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    The doctrine of Middle Knowledge is neither necessary nor... — Carmelics
    Home/Free Will & Foreknowledge
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    The doctrine of Middle Knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient by itself to avoid theological fatalism.

    Free Will & Foreknowledge
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Middle Knowledge does not entail the falsehood of any premise of the basic argument for theological fatalism.
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    • 2.Freddoso argues that Molina rejects the closure of accidental necessity under entailment, but for reasons closer to the Dependence Solution rather than Middle Knowledge alone.
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    • 3.Flint rejects some steps of the fatalist argument in addition to defending Middle Knowledge, implying Middle Knowledge alone is insufficient.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Middle Knowledge uniquely grounds God's foreknowledge in counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, which are logically prior to God's creative decree.
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    • 2.Without Middle Knowledge, no alternative account can explain how God foreknows free acts without either collapsing into simple foreknowledge or making freedom illusory.
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    • 3.If Middle Knowledge is the only coherent mechanism preserving both libertarian freedom and exhaustive divine foreknowledge, it is by definition necessary to avoid fatalism.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Freddoso's and Flint's supplementary commitments are not independent rejections of fatalism but are themselves entailed by accepting Middle Knowledge as a foundational explanatory framework.
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    • 2.If Middle Knowledge explains why truths about free acts are not accidentally necessary relative to agents, then the apparent need for additional solutions dissolves from within the Molinist framework itself.
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    Topics

    Free Will & Foreknowledge

    Key Terms

    knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.)
    Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.

    Related

    Flint rejects some steps of the fatalist argument in addition to defending Middl...Freddoso argues that Molina rejects the closure of accidental necessity under en...Freddoso's and Flint's supplementary commitments are not independent rejections ...If Middle Knowledge explains why truths about free acts are not accidentally nec...
    +5 moreShow less
    If Middle Knowledge is the only coherent mechanism preserving both libertarian f...Middle Knowledge does not entail the falsehood of any premise of the basic argum...Middle Knowledge uniquely grounds God's foreknowledge in counterfactuals of crea...More recently, blends of Ockhamism and Molinism have been defended, suggesting M...Without Middle Knowledge, no alternative account can explain how God foreknows f...

    Similar

    Middle Knowledge does not entail the falsehood of any premise of the b...86%More recently, blends of Ockhamism and Molinism have been defended, su...85%The soundness of the argument for theological fatalism must not be obv...83%The situation is arguably the same when it comes to the argument for t...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: free-will-foreknowledge
    View source passageHide passage
    Duns Scotus (Kenny 1979, 56–58) appears to have challenged this principle. Fischer (1985b) responds to the challenge. But the theory of divine omniscience that has been most closely associated with the denial of (5) is the doctrine of Middle Knowledge. This doctrine was vehemently debated in the 16th century, with the version of Luis de Molina, referred to as “Molinism,” getting the most attention in the contemporary literature. Recently the doctrine has received strong support by Thomas Flint (1998) and Eef Dekker (2000). Unlike the other compatibilist solutions we are considering, which aim ...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit