive of personhood. Ek-sistence in this sense means having access to ontological meanings (i.e. meanings with modal content), and for this reason, ek-sistence itself "can also never be thought of as a specific kind of living creature among others".⁽¹⁸⁾ For being aware of the ontological, standing in the light of being, cannot itself be construed as just a kind of being. For a kind is something an entity exemplifies simply by being it, but Dasein questions what its own being is, and is able to grasp the significance of its having being--therefore Dasein never just has its being, or just is it. Ek-sistence is not a kind-essence, but nor is it bare existentia: rather it is the ontological state of being ontological, that is, open to modal truth, which includes non-actual possibilities that are not merely represented, but given by Being itself.⁽¹⁹⁾ Its awareness of its own possibilities, which arises from Dasein's freedom, is the origin of its peculiar 'standing-out' from kind-existence. By contrast, other creatures "are as they are without standing outside their being as such.."; they are "lodged in their respective environments but are never placed freely in the lighting of being.."⁽²⁰⁾ This clarifies the true relation of freedom and existence for Heidegger: man's "ek-sistence" is constituted by an openness in time to personal possibilities that are conditioned but not determined or closed by history--personal possibilities which open Dasein's eyes to the ontological generally.

We have, then, two Heideggerian theses that help define the Existentialist position: (1) Persons with free agency do not act outside actual existence in time, and (2) even in actual existence, ek-sisting or being a person means that one's ultimate character is not closed.⁽²¹⁾ As we will see, these two theses are the basis for the Existentialist's two strongest objections to Molinism and other conceptions of feasibility.

My primary aim in §II is to show how the first Heideggerian thesis addresses the deepest problem with Molinism. After discussing several other recent critiques of Molinism and responses to them, I will argue that the Molinist conception of 'feasibility' must be understood as a synthetic modality analogous to nomological modality. When this is understood, it becomes clearer that Molinists cannot block the inference that the truths of middle knowledge are 'hard facts' which are metaphysically prior to the actions and choices that they are about. Nevertheless, the Molinist must still attribute these truths to our agency in order to create a disanalogy to causal necessitation. These preliminary conclusions (or lemmas, if you like) provide the basis for the main Existentialist refutation of Molinism. This refutation focuses on the conception of agency implicit in Molinism to argue that authentic moral responsibility for one's actions in a Molinist framework leads to an antinomy.

Taken together, these arguments should be fatal to the classical Molinist position. However, as we see in §III, this analysis will hardly be complete or decisive for the Existentialist. There remains a certain deficiency in the 'simplest' Existentialist conception of human freedom, a deficiency which is related to its apparent failure to accommodate precisely the modal intuitions which Plantinga claims should support his Molinist supposition. I will argue that there is something to this claim, but that Plantinga and other Molinists have not fully analyzed the underlying grounds from which the intuitive warrant for the Molinist suppositions actually derives.

This concludes the negative side of the paper's argument. In Part III, however, I argue that there are ubiquitous modal intuitions about motivation and behavior which Molinism answers to. Plantinga claims that these intuitions should support his Molinist theory, but, as I will argue, Molinists have not fully analyzed the underlying ground from which these modal intuitions arise. In §III (A), I will argue that the modal intuitions which account for the appeal of Molinism arise from our sense that there is modality for volition which limits freedom in its purely libertarian sense. This allows us to separate the notion of "feasibility" and the intuitions which support it from the Molinist theory of feasibility. Feasibility really stands for the pretheoretical intuitions of this synthetic modality, which is closely bound up with our notion of volitional character and 'habits of choice'. Since our common beliefs about feasibility are actually based on intuitions about character or dispositions of the will, it becomes clear that traditional Molinism (including its modern analytic versions) is only one specific conception of this synthetic modality called 'feasibility,' which is associated with volition and character.

When we understand that the grounds of feasibility as a synthetic modality are essentially characterological, the potential for an alternative (non-Molinist) account of the same modal intuitions becomes clearer. Yet, for an Existentialist theory which rejects Molinism, offering such an alternative is not just a potential: it is also a requirement. Any positive Existentialist account of human agency will have to explain the same modal intuitions in an alternative (non-Molinist) fashion. I suggest that the failure of the 'simplest' Existentialist conception of human freedom to meet this need is the root of the most common criticism brought against Existentialism: namely, the danger of reducing free choice to complete arbitrariness among logically possible alternatives. I will discuss this critique using some examples from Harry Frankfurt which will help us to see the need for a 'thicker' conception of volitional character than that shared by utilitarianism and 'simplistic Existentialism.' It is only by developing a characterological account of differentials in the 'feasibility' of our different options for action that Existentialism will ultimately be able to respond to this critique.

In §III-(C), I argue that there should be alternative possible theoretical conceptions of feasibility as a synthetic modality, which would attempt to capture the same modal intuitions as traditional Molinism, but diverge from it in implications. Different theoretical conceptions acknowledge that they are describing the same synthetic modality, but they have different accounts of the 'world-neutral' which ground the modality. Molinism, for example, has an atomistic conception of the truths which ground feasibility: the Molinist sees the ultimate limits on the sphere of feasible worlds as resulting from the interaction of indenumerable, primitive facts about individuals. Seen in this light, however, Molinism is a highly unattractive way of explaining our pretheoretical modal intuitions. There is every reason to belief an alternative conception could do better.

In §IV, I will consider three alternative conceptions which the Existentialist can reject on good grounds. In critiquing the conception of feasibility initially offered by Kant, I will return to the second Heideggerian thesis mentioned above. It forms the basis for the Existentialist's conception of the relation between ultimate moral character and eschatological possibility, which justifies the rejection not only of Molinism but also of other conceptions of feasibility.

In §V, I will explore the habit-based approach to feasibility as a synthetic modality of free choice, beginning a characterological model Robert Adams considers and critiques, as well as another model which must be rejected in light of our findings in previous sections. Finally, in §VI, I will show how to form a new character-based conception of 'feasibility' as a synthetic modality of free choice, which not only avoids the problems of the other models, but is even consistent with Existentialism. This moral conception of volitional modality (or feasibility), which is based on a phenomenological model of personhood, shows how it is possible for Existentialism to be committed to a more substantive account of free agency than it critics realize.

In short, by the end of the paper I will have shown, (A) that the modal intuitions at stake in Molinism are deeper than the particular conception offered by Molinists indicates; (B) that traditional Molinism itself, like several closely related models, captures the content of these intuitions in ways that are both ontologically inadequate and inconsistent with moral responsibility, and (C) that by contrast, Existentialism itself can adequately capture the same intuitions in a new model that clarifies the true relation of character to transcendental freedom, with radical implications. Where Molinism and other alternative conceptions must fail, Existentialism can succeed.

II. The Existentialist Critique of Molinism

Modern analytic forms of Molinism naturally follow Luis de Molina's conception of God's "middle knowledge," which Professor Thomas Flint has conveniently summarized as follows:

...for any person who does or might have existed, God, (being omniscient) would know, prior to any creative act on his part, what that person would freely do in any situation in which that person might be created and left free. Given his commitment to libertarianism, though, Molina also argued that the truths God would thus know--truths of the form "If person P were to be placed in circumstances C, P would freely do A"--would not be truths over which God had any control, despite the fact that such conditionals would be only contingently true.⁽²²⁾

For the Molinist, true counterfactuals of freedom are regarded as particular facts about individuals, which God does not cause but uses as the basis for his providential activity. Both the contingency of these truths and their independence from divine activity is crucial, because the Molinist wants to maintain that these truths are completely consistent with persons having the power to choose among alternatives in a robust sense. But in order to complete God's foreknowledge and guide the creation of the best feasible world, these truths about what a person would do in any situation must metaphysically precede their actual existence.

(A): The Preliminary Objection

The Existentialist is convinced that this picture of our freedom is fundamentally wrong, but it is far from easy to say precisely where the problem lies. My plan is to introduce an initial, largely intuitive objection, which will force us to clarify several of the key features of Molinist metaphysics. Only working through this process will reveal the element of Molinism to which the Existentialist's objection applies.

The initial objection is that intuitively, there is a certain loose analogy between the Molinist's notion of unfeasibility and nomological or causal necessity.⁽²³⁾ A causally necessary truth is logically contingent, but its alternatives are not 'physically feasible.' The counterfactuals which give this truth its modal force are all logically contingent, but presumably true of our physical universe. In a similar fashion, true counterfactuals of freedom are logically contingent, but a complete set of them determines which logically possible (l.p.) worlds are personally feasible (or feasible given the free persons included in these worlds). Just as the sphere of l.p. worlds that are physically possible (relative to our universe) expresses certain natural laws of our universe,⁽²⁴⁾ in the same way, the sphere of l.p. worlds that are 'feasible' in the Molinist's sense might be thought to express certain 'laws' pertaining to the choices of each possible person. We could even say that the logically contingent truth about all a person's counterfactuals of freedom establishes another sort of modality (analogous to causal)--let us call it 'personal necessity' or feasibility--in which we could say that it is personally necessary that Curley would accept the $20,000 bribe if offered it. It is unfeasible for Curley to refuse.

The idea behind this comparison is that feasibility in the Molinist sense, like causal possibility, refers to a kind of synthetic modality distinct from 'broadly logical modality.' Quine, of course, has made a famous attack on the Kantian distinction between 'analytic' and 'synthetic' which requires me to explain what I mean by a synthetic modality very clearly. While Kant's notion of 'analytic' may be inexact,⁽²⁵⁾ suppose we identify 'analyticity' with Plantinga's notion of broadly logical necessity. Then a new definition of metaphysical syntheticity, analogous to Kant's old one, may be given: a proposition is synthetic if it is neither logically necessary (necessary_l) nor necessarily_l false (impossible). Given this reconstruction, Kant's characterization of 'metaphysical' truths as synthetic and necessary propositions can only mean that there are kind(s) of 'necessity' (or modal relevance) which are narrower in scope than broadly logical modality.⁽²⁶⁾ Just as the meaning of causal or physical possibility can be understood in terms of a 'sphere' of l.p. worlds (which excludes some l.p. worlds as physically impossible),⁽²⁷⁾ feasibility can be interpreted as referring to a proper subset of l.p. worlds.

It is perhaps easier to see the relevance of this modal interpretation of counterfactuals of freedom if we reflect on possible patterns of true counterfactuals of freedom that might show up across many or even all possible persons. An example of this would be what Plantinga calls "transworld depravity." If we admit the Molinist assertion that there is always a truth of the matter about what a person would do in each possible fully specified circumstance they could ever be in, it is a short step for Plantinga to assert that it is logically possible that for any world in which Curley is "significantly free" (or possesses negative liberty in the logical sense of having alternative possibilities), there are some choices with respect to which he would always go wrong, if placed in situations requiring him to make them.⁽²⁸⁾ This means that Curley is in what Plantinga calls transworld depravity: the worlds in which he never sins (or "goes wrong" in a morally significant free choice) are all unfeasible in the Molinist sense.⁽²⁹⁾ If we accept that it is possible that "there be persons who suffer from transworld depravity" in this sense--a possibility which Plantinga considers "obvious"--then in addition "it is possible that everybody suffers from it,"⁽³⁰⁾ and even that the essences of all possible free agents could be in transworld depravity, in the sense that in the only l.p. worlds containing them that are in fact creatable by God, they would sin.⁽³¹⁾ In sum, it is logically possible that no feasible world is without sin.⁽³²⁾ If this possibility were true, it would surely look and function very much like an empirical law for persons. Although it would be logically contingent, if such a 'general law of transworld depravity' were true, it would tell us something specific about the limits which determine the sphere of feasible worlds: namely that this sphere excludes logically possible worlds in which free persons are sinless. Within this sphere, we therefore have a synthetic necessity: it is unfeasible (or false in all feasible worlds) for any possible person to live a sinless life. Since this claim extends beyond the range of all actual persons, it seems to have the sort of modal force which is usually thought distinguishes nomological necessities from mere empirical regularities.

If the analogy to causal laws still seems unclear, consider the cosmological function transworld depravity is meant to play. G.W. Leibniz once thought that God could find the best possible world by looking at the overall order (including natural laws) and variety in each world, and identifying the one which had the most 'efficient' combination of these factors. For Plantinga, analogously, among feasible l.p. worlds, there would be an ordering ranging from the world(s) with the least depraved compossible⁽³³⁾ set of persons, to those with more and more depraved compossible sets of persons.⁽³⁴⁾ Then Molinism can provide a "defense" of the existence of the particular world we have, on the grounds that it is possible that this is the best of all feasible worlds--best in mixture of moral good and moral evil, at least.⁽³⁵⁾ If this possibility were true, then every other set of persons God could have actualized would be more depraved in their actions, because their counterfactuals of freedom ensure it, than the set of persons existing in this the actual world.⁽³⁶⁾ It is then not logically impossible but rather unfeasible for God to have done better.

The Molinist would surely argue against the analogy between contingently true causal laws and contingently true patterns of counterfactuals of freedom by insisting that these counterfactuals do not constrain the alternatives to which our free will is open, as causal laws do. God's knowledge of our counterfactuals of freedom does not constrain us because, as Tom Flint says, Molinism allows that we have "counterfactual power" over God's middle knowledge:

"..if I'm free, then I do have the power to do things such that, were I to do them, both God's middle knowledge and his simple foreknowledge would be different."⁽³⁷⁾

But this power to bring about logically possible alternatives is somewhat deceiving, because according to Molinism, it is bound (in a nearly 'nomic' sense) to remain unused. There is no real possibility--possibility in a synthetic sense distinct from logical possibility--of my now exercising my so-called "power" to do things such that, were I to do them, what God foreknows would be different. The reason is simple: God's middle knowledge (as part of his foreknowledge) is based on a set of facts which is metaphysically prior to my being actualized as a real person in an actual, temporal world. Whatever I do here is posterior to the facts that determined God's middle knowledge. Thus, by the same token, what I do as an actual person is also metaphysically posterior to God's middle knowledge. In this respect, then, Professor Flint's so-called "power" is like my power to do things such that, were I to do them, the laws of nature would be other than they are: in other words, it is rather ephemeral at best. Flint admits as much when he notes that for the Molinist, God's middle knowledge is not causally dependent on any of our actions: rather, "our actions are causally dependent on God's decision to create us in the circumstances in which those actions are performed."⁽³⁸⁾ The sense in which I lack the power to do otherwise, then, is something analogous to nomological impossibility. This comparison of Molinist 'feasibility' to causal modality depends, of course, on idea that there can be real (not merely conceptual) kinds of modality more restricted in scope that logical possibility.

(B) The Haskar/Adams Anti-Molinist Strategy and the Molinist Response

This preliminary Existentialist objection to Molinism, however, is quite similar to other critiques which Molinists have insisted they can meet. In his God, Time, and Knowledge, William Haskar published an argument against Molinism⁽³⁹⁾ which can be summarized as follows: (1) the truth of an individual person's counterfactuals of freedom are prior, in some important sense, to their powers of agency; hence (2) because the truth of a counterfactual of freedom necessitates the action it predicts if its antecedent conditions are actualized, an individual in a choice circumstance is not free to act contrary to his or her counterfactual of freedom for that circumstance. In his own "Anti-Molinist Argument," Robert Adams praises Haskar's line of reasoning and portrays his own argument as a "recasting of Haskar's."⁽⁴⁰⁾ Like Adams, I am convinced that Haskar's intuition is on the right track and locates the essential reason why Existentialists, like many others, cannot accept Molinism.

But there have been qualms about the strength of Haskar's proof. In a recent article, William Lane Craig reiterates his opinion that Haskar's argument rests on the "clearly false" premise "that on the Molinist view, counterfactuals of freedom are more fundamental features of the world than categorical facts."⁽⁴¹⁾ Craig can make this objection because the kind of "priority" enjoyed by counterfactuals freedom, which allegedly makes individual agents unfree with respect to them, is quite unclear. As Adams suggests, the first stage of the argument is to show that "created, supposedly free agents do not bring about the truth of counterfactuals of freedom about them, if Molinism is true."⁽⁴²⁾ As an alternative to Haskar's own argument for this, Adams proposes to use "the idea of explanatory priority" to make clearer the sense in which the truth of counterfactuals of freedom is prior to the agent's actions.⁽⁴³⁾ The second stage is to argue "that it follows that such agents do not have the power to act otherwise than they in fact do."⁽⁴⁴⁾ But even supposing we have completed the first stage, Adams identifies several premises in Haskar's subsequent inference that agents lack the power to do otherwise than their counterfactuals of freedom dictate. One premise is that "for Molinism, it is a necessary truth that every counterfactual of freedom whose consequent is true is true."⁽⁴⁵⁾ As Adams says, it would be hard for the Molinist to do without this presupposition, but a more controversial premise is:

...Haskar's assumption that if Molinism implies, as he says, that we do not bring about the truth of counterfactuals of freedom about us, it also implies that we do not have the power to bring about their truth. The assumption is plausible, but I am not sure it has been proved.⁽⁴⁶⁾

Let me dub this the 'Power Inference Principle' (since Adams does not name it). In my own view, the problem with this assumption is that the Molinist can always insist that we have this power in the weak sense that alternative actions are logically possible for us in a given choice-circumstance. This response to the Power Inference Principle (PIP) is damning because Haskar's overall argument is an attempt to show that the metaphysical priority of the truth of counterfactuals of freedom conflicts with our logical possibility of doing otherwise. Thus the inference from our not bringing about the truth of our counterfactuals of freedom to our lacking the power to do so tacitly assumes the crucial point.

What this shows, I think, is not that Haskar's proof strategy simply needs emending, but rather than the goal of his anti-Molinist critique needs to be reconceived. What we need to show is not that Molinism implies that we lack the logical possibility of doing otherwise, but rather that it implies a different sort of powerlessness. In my development of the Existentialist's 'preliminary objection,' I already suggested that it must be in something analogous to a nomological or causal sense that true counterfactuals of our freedom prevent us from doing otherwise. Developing this intuition will both help us clarify the type of 'priority' which the truth of counterfactuals of freedom have, and open up what I think is a better way of pressing Haskar's anti-Molinist intuition.

Adams, however, believes he can construct an alternative anti-Molinist argument without Haskar's conclusion that "it follows from Molinism...that we do not bring about the truth of an counterfactuals of freedom about us."⁽⁴⁷⁾ Adams's argument begins as follows:

(1) According to Molinism, the truth of all true counterfactuals of freedom about us is explanatorily prior to God's decision to create us.

(2) God's decision to create us is explanatorily prior to our existence.

(3) Our existence is explanatorily prior to all of our choices and actions.

(4) The relation of explanatory priority is transitive.

(5) Therefore, it follows from Molinism (by 1-4) that the truth of all counterfactuals of freedom about us is explanatorily prior to our choices and actions.⁽⁴⁸⁾

Adams then skips his steps (6)-(9), which constitute the argument for Haskar's conclusion, and continues with six more steps of his own, beginning with

(10) It also follows from Molinism that if I freely do action A in circumstances C, then there is a true counterfactual of freedom F* which says that if I were in C, then I would (freely) do A.⁽⁴⁹⁾

Since from (5) is follows that (11) "the truth of F* is explanatorily prior to my choosing and acting as I do in C," and since (13), "the truth of F* ..is strictly inconsistent with my refraining from doing A in C," I am compelled by F* to do A in C in a way that is incompatible with my libertarian freedom: (15) "if Molinism is true, then I do not freely do A in C," which is a reductio of Molinism.⁽⁵⁰⁾ To reach this conclusion, Adams only needs the conception of freedom in the following premise:

(12) If I freely do A in C, no truth that is strictly inconsistent with my refraining from A in C is explanatorily prior to my choosing and acting as I do in C.

As Adams explains, this premise is supposed to capture freedom in the "incompatibilist sense," and its implication is that "the totality of my action in situation C" must be the first thing in the order of explanation which logically excludes my acting otherwise.⁽⁵¹⁾

The basic problem with Adams's approach is that the notion of "explanatory priority" is too vague a concept to capture precisely the metaphysical priority that the truth of our counterfactuals of freedom seems to have on the Molinist account. As a result, William Lane Craig has been able to challenge Adams's argument as using "equivocal" senses of "explanatory priority."⁽⁵²⁾ Craig argues that explanatory priority in Adams's (2) and (3) is "metaphysical" necessity, but the truth of our counterfactuals of freedom is required in the same sense by God's decision to create us:

The root of the difficulty seems to be a conflation of reasons and causes on Adam's part. The priority in (2) and (3) is a sort of causal or ontic priority, but the priority in (1) is not causal or ontic, since the truth of all counterfactuals of creaturely freedom is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of God's decision to create us.⁽⁵³⁾

Craig also charges, somewhat obscurely, that the sense of explanatory priority in Adams's inference (5) is different still.⁽⁵⁴⁾ Finally, Craig also charges that Adams's premise (12) is false, because the explanatory priority of my counterfactual of freedom does not entail my powerlessness to alter it:

Though F* is (ex concessionis) in fact explanatorily prior to my freely doing A in C, it is within my power to refrain from doing A in C; only if I were to do so, F* would not then be explanatorily prior to my action nor a part of God's middle knowledge.⁽⁵⁵⁾

Although Craig does not say in what sense it remains "within my power" in C to alter the counterfactual of my freedom which truly describes what I would do in C, presumably he means that it is still logically possible for me to do so. In this second objection, Craig is trying to show that the inference Adams's wants to draw from his premise (12) implicitly requires Haskar's conclusion that the person's choice mentioned in the consequent of the counterfactual of freedom cannot be what actually brings about the truth of the counterfactual. Only if it is not within my power to bring about the truth of my counterfactuals of freedom, could we be assured that their (alleged) explanatory priority makes it logically impossible for me to do otherwise. Thus Craig's second objection forces Adams's case against Molinism to depend once again on Haskar's conclusion that we do not cause the truth of our counterfactuals, and his 'Power Inference Principle.' Without these, Adams will not be able to show that Molinism contradicts our logical possibility of doing otherwise. Craig is satisfied to hang on this Molinist libertarian power--ephemeral though it actually is.

Ultimately, I think Adams's new anti-Molinist argument leaves space for these countermoves because it does not give a clear enough account of the 'special priority' which counterfactuals of freedom must have to be of any use to divine providence: taking this status as an explanatory priority leads Adams to try to show that the truth of my counterfactual of freedom makes it logically impossible to do otherwise. The only way to put a permanently stop to the Molinist's dance back and forth between allowing priority to counterfactuals of freedom (when talking about providence) and then refusing them priority (when talking about freedom) is to develop Adams's and Haskar's insight a different way.

The Existentialist's alternative strategy also has two stages: to analyze Molinist feasibility as a type of synthetic modality, and then to make clear that the synthetic necessity of counterfactuals of freedom is already enough to cancel moral responsibility for one's actions, no matter what ephemeral powers of doing otherwise might remain. Specifically, the type of "explanatory priority" which the truth of counterfactuals of freedom have for God, as in Adams's premise (1), must be interpreted as a kind of necessity which is independent of God's will. Moreover, although these truths are not causally prior to God's decision to create us, in themselves they are already analogous to causal necessities which restrict God's options. God's decision to create us may not be necessitated by these truths, but in analogous fashion, the laws of nature may also be neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for my dropping this penny: nevertheless, these laws are still metaphysically prior to my actions, since they necessitate certain consequences of whatever I do. Analogously, it is deceptive for Craig to suggest that the truth of counterfactuals of freedom serve only as reasons for God's decisions: Molinism very clearly implies that these truths also determine what the consequences of creating free creatures in different situations will be. In fact, it is precisely these real determinations which serve the Divine intellect as reasons. The Existentialist's objective will be to show that the synthetic necessity established by true counterfactuals of freedom is incompatible with moral responsibility, even if it is compatible with the logical possibility of doing otherwise. The first step for the Existentialist is therefore to explain what it means for the truths of middle knowledge to constitute a kind of synthetic modality.

(C): A Theory of Synthetic Modalities and the Truths of Middle Knowledge

To say that the Molinist power to do otherwise is "ephemeral" is not to accuse the Molinist of contradicting the logical conditions of contingency required for libertarian free will. The Existentialist's objections to Molinism do not rest on the misunderstanding that the truth of an individual's counterfactuals of freedom are part of their logical essence, which would leave them only nominal power to bring about different alternatives. But the fact that the Molinist position is so often misunderstood this way is not an accident, and I think it reveals something interesting about Molinism. For example, Plantinga's notion of transworld depravity as a possible pattern of true counterfactuals of freedom lends itself to this common misreading of Molinism, because Plantinga makes it sound as if it is a person's essence by itself which accounts for their transworld depravity. Because he describes individual essences themselves as depraved, it would be natural to interpret Plantinga as meaning that the truth of certain counterfactuals of freedom (those ensuring transworld depravity) is essential to the person--i.e. true in every possible world in which the person exists.⁽⁵⁶⁾

But in fact, Molinism does not hold this: rather, to remain officially consistent with libertarian freedom, it allows that in world W', in which Curley does not take the $20,000 bribe, what Curley would have done (his counterfactuals of freedom) is also different.⁽⁵⁷⁾ A person's counterfactuals of freedom themselves must all be (logically) contingent properties of that person, according to Molinism.⁽⁵⁸⁾ This point, which I will call Flint's axiom, is a corrective to the misunderstanding that an individual's counterfactuals of freedom are logically essential to him in the de re sense. The truths of a person's counterfactuals of freedom are thus not a function of their logical identity alone, since the same person exists with the same logical identity in worlds in which he has different counterfactuals of freedom.

Flint's axiom, however, naturally engenders a new misunderstanding of its own. The problem is that contingency normally means simply being true at some logically possible worlds, and false at others. We may think of contingent truth as truth with respect to a set of logically possible worlds, or truth that is world-relative.⁽⁵⁹⁾ Although an individual's counterfactuals of freedom certainly are contingent in this sense, the truth of those counterfactuals of freedom that become part of God's middle knowledge, cannot be said to be contingent in precisely this simple sense. Flint's axiom is deceptive to the extent that it makes it sound as if the truth of an individual's counterfactuals of freedom is a world-relative truth for the Molinist. We can say that (') Curley would refuse the bribe in C is true with respect to W' (and would be true if W' were actualized), and () Curley would accept the bribe in C is true with respect to W (and would be true if W were actualized), but the Molinist claims that there is an additional fact which breaks this nice symmetry: namely, that Curley in fact would take the bribe. () is true simpliciter, and not just with respect to W. That is why actualizing W' is unfeasible: the counterfactual of freedom ' which would be true if that world were actualized, is in fact false. But is this just because W has been actualized instead? Certainly not, for this truth has metaphysical priority in the following precise sense: is true prior to the actualization of any single, maximally complete, logically possible world.

This makes more explicit how the explanatory priority enjoyed by the truths of middle knowledge must function according to Molinism. The Molinist claims that counterfactuals of an individual's freedom can be true in a world-neutral sense,⁽⁶⁰⁾ where 'world-neutral' is the complementary property to 'world-relative' as used above. Counterfactual is true of Curley, not merely at W or relative to W, but simpliciter. And it is this "fact" that determines that only l.p. worlds (including W) for which is true in the world-relative sense can be feasible.⁽⁶¹⁾ By 'world-neutral,' I do not mean that counterfactuals of freedom such as are true at no l.p. world (which would mean that they are logically impossible), nor that they are true at every world (which would make them necessary). Rather, I mean that the truth of , for example, is independent of the actuality of any particular complete l.p. world out of the l.p. worlds at which is true in the world-relative sense. World neutral truths are prior in actuality to a maximal state of affairs, or to the truth of a maximal proposition (or whatever we take a logically possible world to be).⁽⁶²⁾

And this is what makes Molinism so liable to be misunderstood. In S5 modal semantics, we normally think of a truth about an entity as either logically essential to that entity, or logically contingent for it, i.e. true only at certain worlds in which it exists. But the Molinist implies, without fully clarifying it, that there is an intermediate ontological status truths about entities can have. There are some truths which are contingent in the de re sense, because they do not hold for the entity in every world in which it exists, but which are nevertheless true in the 'world-neutral' sense. These counterfactuals of freedom are true simpliciter, but their world-neutrality does not mean that they are logically essential to the individual: rather, they are neutral among a sphere of l.p. worlds, which must exclude some l.p. worlds in which the individual exists⁽⁶³⁾ but has different counterfactuals of freedom, and would act differently in the same circumstances. For example, although the truth of is neutral among the worlds at which Curley exists and takes the bribe in C, but it unactualizable the (non-empty) set of logically possible worlds in which Curley exists and refuses the bribe in C;⁽⁶⁴⁾ so is world-neutrally true for Curley, although it is not logically essential to him.

This interpretation implies that transworld depravity is also more complex notion than it might appear to be. Speaking rigorously, we should really say that a person's essence contributes to such depravity only by telling us all the sets of choice-circumstances a person would face in all the possible worlds in which they exist. These sets will differ in each world, despite overlaps.⁽⁶⁵⁾ But if we index to each l.p. world the set of choices an individual faces in that world, then the set of these world-indexed sets is essential to the person. This is all the person's essence by itself gets us--it does not by itself tell us that the person is "depraved." For in fact, in the world-relative sense, it is not true that he behaves depravedly in every l.p. world. Rather, it is the 'intermediate' contingent but world-neutral truths of his counterfactuals of the freedom that determine that in every logically compossible set of world-choices of the agent, there are some choices (at least one) in which he would go wrong. It is not really his essence, but his unique set of world-neutral truths about what he would do, which is 'depraved.'

The Molinist is thus an actualist about an individual's counterfactuals of freedom (henceforth, c.o.fs). A given individual has exactly one consistent set of these c.o.fs that are all true for him, in the world-neutral sense, in any world. In other words, while ' is true for Curley at W', this possible counterfactual of freedom ' is nevertheless false in quite another world-neutral sense, which is precisely what makes W' unactualizable. Only when one grasps this does the full strangeness of the Molinist's position become apparent. While the Molinist says that an agent has different c.o.fs in worlds W and W', he cannot only mean that one set of c.o.fs would be true if W' were actual, while another set of c.o.fs would be true if W were actual. While it may be true that if W' were actual, a different set of c.o.fs would be true for Curley, there are facts (unusual, world-neutral ones) that privilege one set of Curley's c.o.fs as the true set for Curley. Which set of c.o.fs this is does not depend merely on which complete logically possible world is actualized. Rather, Molinism insists that it is the other way around: which logically possible worlds can be actualized depends on what these world-neutral truths are.

As a result, the Molinist cannot mean that the true set of c.o.fs about Curley is simply the set that happens to be true in (Plantinga's rigid designator for whichever complete l.p. world turns out to be instantiated as the actual world).⁽⁶⁶⁾ Rather, which set of Curley's c.o.fs is true in the privileged, world-neutral sense determines which logically possible worlds even could become . A set of Curley's c.o.fs is true, prior to the complete actualization of any maximal logically possible world.

If we like, instead of a truth about Curley, we can interpret a true counterfactual of his freedom as a subjunctive state of affairs 'S' (something like 'Curley's would-doing A were C actual'), which obtains, or is contingently actual, 'prior' to the complete actualization of any l.p. world. This 'priority' itself is still primitive or undefined, but at the moment, we are only concerned with how it functions in Molinism. In practice, the 'priority' enjoyed by a subjunctive state of affairs such as 'S' means that it does not entail the actuality of a single possible world, but it does entail that l.p. worlds in which Curley exists and does not do A in C cannot be . For with 'S', the state of affairs corresponding to , we already have a piece of --a piece that is actual 'prior' to the rest of . Thus cannot turn out to be a world that does not include 'S.' The real implication of Molinism is that there is a set of c.o.fs for every possible person like Curley, which is determined from all time to be a segment of . Yet the actuality of all the subjunctive states of affairs corresponding to all the true counterfactuals of freedom put together does not pick out a complete logically possible world: thus taken together, the truths of counterfactuals of freedom is still neutral among many logically possible world.

Let us call this set of truths CF. We could think of those l.p. worlds which contain CF (or which contain nothing whose contrary is entailed by CF) as '-relevant' in the following sense: those worlds remain candidates for becoming . This is what feasibility in the Molinist sense means: it is a relevance notion, since it refers to a particular kind of relevance which some logically possible worlds have. We can think of this relevance as a property which 'colors' a sphere of logically possible worlds. This 'sphere of relevance' is established by the world-neutral truths of CF, or the actuality of the subjunctive states of affairs corresponding to them. The metaphysical priority of CF, which I said consisted in the notion that the truth of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are given prior to the truth of a complete l.p. world, can thus be translated as follows: the -relevance of a certain sphere of l.p. worlds metaphysically precedes the actuality of a single l.p. worlds as . The determination (by God and natural chance, or whatever) of which l.p. world is instantiated as is thus conditioned by the -relevance of our sphere of worlds. The results can be represented in the following diagram:

This model helps us understand why Molinism ought to be interpreted as implying the existence of a kind of synthetic modality. If there is any kind of real synthetic modality, i.e. a modality narrower in scope than logical possibility that refers to distinctions that are not simply a result of our language, our ideals of economy in theoretical systems, and so on, such a synthetic modality could only arise on the sort of ontological ground we are considering here. For some real synthetic form of modality 'K' to exist, there has to be a logically sub-maximal set of states of affairs (in the case of Molinism, those corresponding to CF), whose actuality has some sort of 'metaphysical priority' (either primitive or to be interpreted in some way) relative to the actuality of --the complete logically possible world that is uniquely actual on 'actualist' interpretations of the metaphysics of modality. The prior actuality of this set of states of affairs grounds the relevance of the 'sphere of worlds' which gives meaning to the K-kind of synthetic modality. We can then say that propositions that are true throughout this 'sphere' are K-necessary, those that are true in some worlds in this sphere are K-possible, and those that are false in every world in the 'sphere' are K-impossible.

A synthetic modality with this type of metaphysical structure is not merely 'conceptual:' it would be better described as existential, since the relevance of the sphere of worlds that give the synthetic modality its sense arises from the privileged existence of a certain set of states of affairs. The notion that any such kinds of real synthetic modality exist may seem wild or even scandalous to some readers,⁽⁶⁷⁾ but it must be admitted that the idea makes sense, if we can credit that the truth of some propositions (or the actuality of corresponding states of affairs) may be 'prior' in some atemporal, non-causal sense, to the actuality of an entire possible world. The crucial point is that Molinism itself implies such an account of the truths of middle knowledge when it lets these truths restrict the states of affairs it is possible for God to actualize. All my model does is show why the special priority, or world-neutrality, which Molinism thus gives to the truth of some counterfactuals of freedom inevitably establishes a form of synthetic modality: a real form of synthetic modality just is a sense of modal quantification made relevant by the -relevance of a sphere of l.p. worlds. Whether he likes it or not, the Molinist cannot avoid the implication that 'feasibility' in his sense is a synthetic modality in my sense.

This theory of synthetic modalities is bound to seem unfamiliar for a straightforward historical reason. The type of sub-maximal actuality which ground a kind of -relevance of a sphere of worlds and thus provides the semantic basis for a synthetic modality therefore ruptures both of the standard conceptions of actuality available until now in the metaphysics of modality. On the one hand, David Lewis's 'possibilist' conception implies that every (concrete) l.p. world is equally 'actual.' On the other hand, Alvin Plantinga's theory holds that a single (ersatz) l.p. world is uniquely actualized.⁽⁶⁸⁾ If these extremes represent an exclusive alternative, then the paradigm case of actuality is either (1) an indexical property shared throughout the sphere of l.p. worlds, or (2) the complete actuality of a single possible world . But it is the exclusiveness of this alternative which my theory of synthetic modalities challenges. If synthetic modalities exist, then the paradigm case of actuality is the existence of sub-maximal states of affairs, which determine the -relevance of a limited sphere of l.p. worlds. This is the deepest intuition at work in the theory--a conception of actuality which succumbs neither to Lewis's nor Plantinga's extreme alternatives.⁽⁶⁹⁾ And more importantly, whether they like it or not, their conception of feasibility already implicitly commits Molinists to the coherence of such this 'third' conception of primordial actuality.

Once we grasp this, it is easy to see why the comparison of feasibility to causal or nomological modality is so intuitive. If Molinism is true, then there is some sense of metaphysical priority which allows for 'world-neutral' truths, and hence by parity of reason it will also be possible to interpret nomological modality as a 'kind' of synthetic modality in my sense. Imagine that instead of CF, we have a set of indeterministic natural laws L which are true in a world-neutral sense, like truths of middle knowledge, due to the metaphysical 'priority' of their truth to the full actuality of . Since they are indeterministic, the physical universe these laws constitute will exist in a plurality of logically possible worlds. The 'sphere' of worlds in which L is satisfied thus becomes the 'modal range' for nomological possibility. Events such as exceeding the speed of light, for example, will only exist in worlds outside the -relevant sphere L establishes, and so such an event will be physically impossible for this universe. Although I think this way of conceiving causal modality has much to recommend it on its own terms, my only point here is that such an interpretation of causal possibility has the same sort of metaphysical basis as Molinist feasibility.

Someone is bound to object that I still have not explained this "metaphysical priority" that some segments of enjoy over the complete actuality of itself, when they constitute the modal range for a synthetic modality. But the Existentialist is willing to let the Molinist's account of God's providence and middle knowledge decide exactly what this metaphysical precedence means. It is sufficient that the Molinist account implies that there is some type of priority P, such that the -relevance of a sphere of l.p. worlds is 'P-prior' to God's decision to actualize a single possible world as . As Craig indicates, 'P' cannot be a causal priority, but beyond that it does not matter to the Existentialist what P is, as long as the Molinist considers it sufficient to make it impossible for God to actualize a world that is not -relevant. The Existentialist is only interested in the formal features which result from P-priority being attributed to the truth of a logically sub-maximal set propositions. For whatever P is, the P-priority of such a set of propositions (counterfactual or otherwise) will establish a kind of synthetic modality, as explained. And this synthetic modality acts as a real constraint on God's creative decision, even if it does not cause any particular divine decision. It makes certain creative actions (such as actualizing W' in which Curley refuses the bribe) synthetically impossible for God. And for this to be the case, the synthetic modality must exist P-prior to the existence of particular free creatures. This is as much as the Existentialist will need to demonstrate the untenability of the Molinist position.⁽⁷⁰⁾

(D) The Truths of Middle Knowledge as 'Hard Facts'

As a result of our analysis of Molinist 'feasibility' as a kind of synthetic modality, we can locate the sense in which the truths of middle knowledge are 'hard facts' relative to the choices they entail when a person is actualized in a given circumstance. In his objection to premise (12) of Adams's "New Anti-Molinist Argument," Craig urges that Adams has not shown that "the content of God's middle knowledge is a 'hard fact.'"⁽⁷¹⁾ Yet divine middle knowledge about me includes only world-neutrally true counterfactual of freedom such as , which says that 'JD would do A in C.' It is the world-neutrality of this truth which makes it unfeasible for me to refrain from doing A in C. Thus:

(1) is a truth of middle knowledge.

(2) It is unfeasible for God to actualize an l.p. world in which JD refrains from doing A in C,

i.e. it is unfeasible for God to make false (follows from 1 according to Molinism).

(3) The truth of is P-prior⁽⁷²⁾ to the complete actualization of (interpretation of 2).

(4) The proposition E, which says "JD does A in C," is true (supposition).

(5) It is feasible for God to refrain from creating JD (according to Molinism).

(6) It is unfeasible for JD not to exist and for JD to do A in C

(logical impossibility entails unfeasibility, although not the reverse).

(7) Hence it is feasible for God to make E false (from 5 & 6).

(8) Hence E is true only relative to , not P-prior to the complete actualization of

(interpretation of 7).⁽⁷³⁾

Notice that (8) interprets (7) by the same criterion as (3) interprets (2). The truth of E cannot precede the complete actualization of , since Molinism maintains (5), whether (4) is true or not. Hence, in whatever sense the truth of is 'prior' to the complete actualization of , the truth of E is not 'prior' to the complete actualization of . E is true only relative to various l.p. worlds, including the one that turns out to be . Then if we grant that

(9) P is a transitive priority relation,

(10) the truth of is P-prior to the truth of E

follows from (3) and (8). Thus we have shown that if Molinism is true, there must be a univocal sense of priority at work in results such as (3) and (8), and that irrespective of what it is, if it is transitive, the truths of middle knowledge are prior in that sense to the actions and choices they are about. Thus we can say that the truth of is a hard fact relative to the truth of E.

This overcomes both Craig's objection about the equivocal use of "explanatory priority" and his objection that Adams's requirement for incompatibilist freedom tacitly depends on a demonstration that truths of middle knowledge are 'hard facts.' One doubt remains, however. In anticipation such a reconstruction, Craig says that if a univocal meaning for the needed priority relation is found, "I suspect that any such notion will be so generic and weak" that it will lead to absurd conclusions unless we "deny its transitivity."⁽⁷⁴⁾ On my approach, however, the possibility of such a reductio of P's transitivity does not arise, because I have shown that Molinism implies the existence of a priority relation which can be used univocally throughout the argument, without needing to specify it. The onus is thus on the Molinist, not his or her critic, to show that there is some non-transitive relation of priority which is adequate to make truths of counterfactuals 'world-neutral' in the way necessary for them to restrict the worlds God can actualize. And of course, unless this result is preserved by the interpretation of P, Molinism will not be of any use for the purposes for which its defenders want it, such as answering the problem of evil and explaining the consistency of providence with our moral responsibility for our actions.

It is the Molinist, then, who has to come up with a sense of P strong enough to establish the synthetic modality of feasibility, and yet still weak enough to remain intransitive. And since the metaphysical priority which makes contingent truths 'world-neutral' in the sense necessary to ground any real synthetic modality is almost bound to remain a metaphysical primitive, the Molinist has little chance of vindicating his or her position.

Can the Molinist urge that although that P is a metaphysical primitive, our common intuition is that it is intransitive? This would be very unconvincing, because to most philosophers of religion, even many of those sympathetic to Molinism (let alone laypersons), it comes as a complete surprise that its defenders would even consider suggesting that the truth of a counterfactual of freedom in middle knowledge is a 'soft fact' in the same way as truths in the past about what I will do in the future are considered 'soft' by Ockhamist theories of divine foreknowledge. Rather, it is usually assumed that a Molinist theory of middle knowledge as the basis for divine foreknowledge is an alternative to an Ockhamist interpretation of divine foreknowledge.⁽⁷⁵⁾ For the Molinist who suggests that P is intuitively intransitive claims that (a) there are truths about what I would do 'prior' to my existence; (b) these truths are 'prior' to the divine decision to create me; and yet (c) these truths are posterior to my actual actions and choices! If intuition is our measure, then it must be frankly confessed that the circle which such intransitivity in 'priority' implies seems to border on insanity: when caught in such a circle, the very notion of our existence becomes so pliable that it is virtually reduced to meaninglessness. Clearly, the 'soft fact' Molinist's claim is about as anti-intuitive as a philosophical claim could possibly be.⁽⁷⁶⁾ The natural view is that, if Molinism makes sense at all, the truths of its counterfactuals of freedom constitute facts that are "hard" not only at an earlier time (as in Ockhamism), but even metaphysically prior to all time.

But I think we can say something stronger. There is good reason to think that on the Molinist account, the 'metaphysical priority' attributed to the truths of counterfactuals which establish feasibility must be understood as transitive, even if nothing else can be said about it. The reason is that otherwise, the division of logically possible states of affairs into feasible and unfeasible will not even be 'prior' to God's creative decisions. One can see this as follows:

(1) Suppose that Molinism is true.

(2) Suppose that God makes some free decision D, such as the decision to actualize some

possible world W (consistent with 1).

(3) There is then a contingently true proposition D* which says 'God decides D.'

(4) D* must be true only relative to specific l.p. worlds, i.e. D* is not true P-prior to the

complete actualization of .

Proof (By reductio)

(4i) Suppose that D* is 'world-neutrally' true P-prior to the actualization of a complete l.p. world.

(4ii) Then it would be unfeasible for God not to decide D (from 2, 4i and the interpretation we have given for 'unfeasibility').

(4iii) Then W is the only feasible l.p. world (4ii & our interpretation of feasibility).

[Explanation: since D is the decision to actualize W, if refraining from deciding D is unfeasible, the actualization of any other l.p. world is unfeasible].

(4iv) But in that case, the truths of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are irrelevant for divine decision-making.

(4v) By supposition (1), (4iv) is false.

This shows us why a Molinist cannot hold that God's decision to actualize a particular l.p. world is P-prior to the complete actuality of . If it was, then this decision would have to be neutral between a plurality of worlds, but it would reduce the sphere of the feasible to a single l.p. world. In that case, the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom would be irrelevant for every divine decision they are supposed to inform--since these decisions themselves would already be the only feasible option for God. The actuality of decision like D is therefore a part of , but they are not actual P-prior to the actuality of as a whole. Then we continue:

(5) The truth of a counterfactual of creaturely freedom such as ('Curley would take the bribe

in C') is P-prior to the complete actualization of (as established by our analysis of the

meaning of feasibility).

(6) Suppose (for reductio) that P not transitive

(7) Then the truth of is not P-prior to the truth of D*.

(8) But the truth of is P-prior to the truth of D* (according to Molinism--premise 1).

(9) Thus P is transitive (from reductio of 6 by 7 & 8).

What this argument shows is that if P-priority is not a transitive relation, the truths of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom that makes up Divine middle knowledge cannot play the role Molinism requires them to play. We know that God's decision is not P-prior to the complete actuality of (as per 4), and that the truth of counterfactuals such as is P-prior to the complete actuality of (5), but from these premises, we can only infer that these truths of middle knowledge are prior to the divine decisions whose consequences that are supposed to restrict, if P is transitive [(4 & 5) 8 only if P is transitive]. So the Molinist always implicitly treats the priority he implicitly grants to truths of middle knowledge as a transitive priority relation. The possibility of making a case for a 'soft fact' interpretation of truths of middle knowledge thus looks very bleak indeed.

(E) Why Molinism Must Attribute Truths of Middle Knowledge to Our Agency

Truths of middle knowledge, then, can only be coherently interpreted as putative hard facts. But by itself, this concession will not cause the Molinist to capitulate completely. As Craig urges at the end of his response to Adams, "even if they [c.o.fs] were in some peculiar sense explanatorily prior to our actions because they are true and known by God logically prior to categorical contingent propositions, that would not be incompatible with the freedom of our actions."⁽⁷⁷⁾ To refute this, the best strategy for the Existentialist is to show that if Molinism is true and truths of middle knowledge are hard facts, whatever remaining sense our actions are "free" is insufficient for moral responsibility for our choices and actions.

It is a primary concern of Molinism to maintain its consistency with the conditions of agency necessary for moral responsibility. This is why, as Adams acknowledges, Haskar suggests that "Molinists may wish to hold that in the case of a true counterfactual of freedom,⁽⁷⁸⁾ it is the agent of the free action described in the consequent who brings it about that the conditional is true."⁽⁷⁹⁾ I have vindicated Haskar's view that the Molinist cannot coherently attribute these truths to the agent in the sense of making them soft facts dependent on the agent's actual choices. Nevertheless, if even if the world-neutral truths of counterfactuals of freedom admitted to be are 'hard facts,' I think the Molinist has no option but to hold that the agent is in some sense⁽⁸⁰⁾ still the author of truths of middle knowledge that refer to her possible choices and actions. The reason why, as we will see, is brought out by an 'initial' Existentialist argument that unfeasibility of refraining from my actions voids my moral responsibility for them.

The Existentialist finds the Molinist's counterfactual 'power to do otherwise' ephemeral not because Molinism says that I am committed by my essence to do what I will do in C, but rather because Molinism implies that the truth of the c.o.f. (or fulfilled 'subjunctive conditional,' to be accurate) which entails my actual choice is metaphysically prior to the choice itself. The truth of this c.o.f. makes it unfeasible for me to do otherwise than it describes. Thus if I am not somehow the author of the truth of my c.o.f. itself, the fact that it is logically possible for me to choose otherwise in C is irrelevant: I am no more responsible for it than if I had been caused to do it. The Existentialist insists that moral responsibility requires more than the logically possibility of doing otherwise: it also requires the synthetic possibility of doing otherwise, in every valid sense of synthetic modality.

Molinism allows us only 'ephemeral' power to do otherwise because feasibility is a form of synthetic modality, like nomological possibility. I am in a position relative to the truth of my counterfactuals of freedom analogous to the position I am in relative to causal laws, because the truth of both, although contingent, is metaphysically prior to my processes of deliberating, deciding, willing and acting as an actualized person.

William Alston has helped to make clear the force of this objection by showing that any conception of divine foreknowledge which acts like causal necessitation is incompatible with libertarian freedom of the will. In a 1985 paper, he argues that a condition Plantinga proposes in God, Freedom, and Evil is not sufficient for "significant" libertarian freedom in the full sense:

P: "It was within Jones's power at t₂ to do something such that if he had done it, then God would not have held a belief that in fact he did hold."⁽⁸¹⁾

Alston points out that this power P only guarantees the truth of the compatibilist causal counterfactual that "the actual situation in which Jones found himself is such that a contrary decision, inserted into that situation, would give rise to a contrary action."⁽⁸²⁾ In other words, this power P only says that no antecedent conditions and causal laws causally necessitate Jones's doing at t₂ what God foreknows he will do. In this sense, Jones has a "real" and not just logical possibility of doing otherwise. But Alston argues that Jones will not have the logical possibility of doing otherwise even with P:

For clearly God believes that p at t₁ entails Jones does not do something at t₂ such that if he had done it God would not have believed that p at t₁. And so if divine beliefs are "antecedent conditions" in the relevant sense, i.e. hard facts about the time at which a given such belief is held, then Plantinga's condition for something being within a person's power [i.e. significant freedom] is not met by Jones and power P.⁽⁸³⁾

Alston acknowledges that in God, Freedom, and Evil, Plantinga does not draw the distinction between "hard" and "soft" facts, which becomes crucial in his later Ockhamist view of divine foreknowledge. But even if divine beliefs about an action at a time earlier than that action can be treated as 'soft facts,' the analogous beliefs based on middle knowledge cannot be, as we have seen. Thus we should be able to construct an analogous 'Alstonian' argument that works against Molinism, even if the Ockhamist can escape the original one directed at him.

The key is to realize that "real" possibility means possibility in a synthetic sense, but this is not limited to causal modality: Molinist 'feasibility' is also synthetic in the relevant sense, as we have seen in detail. The Molinist is able to make power P look sufficient to guarantee "real possibility" of doing otherwise only by suppressing the fact that a 'hard' truth of middle knowledge constitutes a different sort of real (or quasi-nomic) impossibility of doing otherwise. Consider the following example.

There is a true Molinist counterfactual saying that if Jones were to exist in a given situation C at t₂, he would do X; yet Jones also has power P at t₂.

Suppose that at t₁ God beliefs that Jones does X in C at t₂. But this is foreknowledge of a 'soft fact' that Jones has the causal power to change by making a decision at t₂. Moreover, let us even extend power P to say that Jones has a real causal possibility of not doing X at t₂: i.e. if he decided to do something else, no causal factors would block the fulfillment of that alternative decision. But even with P in this extended sense, the truth of denies him the real feasibility of deciding differently in the first place: thus his causal power to implement a different choice, were he to make it, is not much use to him. Compatibilist freedom secured by P in this case hides a synthetic limitation which functions as a "real" impossibility in a way analogous to causal necessity.

Thus the Molinist cannot reject this comparison of causal laws and patterns among true counterfactuals of freedom by saying that in life, we are free for our c.o.fs in a sense in which we are not for natural laws. Nor can the Molinist retort that the comparison simply misses the logically contingent nature of Molinist true c.o.fs, since we have shown that is not the issue. The Molinist only has one remaining way of asserting a disanalogy between nomological impossibility and the unfeasibility of acting contrary to the world-neutral truth of one's c.o.f. He can point out that causal laws, especially if interpreted in a strong modal fashion (as I have done), embody limitations on action which confront us as absolutely alien to our volition. The reason is that our agency has nothing to do with creating these limitations: we identify with pure physical necessities even less than with desires and impulses that enter our conscious life without our consent. By contrast, the Molinist must say, the so-called 'restrictions' imposed by the prior truth of our counterfactuals of freedom arise from, or in some sense just are, our agency. We are identified⁽⁸⁴⁾ not only minimally (as with the conscious impulses) but wholly, with the truth of our c.o.fs. Far from being alien to us, our true c.o.fs are what is most authentically and absolutely our own. If truths of middle knowledge are admitted to be 'hard facts,' then asserting that our agency is sufficiently associated with these facts to allow moral responsibility for our actions is the Molinist's only way of responding to the 'initial' Existentialist critique.

(D): The Existentialist Refutation of Molinism

We have now forced the Molinist's hand. The association he posits between our agency and the contingent but world-neutral truth of our counterfactuals of freedom is the only way he can resist the initial objection that the priority of these truths to our actual existence restricts our freedom in a sense analogous to causal necessitation. It is only at this point that the Existentialist's main critique of Molinism can begin.

It is assumed by most analytic philosophers familiar with the issue that the worst problem for the Molinist is that he can give no account of what makes true the set of an individual's c.o.fs that make up middle knowledge.⁽⁸⁵⁾ But the limited force of this objection has only served to obscure the real problem. For this standard objection fails to recognize that the Molinist does claim that we are identified with our true c.o.fs in the practical sense. Even the 'soft fact' interpretation of Molinism which we have critiqued is an extreme attempt to preserve this essential element in the Molinist's program. The Existentialist's objection is more damning than the standard one, because it aims at this real heart of Molinism.

The Existentialist's main argument begins with two conditions I have already alluded to, which both Molinists and Existentialists typically recognize as necessary conditions for moral responsibility for an action:

(1) The individual must have multiple logically possible alternatives for any action.

(2) To be an action, the description (including the purpose or end) under which the individual acted (i.e. the maxim) must be attributable to the individual's agency. In other words, she must be identified with that maxim, intending her action under that teleological description.⁽⁸⁶⁾

The Molinist accepts condition (1). To accommodate (2), he must somehow explain how it is possible for us be identified with the true c.o.fs which determine the maxims we would adopt in each possible circumstance. The difficulty arises, however, from a third premise required by Molinism but rejected by Existentialism:

(3) Truths about what a person would do in different circumstances are made true, in some manner, metaphysically prior to the person's actual existence.

From (1), (2), and (3) taken together, there arises an antinomy which I will call the Antinomy of Authenticity. The general problem this antinomy poses for any sort of Molinism can best be understood in terms of a trilemma.

The first horn of the trilemma is Suárezian Molinism, which maintains that the truth of a person's counterfactuals of freedom is a primitive and inexplicable 'fact.'⁽⁸⁷⁾ This is obviously the position against which the 'standard' analytic objection to Molinism is directed. This Suárezian position saves conditions (1) and (3) through the contingent but world-neutral ontological status of the truth of c.o.fs. But it is unable to satisfy condition (2). Saying that the truth-maker of the individual's counterfactuals of freedom is unanalyzable divorces the truth of his c.o.fs from an individual's agency: in that case, the individual cannot be authentically identified with his true c.o.fs.⁽⁸⁸⁾

The second horn of the trilemma is what I will call sophisticated Molinism, which I think represents the best alternative the Molinist has.⁽⁸⁹⁾ The sophisticated Molinist answers the objection to the Suárezian position as follows: on pain of destroying an individual's moral responsibility for all his actions, she says that the individual's own agency is somehow the truth-maker of his c.o.fs. Now she appears to have a real explanation for why the individual is identified with the truth of his counterfactuals of freedom, and hence why all his actions in accordance with these c.o.fs are morally imputable to him. The sophisticated Molinist thus appears to satisfy both conditions (1) and (2). But her way of preserving (2) contradicts condition (3), to which any Molinist is committed. 'Soft fact' Molinism is precisely an attempt to deny this conflict, but as we have seen, the 'soft fact' interpretation of the truths of counterfactuals of freedom fails when their world-neutrality is recognized. The contradiction between (2) and (3) is then inevitable: for in what conceivable sense could person's agency, purely as possible and metaphysically prior to its actual existence, be the authentic the source of anything? We might accurately characterize Existentialism by saying that its fundamental intuition is that a logically possible person, prior to their existence, is not the source of anything that identifies them with any element of volitional character. To deny this by denying the transitivity of the relevant sense of 'priority' is to obscure the very meaning of existence--as well as to strip truths of middle knowledge of their power to restrict the results of divine choices (as we saw).

Thus the problem with 'hard fact' Molinism (the only coherent kind) is not that it leaves the individual with no logical possibility of doing otherwise. Rather, the problem is that it destroys the agent's moral responsibility for her actions by imposing on her a synthetic necessity to act and choose in a certain way, when this synthetic necessity itself cannot be attributed to her agency. The requirement of authentic identification which is necessary for moral responsibility cannot be satisfied by satisfying conditions (3) and (1) at the expense of (2), as 'hard fact' Molinism does.

Finally, the trilemma allows for one other conceivable resolution, which we might call Essentialism. The Essentialist says that it is simply part of an individual's essence that his agency would choose certain actions, or would will its acts for the sake of certain ends, rather than others. Essentialism thus conceived satisfies (3) and (2), but only at the price of violating condition (1) by giving the individual an agency not logically free to do otherwise in action and motivation. On this account, the individual's true counterfactuals of freedom are logically essential to them. Such an Essentialist position escapes the 'antinomy of authenticity' only if we accept that condition (1) is not necessary for authentic identification with (and thus moral responsibility for) our actions.⁽⁹⁰⁾

But as we have seen, this is not what the Molinist claims. For the Molinist, the individual's c.o.fs are free in the sense of being logically contingent for him, thus satisfying (1). Moreover, this is seen as a necessary condition for moral responsibility. But (3) entails that there can be no intelligible sense in which his agency can possibly have identified him with these contingencies--and this violates condition (2). The notion of a possible but non-actual agency which nevertheless contingently makes some set of choices attributable to itself in se, is nonsense--like the round square cupola.

Thus agency, as explicitly conceived by sophisticated Molinism--and implicitly conceived in all Molinism--makes no sense at all. If this conclusion surprises you as extreme, remember that the Molinist does not merely claim that some set of c.o.fs is possibly adopted by the individual's agency, i.e. would be attributable to him if a given logically possible world were actual. That view might make sense. But no--we are told that, out of all the sets of c.o.fs an individual has in different l.p. worlds, one set is supposed to be actually (but contingently) attributable to him, prior to his existence and in fact prior to the complete actualization of , thus restricting the set of l.p. worlds in which it is feasible for him to be actualized. Indeed, because of these counterfactual truths, which moral responsibility for our actions requires us to attribute to the possible person's agency, God may even chose not to actualize the possible person to whom they are attributed. The Existentialist refutes Molinism by pointing out that this stronger, world-neutral truth of one's c.o.fs which Molinism requires, cannot be attributable to the agent. The essence of any agency is to act, and that is something it cannot actually do prior to being actual itself. This is the fixed point on which the Existentialist stands.

The problem here is highlighted by David Lewis's remarks in his recent effort to evaluate the results of basing a free will defense on Molinism. Lewis argues that the Molinist can only mean that the truths of unfulfilled counterfactuals of freedom are modal primitives, because they can supervene neither on the will of God nor on personal agency. Lewis first asserts that fulfilled counterfactuals of freedom, such as the truth of the fact that Judas would betray Christ, must be made true by the agent's free action. He continues:

Unfulfilled counterfactuals of freedom are very different. They're not rendered true by the free choice of the agent, since they concern choices that never actually take place. Some of them even concern agents who never actually exist.⁽⁹¹⁾

But this actually involves a double misrepresentation. First, the Molinist really treats fulfilled and unfulfilled counterfactuals of freedom in the same way: both are true prior to any choices the fully actualized agent makes in time.⁽⁹²⁾ Second, as I have argued contra Suárez, the Molinist must also maintain that in another sense, all of the individual's counterfactuals of freedom, fulfilled and unfulfilled, are "rendered true" by the individual's "free agency." Otherwise, the actions arising from the truth of these c.o.fs in actualized circumstances would not be morally imputable to the agent.

Lewis simply assumes that the Molinist cannot mean that a person's free agency is the truth-maker for their counterfactuals of freedom, because he sees so clearly why such a claim would make no sense. But Lewis fails to see the 'antinomy of authenticity' in which the Molinist is caught: unfortunately, the Molinist must (to preserve moral responsibility) make precisely the incoherent claim about individual free agencies which Lewis is too generous to attribute to him.

Nevertheless, it is hard to see immediately that there is no rational way the Molinist can claim that my agency is identified in the necessary sense with my actions. For surely my true counterfactuals of freedom describe what I would do, what choices my agency itself would generate. Doesn't this fact--that the counterfactual is about my agency--establish a sufficient connection for identification? Accordingly, the sophisticated Molinist might try to respond to the Antinomy of Authenticity as follows: "A true counterfactual of Curley's freedom tells us what Curley would do in situation S. But in relating this to Curley's agency, what I mean is that Curley's agency would bring about the action predicted by the true counterfactual in S. The fact that this truth holds metaphysically prior to Curley's being actualized in S is no object to its being attributable to his agency, because it describes what his agency would bring about."⁽⁹³⁾

This is no doubt what the sophisticated Molinist must think. But this response misses the point of the Existentialist's objection. The Existentialist's point is that what a person's agency would do must itself be attributable to his agency, if the person is to be morally responsible for what he would do. If we accept the Molinist hypothesis that there is such a truth for every possible circumstance Curley could be in, including the ones he actually passes through in the real world, then his actions in every actual circumstance reflect the truths about what his agency would do in those circumstances. If his agency is not responsible for these truths about what it would do, then Curley is not responsible for his actions. But there is no way his agency can be responsible for the truth of these fulfilled counterfactuals about his agency, or any other counterfactuals true for it.

A subjunctive relation of the agency to its actions within the counterfactual is thus not good enough for moral responsibility. The reason why is not hard to see in light of our previous analysis of truths of feasibility as synthetic necessities for the person analogous to causal necessities. The Existentialist's argument against Molinism can be summarized as follows:

i. To be morally responsible for an action X, an agent A must be volitionally identified with that action [principle (2) above].

ii. An agent A is alien to (non-identified with) any synthetic necessity which he has not brought about by his own agency [this is clear in the case of causal necessity].

iii. A true synthetic counterfactual C of A's freedom telling us that he would do X in situation S is a synthetic necessity for A in the following sense: its actuality precedes the actualization of any particular complete logically possible world, and hence it holds for A in every feasible world [implied by Molinism].

iv. An agent A is alien to (non-identified with) any state of affairs X that is logically or synthetically necessitated by the actuality of another state of affairs Y with which he is not identified [corrolary to principle (2)].

In support of (iv), the Principle of Transitivity of Alienation, I should point out that this principle cannot be in dispute between the Existentialist and Molinist. For it is the reason why non-compatibilists accept that an agent cannot be morally responsible for an action which is causally necessitated by some prior state of affairs, if he did not freely bring about that causally prior state of affairs. The key is to see that the transitivity of non-identification (or alienation) holds in general for any relevant form of synthetic necessitation, and not just for causal necessitation. If X synthetically necessitates Y, and individual I is not identified with X, then individual I is not identified with Y. We continue:

..how an atemporal God could act at different times, in different ways, while never himself changing. The story is simple: There is one eternal divine act outside of time that has a great number of different effects in time, at different times.⁽⁹⁶⁾

This picture of the divine agency leads to Molinism in two ways. First, in order for God so conceived to know in atemporal eternity all that is necessary for the multiple effects of his single divine act to include responses to creaturely initiatives and choice, one has to "defend something like the Molinist conception of divine knowledge.."⁽⁹⁷⁾ But in addition, this divine agency which atemporally and all at once performs in a single act everything it will ever do from our perspective intuitively inspires the sense that there might be an analogous notion of human agency. Against this background, the notion that the truth of a person's counterfactuals of freedom must somehow be attributable to their agency, as if they had made them true in act prior to temporal existence, must not have seemed strange.

In this, the early Molinists were not only led astray by a wholly inadequate conception of divine agency.⁽⁹⁸⁾ In addition, they failed to see that even if such a conception of agency could work for God, it could not properly be extended to other persons. For on this account, God is at least actual in all possible worlds, and His 'single ultimate act' could therefore be thought of as world-neutrally actual⁽⁹⁹⁾, whereas the 'single act' of an individual human person, by analogy, would implicitly attributed to his agency prior to its very actuality. This implicit but unrecognized equivocation was the root of the fatal flaw in Molinism.

III. Feasibility Without Molinism: Our Pretheoretical Modal Intuitions About Volition

(A) The Ground Underlying Molinist Intuitions

If all this is accepted, however, the debate is far from won for the Existentialist. Plantinga is still right that intuitively, we think we know what it would mean for something like counterfactuals of creaturely freedom to be true. Indeed, these intuitions are a crucial element in a vast preponderance of our rational deliberations about actions that will create circumstances in which others are expected to react. We think literally all the time about things such as what A would think of me if I gave her X for her birthday, or what B would do if he were offered a position at the college, and so on. Thousands of everyday interactions which seem to involve something like 'counterfactuals of freedom' range from the narrowest egoistic anticipations of others' responses in bartering, to developing friendships and making much longer range plans that depend on possible future reactions of others to situations we either consider bringing about, or anticipate coming about without our help. Every kind of rational 'contingency planning' apparently depends on the intuition that there are truths about what persons would do in different institutional arrangements, faced with different set of options, and so on. Existentialists must also accept this: in their terms, we could say that reasoning about social existence in all its forms, and indeed our very sense of being in a lifeworld inhabited by other agents with whom interaction is possible, seems to arise from the intuition that there are true counterfactuals of agent-freedom--the intuition which Plantinga has claimed is 'natural.'

This at least explains why Molinism has a certain intuitive appeal. But the ground of these modal intuitions requires critical analysis before we can tell if it is really a ground for Molinism, or if some other theory might not better capture our intuitions. What underlies them? Why, at bottom, do we believe that we can meaningfully think about what people would do in all sorts of more or less completely specified hypothetical circumstances? When we reflect on this phenomenon--which we so often take for granted--it seems obvious that the reasons we have such beliefs always have to do with some aspect of what in general we call character. Our belief that there is a truth about what individuals would do arises from our sense that they have predispositions, habits, and tendencies which give substance to their volitions. Robert Adams provides a convincing example of this:

There does not normally seem to be any uncertainty at all about what a butcher, for example, would have done if I had asked him to sell me a pound of ground beef, although we suppose he would have had free will in the matter. We say he would certainly have sold me the meat, if he had it to sell. What makes us regard it as certain? Chiefly his character, habits, desires, intentions, and the absence of countervailing dispositions. (He would have had no motive to refuse me).⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

This example should prompt us to note, however, that there are different 'levels' of character, and different types of 'facticity' involved in more or less determining what a person would do, at each of these levels. At the 'lowest' level, we can agree with Plantinga that "If Robbins had slipped and fallen at Thanksgiving Ledge, he would have been killed," because of the law of gravity.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Here the facticity, which is determining rather than merely predisposing,⁽¹⁰²⁾ is purely part of 'physical character,' and thus not part of 'character' in the sense related to morally significant actions at all. Then there is physiological character: if I were to hold a lit match to his palm, he would instinctively try to withdraw his hand. We still have not reached character in the moral sense. Next, there are broad tendencies which make up 'economic laws' based on the 'character' of people purely as buyers and sellers in different types of markets: Adams's butcher obeys these laws. Similarly, if I were to raise the price of gasoline nationally, Jones would still buy almost as much of it, because his demand for it is inelastic. We might think these laws do not hold for all actual people, since they are to some extent culture-relative and dependent on a value system which says it is okay to order one's decision preferences purely as a rational utility maximizer when visiting the supermarket, if not in other contexts. In other cultures--and certainly in other possible worlds--where these values are not operative, persons would make different decisions in the same or similar circumstances.

But even at this stage, we have only reached the level of impulses, desires, and preferences which people typically allow to dictate their economic behavior (at least to a large extent), without necessarily taking an attitude towards these preferences, even when acting on them. Most if not all of what we commonly think of as moral character relates to higher-order attitudes one takes towards one's first order impulses, desires, and preferences.⁽¹⁰³⁾ Being courageous, for example, does not mean that one would not have a fearful impulse if one found oneself in a situation of grave danger. Nor does it simply mean having the second-order desire or volition not to act on one's fearful impulse (for an unwilling coward--one who recently decided he no longer wants to be a coward--would have this volition). Rather, it means a settled and effective higher-order disposition to resist acting on one's fearful impulses, a lasting tendency to the right sorts of higher order volitions, which has brought one's first-order will under its control.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾

I believe the intuition that there can be morally significant facts about what a person would do--facts for which they are morally responsible even if they were never in the circumstance to do these actions--arises from our sense that, on this higher order level of character, quite independently of physiological factors and other basic needs and impulses that cause desires, volitional dispositions⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ can make it true (or at least probable) that I would or would not do something in a hypothetical situation. When the modal intuitions to which the Molinist appeals are actually examined, their ground turns out to be entirely characterological. This basis for Molinist intuitions is apparent even in the language used by the late medieval authors. Robert Adams notes that Suárez believes a person has one of two properties, "either the property of being a possible agent who would in s [a situation] freely do a, or the property of being a possible agent who would in s freely refrain from doing a." It is no accident that Suárez called such a property a "habitudo."⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ The fact that habits of will or volitional dispositions are the basis for our belief in apparently Molinist counterfactuals also explains, I think, why intuitively we do not always believe there is some truth of the matter about what someone would do (i.e. why we believe that the principle of Conditional Excluded Middle fails). If I had been born on a futuristic Martian colony and had the chance to perform some heroic feat there, would I have taken it? Probably we have no intuitive sense that there is a truth of the matter for a case thus specified. But if we added in my complete circumstances there, including every fact about my character, would not our intuition become stronger that there is a truth about what I would do? The reason is that in moving to the maximally specified circumstance, we have captured the factors that really matter, and much more. What matters is not actually the complete circumstance, but rather my character and those aspects of the situation to which aspects of my character relate