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3
The Grounding Objection
The basic idea behind GO is the contention that God cannot have MK because the
counterfactuals of freedom which are the objects of God's MK have no truth value. That is, there
are no actual states of affairs to which such propositions could correspond in order to make them
true or false. There is, as Robert Adams has argued, no ground for the truth of a CF. Using the
example of David and Saul, mentioned above, Adams explains:
I do not understand what it would be for any [CF relevant to the example] to be true,
given that the actions in question would have been free, and that David did not stay in
Keilah. . . For there never was nor will be an actual besieging of Keilah by Saul. . . to
which those propositions might correspond.
5

William Hasker puts it this way: "In order for a (contingent) conditional state of affairs to
obtain, its obtaining must be grounded in some categorical state of affairs. More colloquially,
truths about 'what would be the case. . .if' must be grounded in truths about what is in fact the
case."
6
Since CFs have no such grounds, they have no truth-value. And if they have no truth-
value, then God cannot possibly know them because no one, not even God, can know something
that isn't true. And, of course, this means that God cannot have MK.
Molinists, of course, have offered responses to the GO. Sometimes these responses take the
form of simply "holding the GO at bay," arguing that the GO is not decisive. That is, even
though the Molinist may not be able to explain how CFs are grounded, the GO does not present a
problem serious enough for the Molinist to reject his intuitions regarding their truth-value.
Thomas Flint seems to make this point when he says that
the "grounding" objection is far from the conclusive refutation of Molinism it is
sometimes made out to be. Given that the cost for the libertarian of rejecting Molinism is
the demolition of the traditional notion of providence, the "grounding" objection gives
the orthodox Christian insufficient incentive to pay so high a price.
7

At other times, advocates of MK have attempted to provide an account for the grounding of
CFs.
8
These responses are, of course, more serious, and will be the subject of much of what
follows in my defense of the GO. Suffice it to say for now that I do not find these attempts to
ground CFs very plausible. More than that, however, I do think that the GO provides the Molinist
with a problem sufficient to call into doubt his commitment to the truth of CFs. Not all Anti-
Molinists would seem to agree with me, though. For in the wake of the Molinist responses to the
5
Robert M. Adams, "Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil," American Philosophical
Quarterly 14:2 (April 1977): 109-17.
6
William H. Hasker, God, Time, and Knowledge (Cornell University Press, 1989), 30.
7
Thomas P. Flint, Divine Providence: The Molinist Account (Cornell University Press, 1998), 137.
8
See, Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 178-179; Alfred J.
Freddoso, "Introduction" to Luis de Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, trans. Alfred J. Freddoso (Cornell
University Press, 1988, 70-74; William Lane Craig, "Hasker On Divine Knowledge" Philosophical Studies
67 (August 1992): 89-110; The Only Wise God, 140-41.