A Philosophical Discussion on Molinism & Middle Knowledge

Dr. Craig dives into Molinism with two philosophy professors.

Special thanks to Taylor Cyr & Matthew Flummer for this interview. Be sure the check out their material on The Free Will Podast.

We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums:

[gingrai]

While it is not easy to grasp at first, the doctrine of middle knowledge does a wonderful job of providing an explanation of how God is sovereign while humans remain free.

[cliveaw]

For the fatalists here, you're free to disagree. Oh wait sorry you're not.

[OnielMendezIrizarry]

Simply put: the GREATEST intellectual of our century.

[bootswith_defir]

Amazing interview. I so enjoyed hearing molinism explored, not just defined. I am so grateful for God’s common grace that allows us to think and explore his perfection! As long as our explanations do not contradict his word or his character, which molinism does not, I truly believe there is no end to the journey of exploring his brilliance, goodness, justness, etc.! Thank you God for expressing your power and goodness through your children!

[sabriya]

WLC is such an excellent communicator of his ideas.

[WisdomisPower-inminute-dnno]

I've been tackling these questions too and shared my perspectives on my channel. Engaging with like-minded individuals is enriching.

[thetotalvictoryofchrist]

If we didn't have freewill that would mean God made us sin, and God does not tempt anyone to sin (James 1:13). But in that light God also knows that eventually everyone will also turn of their own freewill. For the Scriptures say, “‘As surely as I live, ’ says the LORD, ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will declare allegiance to God.’” -Romans 14:11

[forthwith]

"Bill?" C'mon, that's "Dr. Craig." Hard to hear a young guy who got an interview with this esteemed professional call him, "Bill." Even if you know him personally, it's just a sign of respect for his accomplishments and age to refer to him professionally in an interview.

[osks]

For those who are confused by all of this ‘middle knowledge’ stuff (proponents of Molinism tend to muddy the water only to make it seem deep), I want to offer this simple explanation:
Molinism (or ‘middle knowledge’) places the knowledge of God somewhere between these two extremes (the fact God is absolutely sovereign and omniscient is something Molinists conveniently ignore):
1) God knows who will be saved (because He chose them before He laid the foundations of the world - Rom 8, 9, Eph 1…); and
2) God knows not who will be saved (because that depends entirely on them ‘freely choosing’)
So, Molinism (‘middle knowledge’) is the idea that God will know who will be saved, only IF and WHEN the sinner ‘freely’ chooses to be saved… Ie God’s knowledge of the saved is contingent upon the capricious whim of the sinner, driven by the sinner’s ’free choice’ and circumstance!
So, God will come to know His own, not because He sovereignly ORDAINED the salvation of anyone, but because the sinner FREELY WILLED it to happen at the ‘right time’
Molinism is really a theosophical attempt to somehow preserve the ‘sovereignty of man’ (properly known as ‘Autonomianism’) while paying lip service to the Lordship of God… Molinism is an utterly unBiblical and philosophical bankrupt idea!

[pathfinding]

A few days ago I uploaded video to my channel that utterly dismantles Dr Craig's view of God's free knowledge.
Unfortunately, if you hitch your wagon to glorifying God because of power over love, then you get trapped in superlatives.
When you have to do mental gymnastics to reconcile God's free knowledge and human free will you know there is a conundrum.
God doesn't perfectly know the future, and the logic thought experiment in my video cearly and irrefutably shows this.
I'd be happy to debate Dr Craig on it any time.

[xmrf]

I'm glad to know about this topic. Do anybody know if there is this video with spanish subtitles?

[MBarberfanlife]

I have a Thomist understanding of this issue now. Feser was one of the people that helped me. He has this simple analogy of an author: does the fact that an author writes a book mean that the characters in the book aren't free? Obviously not.

[osks]

Under the rigour of a proper Biblical exegesis, we quickly discover that the idea of God’s ‘natural knowledge’ and God’s ‘free knowledge’ is a theological canard constructed to accommodate the (utterly unBiblical) idea of God’s ‘middle knowledge’ - an artificial abstraction contrived by men like William Lane Craig to somehow salvage the ‘sovereignty of man’ while paying little more than lip service to the absolute sovereignty of God…
I really don’t understand why the disciples of Dr Craig aren’t also troubled by the fact that he insists on appealing to two extra-Biblical sources to support his Autonomian commitments, rather than allowing the sufficiency of the very Word of God (2Tim 3:16, 17) to speak for itself on the things of God…
On the one hand, Craig employs an argument formulated by a Muslim apologist (amongst others), Al-Ghazali, as ‘proof’ for the existence of God (as though it were possible to reduce the infinitude of God to the level of finite human comprehension)!
And then, Craig employs an argument formulated by Luis de Molina, a Spanish Jesuit priest commissioned by Pope Paul III as a Romanist ‘soldier of the Catholic Church’ to counter the Scriptural principle of Sola Scriptura upheld by the Protestant Reformation
It is little wonder that God has (yet again) given His church over to the Fool into apostasy…

[chriswest]

It's all begging the question. Feels like, anyway, circular reasoning. He starts with a conclusion then finds ' reasons' to support it.

[GulfsideMinistries]

I'm at the 12:00 mark, and I want to pause and say this is precisely the point I reject Molinism. Far from safeguarding free will, it seems to me to deny it right at this point. If God knows that always under the case of X that I will do Y, then I'm not free. My choice is determined by the circumstances. God then just creates the circumstances to get me to do what He wants me to do.

Slightly better is the argument that it's not that God knows what I would do in situation X (i.e., God creates X if He wants me to do Y), but rather than God looks at all possible worlds in which I do Y. In some of these worlds, X happens and I respond with Y. In other worlds, X happens identically in all respects except I do ~Y. Here, God just actualizes the world in which I choose Y rather than ~Y.

Now, I have *serious* objections to that. I think it turns God into a finite, contingent being in need of causal explanation. It's little more than atheism in which the creature we call God is Superman. But let's set that aside. Sticking to free will, I'm not sure that even that second, definitely better, scenario, safeguards human freedom. For in this case, it's not obvious that I literally could have done ~Y. It was a logical possibility in that there were possible worlds. But if God determined to actualize this world precisely because this is the one in which I choose Y, then I don't know that I really had a "choice" in the proper sense of the word in the first place. It's a bit ironic for a Weslyan theologian not to see this. He will object, rightly, to limited atonement on the basis that it implies that it's just not true that "WHOSOEVER believes has everlasting life." The gospel isn't a genuine offer of salvation. It's just a diagnostic to show which people Christ died for, and that's an abominable view that undermines the heart of the Christian message.

And so here. Molinism preserves the out trappings of free will but it denies its real spirit. And this at the cost of what it does to the divine nature.

I'm going to keep listening to the video, but I think I'm going to have to do a series on this soon.

[geomicpri]

I don’t get it. “Baal doesn’t exist” is true because it is a description of reality, reality is the truth-maker, & it is such that there is no such character. Is that not right?

[danieldimarinomusic]

See, this is where I get confused: how is God freely choosing to create a world that He *knows* will accomplish His will any different than Him creating this world in the Calvinist view? In either scenario, He’s still choosing to create a world which contains human beings choosing evil. Under the Molinist view is it assumed God had no option to create a world where all choose to follow Him? Does such a world simply not exist?

[flavioa]

the problem I have with Molinism is it’s accounting of fairness. If there was a world where someone freely DID choose God, how is it fair that a different world was chosen wherein that person would not choose God and therefore be punished eternally as a result? That person has no choice in the matter of what world they found themselves in so how can we punish them? Transworld depravity seems only to assume persons such as these would have chosen to disbelieve in god in every possible world…

[sethtrey]

I do not understand why Middle Knowledge isn't understood as knowledge of everything we and everybody else might do and what would happen, and what He will do in all cases, and what each of us will do next, etc. There is no "what you will do" in the future, except in the things that you have decided already. It's middle knowledge because "might" is right between "will" and "won't"

edit: if this view needs a name, I suggest "The Might Of God".

If I have a decision coming up which will be a surprise to me (for example, where to get a car fixed, God forbid), how can God, at this moment, know what I will decide to do when I am, at this moment, unaware there is even a decision? Currently, there is no "what I will do" concerning that, and there may never be. God cannot know a fact which is not. But He can easily know what might be. He can just know way more of it than we can.

The past is just a memory, but the future is just an assumption.

[jeffreykalb]

Molinism actually destroys the very human freedom it claims to preserve by making human choices dependent upon external created circumstances. It is one thing for ones actions to be determined (but not necessitated - there is a difference) by God, but entirely another to be determined by creatures.