“Now, I may be incorrectly understanding Craig’s explanation of how middle knowledge is supposed to have worked, but I believe he detailed a scenario in which God looked out before creation and saw an infinite host of “parallel universes” (my phrase) encompassing all possible individual choices of his creatures and “picked one.”"

There aren’t an infinite number of parallel universes. Middle Knowledge is of possible universes, the vast majority of which are not actualized. For example, one possible universe would be a universe with nothing in it except for empty space. Another possible universe might be one in which I married someone other than the woman I am currently married to. However there is no possible universe where 1+1 does not equal 2.

As for the choices entailed in each logically possible world, you also have to keep in mind that God’s own actions (or possible actions) are also contained within the mind (through divine omniscience) of God. I am confident that once you dwell on that for a little while you’re mind will be as blown as mine was when I first began to plumb the depths of what it means to say that our God is “the only wise God” (Romans 16:27).

The possible worlds God possesses foreknowledge of, and what primarily constitutes what we call the middle knowledge of God is the knowledge of counterfactuals. These are facts or truthful statements of “what might-have-been”. They are not a part of God’s free knowledge

“That in some sense (and this is where my understanding may be flawed) human free will is pre-existent to the Creative Decree”

This is actually a variant on what is formally known as “the grounding objection”. The short answer to this apparently problem is that God’s foreknowledge of future free events is not based on the agents themselves but on God’s knowledge of himself (specifically his omniscience or knowledge of all things). His foreknowledge couldn’t be predicated on the agents whose choices are foreknown since the agents that are foreknown did not exist at some point in time (which would mean that God’s knowledge would be limited and finite). Rather, such future free actions of causal agents (which includes angels along with humans at the least) are whats known as “brute facts” which are logically along the lines of facts such as mathematics like the concept of 1+1=2.

So when God laments in Genesis 6:6 he is not lamenting the actualizing of a world wherein free creatures would rebel in stunning (though not surprising) ways. But God’s lament is expressed within space and time (which is another rich topic) over the actualization of sin and rebellion. In short, just like Lazarus’s death was foreknown and even foreordained, Jesus still weeps in John 11:35 not because of a lack of knowledge in the formal sense (that is, being aware of facts) but because of a lack of experience (that is, the actualized event that was previously foreknown).

Wes

Pardon the unsolicited message–and I see that with your 3K+ friends, your ability to reply may be limited–but I’m a long-suffering “anti-Calvinist” who’s only now beginning to study Molinism.

I noticed through Facebook’s VERY unprivate data search mechanisms that you are a fairly outspoken Molinist of sorts and some random comments I’ve read of yours lead me to believe you might be prepared to shed some light on a couple of things for me.

Previously, I’d developed a general aversion to any system of theology simply because I saw all “sides” of this or that debate simply bypassing a reconciliation effort in favor of a “these verses mean what they say, those don’t” approach. Now that I’ve dipped my toes in Molinism (via WLC’s defense of it in the book I’ve linked to), I’m at least hopeful. Now, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around some of the hermeneutic’s particulars, but there are two verses, one a proof text for the reformed crowd and one for the openness crowd, that I’m wondering how Molinism addresses.

Reformed: Eph. 1:11

Openness: Gen. 6:6

Whenever you could get back to me, that would be super. Thanks in advance for whatever time you can dedicate to it.

Sincerely
Josh Lowery

Since I love the doctrine of Molinism/Middle Knowledge I decided to try and give Josh as much information on the subject as I could in a single Facebook message. What follows, then, is sort-of the fire-hose method of discussing an otherwise deep and rich subject in a relatively short amount of time.

Hey Josh,

Thanks for the message, unsolicited or not

I am indeed a huge fan of Molinism. As Thomas P. Flint mentions in his excellent work “Divine Providence: The Molinist Account”, Molinism’s twin pillars are God’s sovereignty and mankind’s limited free agency.

As to the specific verses you mentioned. I would argue that Eph 1:11 is primarily referring to Christ and how our redemption is worked out ahead of time in him. Thus the “all things” are directly referring to the salvation brought about in Christ. Calvinists often point to this verse by way of saying that God causes all things. However the idea of causal determinism has some very serious flaws.

The most significant of which is that it ends up making God culpable for all sin, evil, and suffering in the world. You can study more on this vein of thought through Alvin Plantinga’s Free Will Theodicy, (my favorite) Bruce Little’s Creation Order Theodicy, and (ok, another favorite) Udo Middleman’s Innocence of God.

I must admit I haven’t encountered Genesis 6:6 used in the open theistic sense but having read a lot of Boyd I can certainly see how it could be portrayed that way.

Basically open theism is, in my estimation, the perfect opposite of the Calvinistic view. However the reason for this is that they both have a wrong understanding of what free will is. Both systems have a view that if God contains foreknowledge of future-free events then that somehow means that men are not free. WLC has an excellent book on this very subject entitled “Only Wise God” wherein he refutes this flawed understanding of free agency in connection with supreme sovereignty and by destroying the linkage of premises in the argument (that is, that 1. God’s foreknowledge inevitably means that 2. men cannot have free causal agency) he, in my estimation anyway, manages to utterly demolish both erroneous views while upholding what a plain reading of the text seems to indicate (that is, that God is sovereign and men’s choices are their own).

So yes, God can lament over the choices of men in Genesis 6:6 and Exodus 32:1-14, as well as change the course of events in 2 Kings 20 in response to prayer all without sacrificing God’s foreknowledge, omnipotence, or without damaging God’s predestined plan for the universe.

How can this be? I believe you’ve rightly discerned what many people have believed intrinsically, even without knowing the formal theological system cobbled together initially by a Jesuit priest. That is the doctrine of Molinism or Middle Knowledge (as many prefer to call it now).

Unfortunately there has not been very much work done on the doctrine on Molinism/Middle Knowledge until recently. Now, however, there has been quite a flurry of work done from a very diverse theological crowd including some staunch Calvinists (like Alvin Plantinga!). In fact, one of the reasons I hold to the system of Molinism is because it has been such a unifying force along such a diverse group of orthodox Christians. I am forced to conclude that, like the extra-Biblical doctrine of the trinity, Molinism is a solid Biblical framework for understanding the interplay of God’s sovereignty and Mankind (and Angelic kind)’s limited free agency.

At any rate, here is a link to the best resources I’ve found on the subject of Molinism/Middle Knowledge.

Also, here is a brief outline I wrote on the doctrine of Molinism a while back. And here is a post I wrote on the biggest objection to Molinism (the grounding objection).

I hope that at least helps point you in the right direction. Let me know if you have any additional questions/thoughts/concerns. Even with 3k friends on Facebook I can always find time to talk about this topic (and many more).

Blessings,
Wes

On supralapsarianism and historical Calvinism Keathly writes:

Some Calvinists (following their namesake, John Calvin) cannot accept that there is any conditionality in God’s decrees, so they bite the bullet and dismiss permission altogether. They embrace a double predestination in which God chose some and rejected others and then subsequently decreed the Fall in order to bring it about. Those who hold this position are called supralapsarians because they understand the decree of election and reprobation as occurring logically prior (supra) to the decree to allow the Fall (lapsis), hence the term supralapsarianism.

On the topic of “permission” being an acceptable refuge for the compatabalist position Keathly writes:

The crucial concept to the infralapsarian Calvinist model is the notion of permission. God did not cause the Fall; he allowed it. God does not predestine the reprobate to Hell; he permits the unbeliever to go his own way. But permission is problematic for the Calvinist—particularly to those who hold to determinism—because permission entails conditionality, contingency, and viewing humans as in some sense the origin of their own respective choices. Calvinists such as John Feinberg define God’s sovereignty in terms of causal determinism, and this leaves little room for a logically consistent understanding of permission. I am arguing that what Calvinists want to achieve in infralapsarianism, Molinism actually accomplishes.

On the subject of reprobation Keathly cites David Engelsma’s quote:

If reprobation is the decree not to give a man faith, it is patently false to say that unbelief is the cause of reprobation. That would be the same as to say that my decision not to give a beggar a quarter is due to the beggar’s not having a quarter. That reprobation is an unconditional decree is also plain from the fact that if unbelief were the cause of reprobation, all men would have been reprobated, and would not have been elected, for all men are equally unbelieving and disobedient.

And to this Keathly comments:

In other words, Engelsma is pointing out that if sin is the basis for reprobation, then no one would be elect because all are sinners.

In the final analysis, infralapsarianism teaches that reprobation is as much a part of God’s decrees as is election. Infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism are simply nuances of the same approach, as long as both begin with God’s eternal decrees and reject the notion that God would (or even could) grant any type of libertarian choice to responsible creatures.

On the advantages of the Molinist approach Keathly writes:

The Molinist approach has a number of advantages over both Calvinism and Arminianism, which I want to list briefly. First, Molinism affirms the genuine desire on the part of God for all to be saved in a way that is problematic for Calvinism. God has a universal salvific will even though not all, maybe not even most, will repent and believe the Gospel. Historically, Calvinists have struggled with this question; with most either
denying that God’s desires all to be saved, or else claiming God has a secret will which trumps his revealed will.

Molinism fits well with the biblical teaching that God universally loves the world (John 3:16) and yet Christ has a particular love for the Church (Eph. 5:25). William Lane Craig suggests that God “chose a world having an optimal balance between the number of the saved and the number of the damned.” In other words, God has created a world with a maximal ratio of the number of saved to those lost. The Bible teaches that God genuinely desires all to be saved, and even though many perish, still his will is done.

Molinism better addresses this apparent paradox.

This is an excellent paper which shows how, as open theist William Hasker puts it:

If you are committed to a “strong” view of providence, according to which, down
to the smallest detail, “things are as they are because God knowingly decided to
create such a world,” and yet you also wish to maintain a libertarian conception of
free will—if this is what you want, then Molinism is the only game in town.

Counterfactual statements are characterized by the conditional keywords “if-then”, as in “if Obama had not raised the national debt to record levels, unemployment would have been much higher.”

The “counter” part of a “counterfactual” statement is that such a statement may be true even through the event described never happened (or “obtained”). The value of such statements is only apparent if one assumes a non-causally deterministic view of the universe where different circumstances (or decisions by causal agents) could have caused events to turn out differently.

Counterfactuals are intergal to the Molinistic view of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and the limited causal agency of man (in other words, limited free will). Specifically, counterfactuals are what give us reason to believe in the existence of logically possible worlds and the notion that while God certainly does predestine all that happens² there exist truly free, albeit limited, causal agents such as humans and angels.

Verses that point to the existence of counterfactual (statements that can only be valid if there were a logically possible world where the events described would have obtained if circumstances were different) are Jeremiah 38:17-18, 1 Samuel 23:6-10, Matthew 11:23, 1 Corinthians 2:8, John 15:22-24, John 18:36, Luke 4:24-46 and Matthew 26:24

Note that each of the above statements would be rendered incoherent if they were not true in their counter (not obtained) factual (proposition of truth).

1. For more information, see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entry.
2. Since, out of all logically possible worlds, or potential worlds, He chose to actualize the one we are currently in.

Well, one example to the contrary¹ is this:

I never locked my doors.

This was because I believed that men had no free will and that not only were all things determined, but that they were causally and directly brought about by God. So that, if someone were to break into my house or steal my car, or even if I or someone I loved were to become ill, such an event or circumstance would be directly caused by God himself so that any interference² would be bad and wrong³.

As you know, this view didn’t serve me very well practically⁴ and the realization that we are commanded to take reasonable measures to secure what we are in charge of or responsible for (which includes people as well as possessions) led me to change my beliefs which, in turn, made me change my behavior.

I now lock my doors⁵ as religiously as I kept them unlocked because my belief in causal determinism vs. limited freedom changed.

1. When I did hold to a view of causal determinism as a result of my commitment to Calvinism.
2. I never did reconcile how all things could be causally determined and yet we still influence their outcomes. This lingering paradox also helped lead me to the abandonment of the belief in causal determinism.
3. I used to hear all the time how we ought to never “get ahead of God” or interfere with “God’s plan”. such notions sound nice, but upon further examination they are neither logical nor Biblically mandated.
4. My car was stolen, keys still in the ignition. This happened in the driveway next to our house, which also was not locked, which contained an infant and a 2 year old inside. Needless to say, this incident was a very clear catalyst to cause me to re-evaluate my beliefs on the matter.
5. I still maintain that all events are predetermined, just not causally so such that my actions do not matter. For more information on how these seemingly opposing views can be safely reconciled to the detriment of neither, see my previous post on Molinism.

Mike:

I see your questions¹, and wanted to ask a few others for my clarification before progressing any further.

You stated, “the question rather is whether everyone has within their power (given, obviously by God) the ability to choose Christ in the first place”, then cited 2 Peter 3:9 in order to answer yes to your question.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but you most likely would assert that God grants a special grace to everyone that would enable them to choose salvation in Christ?  My questions back would be: What does this special grace (that everyone has) help man with?  What causes one to choose Christ and not the other, especially if they were both made by God and were placed in their times and circumstances by Him?

You also mentioned, “I simply question, however, the notion that God’s foreknowledge is logically tied to a causal decree. In other words, I don’t see how God’s foreknowledge is inextricably tied to the causally deterministic notion that God also causes those he foreknew to accept the grace he has offered.”  Based on thisquestion, and highlighting what I mentioned above, do you then believe that God’s sovereign election is a reaction to one’s decision to follow Christ?

Me:

No, I don’t think that special grace is given in order for anyone to accept the gift of salvation. I do think that special grace is given once that gift has been accepted in the form of salvation. What causes one man to choose Christ while another rejects while both have been through the same circumstances is the men themselves.

This is another mischaracterization of Molinism that James White propagated in his presentation where he mistakenly asserts that in Molinism it is presumed that people will act in a given way depending wholly on the circumstances.

People are unique and while we may not know who will and who won’t accept Christ given any circumstances, Jesus’s comments in Luke 10:3 assure us that God knows.

As to your second question I’ll simply say “no” because the decision of which logically possible world to actualize was made far before any of God’s creatures existed in order to be said that God reacted to them. This is another variation on the grounding objection which assumes that there are only two options to the question of who elected whom unto salvation.

God, in knowing (through his middle-knowledge of possible worlds rooted/grounded in His omniscience) who would choose given any possible set of circumstances chose to actualize a world (the one we find ourselves in currently) which necessarily closed the door to some people in terms of salvation because they, like Tyre and Sidon, were not given the signs and wonders that would have caused (or persuaded them rather) to repent in sackcloth and ashes and believe. Conversely, Chorazin and Bethsaida were given, by God’s good pleasure and sovereign decision and decree, more evidence and Jesus condemned them all the same because any evidence of God is enough to convict us for failing to take Him at his word. This is, coincidentally, the same argument Paul uses in the first chapter of Romans to convict the pagans who did not have the specific revelation of the law or Jesus but who only had the natural revelation that comes from the world God created which points to himself.

A good question in relation to causal determinism would be: If God is the causal agent who chooses who will and who won’t be saved, then how does He choose? Specifically, in light of the overriding principle of Scripture that God loves all of his creation and is willing that none should perish (something also affirmed by Jonah and the other prophets as they called people to repentance for multiple years in some cases); How can we  claim God loves the world and desires the salvation of all men at the same time we affirm a doctrine that explicitly states that He doesn’t?

It seems that we have far more philosophical and theological reason to reject the notion of a God who causally determines every single thing that happens (including sin and subsequent repentance) than we do to question a system which attempts to answer the entire body of evidence (including God’s holiness and man’s responsibility for his own actions).

Mike:

While I’d like to address your response point-by-point, I think for the sake of limited time and for focus I will hone in on your specific questions.  I think they do a good job at hitting the heart of the issue, and they are ones I wrestled with for a long time myself.

You asked, “If God is the causal agent who chooses who will and who won’t be saved, then how does He choose?”

I would answer that in a couple of ways.  First, the reason why He chooses one person over another is not specifically explained in Scripture.  We don’t fully understand the mind of God (Deut 29:29), but we know that He is trustworthy and He always does what is right, and that all that comes to pass will be for the sake of bringing glory to Himself.  This is where our ideas of justice and righteousness must be in submission to God’s revealed word.

We do see, however, that God chooses who are saved in such a way that none can boast (1 Cor 1:25-31), not even in their “decision for Christ”, since this too is a gift extended to the elect (Eph 2:8,9).  It is also not because of anything special about any of us (John 1:13, Rom 9:16), especially we are by nature children of the devil and objects of His wrath (Eph 2:3).  If God were to choose someone based on foreseen faith or some virtuous decision, then He would be contradicting His character since this is showing partiality (Rom 2:11).

You also asked, “How can we claim God loves the world and desires the salvation of all men at the same time we affirm a doctrine that explicitly states that He doesn’t?”

To say that “God loves the world and desires all to be saved, but He doesn’t save everyone” is in no way a contradiction.  Here’s a meager example: a judge shouldn’t want to send anyone to jail because he wants to see people obey the law, yet he is charged with upholding justice so he must punish criminals.  One thing we haven’t touched on yet in our conversation is the difference between God’s “revealed will” (that which reflects His character and desires) and God’s “decretive will” (what He decrees will come to pass, either as a direct cause or not).  God obviously does desire all men to obey Him and not to sin.  Does this mean everyone obeys and nobody sins?  Well, of course not, as evidenced by the fall.  God’s desire for all to obey is his “revealed will” for all mankind.  I would argue His desire for all to be saved (2 Pet 3:9, 1 Tim 2:4) is part of His “revealed will” as well.

As far as God loving the world, He does love the world in a general sense by extending common grace to all (e.g., breath in everyone’s lungs, the restraint of people from being as evil as they can potentially be, the rain falling on the just and the unjust, patience with the wicked).

Additionally, I think it’s important to note that what we “should do” does not necessarily imply what we “can do” in and of ourselves.  Even though He desires for us to obey perfectly, we don’t have the moral ability to do so, since we are by nature dead in trespasses and sins (Ps 51:5-6, 58:3, Col 2:13)—morally in bondage to sin as a result of the fall.  Because it is a moral inability, this is why we’re still culpable for our disobedience and rejection of Christ.  And, like you mentioned, we can’t claim ignorance of the law (Rom 1:20, 2:12-16).  Because we absolutely won’t accept Christ because our wills are in such bondage to sin, this is why scripture says in Romans 8:7 that we’re unable.  For example, think of a bad marriage where a wife may scream: “I can’t forgive my husband because I hate him so much!!!”

So, the call goes out for everyone to obey perfectly, though nobody can or will.  Similarly, the call to salvation goes out to all, though nobody can or will (Rom 3:10-18).  That is, except, unless God graciously and mercifully intervenes, regenerates the sinner’s heart, and grants them repentance and faith (Acts 11:18, 2 Tim 2:25).

These evidences from Scripture are why, I argue, that God must be the causal agent for salvation.  Mankind is utterly at His total mercy, and He doesn’t owe salvation to anyone.  All the more reason for all credit to go to His Name alone for the salvation of men.

I hope my answers—though far from exhaustive—were helpful to at least some degree.

Me:

I think one of the problems we are having is that we define “faith” in fundamentally different ways. I read Eph 2:8,9 to mean that the gift of salvation is what is not of ourselves and that we merely obtain it via faith. In other words, you seem to view faith as a work whereas I do not since faith by itself saves no one but rather the object thereof.

The reason I ask how God chooses is to expose the rather curious loophole left intentionally by Calvin and modern proponents of reformed doctrine (like James White) where, after claiming that God grants us even the faith required to fulfill the command to repent and believe we are told “God grants to them the gifts of faith and repentance, which they then exercise by believing in Christ and turning from their sins in love for God.” This begs the obvious question of: If these people were foreordained unto salvation from eternity past, and if God has to grant the even the ability to accept him, why mention their exercising that gift? Why doesn’t God just do it for them?

The point is that while we both agree that God is the author and originator of faith, I maintain that humans have the ability to exercise that faith in positive (though not wholly salvific in itself) ways or not. I also don’t see where such a claim about faith makes it any more meritorious than, say, choosing to believe in the giver of a gift somehow merits the gift unto myself.

This leads to the other reformed doctrine you bring up above (which I also maintain is logically linked to the others once you take a causally deterministic view of sovereignty) which is the doctrine of total depravity.

While the Bible does clearly teach that we are, by nature, on death-row heading for an eternity separated from God I don’t think it’s fair or proper to compare our spiritual and, baring salvation, inevitable state with that of a dead man. Several issues arise if we take the analogy laid forth in certain passages about our being spiritually dead too far.

Primarily we are faced with the fact that while dead things can do no good, they can do no evil either. I like to use the analogy that if my son or daughter were to drop dead right before bedtime I wouldn’t beat them for refusing to put on their pajamas before bedtime. That would be far from just (or rational!). Similarly I don’t see how we can claim that God issues decrees we are unable to uphold, whether it be in our power or power we are to co-opt from some other source (but that is still in our power to go ask for and receive said power per Luke 19:21).

Another issue with taking the “we are dead in our trespasses” too far out of the limited scope of spiritual deadness intended in the original use is that death releases the dead person from obligation to the law. If our death is a complete inability to choose anything other than death at all, then why do you suppose we are still “under the law” and not released by it per Romans 7:2?

I think the major problem with the doctrine of total depravity lies in how low of a view it puts forth of man and the inherent damage such a view does to the imago dei or image of God we bear. I think this doctrine also fails to account for the fact that if we were all sinners and enemies of God (and, by nature children of wrath) then how were we saved at all if, according to reformed theology, the elect are predestined unto salvation apart from anything they do or decide?

In closing, I apologize for not addressing each of the verses you mentioned individually but suffice to say that I believe that it is far easier to harmonize them with a view of man’s libertarian freedom than it is to harmonize the rest of scripture with the competing notion of complete bondage that was set forth by Luther and Calvin (though not to the degree that Beza took it).

If you’ve read this far I hope you find this conversation as fruitful as Mike and I did. Feel free to join in below!

1. He is referring to the questions I raised towards the end of my previous correspondence which can be found here.

Many who ask this question object the idea that, if God’s knowledge is based in his eternal decree then Molinism is undone because it eradicates the notion of libertarian freedom. On the other hand, they think that if the Molinist says that God’s knowledge is grounded in the decisions of his free creatures then God is somehow handcuffed by his creation.

They further find it strange that the leading Molinist apologists such as William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga  are strangely silent (in their minds at least) about this objection.

I don’t think it is that Craig or Plantinga fail to take seriously the grounding objection so much as they simply find the objection to be incoherent given the presupposition that counterfactuals are true regardless of their instantiation. That is, they are true regardless of whether they obtain or not AND whether the actors in question exist or not. In short, the question of where God’s knowledge of future free decisions is incoherent at the outset because it presupposes that true statements require grounding in the first place. My question when such an objection is raised is when would we suppose that a tensed factual statement such as “I will be in the office tomorrow morning” becomes true?

In sum, the grounding objection begins with a flawed premise that presupposes that knowledge of future-free events must be contingent on the will of either God. The answer, however, is to expand our options to include the possibility that the knowledge of future-free events is what some philosophers call a “brute fact” that God knows in accordance with His omniscience so that the question of where God’s knowledge of future events is grounded is answered by His omniscient nature, not his eternal decree (or man’s finite and contingent decree).

For a better and more in-depth answer to the grounding objection I would point to Thomas P. Flint’s book, Divine Providence, chapter 5 which is also referenced in this article by Craig.

Audio

William Lane Craig‘s multi-part series “Doctrine of God” taught in his Sunday School class (Defenders) at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church

Articles

• Refutation of Boyd’s Neo-Molinism, William Lane Craig
• Molinism and Romans 9, William Lane Craig
• On the grounding objection, William Lane Craig
• Subject: Misconceptions about Middle Knowledge, William Lane Craig
• Does God Choose Who Will Believe?, Jeff Robinson

Philosophia Christi is a scholarly periodical published by the Evangelical Philosophical Society which regularly has articles both for and against Middle Knowledge, recently Vol 11 Num 1 2009 featured Steven B. Cowan (Editor of Five Views on Apologetics) against and Scott A Davison (Professor of Philosophy at Morehead State University) for with some good interaction between them both.

Books

• Only Wise God, William Lane Craig
• Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig
• Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, William Lane Craig
• Divine Providence: The Molinist Account, Thomas P Flint
• Middle Knowledge, Eef Dekker
• Salvation and Sovereignty: A Molinist Approach, Kenneth Keathley
• God’s Greater Glory, Bruce Ware
• The Transforming Power of Grace, Thomas C Odem

Other notable proponents of Middle Knowledge¹ include:

• Bruce Little who is a philosophy professor at SEBTS who has done a lot of work on the topic of God, Evil, and Suffering and whom is also the author of Creation Order Theodicy
• Udo Middleman who is a Calvinist and director of L’Abri which was started by his father-in-law, Francis Schaeffer. He is also the author of the excellent books Innocence of God and The Islamization of Christianity
• Alvin Plantinga who is a Calvinist and Presbyterian professor of philosophy (specifically epistemology) at Notre Dame
• Thomas P Flint who is a Roman Catholic professor of philosophy at Notre Dame
• Ken Keathley who is a senior associate dean and professor of theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. and a 4 point Calvinist.

I would be remiss if I were to claim this as an exhaustive list of proponents or resources pertaining to Middle Knowledge/Molinism so if you know of any other resources, by all means, let me know!

1. These include both active and passive proponents of Middle Knowledge/Molinism. Not all of these people actively promote Middle Knowledge by itself but all, as far as I know, hold to this doctrine and deem it useful or “fruitful” in answering other theological/philosophical issues. The most significant being the question of evil.

Well there is such an answer and many may be surprised to find out that it is fully accepted by Catholics, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. In other words, it’s not the sole product of a sectarian group with a vested interest in a particular theological system.

It may also surprise you to find out that you probably already hold to the core tenets of this “magic bullet” system even though you may have never heard them clearly stated as a codified set of doctrines before.

Molinism is a theological system named after a Spanish Jesuit priest, Louis de Molina. In modern times it has also come to be known as “middle knowledge” due, in part at least, to the influence one of it’s most ardent supporters, Dr William Lane Craig.

While many books have been written on this subject (some of which I’ll list below), and many lectures (some of which I’ll link below), I’ll try to summarize Molinism in a few paragraphs.

Before God created he knew all possible worlds and all possible events and all possible interactions in all of the possible worlds (including all possible reactions and outcomes of His direct interactions in all of these possible worlds). Out of all of these possible worlds God chose to actualize or create one of them so that, while all things are effectively determined, they are neither causally determined by God nor is God constrained to the position of merely reacting to the choices of His free creatures. We are indeed free¹ and God is indeed sovereign².

One seminary professor³ put it to his students this way: “It’s up to God which world you find yourself in. It’s up to you what you find yourself doing in that world.”

I’m sure if you are new to Molinism (or if you are like most pastors⁴ and incredibly confused⁵ about what it really is⁶), I encourage you to explore this topic further.⁷

Here are a few resources that might help (if you know of any more, please let me know!):

1. In a libertarian sense.
2. It is also helpful to point out that we need not describe sovereignty in the classic Calvinistic terms of causally directing all that comes to pass. An analogy I like to use is that I am sovereign over my children and yet I still have to spank them from time to time.
3. This is a seminary professor at Southeastern in case you were wondering.
4. There is more to be said here, but a pastor I knew very well once told me he didn’t like Molinism. When pressed as to whether he had even studied it he told me he had “fallen asleep” when someone tried to present it to him and a group of other pastors. With a commitment like that to learning and growing is it any wonder why most Christians are perpetual infants? Situations like this give great weight behind the notion that it is foolish to rely on one man as the source of Biblical learning.
5. Here is an example of a recent blog post that completely misses the point of Molisnism and arrogantly assumes it is somehow anti-Biblical simply because it involves philosophy. This is another example of an inherent anti-intellectual bias that has run rampant in the Church since the premise is essentially: anything that makes me think, or runs contrary to my favorite celebrity preachers, like John Piper, is obviously not from God.
6. The saddest example of this is this wiki-style site that would otherwise be a very good resource if not for their blatant bias which is particularly obvious in their section on Molinism
7. One final example of someone who completely misses the point is James White’s extended tirade wherein he presupposes that the doctrine of middle knowledge is merely philosophical (whereas reformed theology somehow isn’t) and not based on Biblical theology (which is not only a lie, but is intellectually dishonest).