Welcome to the Knowledge of God Prosblogion reading group! Each week, we will read a section of the book, and the section breakdown and ordering is as follows:
C. 1 (1-30), C. 1 (30-69), C. 4, C. 5, C. 2 (70-108), C. 2 (108-150), C. 3, C. 6.

Each Monday, a different Prosblogion contributor will write an opening post. Other contributors can post on that section two or three days later in the week. Everybody is welcome to read along in the book and comment.

It's a pleasure to kick-off all the fun. Let me summarize the main claims that I take Plantinga to argue for in my section.

I) If God exists, then it is likely that many people know that God exists.
II) If Christian belief is true, then it is likely that many people know that it is true.
III) If naturalism is true, then no biological organs function properly or improperly.

Plantinga's defends (I) and (II) as follows:

Assume our world is indeterministic and consider the evaluation of (C),

C. If Nixon had pressed the nuclear button, God would have brought it about that the future was no different from the actual future.

The asymmetry of counterfactual dependence in indeterministic worlds mirrors, as a matter of contingent fact, the asymmetry of quasi-miracles. In the most similar worlds where Nixon pressed the nuclear button he performed some free action. No divergence miracle was necessary. But what was the future of that world like? Do the closest worlds in which Nixon pressed the nuclear button reconverge to the actual future? Re-convergence to the actual future requires a quasi-miracle that, as a matter of contingent fact, constitutes a significant dissimilarity between worlds. A quasi-miracle could bring about re-convergence should an extremely improbable pattern of chance events cover every trace of Nixon's having pressed the nuclear button. But it would be remarkable that just the chance pattern needed to cover every effect of that counterfactual hypothesis is the pattern that occurs.

But, now, are quasi-miracles remarkable under the assumption that we inhabit not some ordinary indeterministic world, but a Molinist indeterministic world? There seems no reason to think so. For all we know about God's purposes and goals for individuals, nations, and humankind, and for all we know about his ways of achieving these goals, God is using quasi-miracles constantly to ensure the realization of his providential aims. After all, quasi-miracles require no violation of law, not even probablistic law. So, it seems to be a contingent fact about Molinist indeterministic worlds that quasi-miracles do not constitute a significant dissimilarity between worlds. If the world we inhabit is a Molinist indeterministic world then, at the very least, we are not sure whether (C) is true.

But now to the problem. If we are not sure if (C) is true, then we are also not sure whether (C') is true.

C'. If Nixon had pressed the button, then there would have been a nuclear holocaust.

But, on the contrary, we do know that (C') is true. So we know too that (C) is false. That is, either we are in radical skepticism about which counterfactuals are true or this is not a Molinist world. Therefore this is not a Molinist world.

Congratulations to Andrew Cullison and Sarah Gerkensmeyer on the birth of their son Simon Richard Cullison. Simon entered the world on June 23, 2008 at 1:42 AM and Andrew already has pictures and videos online. I have to agree that seeing your child born is high on the "list of all time coolest things ever"!

So, by my count in the last four years of the blog there has been a baby to Pierce, Rhoda, Timpe, Dougherty, Pawl, and now a Cullison. Who goes next in the rotation? Is it back to me?

I'm thinking about whether it is possible that Swampman exists, where Swampman is a creature that is created by lightning which hits a swamp and the atoms just happen to arrange in to the exact arrangement of the atoms which constitute Donald Davidson (or some human). I'm also thinking about whether it is possible that Theodore exist, where Theodore is the accidental byproduct of a clumsy angel's trying to create something else (like a statue).

Plantinga gives the following (he calls 'inconclusive') argument:

But if there is such a person as God, it is unlikely that it is possible that a being capable of belief and moral agency should just pop into existence, unintended and undesigned by God. According to the Christian tradition, only God can create beings capable of belief and moral agency; I am inclined to think this is right. But even if it isn't, even if it is possible that God should delegate the task of creating such beings to some of his creatures, it still wouldn't be possible that such a creature pop into existence unintended by God. (1995, PPR 55:2, p. 460)

I have a few questions. First, where in the Christian tradition does it say this?

Secondly, is it possible that a creature that is capable of belief and agency come into existence, and it is not intended by God?

Thirdly, is it possible that a creature that is capable of belief and agency come into existence, and it is not designed by God?

I take it that to design something takes a little more than intending its existence. The owners of Honda could intend for there to be the creation of more cars, but the engineers of Honda might have to design those cars. I also take it that some facts are unintended by God. I am a certain distance from an atom on your left cheek - it's not obvious (and probably not the case) that God intended this fact to be the case. This is probably an unintended byproduct of other things God intended. Both of these points can be disputed.

Omar Mirza has a forthcoming paper in Phil. Studies (available in SpringLink in the 'OnlineFirst' section) where he (among other things) examines three standard objections to EAAN, shows that Plantinga's responses are faulty, and then provides his own responses. (For other Prosblogion discussion of EAAN, see here, here, and here. For Plantinga's most important paper on it, see here.)

I want to examine his response to the tu quo que objection. Now it's dangerous to reach into the middle of a complicated dialectic and pull out relevant little bits for discussion, but that's what I'll try to do! (There is a possibility that I will make hermeneutical errors; I take full responsibility and am open to correction!)

Though it went uncommented on at the time, last week Prosblogion passed the four year marker. Thanks to all the contributors and commenters who continue to make this site a success. Thanks especially to Jeremy Pierce for originally suggested the idea for the site. Readers can look forward to new developments on the site, including fresh voices as we add new contributors in the coming months. As always, advanced graduate students and professional philosophers interested in contributing to Prosblogion should contact me directly.

One new development is the advent of the Prosblogion reading group. A number of contributors have gotten together to read Alvin Plantinga and Michael Tooley's new book Knowledge of God, part of Blackwell's Great Debates in Philosophy series. You can expect the first post, on the first half of chapter one, beginning June 30th. Our plan is to put up fresh posts on the book every Monday thereafter. For those of you that would like to read along, you can help out funding this place by purchasing the book from Amazon.

Here's to another year of thoughtful and engaging posts and discussions!

Passing this along from Rochester alum Nathan Nobis:

"I am looking for writings on what might be called African American philosophy of religion or African-American perspectives on philosophy of religion (or even African philosophy of religion). I have not had much luck finding things. If anyone knows of anything relevant and can pass on the info or post it, I would appreciate that greatly."

Let me add a third beat-up-on-Molinism post. Here is the idea. Ordinary language makes use of counterfactuals of free will (CFWs). But ordinary CFWs are not Molinist in kind. For one, Molinist CFWs have no truthmakers, or at best have Platonic kinds of truthmakers (a pair of abstract propositions standing a property of subjunctive conditionality). Ordinary CFWs have concrete truthmakers.
Here are some examples of ordinary CFWs:

1. George grabs some money off the table not knowing or caring whether it is his or not. As a matter of fact, it is his. A standard criticism to make of George is: Were the money not his, he would still have taken it.


2. Martha kisses a man she just spent two hours talking with at a bar. Had this man not been her husband, she might not have kissed him.


3. Patrick is an optimist, and as gets up in the morning, he chooses to believe that he won the lottery for which the draw was last night. He looks at his newspaper, and finds he was right. Nonetheless, we say that Patrick did not know he won until he looked at his newspaper, and one reason he did not know was because he would have believed that he won even had he not won.


4. Curley takes a smaller bribe. Had he been offered a larger, he would have taken it. (This example is Plantinga's.)

The four above CFWs are made true by the causes, motives and reasons behind the agent's actual choice. Thus, that George took the money and did not know or care whether the money was his is what makes it true that he would have taken it even if it were not his. What makes it true that Martha might not have kissed the man had he not been her husband is that among the considerations guiding Martha's decision to kiss the man, there was the fact that he is her husband. What makes it true that Patrick would have come to the same conclusion had he not won is that he chose to believe he won on grounds that would have been the same had he not been the winner. And what makes it be the case that Curley would have taken the larger bribe is that he took the smaller, and all the reasons for taking the smaller bribe are available for taking the larger, and there are no additional reasons against taking the larger bribe (if there are, e.g., if the penalties are higher, then we ordinarily cannot affirm the counterfactual in (4)).
There is a way in which these kinds of ordinary CFWs do not state some further counterfactual fact--rather, they are a convenient restatement of the facts about the causes, motives and reasons behind the agent's actual choice.
Because these CFWs are made true by concrete things, they are not Molinist CFWs. In fact, I suspect that most Molinists (I am thinking of Tom Flint in particular, who made a remark that commits him to this) would say that the corresponding Molinist CFWs can have different truth value from the ordinary ones. For instance, take (2). On standard Molinist views, it is highly plausible that there is a possible world w where Martha kisses her husband, and where the fact that he is her husband is one of the reasons for kissing him, which is sufficient to make true the might conditional in (2), but where in w there also holds the Molinist CFW that had he not been her husband, she still would have kissed him. Thus, the Molinist CFW would conflict with the ordinary one. Likewise, Molinists are apt to agree that Molinist CFWs could be such that were Patrick not to have been the winner, he would not have chosen to believe that he was the winner. The Molinist CFWs hang loose from the ordinary ones, then, and are irrelevant for the kind of nomative evaluation that we make. If Patrick is lucky enough that for him the Molinist CFW holds that had he not been the winner, he would not have chosen to believe he was the winner, that doesn't make his belief knowledge.
But now we have a problem for the Molinist. Nomic counterfactuals and ordinary CFWs are different kinds of counterfactuals from Molinist CFWs. But then how do we ever acquire a concept of a Molinist CFW? And if we don't ever acquire such a concept, then it seems all the Molinist stuff is, literally, nonsense.

Suppose that a Molinist God creates a world where there is a sequence of 1000 indeterministic throws of a fair coin, and suppose that middle knowledge extends to stochastic non-agential events. (My argument will also apply in the case of Thomist God who determines indeterministic events.) Suppose 514 of the coin throws, let us suppose, are heads and 486 are tails. Consider the fact p that approximately half of the throws landed heads. A standard scientific explanation of p would involve the following facts:

1. The coin was fair: heads and tails each had probability 1/2.
2. The individual throws of the coin were independent of one another.
3. If (1) and (2) hold, then by an appropriate version of the Law of Large Numbers, it is likely that a sequence of 1000 throws of the coin would have approximately half of them be heads.

Fact (3) is a mathematical fact. Facts (1) and (2) are concrete facts about the situation at hand, and both are essential. If (1) is false, we might well expect a different heads-to-tails ratio. If (2) is false, then the Law of Large Numbers need not apply.

But this scientific explanation is unlikely to be correct if Molinism holds. For if Molinism holds, then God in effect controls what sequences of throws come up, by choosing the antecedents of counterfactuals. God makes the choice of sequence based on global providential considerations. Since the sequence is chosen on the basis of considerations of the sequence as a whole, it seems unlikely that the items in the sequence will be independent.

Suppose we say, as I suggested in the previous thread in response to Mike's related concern, that God deliberately chooses a sequence of events that is statistically apparently random. Then p will still be true--about half of the throws will land heads. However, (2) will not be true, at least not if we condition on God's choosing a sequence of events that is statistically apparently random. For, if (1) and (2), hold we have a non-zero probability that all the throws will be heads. But conditionally on of (1) and the claim that God chose a sequence of events that was statistically apparently random, we get a zero probability that all the throws will be heads, since if all the throws were heads, the sequence could not be statistically apparently random.

Perhaps we shouldn't condition on God's choosing a sequence of events that is statistically apparently random. But if we don't condition on that, then to check whether (1) and (2) we need to compute the probabilities of all the possible choices God could have made. And we have little reason to think (1) and (2) will hold then.

In Molinist worlds nothing is left to chance, not even undetermined events. God does not choose any object or person or circumstance randomly in anyone's life-history. Tom Flint describes the traditional view of providence captured in the Molinist account.

Isn't it natural to think that He has arranged it so that, not just some things, but everything fits together in such a way that his love is made manifest? Isn't it natural to think that nothing is left to chance, that nothing haphazard or unexpected from the divine perspective occurs . . .? (p. 13, DPMA).

If God is directing each and every undetermined event toward his chosen goals, then we should not observe a chance pattern in the occurence of those events. We should rather observe evidence of God's direction. We should find the frequency of undetermined events diverging from their chances. The problem for Molinism is that there is no evidence that God is using counterfactuals of creaturely freedom to direct undetermined events in the world. We simply do not observe any divergence between frequency and chance.