Luis de Molina 1535 – 1600
Luis de Molina was a Spanish Jesuit philosopher and theologian of the School of Salamanca and one of the most influential figures of late scholasticism. After many years of teaching at Coimbra and Evora and a final professorship at Madrid, he produced the Concordia Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratiae Donis, the Concord of Free Will with the Gifts of Grace, in which he developed the celebrated doctrine of middle knowledge: God knows from eternity what every possible creature would freely do in every possible circumstance. His Concordia provoked the long de Auxiliis controversy with the Dominicans and remains a central reference point in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics of free will. His treatise On Justice and Right shaped early modern economic and legal thought.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Spanish
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Scholasticism, Christian, Renaissance
Selected quotes
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Attributed to Luis de Molina:
“God's middle knowledge embraces all that creatures would freely do under every possible circumstance.”
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Attributed to Luis de Molina:
“Free will and grace are not opposed; grace presupposes the free creature.”
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Attributed to Luis de Molina:
“The future contingent is known to God without compromising its contingency.”
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Attributed to Luis de Molina:
“Justice is the order in which each receives what is properly their own.”
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Attributed to Luis de Molina:
“The just price of a good is what willing buyers and sellers freely agree upon.”