The Grounding Objection to Molinism

According to the Molinist, God's knowledge of the counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (e.g., if my sister had voted in the 2004 presidential election, she would have freely voted for John Kerry) enables Him to have the sort of providence over his creation that Christians have traditionally attributed to Him. The grounding objector to Molinism argues that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom cannot possibly be true. Roughly, the objector reasons that there is nothing available to make counterfactuals of this sort true. In this dissertation, I attempt to advance the discussion of the grounding objection to Molinism by identifying distinct versions of the objection and stating these versions more carefully than they have been stated before. I suggest that there are broadly two kinds of grounding objections: truthmaker-style grounding objections and causal-style grounding objections. The truthmaker-style grounding objections employ grounding principles akin to the claim that 'All truths require truthmakers.' The causal-style grounding objections employ much more specific grounding principles that apply only to propositions that describe an agent's free actions. I suggest that the causal-style grounding objections that employ these more specific principles present the most significant problem for the Molinist. However, with respect to both kinds of grounding objections, I argue that the Molinist can satisfactorily reply. In the final chapter of this dissertation, I explore the possibility of a truthmaker-style grounding objection to a competing account of divine providence, Open Theism. I argue that the Open Theist's most plausible response to this objection opens the door for a parallel escape from a truthmaker-style grounding objection to Molinism.