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Free Will, Foreknowledge, and Creation: Further Explorations of Kant’s Molinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2023

Wolfgang Ertl
Wolfgang Ertl*
Affiliation:
Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
*
Email: w.ertl@flet.keio.ac.jp
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Abstract

While Kant’s position concerning human freedom and divine foreknowledge is perhaps the least Molinist element of his multifaceted take on free will, Kant’s Molinism (minimally defined) is undeniable when it comes to the threat ensuing from the idea of creation. In line with incompatibilism and with careful qualifications in place, he ultimately suggests regarding free agents as uncreated. Given the limitations of our rational insight, this assumption is indispensable for granting that finite free agents can acquire their intelligible characters by themselves. Nonetheless, Kant concedes that creation may, as a matter of fact, be compatible with what for Molina is the pre-volitionality of the counterfactuals of freedom.

Keywords

free willdeterminismlibertarianismphilosophical theologytheism
Type
Article
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , December 2023 , pp. 497 - 518
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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