The Ground is Not Uncreated: Responding to William Lane Craig

Recently, William Lane Craig and James White had a debate/discussion on Molinism vs Calvinism in regards to the problem of evil (which can be found here). Although there were many things said, one in particular piqued my interest: Craig’s response to the grounding objection, a standard Reformed critique of Molinism that White presented. Molinism teaches that God has what is called Middle Knowledge. Middle Knowledge is the idea that God knows what free creatures would do in a given circumstance. God had this knowledge before the foundation of the world and used it in order to bring about the world in which He felt was most optimal, and works in time to put creatures in the circumstances leading to the most optimal outcome. This view is to preserve human free will, that God doesn’t determine how the creatures will act, but merely knows how they might act and creates circumstances to make them act how He desires. The facts of what creatures might do are called counterfactuals, as they may never be brought about by God and thus are counter to fact. The grounding objection to Middle Knowledge is the question of where do these counterfactuals come from? If they are not determined by God, is there something outside of God determining the creation? If so, what is that? What is the ground that counterfactuals and thus Middle Knowledge stands on? Here is Craig’s response to that objection. (As a note, I used the YouTube auto generated transcript of the debate for quotations. I fixed anything I saw was incorrectly generated, but I may not have seen everything.)

“That’s known as the grounding objection. It claims there needs to be some sort of ground of the truth of these counterfactuals of creaturely freedom and here, I frankly agree with Alvin Plantinga that it’s much clearer to me that at least some counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true then that they must be grounded in this way.  This objection seems to presuppose a view of truth called truth maker theory, that in addition to propositions that are true, there are things truth makers that make them true, and I think that this doctrine is very implausible and that there are lots of counter examples to truth maker theory and a truth maker maximalism which says that every proposition has a truth maker.  Take just one example: the proposition that Baal does not exist. There’s nothing that makes that true. Baal just doesn’t exist so if there is a truth maker of that, it’s just the fact that there is no Baal. Similarly, if one wants to identify truth makers for these counter factuals of freedom it would just be the counter facts that are stated by them. If it were true that if I were rich, I would buy a Mercedes then the truth maker for that is just the state of affairs that if I were rich I would buy a Mercedes and I don’t think anything more needs to be said about it.”

Timestamp 23:26 – 24:58

I have some major problems with this. First of all, God is the determiner of all truth outside Himself. God created all things:

“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

Colossians 1:16-17

Here the Apostle Paul lists exhaustively all categories of things to make sure the reader understands God created all things. Truth claims that restrict God may very well not be physical things, but they still exist and thus need to be either created by someone or be self-existent.

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

John 1:3

I don’t think the Bible could be any clearer that God created all things and that there is nothing self-existent aside for God. This is where God’s name “I Am” comes from (Exodus 3:14). He is self-existent. He alone exists of itself. Nothing else does. There is nothing else we can say “it is” and leave it at that. And yet Craig would have us believe that there exists something outside of God that is uncreated. It has to also thus be self-existent. It merely is, and he feels no need to explain it. If they are self-existent, one wonders if they should be considered as some sort of impersonal deity, as they are just as eternal as God and restrict the Almighty in what He is able to do.

Craig also presents Baal’s non existence as an example of something that just “is” and needs no explanation for it. I have several problems with this. First, this again implies that something uncreated exists outside of God. Second, it’s wrong to compare something that doesn’t exist to something that does exist; the parallel is not quite the same. Third, the reason that Baal (or anything else) doesn’t exist is because God did not make him. If Baal were to exist, he would need to either be made by God or be self-existent, which he obviously is not. Thus, the truth of Baal’s existence is still determined by God, just like everything else. God is the source of all being for all things including supposed deities.

“For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

Acts 17:28

To say anything exists apart from God means He is not the source of being, to which we then must ask: where does being itself come from?

Finally, Craig says the truth maker for a counter factual being true is the state of affairs itself. If Craig were rich, he would buy a Mercedes and the circumstances would have determined it. However, those circumstances themselves didn’t exist before time when God was supposedly considering how to create the world. So how can we say they determined anything if they don’t exist? God is truth (John 14:6-7). If any truth comes from outside of Him, He is no longer the truth, but perhaps part of the truth or the creator of some truth. Brute, uncreated facts do not exist apart from God, neither do we get any sense from the Scriptures that anything constrains God.

“And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few.”

1 Samuel 14:6

Though this speaks of physical salvation, the same is true for spiritual salvation. God can save anyone. There are no facts that exist outside of Him to restrict Him. Let us avoid the idea that there exist uncreated things outside of God, and instead honor Him as the creator of ALL things.