The False Appeal of Middle Knowledge: a Critique of Alvin Plantinga’S Commitment To

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The False Appeal of Middle Knowledge: A Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Commitment to

Counterfactuals of Freedom

A thesis presented to

the faculty of

the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University

In partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts

Frederick W. Crow IV

August 2020

This thesis titled

The False Appeal of Middle Knowledge: A Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Commitment

to Counterfactuals of Freedom

FREDERICK W. CROW IV

has been approved for

the Department of Philosophy

and the College of Arts and Sciences by

James M. Petrik

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Florenz Plassmann

Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3

Abstract

CROW IV, FREDERICK W., MA, August 2020, Philosophy

The False Appeal of Middle Knowledge: A Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s Commitment to

Counterfactuals of Freedom

Director of Thesis: James M. Petrik

In the course of formulating the free will defense in his book, The Nature of

Necessity, Alvin Plantinga contends that God knows counterfactuals of human freedom and thus possesses what is commonly called “middle knowledge.” My aim in this thesis is to show that the principal justification Plantinga gives for middle knowledge fails.

Specifically, I note that Plantinga’s intuitive case for middle knowledge tacitly assumes that the law of distribution holds for counterfactuals of freedom. I then draw on the modal semantics of David Lewis to argue that one ought to recognize that there might be ties in similarity among possible worlds and that the law of distribution, consequently, does not hold for counterfactuals of freedom. Finally, I complete my criticism of Plantinga’s intuitive case by contending that the possible worlds relevant to determining the truth value of counterfactuals of freedom are very much among the sorts of possible worlds likely to allow for such ties. 4

Dedication

I dedicate this thesis to my mother and father without whom I would still be very, very

lost. It is they who taught me to give it my all, giving all the glory to God.

Acknowledgments

I sincerely acknowledge the mentoring and assistance of Fr. Chad Ripperger,

Ph.D. in my early years for producing such an interconnected interest in philosophy and theology. Without his dedication to my growth, I would not have been able to accomplish this work.

I am also ever grateful for the later mentors I had as well, while at Ohio

University. I owe many thanks to everyone on the faculty. Most especially, I owe my deep gratitude to Dr. Scott Carson and Dr. James Petrik for their constant willingness to field my questions and push me to grow intellectually.

I am grateful to the many unnamed who contributed to this work in any way, including but not limited to any kind of proofreading, moral support, and any other loving dedication to my success on this project.

Table of Contents

Page

Abstract ...... 3 Dedication ...... 4 Acknowledgments ...... 5 1. Introduction ...... 7 2. Logical Version of the Problem of Evil ...... 9 3. Plantinga’s Free Will Defense ...... 10 3.1. The Nature of a Defense ...... 10 3.2. The Free Will Defense ...... 11 3.2.1. Significant Freedom ...... 12 3.2.2. Strong and Weak Actualization ...... 14 3.2.3. Middle Knowledge ...... 16 3.2.4. Universal Transworld Depravity ...... 20 4. Critique of Middle Knowledge...... 23 4.1. The Grounding Objection ...... 24 4.2. Plantinga’s Intuitive Case for Middle Knowledge...... 28 4.3. A Problem for Plantinga’s Intuitive Case for Middle Knowledge ...... 31 4.4. Possible Worlds Semantics of Counterfactuals ...... 34 4.5. Plantinga and Distribution ...... 36 5. Conclusion...... 41 References ...... 43

1. Introduction

In the course of formulating the free will defense in his book, The Nature of

Specifically, I note that Plantinga’s intuitive case for middle knowledge tacitly assumes that the law of distribution holds for counterfactuals of freedom. I then draw on the modal semantics of David Lewis to argue that one ought to recognize that there might be ties in similarity among possible worlds and that the law of distribution, consequently, may not hold for counterfactuals. Finally, I complete my criticism of Plantinga’s intuitive case by contending that the possible worlds relevant to determining the truth value of counterfactuals of freedom are very much among the sorts of possible worlds likely to allow for such ties. This criticism of Plantinga’s position was first suggested in a brief, undeveloped footnote in James Petrik’s book, Evil Beyond Belief. My contribution is to develop Petrik’s suggestion in greater detail and rigor by deploying the modal semantics of David Lewis.

In building my case, I proceed as follows.

I begin by reviewing the logical problem of evil, where the atheist demands an explanation for how it is consistent that there can be an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God who created a world wherein any evil exists. After doing so, I briefly give a summary of Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense that aims to show one way in which the existence of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, creator is 8 logically consistent with at least some evil in the world. In explaining his free will defense, I will explain the nature of middle knowledge and the impact Plantinga’s acceptance of middle knowledge has on the form his defense takes.

With that background in place, I turn to the focus of this essay: diagnosing the inadequacy of the intuitive case Plantinga makes that counterfactuals of freedom possess truth value.

It should be said that my aim is not to say for certain whether there is middle knowledge, though I, as a close follower of the Dominican school, have my doubts that there is such a thing. My aim is merely to demonstrate that the intuitive justification for middle knowledge given by Alvin Plantinga rests on a tacit and suspect inference. I am, thus, providing an error theory of the strong intuition that motivates at least some of those who support middle knowledge.

2. Logical Version of the Problem of Evil

There are two main versions of the problem of evil: logical and evidential. The former levels a very strong charge of irrationality against theists; namely, it is logically inconsistent to hold that there is an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God (for ease of reference we will henceforth refer to a being with all three of these characteristics as omni-natured) and that there is evil in the world. Theists, according to logical versions are therefore guilty of holding logically inconsistent beliefs. Evidential versions are less ambitious, maintaining only that the evil in the universe renders God’s non-existence more likely than God’s existence. Theists, according to evidential versions, are therefore guilty of holding a belief rendered improbable by empirical evidence. Since Plantinga’s endorsement of middle knowledge arises in the course of his developing a response to logical versions of the problem of evil, that version will be our focus in this essay.

The full force of the logical version of the problem of evil is best appreciated if one approaches the issue by way of a discussion of the characteristics that constitute

God’s omni-nature: omnibenevolence, omniscience, and omnipotence. If God is truly omni-natured in the ways just specified, surely He has the motivation to actualize the best possible world (due to His omnibenevolence); and surely He knows which possible world is the best (due to His omniscience); and surely He has the power to actualize such a world (due to His omnipotence). Moreover, since all evil is contingent, it follows that there are possible worlds containing no evil; therefore, the existence of an omni-natured creator is logically incompatible with the existence of any evil in the actual world.

3. Plantinga’s Free Will Defense

Plantinga’s response to the logical version of the problem of evil is to formulate what he calls a “defense” in which significant human freedom plays a prominent role. In this section, I first provide an overview of Plantinga’s technical understanding of a defense to the problem of evil. With this account in place, I next explicate the specific defense formulated by Plantinga and the role played in it by human freedom.

3.1. The Nature of a Defense

As Plantinga understands the concept, the point of a defense is not to provide the true account of why an omni-natured God would have created a universe that contains evil. Providing that sort of true justification for God’s allowing evil is what Plantinga calls a theodicy. A defense, by contrast with a theodicy, has a more modest aim. The point of a defense is to provide a logically coherent account that specifies a possible reason an omni-natured God might have created a universe containing at least some evil.

In a defense, as understood by Plantinga, one aims at showing that it is logically consistent to believe both that there is an omni-natured creator and evil in the universe, but one is not attempting to argue that the account provided is the true or correct account of why God has allowed evil in creation.

To show that God being omni-natured is logically consistent with the existence of evil, Plantinga adopts the following general approach: specify a proposition that is i) internally coherent, ii) logically consistent with a proposition affirming of the existence of an omni-natured God, and such that iii) the two propositions entail the existence of at least some evil in the universe. Such an argument would take the following form, where 11

(a) is the proposition that there exists an omni-natured God, and (b) is the additional internally coherent proposition, and (c) is a proposition affirming the existence of some evil in the world.

(a  b) → c

This would, logically speaking, show that the original proposition that God is omni-natured is logically consistent with there being evil in the world. The question remains, of course, whether there is a proposition that can fill the role played by (b) in this framework. Plantinga answers this question in the affirmative with an account that has significant creaturely freedom playing a prominent role.

3.2. The Free Will Defense

In the course of giving his defense to the problem of evil, Plantinga chooses to focus exclusively on moral evil. If he is able to find an internally coherent proposition that is consistent with the existence of an omni-natured God and such that the two propositions jointly entail the existence of evil in the world, then Plantinga will have shown that the existence of an omni-natured creator is logically consistent with at least some evil. And further, this would thereby refute the logical version of the problem of evil, inasmuch as that version alleges that the existence of an omni-natured creator is logically incompatible with the existence of any evil. The crucial proposition Plantinga employs is that all significantly free creatures may suffer from universal transworld depravity.

In order to understand what Plantinga means by universal transworld depravity and how it functions in his defense, some terms must first be defined. In elaborating 12

Plantinga’s free will defense, we will proceed as follows: In section 3.2.1, I define significantly free moral agents; in section 3.2.2, I clarify the difference between weak and strong actualization; in section 3.2.3, I introduce the theory of middle knowledge; and in section 3.2.4, I tie these together by introducing universal transworld depravity.

3.2.1. Significant Freedom

In the course of his free will defense, Plantinga relies heavily on the concept of an agent who is significantly free. In order to understand what he means by a significantly free agent, we must know what he means by 1) the ability to act freely and 2) a morally significant action. If an agent is capable of both of these, then he or she is said to be significantly free. With respect to the ability to act freely, Plantinga notes if an agent in

“…the state U of the universe up to the time he takes or decides to take the action in question…is free with respect to that action, then it is causally or naturally possible both that U hold and [he or she] take (or decide to take) the action, and that U hold and [he or she] refrain from it.”1 (Readers familiar with philosophical accounts of human agency will note that Plantinga is endorsing a libertarian or incompatibilist account of freedom.)

With respect to morally significant action, Plantinga notes that an action is considered morally significant if the action matters towards making the agent morally blameworthy or praiseworthy. An example of a morally significant action is choosing whether to deny

Christ in the face of martyrdom, because it makes the agent morally praiseworthy or

1 Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974, 166.

13 blameworthy for his or her action. However, as Plantinga says, “…having an apple for lunch (instead of an orange) would not…” make the agent morally blameworthy or praiseworthy; therefore, that action is not said to be morally significant.2 With these two definitions in place, Plantinga notes that for an agent to be significantly free, he or she must be able to act freely in a way that merits moral praise or blame.

Plantinga notes that one of the preliminary statements of the free will defense is that out of all the possible worlds which God could create, some of those worlds in which

God creates creatures that are at least sometimes significantly free and use this freedom to occasionally commit moral evils are better than the worlds where there is no freedom at all. Moreover, given that the significant freedom of the creatures in these worlds is incompatibilist in nature, it follows that God cannot determine directly all the actions of all the significantly free persons inhabiting such possible worlds; thus, the ability to perform morally corrupt actions seems to be a risk involved in actualizing any world containing significantly free creatures.

Still, Plantinga notes, this is not of itself an adequate defense. Ever the careful metaphysician, Plantinga recognizes that it is of the nature of libertarian freedom that it is logically possible that all significantly free creatures always use their freedom to make choices that are morally praiseworthy and that there thus exist possible worlds containing significantly free creatures but no moral evil. That God cannot directly create such a world, Plantinga notes, does not eliminate the possibility that God might use an indirect

2 Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 166. 14 approach to ensure that a world containing significantly free creatures and no moral evil be actualized. To see what Plantinga has in mind here, we must turn to his distinction between God’s strong and weak actualization of a possible world.

3.2.2. Strong and Weak Actualization

The best way to understand the difference between God strongly actualizing and weakly actualizing a possible world is to first understand it in terms of particular states of affairs. Strong actualization is a case where an agent chooses to bring about some state of affairs where he or she is a direct and primary cause that results in some particular effect.

For instance, I am an agent who strongly actualized my making of coffee this morning.

That contingent state of affairs relies primarily upon me having directly brought about the circumstances that in turn directly yielded the production of the coffee by way of natural causes and conditions.

On the other hand, there is a way in which one can weakly actualize states of affairs as well. The agent who weakly actualizes states of affairs does so, not as a primary, direct cause, but as a secondary cause who manipulates circumstances in order to assure that in a certain state of affairs some other agent freely and directly causes an effect to obtain. Returning to my coffee example, let us imagine that I am a night owl, and my ability to rise from sleeping in the mornings is severely lacking. Unfortunately, due to life’s demands, I must arise from my slumber very early each day of the week. My wife, as kind as she is, almost always has coffee already prepared, because she is an early riser, one who would arise even without a need to do so. When I wake, however, I find that this morning is unlike other mornings, since no coffee has been made. I know that 15 my wife merely forgot (since she doesn’t drink coffee) and I do not know how to properly measure out the needed coffee beans. I also know that my wife is easily motivated by a compassionate nature, so I make a point of looking at the empty coffee pot and then at her with the most endearing puppy eyes in hopes she will promptly make the coffee. And, behold, success! She gives me a smile, indicating she realizes there is no coffee, and goes to make some. This is an example of my weakly actualizing a state of affairs: I manipulated the circumstances to induce my wife to freely choose to make the coffee.

If I can both strongly and weakly actualize states of affairs, why could the same not be said of God? After all, if we are able to foresee circumstances (like my looks of endearment being used to induce my wife freely to make coffee), then certainly God— who is omniscient—can do the same, and on a grander level. God might weakly actualize a possible world with significantly free creatures and no moral evil by strongly actualizing circumstances in which He knows that the free creatures will always refrain from doing what is evil. In this way, God might bring about a world with significantly free creatures and no moral evil without compromising the freedom of those creatures by coercively restraining them in circumstances in which they would freely go wrong.

To clarify how it might be possible for God to do this, at least according to Alvin

Plantinga, I must say a few words about middle knowledge.

3.2.3. Middle Knowledge

Scientia media, or middle knowledge, was first explicitly identified by renaissance philosopher and theologian Luis de Molina.3 Objects of middle knowledge include conditionals with an antecedent that specifies a state of affairs that is either contrary to the actual world or not yet actualized, and consequents that specify an incompatibilist free choice.

Middle knowledge was so named by Molina because of its relation to the other types of knowledge God possesses; thus, a very brief sketch of the kinds of knowledge traditionally ascribed to God is in order.

It is common to make an initial division of God’s knowledge into two basic categories. First, there are things God knows before willing a particular world’s creation, and this is called God’s prevolitional knowledge.4 The other objects of God’s knowledge are those things He knows that are contingent upon His willing a particular world. This is called postvolitional knowledge. Postvolitional knowledge is also called free knowledge since it is dependent upon God’s free choice to create a particular world.

There are two subspecies of prevolitonal knowledge: natural knowledge and middle knowledge. Natural knowledge is what God knows of universal natures of things

3 Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge. Translated and edited by Alfred J.

Freddoso (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 1988.

4 I use the word ‘before’ here to identify an order of reasons or operations and not the temporal order. 17 such as numbers, properties, essences, and metaphysical possibilities. These things are necessary objects of knowledge; they obtain regardless of what world God actualizes.

Middle knowledge is also present before God’s willing to create a particular world.

Unlike natural knowledge, however, middle knowledge is knowledge of contingent truths. That is a feature it has in common with God’s free (post-volitional) knowledge of the world He has willed to actualize. However, middle knowledge is also not exactly the same as God’s free knowledge. God’s free knowledge is contingent upon God’s creation of a particular world; whereas, God’s middle knowledge is knowledge either of some possible world that has not yet obtained or some possible world that did not obtain and thus is not contingent upon the particular world God has willed to actualize.. Middle knowledge thus gets its name because it is between God’s natural knowledge and His free knowledge.

There are two types of possible objects of middle knowledge: i) counterfactuals of freedom and ii) deliberative conditionals.

Counterfactuals of freedom take the form of “If X had been the case, then Y would have freely chosen to Z.” Counterfactuals are contrary-to-fact, which means that the antecedent is false. As it will play a prominent role in this paper, I here provide the example used by Plantinga of a counterfactual of freedom. Imagine that the mayor of a major city is the corrupt, Curley Smith who has accepted a bribe of $35,000 to enact some initiative. The person who offered the bribe wonders if Curley might have been bought more cheaply and asks if Curley would have accepted freely the lesser amount of 18

$20,000. Here we can construct two counterfactuals of human freedom that correspond to

Curley’s two possible choices in the counterfactual circumstances:

“If Curley would have been offered $20,000 dollars, then he would have accepted the bribe.”

And

”If Curley would have been offered $20,000 dollars, he would have rejected the bribe.”

Does God know which of these is true and which is false? If so, then God has middle knowledge.

In addition to counterfactuals of freedom, another class of potential objects of middle knowledge are deliberative conditionals. Deliberative conditionals take the form:

“If X occurs, then Y will freely perform Z.” The consequent in deliberative conditionals must be a free choice that has not yet been made and may not ever be made. Take for instance the following example: God knows that John Doe is very liberal with monetary donations to those is need. Bob Dee is planning on robbing a convenience store to feed his family; but before he does, he asks John Doe for a loan. God knows that if He actualizes the world where John Doe has surplus resources, John Doe will freely give the loan and Bob Dee will freely choose to not rob the convenience store.

The relevance of middle knowledge to the logical problem of evil is that God might use middle knowledge to weakly actualize a world where humans are both 19 significantly free, and yet still never actually commit any moral evil. If God knows what all possible free creatures will freely do in all possible circumstances, it is open to God to use this knowledge to strongly actualize circumstances in which all creatures always freely refrain from evil. In doing so, God would thereby be using middle knowledge to weakly actualize a possible world that contains significantly free creatures but no moral evil.

If, however, God does have this middle knowledge, as Plantinga assumes, then it seems the atheist has won. God’s omni-natured characteristics are indeed logically inconsistent with there being evil in the world, for an omni-natured God would have used

His middle knowledge to actualize a possible world in which significantly free agents always found themselves in circumstances in which they would freely choose to refrain from evil. If Plantinga is going to successfully find the additional internally coherent proposition (b) that conjoined with the existence of an omni-natured creator (a) entails there is evil in the world (c), then he must somehow show that it is possible that even with this middle knowledge, God could not actualize just any world He wanted. To show that this might be the case, Plantinga introduces what he calls, transworld depravity.

Plantinga uses transworld depravity to show that even with middle knowledge God might not have been able to weakly actualize a world wherein there were significantly free creatures who never committed evil.

3.2.4. Universal Transworld Depravity

Essentially, a person suffers from Transworld depravity if it is the case that in every possible world in which the person exists, there is a least one set of circumstances with the following two characteristics:: i) the circumstances will require the significantly free agent to make a morally significant choice, and ii) if those circumstances were part of the actual world, the person would choose to freely do what is morally wrong.

Universal transworld depravity is simply the extension of transworld depravity to all free creatures in all possible worlds. If universal transworld depravity is even possible—and Plantinga notes that there seems no internal inconsistency to supposing it—it would be the case that an omni-natured God’s possession of middle knowledge would not enable God to guarantee the creation of a world containing significantly free creatures and no moral evil. If universal Transworld depravity is supposed, even an omni-natured God cannot weakly actualize such a world. Swinburne gives the following helpful summary of the role of universal transworld depravity in Plantinga’s argument:

It is logically possible, Plantinga urges, that there is universal transworld

depravity. He does not claim that it is probable that there is such depravity, but

merely that, because this is possible, it does not follow from God having middle

knowledge that he can create a world in which there are free beings who always

choose the good. And that seems correct.5

5 Richard Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

2011), 129. 21

If we now return to Plantinga’s general format of defense to the logical version of the problem of evil, we are in position to specify the proposition that, together with a proposition affirming the existence of an omni-natured God, entails the existence of evil in the actual world. Plantinga’s candidate for this proposition is the following conjunction: university transworld depravity is the case and God creates a world containing moral good.

Recall that the general format that Plantinga presents for a defense is the following:

(a  b) → c

With the possibility of universal transworld depravity, the specific defense Plantinga presents can now be put as follows:

(G  T) → E)

Where G = there exists an omni-natured creator, T = universal transworld depravity is the case and God creates a world containing moral goodness, and E = there is moral evil in world.

In presenting this defense, Plantinga shows that there may be possible worlds God could not have created, for if transworld depravity is the case, it follows that God could not have weakly actualized a possible world containing moral good but no moral evil. So, according to Plantinga, Leibniz was thus incorrect in holding that God could have created just any possible world He so desired, even with middle knowledge. (Plantinga refers to this oversight as Leibniz’s Lapse.) More importantly, Plantinga has debunked the atheist’s claim that there is no evil that is logically consistent with an omni-natured God. 22

By constructing a valid inference to the existence of moral evil that includes the existence of an omni-natured God as one of its premises and uses only premises that are internally consistent and collectively consistent, Plantinga has shown that at least some evil is logically consistent with the existence of an omni-natured creator.

4. Critique of Middle Knowledge

As is evident from the foregoing overview of Planting’s free will defense to the logical version of the problem of evil, conceding that God has middle knowledge introduces considerable complexity into his defense. It is, thus, worth wondering whether

Plantinga’s acceptance of middle knowledge is ill-founded. There are, in fact, numerous, penetrating arguments advanced in the literature that counsel skepticism with respect to the possibility of middle knowledge.

My view is that the opponents of middle knowledge fare much better in these debates, as its proponents must resort to ever more elaborate stipulations to handle the challenges pressed by the other side.6 Instead of engaging this extensive literature directly, however, I will here confine myself to giving a brief overview of what I believe is the primary challenge facing middle knowledge. Having given the reader a sense for at least one of the challenges facing middle knowledge, I will assume for the sake of argument that I am right in my belief that reason favors the case of the opponents of middle knowledge, and I will inquire why the advocates of middle knowledge are committed to its viability despite the difficulties attendant to offering a plausible account of it. Plantinga will be the focus of my speculation. In addition to being the highest profile contemporary advocate of middle knowledge, he is a particularly interesting case in that a) he concedes that he has no decisive argument in favor of God’s possessing

6 See Robert M. Adams, “Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil,” American

Philosophical Quarterly 14, no. 2 (April 1977): pp. 109-117), 111. 24 middle knowledge and b) his job of constructing a defense to the logical problem of evil is made much more complicated by his acceptance of middle knowledge.

By conducting this analysis, I hope to provide an error theory on the source of the intuitive plausibility of middle knowledge. There is, I believe, a certain way of looking at middle knowledge that makes it seem plausible; however, underwriting this prima facie appeal is a tacit and unwarranted inference that creates an illusion of intuitive plausibility.

The intuitive case I have in mind is evident in a brief passage in Plantinga’s The Nature of Necessity.

In this section, I proceed as follows. First, I outline one prominent objection to middle knowledge—the grounding objection—to give the reader a sense for the nature of the difficulties facing proponents of middle knowledge. Second, I turn to diagnosing what

I believe is a prominent, albeit ill-founded, source of the intuitive appeal of middle knowledge. In this section I begin by quoting a passage from The Nature of Necessity in which Plantinga presents an intuitive case for middle knowledge. Having laid out

Plantinga’s intuitive case, I then draw upon David Lewis’s account of counterfactuals to show that Plantinga’s intuitive case rests on a suspect inference.

4.1. The Grounding Objection

The grounding objection asks the following question: what metaphysically grounds the truth or falsity of the propositions known through middle knowledge? To appreciate the force of the grounding objection, one must keep in mind that for middle knowledge to play the role it might in weakly actualizing a world with moral good but no moral evil, it must be certain. If God’s acceptance of a particular deliberative conditional 25 might turn out to be mistaken, God would not be able to rely on middle knowledge to ensure that the actual world contained no moral evil.

Given the requisite certainty of God’s knowledge of putative objects of middle knowledge, the grounding objection notes that the incompatibilist freedom specified in the consequent of the relevant conditionals excludes there being the sort of connection between the antecedent and consequent required to underwrite the certainty of God’s middle knowledge. To return to Plantinga’s example, if Curley’s accepting the bribe follows from the antecedent by way of logical or natural necessity, this is inconsistent with the consequent’s specification that the bribe would be accepted freely. If, on the other hand, the grounds for the connection is contingent in a way that leaves room for the agent’s freedom, it is unclear how any such contingent connection could guarantee the alleged certainty of middle knowledge. For these reasons, statements that would otherwise be objects of God’s middle knowledge do not seem likely candidates to provide a metaphysical grounding for the alleged certainty of the knowledge. In fact, the most that objects of middle knowledge seem to record are what state of affairs might obtain, given some circumstances; while, in order to be a proper object of God’s middle knowledge, the proposition would have to say what state of affairs would obtain, given some circumstances.

Plantinga has speculated that a basis for the truth values of the relevant propositions might be supplied by the now standard possible world semantics of the truth values of counterfactuals, the core of which was first advanced by both David Lewis and 26

Robert Stalnaker. The following basic overview of this standard account will suffice for understanding Plantinga’s response to the grounding objection.

Since a counterfactual statement is something that is contrary to fact, it is about some possible world that did not obtain. So, a necessary condition of a counterfactual would be that the antecedent is false, concerning the actual world. Then, according to the standard view, the only way to measure the truth value of a counterfactual is to see whether the consequent is true in the closest possible world to this one (i.e. the actual world), where the antecedent is true. If the consequent is true in the closest possible world in which the antecedent is true, then the truth value of the counterfactual is true. As

Plantinga puts it, “A counterfactual is true if and only if its antecedent is impossible, or its consequent is true in the world most similar to the actual [world] in which its antecedent is [true].”7

There are, of course, complexities connected to applying possible worlds accounts of counterfactuals to the specific objects of middle knowledge—and we will be dealing with one such complexity in section 4.3 below—but here we will note that there is an initial problem to using the possible world semantics of counterfactuals to provide a basis for middle knowledge; namely, the truth values of the relevant conditionals would not be established soon enough to be of use to God in weakly actualizing a world with moral good but no moral evil. This worry, which I will call the boot-strapping objection, is nicely articulated by Robert Adams.

7 Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 174. 27

On the possible worlds theory, moreover, the truth of the crucial conditionals

cannot be settled soon enough to be of use to God. The chief importance of

middle knowledge, for Plantinga as well as Molina and Suarez, is that God is

supposed to be guided by it in making decisions about the creation and

providential governance of the world. And as Molina and Suarez insist, if God is

to make such use of it, His middle knowledge must be prior, if not temporally, at

least in the order of explanation (prius ratione, as Suarez puts it), to His decisions

about what creatures to create.8

The problem Adams is pointing to is that the standard possible world semantics determines the truth value of counterfactuals as a function of the degree of similarity between various possible worlds and the actual world; however, what world is actual obviously is posterior to God’s decision to create. Thus, even if one applies the

Stalnaker-Lewis account of the truth values of counterfactuals to items of middle knowledge, the account does not assign a truth value to the relevant conditionals soon enough to be of use to God in deciding which possible world to actualize.

There are, thus, significant reasons to doubt that middle knowledge, at least of a sort that would be relevant to the problem of evil, is even possible. As noted at the outset, however, my aim in this section was not to conduct a thorough review and analysis of the numerous arguments for and against middle knowledge that exist in the literature. My aim in this section was only to give the reader a sense for some of the main challenges

8Adams, “Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil,” 113. 28 facing the deployment of middle knowledge to the problem of evil. Having done so, I now turn to the primary aim of this essay: providing an error theory on the intuitive plausibility of middle knowledge.

4.2. Plantinga’s Intuitive Case for Middle Knowledge

Having reviewed what I consider the most prominent objection against middle knowledge, I think it is reasonably clear that it has its challenges. As Adams, one of the ablest critics of middle knowledge says, “I trust that it is clear by this point that there is reason to doubt the possibility of middle knowledge. Those who believe it possible have some explaining to do.”9 Given these challenges, what exactly is it that leads Plantinga and other defenders of middle knowledge to painstakingly go through such tortuous efforts to defend it within discussions of the problem of evil? Would it not just be easier to reject middle knowledge altogether? If one could justifiably reject middle knowledge, then one could razor down the strikingly elaborate development of the supposition of universal transworld depravity. In what follows I speculate that a primary reason for

Plantinga’s advocacy for middle knowledge turns on a confusion.

Though Plantinga concedes that he cannot give a demonstration that counterfactuals of freedom have truth value and that God, therefore, possesses middle knowledge, in a telling passage Plantinga indicates why he finds the possibility of middle knowledge intuitively plausible. Referring to his example involving the corrupt mayor,

9 Adams, “Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil,” 111. 29

Curley Smith, Plantinga reduces the issue of whether counterfactuals of freedom have truth value to a single question.

Our question is really whether there is something that Curley would have done

had this state of affairs [of him being offered $20,000 dollars] been actual. Would

an omniscient being know what Curley would have done—would he know, that

is, ether that Curley would have taken the bribe or that he would have rejected

it?10

Having posed this question, Plantinga notes that he thinks that the answer to this question

“…is obvious and affirmative.”11 On first read, it is natural to agree with Plantinga’s assertion that an affirmative answer is intuitively obvious. Of course, one is inclined to think, there is something Curley would have done and God knows this. Plantinga’s case thus seems intuitively powerful.

Resting on the intuitive force of the above and noting that he has no further, decisive argument for this conclusion, Plantinga proceeds to “…take it for granted, in what follows, that either [“if Curley had been offered $20,000 dollars, he would have accepted the bribe”] or [“if Curley had been offered $20,000 dollars, he would have rejected the bribe”] is true.”12

10 Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 180.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid. 30

My quibble with Plantinga’s intuitive case is that its force may be the result of a tacit and fallacious inference in this crucial passage. My contention is that the intuitive force of Plantinga’s case is actually an artifact of the (no doubt unintentionally) misleading way he frames the issue in the opening sentence of the above quote. The question reduces, he observes, to “…whether there is something that Curley would have done had this state of affairs [of him being offered $20,000 dollars] been actual.” What is misleading about this way of framing the question is that in the case of Curley Smith, it makes the counterfactual crucial to the question of middle knowledge the following:

If Curley had been offered a bribe of $20,000, then either he would have freely

accepted it or he would not have freely accepted it.

That this counterfactual is true is obvious; however, this is because the consequent is a tautology and thus true in every possible world. If Curley were offered the bribe, he surely would have done something; that is, he either would have freely accepted the bribe or freely rejected the bribe. That this statement has a truth value—indeed, that it is true— is obvious, even to finite intellects like the author of this essay.

What worries me about this is it is not clear that the obviousness of the truth of this counterfactual legitimately transfers to the disjunction Planting goes on to suppose, namely: 31

Either [“if Curley had been offered $20,000 dollars, he would have accepted the

bribe”] or [“if Curley had been offered $20,000 dollars, he would have rejected

the bribe”].13

In the next section, I explain in detail the basis for this worry. I take my cue from a brief challenge James Petrik raises to this passage. After recounting Petrik’s challenge,

I develop it in greater detail and rigor by deploying a specific feature of David Lewis’s account of the truth values of counterfactuals: his contention that the law of distribution does not hold for counterfactuals.

4.3. A Problem for Plantinga’s Intuitive Case for Middle Knowledge

In a footnote in Evil Beyond Belief, James Petrik speculates that Plantinga may be committing a fallacy in the above passage in which he makes an intuitive case that counterfactuals of freedom have truth value. In moving from a counterfactual with the tautology in its consequent to a disjunction of two counterfactuals each of which has a consequent corresponding to one of the two disjuncts embedded in the original tautologous consequent, Petrik worries that Plantinga is making an illicit inference.

The counterfactual that generates the obvious affirmative answer, Petrik notes, is the following:

“If Curley had been bribed 20,000 dollars, then he either would have accepted the

bribe or he would not have accepted the bribe”

13 Ibid. 32

As noted above, while it is true that God would certainly know that Curley would choose to either accept or not accept a bribe were one offered, this is not an example of middle knowledge. Its truth is grounded in the fact that the consequent is a tautology and thus is true in any possible world in which the antecedent is true. This is merely an example of natural knowledge, where God has prevolitional knowledge of all metaphysically possible outcomes.

In order to complete the intuitive case for middle knowledge, the aforementioned conditional with a disjunctive consequent must license an inference to the following:

“If Curley had been offered 20,000 dollars, then he would have accepted the

bribe” or “If Curley had been offered 20,000 dollars, then he would not have

accepted the bribe.”

And it is this inference that Petrik thinks is illegitimate.

While he notes that this sort of inference is legitimate for material conditionals, he contends that in the case of middle knowledge—when the conditionals are counterfactuals of freedom—one cannot assume that the inference holds.

In order to illustrate the problem he sees, Petrik uses the example of a coin toss.

He says:

Imagine that a coin toss is a metaphysically indeterminate event. In that case, we

would be happy to say that “if the coin had been tossed, it would either come up

heads or not heads” without thereby committing ourselves to the truth of one of

the following conditionals: (a) if the coin had been tossed, it would have been

heads; or (b) if the coin had been tossed, it would not have been heads. Thus it is 33

that there would be a connection between the coin’s being tossed and (an

indeterminate) one of the two outcomes obtaining without there being a

connection between the coin’s having been tossed and specifically which of the

two outcomes would prevail. That one of them would have obtained is fixed, but

which one of them would have obtained is not fixed.14

The problem that Petrik brushes up against here has to do with the legitimacy of

Plantinga’s inference from a counterfactual that has a disjunctive consequent to a disjunction between two counterfactuals. Though Petrik doesn’t note this, this is logically known as distribution. The general form of distribution is as follows:

p → (q  r).

((p → q)  (p → r)).

This is not problematic if one is dealing with material conditionals; however, matters become much more dubious when distribution is applied to counterfactuals of the sort relevant to middle knowledge. In the next section, I will use the debate on logical distribution of counterfactuals between Lewis and Stalnaker to develop in greater depth the criticism that Petrik only hints at in passing. In order to do this, I first will offer a brief review of the possible world semantics, afforded us by Lewis15 and Stalnaker.16

14 James M. Petrik, Evil Beyond Belief (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), 148-149.

15 See David K. Lewis, Counterfactuals (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973).

16 See Stalnaker, R. (1968) “A Theory of Conditionals,” Studies in Logical Theory,

American Philosophical Quarterly, Monograph: 2, 98-112. 34

4.4. Possible Worlds Semantics of Counterfactuals

Earlier, I described briefly how Lewis and Stalnaker suggest the truth value of counterfactuals should be assigned using possible worlds semantics. About this basic rendering of possible worlds semantics of counterfactuals, Lewis and Stalnaker seem to agree. There are, however, at least two important differences in their respective systems: whereas Stalnaker believes that the law of conditional excluded middle and the law of distribution hold for counterfactuals, Lewis believes that both are invalid, given that ties in similarity for nearest possible worlds might obtain. Presenting Lewis’s account,

Theodore Sider explains, “Ties in similarity are generally possible, so why couldn’t two possible worlds be exactly similar to a given world?”17 In order to drive home Lewis’ point about the invalidity of distribution for counterfactuals, Sider gives the following example of some other possible world where he was a baseball player:

If someone says: ‘If I had been a baseball player, then I would have been either a

third-baseman or a shortstop,’ it might seem natural to reply with the question:

‘well, which would you have been?’ This reply presupposes that either ‘if you had

been a baseball player, you would have been a third-baseman’ or ‘if you had been

a baseball player, you would have been a shortstop’ must be true.18

17 Theodore Sider, Logic for Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 219.

18 Sider, Logic for Philosophy, 220. 35

Lewis would reply, as Sider rightly notes, that even though it is true that had the person played baseball, he or she would have been either a third-baseman or shortstop, it does not follow that it is true now that he or she would have been a particular one of these.

Rather, all that follows is that if he or she had played baseball, she might have been a third-baseman or if he or she had played baseball, she might have been a shortstop.

To follow up with this, I have my own example. Very frequently after a long work week, I am known for randomly going out for a drink to usher in the weekend! I always choose between my two favorite places: Thomas’s Talls and Angelic Ales.

However, the COVID-19 virus has caused all of the bars to close their doors. It seems clear, “If all of the bars had not been closed at the end of my work week, then I would have stopped at either Thomas’s Talls or Angelic Ales for a beer” is true. Yet, it is not clear at all that in the closest possible world to the actual world where COVID-19 has not closed the bars is the world where I would choose to go to Angelic Ales over Thomas’s

Talls. And if the worlds where I choose each of those two bars are equally similar to the actual world, then we cannot assign a truth value to the respective counterfactual disjuncts of the following compound proposition: “If all the bars had not been closed at the end of my work week, then I would have stopped at Thomas’s Talls” or “If all the bars had not been closed at the end of my work week, then I would have stopped at

Angelic Ales.”

Lewis believes it is impossible to know which outcome concerning these respective counterfactual bar choices would be true and which false had COVID-19 not 36 resulted in their closure. I could say that some choice would have been the case, but not which specific choice would have been the case.

4.5. Plantinga and Distribution

Let us recall that distribution takes the form of

p → (q  r).

((p → q)  (p → r)).

Let us also recall Plantinga’s example of Curley Smith, where he either would accept or reject the bribe of $20,000 dollars, had he been offered that lesser amount. Plantinga says that God’s having middle knowledge rests on how one answers the question of

“…whether there is something that Curley would have done” had he been offered this lesser bribe. Plantinga contends that the answer to this question is “obvious and affirmative.” And I agree with Plantinga on this point, given that it is natural to understand this question in terms of the following conditional:

“If Curley had been bribed 20,000 dollars, then he either would have accepted the

bribe or he would not have accepted the bribe”

Even allowing for ties in similarity among relevant possible worlds, this conditional is true since its consequent is true in any possible world in which the antecedent is true.

Plantinga, however, then transfers this obvious and affirmative response to the following compound disjunction:

“If Curley had been offered 20,000 dollars, then he would have accepted the

bribe” OR “If Curley had been offered 20,000 dollars, then he would not have

accepted the bribe.” 37

In doing so, Plantinga is tacitly applying distribution to a counterfactual of freedom and thus inadvertently slipping past the serious challenges that David Lewis raised to the legitimacy of applying this logical principle to counterfactuals.

Why should one accept what Lewis says about rejecting distribution for counterfactuals of freedom? It hinges greatly upon Plantinga’s incompatibilist account of freedom, an account that sits uneasily with respect to determining that one of two possible worlds is closer to the actual world when the two possible worlds differ only in terms of whether an agent freely chooses to perform an action or freely chooses not to perform the same action, such as Curley’s acceptance or refusal of the $20,000 bribe.

Neither of the two possible worlds violates a casual law and thus differs from the actual world in that respect. One could, perhaps, make a case that due to Curley’s habitual past of corruption, God would know that Curley would make the choice to accept the bribe, but this approach is problematic for at least two reasons. First, people in the actual world do sometimes act out of character; thus, if the possible world with the character- consistent action is always taken to be determinative, the resulting absence of any true counterfactuals of freedom that are not character-consistent amounts to a dissimilarity with the actual world. Second, there are cases in which a person’s past character is of no help in discerning degree of similarity of the relevant possible worlds. It might, for instance, be the case that a person exhibits an equal measure of virtue and vice in circumstances similar to the one under counterfactual consideration. Or it might be that the counterfactual circumstances for action are unique with respect to an agent’s past character. Most of us, fortunately, have been spared the challenge of having to confront 38 an active shooter situation. Nonetheless, one might wonder, counterfactually, whether one would have risked her or his own life to save others in such a situation. Assuming there is no comparable opportunity for heroism in one’s past, one’s character is of no help in determining whether the world in which one acts heroically or does not do so is more similar to the actual world. Thus, examining past character could help, at best, with some cases of middle knowledge; however, to support the account of middle knowledge

Plantinga needs to justify the possibility of God weakly actualizing a world with moral good and no moral evil, God would need to be able to have this knowledge in all cases.

While these considerations do not constitute a decisive case in favor of Lewis’s side of the debate, they do place the burden of proof on Plantinga to explain why the default view that there can be ties in possible world similarity ought to be rejected.

To see this further, let us stipulate that there is the actual world A, and there are two possible worlds that are closest to it, W and W*. The only thing different about the two worlds is that Curley chooses to accept the bribe in possible world W and he chooses to reject the bribe in possible world W*. Now, if those two possible worlds are equally similar to A, it seems that distribution would not be a valid inference, since there is no discernable truth value to the relevant counterfactuals of freedom, because the only way a counterfactual can be true is if the antecedent is impossible, or the consequent is true in the closest possible world to the actual world, where the antecedent is true.

Well, clearly the antecedent is not impossible, since in both W and W* Curley is offered the bribe of $20,000 dollars. And, since both W and W* seem to be equally similar to A, and moreover, in W, Curley accepts the bribe, and in W*, he rejects the 39 bribe, there is no single world that is closest to discern which of those is true. So, is it certain that one of the outcomes-–that Curley would have either accepted the bribe, had it been offered or that Curley would have rejected the bribe, had it been offered—is true? I don’t think one can answer that question without applying the law of distribution for making such an inference about which is true, as I said above. And, if Plantinga, does apply this law, and if Lewis is correct in his rejection of the law of distribution’s validity for counterfactuals of freedom, then Plantinga’s defense of middle knowledge fails.

In sum, the charge I’m advancing is that Plantinga’s intuitive case rests on applying distribution to the counterfactual with the tautologous disjunct, but the legitimacy of doing so itself rests on an assumption—there are no ties in similarity among possible worlds—that is essential to counterfactuals of freedom having truth values.

Looked at slightly differently, we might see Plantinga’s intuitive case as assuming that the law of conditional excluded middle holds for counterfactuals of freedom.19

Whether that is the case, however, is a crucial point of difference between Lewis and

Stalnaker. Plantinga’s intuitive case for middle knowledge thus seems to rest on assuming, without argument, that a crucial presupposition of middle knowledge—the validity of conditional excluded middle—holds. Thus, by assuming the law of conditional

19 The Law of Conditional Excluded Middle states that if a certain antecedent obtains, then any given consequent will either obtain or fail to obtain. It is represented symbolically as ( p → q)  (p → q). 40 excluded middle, Plantinga’s intuitive case for middle knowledge is tacitly begging the question in favor of its possibility.

5. Conclusion

My aim in this paper has been to mount a criticism of Alvin Plantinga’s intuitive case on behalf of middle knowledge and his tacit use of logical distribution to make an inference in the case of Curley either accepting or rejecting a lesser bribe in some possible world, where that bribe is less than the one he was offered and accepted in the actual world. Before presenting my criticism, I set up background for the logical problem of evil in general and Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense in which he attempts to show how God can be an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent creator of a world in which there is evil.. In order to show this, I had to introduce four important elements of

Plantinga’s case: significant human freedom, the difference between weak and strong actualization, middle knowledge, and universal transworld depravity.

Having examined Plantinga’s free will defense, I noted that middle knowledge seemed to be an unnecessary concession to advocates of the logical version of the problem of evil that added significantly to the complexity of the defense Plantinga proposed. It was, after all, only because of his acceptance of middle knowledge that

Plantinga needed to develop and deploy the possibility of universal transworld depravity.

I also noted that middle knowledge is highly controversial and faces serious objections.

After reviewing one of the most powerful objections against middle knowledge, the grounding objection, I explored what might have induced Plantinga to accept middle knowledge despite the significant challenges it faces and the significant complexity it introduces into his defense. 42

This exploration focused on an intuitive case Plantinga makes on behalf of middle knowledge. My contention was that Plantinga’s intuitive case actually rested on a tacit inference that assumed that the law of distribution is valid for counterfactuals of freedom and that when this was made explicit, the alleged strong intuition that counterfactuals of freedom have truth value vanished. In this, I was proposing an error theory to explain why Plantinga was mistakenly led to believe it is obvious that counterfactuals of freedom have a truth value.

References

Adams, Robert M. “Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil.”

American Philosophical Quarterly 14, no. 2 (April 1977): 109–117.

St. Augustine. The City of God: Book XI, Chapter 9, Translated by Marcus Dods.

Lexington, KY: Amazon CreateSpace, 2018.

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae Prima Pars, q. 14, Translated by Fr. Laurence

Shapcote, O.P. Edited by John Mortensen and Enrique Alarcon.

Lander, WY: Aquinas Inst, 2012.

Lewis, David K. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1973.

Molina, Luis de. On Divine Foreknowledge. Translated and edited by Alfred J. Freddoso.

Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1988.

Petrik, James M. Evil Beyond Belief. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000.

Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974.

Sider, Theodore. Logic for Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Stalnaker, Robert. “A Theory of Conditionals,” Studies in Logical Theory, American

Philosophical Quarterly, Monograph: 2 (1968) 98-112.

Swinburne, Richard. Providence and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Clarendon Press,

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