Almost a year ago, Tim Stratton and I crossed swords over the topic of Molinism. You see, I am a committed Calvinist; I consider myself “Young, Restless, and Reformed.” Heck, for my birthday, my girlfriend Sophia bought me a “Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy” T-shirt! In other words, I wholeheartedly embrace the Westminster Catechism, the doctrines of grace, Christian hedonism, etcetera.

And yet, as I’ve steeped myself in the Reformed tradition these past few years at Wheaton College, I’ve realized that the Pipe-line (read: John Piper inspired Calvinism) does not exhaust the riches of Reformed theology. Historically, the camp has cast its tent much, much wider. Indeed, modern Calvinists differ in many ways from their theological predecessors—even Calvin himself! Over the years, I’ve grown to appreciate the fact that one can be broadly Reformed and even disagree with certain aspects of neo-Reformed theology.

In fact, I even believe that one can hold to both the “5 points” of Calvinism and Molinism. But before I formulate a Reformed version of Molinism, it must be asked: why would any Reformed person ever want to be a Molinist? To this, we can reply: why wouldn’t any Reformed person want an adequate solution to the problem of evil?

What does Molina have to do with Calvin?

Suppose you, your friend Little Johnny, and your friend Little Timmy were all walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon. In a moment of utter depravity and maliciousness, you bump Little Johnny into Little Timmy, and Little Timmy is sent careening off the cliff to his untimely death. When the cops show up, who will they arrest? You or Little Johnny? Clearly, they would arrest you. Why? Little Johnny is not morally accountable because something external to him caused him to bump into Little Timmy. In other words, when some agent A is caused to do some action X by purely external causes, then we cannot hold A accountable for X.

Consider the Incredibles 2. When Mr. Incredible had a mind-controlling helmet attached to his head, was he responsible for the damage he caused to the yacht? (If you haven’t watched the movie and don’t get the reference, don’t worry about it. Pretty much, a superhero was under mind control and he damaged a boat.) Of course not! There were external causes which made him want to damage the boat, and caused him to do so.

Historically, I’ve used this argument against physicalism/naturalism. If my consciousness is just the motions of matter going on inside my head (perhaps a certain region of brain stuff), then its functions are caused by the external, surrounding activities of the brain stuff. If causality is purely bottom-up (brain stuff to consciousness), then my conscious moments are always being caused by external activities. How, then, could I ever be accountable for my actions?

I have considered this to be a powerful argument for a very long time. Indeed, a physicalist (if they were consistent) would have to hold a physiologically depressed person just as morally blamable as a “normal” person for, say, skipping work. Why? Simply put, it does not make sense to excuse an externally caused action in one sense (depressed-induce inability to work) and not in another (physiologically-induced/caused inability to work). However, I’ve long realized that this is also a powerful argument against hard determinism of any stripe—including certain Calvinistic modes of determinism. Indeed, if God’s decree determines all events in reality, then He is the external cause which produces the actions of all agents.

Historically, I’ve tried to escape this by arguing two points. First, God does not decree evil the same way He decrees good. He decrees evil by giving people over to the evil in their hearts, allowing them to freely choose as they would apart from His grace. He decrees good by actively causing good in the world. Second, although God determines the truth-value of what a free creature would do in any given circumstance, He determines it in such a way so as to render the creature accountable. The mechanism by which God determines these truth-values, in other words, is a mystery.

That second point is where my own theology of God’s sovereignty started to crumble. Even if I said “the mechanism of decree is a mystery”, it does not change the fact that God’s decree is logically prior to the truth-value of what a free creature would do given any circumstance. Indeed, God Himself would be the external cause of creaturely action in all circumstances—including evil. Logically, God’s decree is in the same position (causally) as Little Timmy’s murderer. I realize therefore that I need a better solution.

Is this solution Reformed Molinism? It could be. While I am not yet a Molinist (as Molinism may turn out to be overly simplistic in some way), I now recognize it as a helpful philosophical tool. Indeed, I will use it to show that Molinism renders Reformed theology compatible with the doctrine of God’s goodness.

With this in mind, let us sketch a Reformed vision of Molinism.

Reformed Molinism and Federal Headship

Why did God create the world? Any adequate theology must start with God’s goal in creation, as God’s telos governs everything—literally, everything—in the universe.

According to what I’ve defended here, God created the world for His glory. That is, everything was made to reveal the beauty of God by proclaiming who He is. Calvin once called the world the “theatre of God’s glory”; indeed, he believed that the Divine Artist bathes us with His radiance from every single facet of the world. In creation, the invisible God becomes visible—supremely so in the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Humanity, then, was made for God’s glory. We were made to image God’s beautiful moral character, wisdom, and dominion over the world. In other words, we were made to be co-regents with God. And yet, instead of reigning as God’s kings and queens, we chose instead to rebel against God. In fact, we all rebelled in Adam.

This, of course, is where Molinism becomes handy. The doctrine of “Federal Headship” argues that Adam represented God on behalf of all mankind. Why do I suffer for what Adam did? Historically, Reformed theologians have answered: because Adam represented us as our covenantal head, just as Christ represents us as our new covenantal head. Apart from something like Molinism, however, there’s a fundamental problem. Though Christ represents all of His people, we are (rightly) undeserving of the consequences of Christ’s obedience. This is precisely because we did not do what Christ did; He accomplished what we could not. However, if Christ’s headship to us is analogous to Adam’s headship to us, then how could be deserving of the punishment that befell Adam? In other words, why is it that I’m morally responsible for what Adam did, but not for what Christ did?

We would not inflict an entire population with the punishment a representative makes, because the representatives we elect never perfectly represent his or her constituency. However, suppose a representative we elected didembody the will of the people. Suppose we elect a new president who, in choosing to nuke China, perfectly reflected the will of his constituency. In other words, when he chooses to nuke China, he is making the choice that his constituency would have made in his shoes—a choice that reflects what they would have done. In such a case, that population is just as guilty as the representative.

Similarly, Adam is humanity’s perfect representative. His choice embodies the choice that everyone would have freely made in his shoes. God chose Adam as the one man who sums up the choice everyone would make; and hence, “we chose to sin in Adam.” Just as the US population’s choice is expressed in nuking China in their representative, so our choice to forsake God was expressed in Adam.

If Adam makes the choice that everyone would have made, then God must have middle knowledge of the choice all persons would have made in Adam’s shoes. And in the same way that the US constituency would (at least) share in some (if not all) of the moral guilt of the representative, so we share in death (though the reprobate may experience differing degrees of judgment in the eschaton). Now some might object, “but I wasn’t around to make the choice! Even if I would have made the same choice as a representative in the antebellum south to own a slave, that doesn’t make me accountable for the same action.” But this misses the point: there was no representative around in the antebellum south who was chosen to represent you.

Some might further object: “but wait! I didn’t choose Adam to represent me. Why can God choose such a representative without my consent?” But of course, choosing a representative is only significant insofar as we want to choose an accurate representative; why do we need to choose our own representative if we know the one chosen for us actually perfectly represents us? If the ultimate issue is really about autonomy—“God has no right to choose someone to represent me without my consent, even if that representative accurately reflects me”—then we must reply with a line from the apostle Paul: who are you, O man, to talk back to God? On what grounds can we say that God just ought to ask my permission to represent me; if He has chosen an adequate representative, why does He need to ask my permission? Just because…?

More could be said here, but for my present purposes this will suffice. I have outlined a Reformed Molinist doctrine of Federal Headship.

Total Depravity and Molinism

How do the doctrines of Total Depravity and Molinism fit together? According to total depravity, there is not one aspect of the human person that isn’t touched by sin. Or in other words, there is no part of us that, in and of ourselves, moves towards God. This is different than saying that humans are as bad as can be; rather, it is to say that in ourselves, we don’t move towards God. However, the Lord has given common grace throughout the world, so as to preserve semblances of moral action among all societies.

This rules out any form of Arminianism or Wesleyanism. Why? On this model, it is impossible for God to bring us up to the point of decision by grace, and then to leave that decision up to us ultimately. If God did that, then we would all choose hell! Or in Molinist terms: it is the case that all people following Adam would freely choose rebellion unaided by grace in any way. Grace must carry the decision itself, and cannot merely carry us up to the point of decision. On a Molinist view, God is not responsible for the bare fact that free creatures would freely choose rebellion if at all unaided by grace; for God did not determine/cause such a counterfactual. He did not create free creatures such that they would fall. Creatures are wholly to blame for this reality. We all fell in Adam, and following Adam we continually choose to rebel against God.

This isn’t to say that God does not ordain evil. Indeed, God still ordains all things that come to pass—including evil itself. However, the way in which He does this (on a Molinist view) is by giving free creatures over to their own evil wills, in order to let them choose what God knows they would freely choose. In other words, God’s ordination of evil is just His choice to let us to ourselves; in doing evil, we see what we are apart from God. And, if true, this is a terrible and humbling fact. Sovereign grace is the only thing that can save us.

Reformed Molinism, Unconditional Election, and the beauty of Irresistable grace

But praise be to God that our petty rebellion cannot thwart His redeeming love! God can and will save anyone whom He chooses to save; indeed, the rebellion of mankind is no obstacle to God’s purposes. God can make anyone a true child of Abraham, showing mercy to whomever He wills and hardening whomever He wills (by giving people over to their own rebellion). This is, of course, a summary statement of unconditional election.

According to this doctrine, God chooses whom He will save based on nothing He sees in them, but solely according to His wisdom, grace, and purposes. This entails a corollary; God chooses whom He will passover, and thus judge, based off nothing in them (i.e, it is not because they were more rebellious than the elect) but solely based off His wisdom. However, as Calvin writes in his treatise on predestination, election to damnation is just in light ofmankind’s universal worthiness of hell. And since God did not determine that creatures would freely rebel against Him, He is not responsible for our condition. He therefore owes us nothing. No one can blame God for refusing to give a pardon He doesn’t owe—a pardon offered by grace alone; we cannot accuse God of injustice for withholding something He didn’t have to give us anyway.

However, some might still object that God’s sovereign salvation of the elect reduces them to mere puppets. God is still the sovereign cause of salvation and all good works the elect do, so how is their agency still maintained? On a Reformed Molinist soteriology, we can give a coherent answer: God makes an offer the elect cannot refuse!

Have you ever seen a sunset so beautiful that you could not help but say, “wow”? Have you ever been in love, such that you couldn’t help but kiss the one you loved and complement his/her beauty? Whenever we encounter genuine beauty, joy seems to well up in the human heart. This joy overflows into praise. As CS Lewis once said, praise is the appointed consummation of delight; praise not only expresses joy, but completes it. All delight tends towards praise. And yet, when lovers praise one another, they do not do it forcedly. It is not as though their agency gets destroyed as they adore one another in praise. If such is true when lovers see each other’s beauty, why should it be true when creatures see the splendor of the Creator?

God saves people by opening their eyes to His beauty in Jesus Christ. When you encounter that beauty through the Holy Spirit shining in the Gospel, you leave a changed person. You cannot help but say, “wow. Lord, I want you. Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love, and be the King of my life through Jesus Christ.” In the same way that a woman who smells a rose for the first time might develop new desires, a taste of Jesus granted through the witness of the Spirit creates new desires in the human heart. Or in other words, God knows the conditions under which He must reveal His beauty such thatwe would be changed and choose Him. The visceral experience of divine glory calls forth praise—not by eliminating our wills, but by renewing and transforming them. Moreover, God knows the extent to which He must reveal His beauty to each particular person for them to embrace Him.

But is our will still free in this choice if we could not but yield to the sweetness of Christ? I believe it is, and Frankfurt is a valuable ally in demonstrating this. Borrowing an analogy, suppose you went to vote in the election. Unbeknownst to you, a mad scientist hooked up electrodes to your brain, such that if you voted for either Trump or Hillary he would force you to vote third party. When election-day arrives, you vote third party and the electrodes are never used. Now, even though there was something external barring you from making a choice for Trump or Hilary, it is not therefore the case that your choice to vote third party was not free.

Similarly, God’s gracious gift of beatific encounter prevents the elect from rejecting Christ. However, it prevents the elect from doing so in the same way that a man enthralled with his wife could not say “you’re ugly, and I hate you.” The taste of beauty creates new desires and new affections while also barring filthy desires and affections. So while the elect could not reject God’s gift of faith, nevertheless their wills are still preserved and trained by grace to choose the good. Moreover, the elect can get no credit for choosing the good—for it was the only choice they could make in the presence of Goodness Himself!

Irresistible grace, then, is not a description of God’s obliteration of our wills. It is rather a description of how God transforms our wills and liberates us to embrace Him. The doctrine does not teach that we can never resist the grace of God, but only that when God so choosesHis beauty will transform us and draw us. His ultimate gracious purposes for the elect cannot be finally resisted. We might resist for a time, but the voice of our Savior will win us over to Him (and back again and again when we stumble and fall). God Himself causes the conditions in which we would freely choose Him by bathing us with His glory in the Gospel, and transforming us in His presence through the Spirit of Christ.

He will have us because He is unrelentingly good. And we, the sheep of His pasture, will have Him because He opens our eyes to His unceasing beauty. He Himself is the offer we cannot refuse.

Conclusion

I have chosen to treat Federal Headship, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, and Irresistable Grace, as these are the aspects of Reformed theology that Molinism can clarify. Of course, there are questions here that I can (and will) answer elsewhere: why doesn’t God give His self-revelation to everyone? Why doesn’t God save everyone? Etcetera—but other Reformed theologians have answered those questions adequately (I believe).

Yet, what I have sought to do here is to demonstrate that Molinism fruitfully and coherently exonerates God from the charge of injustice. Though God ordains all evil, He is not morally blameworthy for it. Moreover, I have not appealed to mere mystery. Rather, I have sought to show how God’s sovereign predestination of all things is compatible with our own moral culpability. Though God predestines the circumstances in which we freely sin, yet He does not determine that we sin in those circumstances. There is a huge difference; though God ordains that sin be, He does not make us sinful beings. We alone are to be blamed for sin.

And as I love to say with my Reformed brethren, He alone is to be praised for salvation. For Christ was and always will be the decisive cause of my faith; Jesus is my righteousness, wisdom, sanctification, and redemption. And He has caused my faith not by obliterating my will, but by transforming it with His beauty and training me to choose the good day by day. Therefore, “as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:30) He alone is worthy for all aspects of salvation and goodness in the world. And for this, I will rest in His praise. Where else would I rather be but in the praise of my King?