Quite right Michael except your assertion that it was an unsuccessful position.
Molinism combats the heresy of the Reformers, according to which both sinners and just have lost freedom of will. It maintains and strenuously defends the Tridentine dogma which teaches:
that freedom of will has not been destroyed by original sin, and
that this freedom remains unimpaired under the influence of Divine grace (Cf. Sess. VI, can iv-v in Denzinger, "Enchiridion", ed. Bannwart, Freiburg, 1908, nn. 814-15).
Freedom is the power of the will to act or not to act, to act this or that way; whereas it is the characteristic of necessary causes, as animals and inanimate beings, to produce their effects by an intrinsic necessity. Freedom of the will is a consequence of intelligence, and as such the most precious gift of man, an endowment which he can never lose without annihilating his own nature. Man must of necessity be free in every state of life, actual or possible, whether that state be the purely natural (status purœ naturœ), or the state of original justice in paradise (status justitiœ originalis), or the state of fallen nature (status naturœ lapsœ), or the state of regeneration (status naturœ reparatœ). Were man to be deprived of freedom of will, he would necessarily degenerate in his nature and sink to the level of the animal. Since the purely natural state, devoid of supernatural grace and lacking a supernatural justice, never existed, and since the state of original justice has not been re-established by Christ's Redemption, man's present state alone is to be taken into consideration in solving the problem of the relation between grace and free will. In spite of original sin and concupiscence man is still free, not only with reference to ethical good and evil in his natural actions, but also in his supernatural salutary works in which Divine grace co-operates with his will. Molinism escaped every suspicion of Pelagianism by laying down at the outset that the soul with its faculties (the intellect and will) must be first constituted by prevenient grace a supernatural principle of operation in actu primo, before it can, in conjunction with the help of the supernatural concursus of God, elicit a salutary act in actu secundo. Thus, the salutary act is itself an act of grace rather than of the will; it is the common work of God and man, because and in so far as the supernatural element of the act is due to God and its vitality and freedom to man. It must not be imagined, however, that the will has such an influence on grace that its consent conditions or strengthens the power of grace; the fact is rather that the supernatural power of grace is first transformed into the vital energy of the will, and then, as a supernatural concursus, excites and accompanies the free and salutary act. In other words, as a helping or co-operating grace (gratia adiuvans seu cooperans), it produces the act conjointly with the will. According to this explanation, not only does Divine grace make a supernatural act possible, but the act itself, though free, is wholly dependent on grace, because it is grace which makes the salutary act possible and which stimulates and assists in producing it.
Thus the act is produced entirely by God as First Cause (Causa prima), and also entirely by the will as second cause (causa secunda). The unprejudiced mind must acknowledge that this exposition is far from incurring the suspicion of Pelagianism or Semipelagianism.
Pay close attention to the part I highlighted. Now, any congruence of thought suggested by Sanders, Pinnock, or Boyd are obviously an attempt to ursurp this doctrine for their own uses.
