God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 14

     Continuing from the last post wherein I discussed the first couple options, in this post I plan to take up the discussion of the Molinistic option.
There are two variations on the Molinistic theme. Below is the definition taken from Wikipedia of what a counterfactual is or may be:

“A counterfactual conditional, or subjunctive conditional, is a conditional (or “if-then”) statement indicating what would be the case if its antecedent were true. This is to be contrasted with an indicative conditional, which indicates what is (in fact) the case if its antecedent is (in fact) true.”

A counterfactual then is a statement that represents what might happen given that certain circumstances come to pass. The indicative condition is what has happened. Here are some concrete examples:

1.        If Adam had not sinned, then Christ would not have had to die on the cross. Indicative Conditional: Adam sinned and Christ had to die.

2.        If Joseph had accused Mary, then she would have been stoned. Indicative Conditional: Joseph believed the angel.

3.        If Pilate had believed, then Barabbas would have been crucified in place of Jesus. Indicative Conditional: Pilate rejected Christ and gave in to the mob’s wishes.

4.        If Judas had not betrayed Christ, then Christ would not have been arrested. Indicative Conditional: Judas betrayed Christ, and Christ was arrested.

   The Molinist concludes that, because we can conceive of such counterfactuals as these, then they must have been alternate possibilities to what has actually occurred in history. In other words, they were real possibilities representing a fork in the road of time where upon if individuals had made other choices then history would have been written differently to the degree that those other choices would have changed the outcome. Such a conclusion is only necessary in a scheme where it is presumed that creatures have the libertarian freewill to choose otherwise, meaning that persons are bound neither by any external decree or knowledge nor even by their own affections and desires as formal causal agents. We all could easily agree that the human perspective alone can look back in hindsight and claim that a different choice could have been made, but this is only true because we would be looking as finite creatures at the past. Concerning our own view of the past, which is temporally bound, it is right to affirm the existence of counterfactuals. Concerning our Creator’s view of the future, which is not temporally bound, it is right to deny the existence of counterfactuals. So we can look back at the four events mentioned above and say yes, this, that or the other thing could have happened, but as God looks at the future He would not say yes—those events are possible—unless He could not see the future perfectly. We can look back at the past and see events as they happen, but we could also imagine the contrary. So the counterfactuals we see as we look back at history are imaginary counterfactuals and can never be real or true counterfactuals. I assert that counterfactuals by nature of creation cannot be true because they do not have a ground in the decree of God. The Libertarian likely claims God decreed counterfactuals to establish freewill. But to state the Compatibilist objection positively, only those events decreed by God are actually possible ergo if God has not decreed it then it is not possible.

   In the next post I will continue this discussion.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 13

Continuing now with the discussion of the options I listed at the end of the last post.

Option one is the testimony of Open Theism. Sometimes referred to as “Process Theology”, the proponents of this position attest that God cannot know the future choices of his creatures or else those choices are not free.  If He did know the future choices of His creatures then they necessarily would not be free because they could not then have chosen otherwise. 

Option two is the Reformed opinion. This understanding of how God knows and interacts with time and the future, as stated before, is sometimes referred to as “Compatibilism”. The Compatibilist says that God’s creatures are free to make choices according to their desires—and in fact must do so in order for those choices to really be free.  We also maintain that God’s decree of an event to bring ultimate good and man’s plan to sin in the very same event are compatible, so that the resulting consequences may accomplish both of those ends: man’s sinful ones and God’s holy ones. Consider Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery in the book of Genesis. 

   Option three is far more involved, thus requiring a far greater amount of discussion.thus I will begin that discussion next post.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 12

Counterfactuals: fact or fiction?

For the sake of argument let’s assume for a moment that God does know my future choice perfectly. The reason God knows is not because He simply foresees it in the future, for unless my choice has previously been conceived, it does not exist in order to be foreseen. The Reformed explanation for this is that God knows my future choice (and all things that will happen) because He has ordained or decreed them. God does not see future events as truths generated externally from His knowledge; His knowledge of them is their final causal agent. In our apprehension of God and His decrees, as lofty a topic as it most certainly is, we might be able to say that His knowledge of future creaturely choices and temporal events is dependant upon His decree of them. In other words, He knows them because He planned them and the certainty of their existence because He knows them. But who conceives of my future choice: God, myself, or are they self-existent? If ultimate objectivity exists then it must embodied in the existence of a being of the immutable perfection pf a personal Creator who relates to His creatures in covenantal fashion. The components of such objectivity are: the written future, ethical standards, time, truth and the like. The God of the Christian scriptures is that being and because He created, that which He has created is subject to Him and is dependant upon His continued existence. No right thinking individual would argue that God didn’t create, and because He did then He necessarily must have decreed or planned to do so. If He had only created one angelic being then the logical inference is that, prior to that creation, He had decreed or planned to do so. It is an intellectual end-run to suggest that, in order to maintain a creature’s freedom and establish its blameworthiness, God could only know all the choices and actions of that creature without having decreed or planned them. To deny such does not mean that God is the immediate cause of those actions or choices (the creature is) but it does indicate that they are a means to His ends. If this is rejected then God personally could not have a purpose in the future actions and choices of that creature. God’s holiness in part, rests on whether or not He did create with a purpose. If He did not decree or plan for everything that exists, then His purposefulness in those things that happen and exist is called into question. Their existence becomes a means only of establishing the creature’s freedom. Moreover, if one could establish that God had created any one thing or that any one event happened outside of His decree, plan or purpose, then I believe that we could gather that He has (God forbid) done something unethical. Professing Christians at least ought to agree that if a being has committed an unethical act then He could not be perfect or holy and therefore could not be God.  In other words, if there was no plan or decree of the creature and its subsequent actions formed prior to its creation, then the purposefulness of its creation is challenged. And I would argue that if anything happened or anything exists without God investing purpose in it, then God couldn’t exist. If there was a purposeless event then it must have happened, not by God’s creation, ordination, or decree, but randomly, thus outside of the purview of God’s hand—rendering Him impotent. 

In contrast, one might suggest that God created the natural realm yet many of the events and choices contained therein were not directly decreed but may occur “naturally” within that realm and the assurance of the future existence of said events and choices is finally caused by their antecedents that God is responsible for having decreed, thus exonerating God as the potential author of evil. Even if this suggestion were true, it does not apply to my premise because, though God is not the imminent cause of every event and choice, His decree is their final cause due to the fact that He created the realm in which these things take place therefore no event or choice is random or purposeless. I submit that God did decree all things directly, but He did not cause them all directly.  He decreed all things directly but uses secondary causes to reach His intended ends, having ordained both the ends and their means. 

God knew all that would occur before His first act of creation. He knew that one third of all the angels would fall into sin under the deception of Lucifer; He knew that Adam would fall by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but how did God know? God could not have known perfectly what would happen if He hadn’t decreed it. If God knew evil would exist yet He hadn’t decreed it and He created anyway, then evil ultimately has no purpose. If purposeless, gratuitous evil exists then God cannot exist. William Rowe explains gratuitous evil this way, “…not necessary for the occurrence of any greater good or the prevention of any equally bad or worse evil.[i]”

The open theist adopts such a view of evil. They claim that investing God’s purpose in evil events creates the very problem of evil, and that He can have no purpose in it or else His is not holy. Listen to what John Sanders has to say.

“The accident that caused the death of my brother was a tragedy. God does not have a specific purpose in mind for [this] occurrence…there is no point for the specific occurrence of gratuitous evil.[ii]”

But I say, without a point, God cannot exist. Hence the criticism of the Open Theist’s position that, in its attempt to solve the problem of evil they make God in the image of man. Where else would evil find its purpose if God didn’t ordain it; could God have created a universe devoid of evil, He obviously didn’t. And if it was possible and He didn’t create that universe then why do we still regard Him as holy and omnipotent?  Did God have to create at all? God did have to create in order for His perfection to issue forth causing praise. As John Piper puts it, “Creation is God’s glory gone public.” It was necessary for God to create and He did so in order that His magnificence would be displayed through the joy His creatures received when they magnify His glory. So God decided to create, of that one thing we can be sure. So, regarding future events, creaturely choices and the like, there really are only three choices, either:

1.        God learns the future as His creatures make choices.

2.        God ordains all things: the ends and the means to those ends.

3.        God knows what will occur in the future, including the future choices of His creatures but real counterfactuals exist that represent what His creatures might have done but didn’t.  These counterfactuals come into existence either prior to or after God’s decrees, depending on who you ask.

In the following post I plan to discuss the three options above.

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[i] Rowe, William.                Howard-Snyder, 116

[ii] Sanders, John E. The God Who Risks. (Intervarsity Press, 1998)

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 11

In addition to the information presented in the last post, there are several other implications to be drawn.

1.        God perfectly knows my future choice therefore my choice is, from God’s perspective, determined before I make it.

2.        Because God has perfect knowledge of future events and choices, He necessarily must have decreed their occurrence.

3.        God perfectly knows my future choice therefore I can’t choose against His decree.

4.        God perfectly knows my future choice therefore I can’t choose differently. Refer back to number seven above.

5.        If my choice is not predetermined then God cannot know my future choice perfectly. The denial of this is what has caused some to comply with Open Theism. Refer back to number six above.

6.        If I can choose against the decree of God then He doesn’t actually know my future choice and thus has not decreed it.

7.        If I can choose differently then God doesn’t know my future choice perfectly.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 10

Eight revealing questions (continued with questions 5-8)

5.        What factors determine or cause my choice?  In answering this question I’ve decided to employ Aristotle’s “Four Causes”.  I mentioned two types of causes in my earlier example: efficient and formal, and here I will provide further explanation of those causes. The four causes are these: material, efficient, formal, and final, and I will apply them to the example above wherein I chose to turn right. The material causes of my choice were things like, the road, my car, and me.  The efficient causes of my choice to turn right were my destination, the “T” intersection, and the car-jacker. The formal cause of my choice was my motivation: my desire to turn right (born out of my affections) and my consideration of the efficiency of my travel; do I take the fastest route to my destination or the shortest route? And the final cause of my choice to turn right was God’s decree that I would in the future, most definitely turn right.

6.        Thus another question arises, the one pertaining most to the topic at hand, could I actually have chosen differently? In answering this question it is helpful to consider the causes of my choice. Would the material causes of my choice to turn right prohibit me from turning left? The existence of the road wouldn’t prohibit my turning left. The fact that I was in a car would not prohibit me from turning left. My own existence would not preclude my turning left. So what about the efficient cause: by turning either left or right I might have reached my destination. Even if turning left was a dead-end, I could make a u-turn and finally get to my destination. The fact that I was at a “T” intersection when I turned right did not limit my choice to only going right.  I still could have turned left. I even could have gone straight if I had been willing to run off the road. Even if a car-jacker demanding me to turn a direction other than I had intended, doesn’t necessitate that I make that choice. I may choose to go the direction I originally had intended, even if it is at my own peril. Next we explore the formal cause of my turning right.  Primarily, the formal cause of my choice to turn right was my motivation, but the secondary formal cause was either, the fastest way to arrive at my destination or the shortest way to my destination. Even so, neither of these hindered my choice absolutely. So during the examination of all these different causes of my turning right we find that, from the human, temporal perspective I could have turned left but in hindsight we must agree that my choice was fixed and because I chose to turn right we must deduce that I could not have chosen otherwise because of the final cause of my choice. The final cause of my choice to turn right was not just my desire and affection to that direction but ultimately I could not have chosen otherwise because God decreed for it to happen. Yes, God knew it was going to happen. If He knew I might turn right but I actually ended up turning left then His knowledge would have been imperfect.  So the answer to the question, could I actually have chosen differently is no. Because God’s knowledge of the future is perfect I could not have chosen differently. The final two questions are difficult to separate from the last one, and from one another, but I’ll give it a shot.

7.        Can I choose against the decree of God?  Well, if I have argued effectively in the last several sentences then we will see that the answer to this question is also no, and for the very same reasons.  If we are able to choose contrary to the decree of God then He would no longer be God because He would be rendered impotent and without knowledge. The nature of His decree is that it certainly comes to pass.

8.        And the last question is this: was my choice determined? The answer is inevitably, if we’re honest, yes.  If God knows what He knows perfectly and those things He knows includes my choices, then my choices necessarily are predetermined. But the reality that I can’t choose against God’s decree doesn’t mean that my choices aren’t real. My choices are real precisely because I don’t know God’s decree beforehand. In essence, if being a creature means in part, not knowing my own future and my freedom to choose is defined by my ignorance of that remote future choice and its consequences, then by definition all the choices I make as a creature are free—free from my own knowledge of their future occurrences, outcomes, consequences, effects and causalities. So it can be said, even with great confidence, that my finitude actually establishes my power to make real choices that are born out of genuine freedom. Though God knows and thus determines the future as a consequence of His knowledge, He neither sins nor is the author of sin because we, His creatures, make real choices motivated by our desires, thus we are culpable. I refer to this as covenantal determinism—God had determined that His creatures would disobey. All of us are in covenant relationship to God—the unbeliever stands condemned by the Law, assuming he can obtain eternal pleasure by his good works, and the believer stands just before God by the gracious application of Christ’s work to his account. But in both cases we are called to obey God’s Law because He has made us and stamped us with His image. But as His creatures, He has ordained that we have the ability and even the inclination to break His Law. So, even though God has determined beforehand that I will at various points in my life, break His Law, I am still censurable because my choice to do so is born out of genuine creaturely freedom—ergo, covenantal determinism.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 9

Eight revealing questions (continued with questions 1-4)

     Now to go about answering those eight questions:

1.        The first question is: does God know my choice? Even though the choice I have made or will make had not yet happened before I made it, in as far as they are bound in time and based on the testimony of Scripture; I can say that God knew the choices I would eventually make.

2.        If that is true then we must also ask the question, was my choice free? And again, based on Scripture, I say yes, God can know what I will choose and my choice remains free. My freedom is established in the fact that I choose according to my strongest desire. As a mater of fact I will always choose based on my strongest inclination which I am capable of fulfilling.  My will not only influences my decisions, it determines them in the immediate sense. The fact that I always do what I want to do establish the compatibility between God’s ordination and knowledge of my choice and the freedom of my choice.

3.        Can I be forced to choose something that I ultimately do not want? I would say no, not if I have the capacity to do that which I desire.  Following are three examples used to illustrate this point.

a.        Perhaps one day I decide I would like to fly by my own power, no assistance, no wings, and no devises. Right up front we must acknowledge the fact that I do not have the capacity of unassisted flight and my shear willing it to happen is unrealistic and irrational. So if two choices are before me, under normal circumstances I will always choose that which I most strongly desire; that to which I am most strongly inclined. But this circumstance is abnormal. Nearly every kid has at one time or another wanted to simply jump into the air and fly. He may even have a very strong desire to fly. However, he may not legitimately choose that which seems to be his strongest desire because he cannot choose it. He may have a powerful inward desire to fly but he is incapable of inclining himself to fulfill it. This leads us to a consequent question, can one actually desire most strongly, that for which he has no natural capacity? I may have a strong inclination to fly but I have no empathetic understanding of its mechanics, thus I do not understand what it would really mean to fly; I am not actually aware of the work and effort that would be involved, therefore I do not actually desire to fly, but what I desire is my understanding of what flying is. I desire a caricature of flying, but not flying itself. So I conclude that one cannot most strongly desire that for which one has no natural capacity to do or to even understand. This is the futile wish, and it is most probably the exclusive province of sentient beings and a condition of the fall, because we know that we will not even be able to desire anything we cannot do or have in the eternal state with God. So once in God’s eternal presence we will have no need or want for things we cannot have; there will be no futility to our desires. Perhaps Hell in some part consists of eternally unfulfilled futile wishes and unsatisfied desires.

b.       The second example is only slightly different. Imagine being tied to a chair by an abductor. This example illustrates both a lack of capacity and a conflict between contiguous desires, desires that appear to be very close in strength with an inappreciable difference. In this situation you would obviously have a very strong desire to be free. On the one hand, you may actually be able to free yourself when your abductor turns his back or leaves the room but it would result in having to pull one of your wrists out of socket, or cut off your hand by vigorously rubbing it against the cords with which your hands are tied. Even these choices lend themselves to a degree of capacity—can you actually pull your wrist out of socket, will the cord cut through your hand, or can you twist your arm enough to pull your hand off at the wrist in order to free yourself. Even if you are able to free yourself in one of these ways, you must also consider what would happen next. Will you bleed to death from your wounds? Once you are free from the chair will you then be able to defend yourself with such a handicap? Now it becomes a matter of discretion rather than capacity. Though you have a very strong desire to be free from the chair, you choose not to remove or dislocate your hand because that was your strongest desire. Though you very much want to be free, your stronger desire is to leave your hand attached to your arm, so in the end you chose the strongest between several contiguous desires.

c.        Imagine I am driving down the road with every intention of taking a right at the next stop light however, as I sit in line waiting for the light to turn green, a man jumps in the back of my car and while holding a gun to my head he demands that I turn left at the light and insists that he will kill me if I don’t do as he says. I now have an added element in the choice I would make. Had the man never jumped in my car I would have turned right because that is the direction I most strongly desired to go. But now, because of the threat to my life (which will end up being a determining cause in my choice) I choose to turn left.  Does this mean that I have done something that I did not want to do? While I would have had the desire and the capacity to turn right at the light, my stronger desire was to save my life by turning left. Because of the introduction of another efficient cause (the threat to my life) the formal cause (the motivation to preserve my life) was altered, thus the conflict was no longer simply between turning left or right. The conflict would then be between turning right and preserving my life, and because I more strongly desired to preserve my life than to turn right, I fulfilled my stronger affection toward one of two contiguous desires by turning left. So I develop two very important presuppositions: that I cannot ultimately be forced to do something that I don’t want to, and I cannot actually desire that which I have no natural capacity to do. Thus I have also answered the next question.

4.        Why do I choose what I choose?  The answer is very simple; I choose what I choose because my choice reflects the desires of my heart.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 8

     At this point, for those of you who are familiar with the previous series I posted about two years ago regarding this topic, you will begin to see the repetition, particularly concerning the eight questions.

Eight revealing questions

As the discussion of providence, compatibility and God’s knowledge unfolds, I believe eight questions must be answered. I don’t believe that the answer to these questions alone will lead one to saving faith in the God they are intended to describe.  In other words, a mere description of the biblical Christian God does not demand a trust in Him; just like a mere description of blackberry cobbler doesn’t necessitate a desire for or an attraction to it.  In fact, unless the Spirit softens the hearer to the Word of God in addition to the description of Him, it is likely that the hearer will despise the God being described.  Poignantly enough, the “open god” and the “Molinistic god” do not promulgate such disgust; they rather cater to the tastes of dead men, normally inoculating them to the real Christian God and His gospel. Following are the series of questions I believe will facilitate a useful discussion of the matter.

1. Does God know my future choice?
2. If God knows my future choice, then was my choice free?
3. Can I be forced to choice something that I ultimately do not want?
4. Why do I choose what I choose?
5. What factors determine or cause my choice?
6. Could I actually have chosen differently?
7. Can I choose against the decree of God?
8. Was my choice determined?

     In the next post I will begin my attempt at answering these questions.

Just a Note

Just a note regarding the hyperlinks on the footnotes in this present series of posts...they don't work. Sorry for the inconvenience.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 7

My God is bigger than your God

“The Ultimate end which God decreed he regarded as great enough and glorious enough that it justified to himself both the divine plan itself and he ordained incidental "evil arising along the foreordained path to his plan’s great and glorious end.[i]”

There is a segment of Christian theologians who propose that God appears more sovereign, that His sovereignty is better proclaimed in a system of providence that supports real contingencies. I call this the: my God is bigger than your God syndrome. They critique the Reformed view of God’s knowledge of future events by saying that it minimizes His sovereignty to suggest that He had to “stack the deck in His favor”. Referring of course to the Reformed doctrine of God’s decree and that He knows the future because He has decreed all events to come to pass. They submit that God appears more sovereign if He has to work around the libertarian free will choices of man in order to accomplish His purposes.

Besides there being no biblical evidence to support such a view of God’s providence, the biblical and logical evidence is mounted firmly against such an absurd assertion. If a person refuses to see in the biblical testimony that one event in history can simultaneously be meant for evil by the creature and meant for ultimate good by the Creator, then a conclusion like the one above will likely be made. Let us consider what is actually being said here: God is sovereign therefore He knows what will happen if Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery and if Joseph’s brothers do not sell him into slavery. In contrast, the Reformed position says that God is sovereign therefore He decreed that Joseph’s brothers would sell him into slavery so He could eventually raise Joseph up in Egypt to “keep many people alive”. Middle Knowledge protests that Compatibilism destroys the genuine freedom of man, and thus also destroys his culpability. It also asserts that the later system makes God the author of evil.  Compatibilism accuses Middle Knowledge of absurdity: that God cannot both, know the future choices of men perfectly, and consent to the existence of contingencies.

In order to build an argument against Middle Knowledge let’s concede the point momentarily and say that God knows all things that might possibly happen, but He also knows what will certainly happen. In the system there are many different potential events but only certain events will actually occur. God knows both the events that will actually occur and all those that only have the potential to exist but will never actually occur. Assuming the pendant for Middle Knowledge doesn’t fall into Open Theism and deny the orthodox and biblical doctrine of God’s omniscience, then they would have to admit that the events which God knows will certainly happen will never actually—not happen, and that which He knows will possibly but not certainly happen will always—not happen.  So what does this mean for the potential events? Well, the advocate of middle knowledge says that libertarian free will is preserved therein and that God is also protected from being the author of evil. Yet the same theologian would promote God’s perfect knowledge of the future events, which renders those “possible” events inert. At best they are only alternate plans that God did not choose. In the end the advocate of the system of middle knowledge essentially has the same problem that he thinks he is solving by adopting a system contrary to the compatibilistic one, namely—that God knew beforehand that sin would exist yet He created anyway thus the same charge (the one that says that God is the author of evil) could be leveled at them. The reason being, that God didn’t ordain or decree even sinful events in their system, He carelessly created a world wherein sin would exist and it would exist ultimately without a purpose, except (I guess) to have some force against which God could display His power to overcome it.   It makes one ask why God chose the strand of reality that included sin. One would think that in a system of an infinite number of real contingencies that there existed a strand of reality without sin. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that they would probably say that God does not determine the strand which He will choose—it is chosen by Him as a result of the future choices men would make.  That makes a transition into the second problem that middle knowledge fails to solve.  The same type of problem remains for them even regarding the libertarian free will of man (that which is defined as the ability to have done so or to have done otherwise, without any external or internal determinants). If God knows the future without error, then man cannot make a choice different than that which God knows he will make. To suggest otherwise is to engage in the futile exercise of attempting to justify a logically and biblically inconceivable doctrine of God’s providence.

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[i] Reymond, Robert. A New Systematic Theology of The Christian Faith. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998). Page 377

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 6

 The bible, openness, and the spaces between (concluded)

     Consider this, if God perfectly knew that Adam would sin then one must conclude that, from God’s perspective, it was impossible for him not to sin. If it was impossible for him not to sin then God’s knowledge of this necessarily negated non-event would be trivial and gratuitous—why would He bother to know it? Is it actually knowledge if it is of something that defiantly would not occur? In other words, if God knew for certain that Adam would sin then God’s knowledge of an alternate strand of reality wherein Adam would not sin was not an actual possibility at all—in fact it was an eternal non-possibility. Even if God, as Middle Knowledge affirms, knows what we will do regardless of our choice, and even if He knows beforehand and He has made a different plan or response for each possible choice, that view then argues against His omnipotence—his ability to affect His creation to whatever end He wills. Rather than presenting God as the Omnipotent One who does as He pleases in His creation, (in an attempt to separate God so far from sin and evil) the mediate theologian presents a God who doesn’t ordain any event, but simply approves or disapproves by being the “Omnipraeoptor”, or the One who chooses all things beforehand from a set of preexisting items. This is not an affirmation of the biblical portrayal of the sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient God but rather, it is an attack on it.

In the face of all the biblical evidence to the contrary, many evangelicals (practically speaking if not formally) espouse a view of God’s sovereignty that does not believe that things are going just as He had planned. We must agree that God’s moral will is broken all the time. There isn’t a day that goes by when His the commands of His law are not flagrantly violated, but as for the will of God’s decree, that will by which He has ordained all the future and by which He knows all its intricacies, no one can undermine—thus the reformed faith has the theological basis and desire to proclaim that things are going as God had planned.  Clark Pinnock objects:

“We do not see how one can have genuine freedom (human and divine) and exhaustive definite foreknowledge. Future free acts, by definition, cannot be known in every detail and with certainty even by God. It is enough to say that God knows everything any being could possibly know. This leaves room for human persons to act and room for God to act, since the future is open to them both. The future is still being formed; that is, everything has not been decided.[i]”

The assumption in Pinnock’s position and the position of the person who does not believe that things are going as planned are, in this respect, the same—that humans have libertarian free will—the capacity for contrary choice; the freedom to act contrary to their own nature and without any such internal or external boundaries. Perhaps God would prefer a world without sin but because He has (in his sovereignty some would inconsistently assert) given His creatures “real” freedom He must endure their sins against His desires. Pinnock maintains that there are things that God does not know, but others who reject the Reformed notion of God’s sovereignty claim that God is omniscient. They both uphold libertarian freedom and they both share Pinnock’s conclusion that there is room for God to act and room for human persons to act.  Pinnock just arrives at this conclusion more consistently because he understands that in order for humans to actually be free and have the power of contrary choice, and in order to establish their freedom, no being can have prescient knowledge of their choices.  I think that the logical implication of many Evangelical views on this topic should be Open Theism, but thank God they remain inconsistent.

Let’s take a closer look at how the Middle Knowledge theory plays out. If within God’s own consideration of the future, Adam had equal capacity and opportunity to either sin or not, yet God knew that Adam would definitely sin, then there was no real possibility that Adam would not sin. So in contrast, the Open Theist consistently concludes that God didn’t know whether Adam would sin or not, thus Adam really did have the possibility of contrary choice because God’s perfect knowledge of that choice didn’t determine the future for him. In fact, if Open Theism were true then the outcome of Adam’s choice had nothing to contradict. If God didn’t know it, then either choice Adam made would have no prescient knowledge with which to be contrary. Unfortunately, at this particular point, the Middle position renders many professing evangelicals apathetically inconsistent. It is a farce to say that God actually knew perfectly that Adam would sin, yet Adam still had the real possibility of not sinning, the two assertions are mutually exclusive.

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[i] Pinnock, Clark. Same source as endnote 4.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 5

 The bible, openness, and the spaces between (continued)

  The following quote might as well find its source in the middle position, even though it is another quote from Pinnock describing open theism regarding the foreknowledge of God—sadly (though not the same) it reminds me of how some non-Calvinist/non openness theologians talk about God and His knowledge of the future, thus this quote illustrates the similarities between the open view of God and some professing evangelicals and fundamentalists.

“On the one hand, we acknowledge that God could have created a world that he would totally control, a world whose future would have been completely settled. On the other hand, we believe on scriptural grounds that he chose something very different. He made a world that is not all-determined, the future of which would not be exhaustively foreknown. He did it in order to let finite creativity flourish. In the end, there is no “loss” for God in this view since it is only a question of how God chooses to utilize his power. This choice remains entirely his alone.  …God knows everything that can be known, but that future free decisions are not knowable in their entirety. They are not yet real and are nothing to be known. Therefore, it cannot be an imperfection not to know them. In other words, some aspects of the future are not yet settled or fixed but open to what God (and humans) may yet decide to do. Some things are certain while other things are possible, and God knows the difference. God made the world in this way because he wants us to collaborate with him in bringing open aspects of the future into being. …No being can know in advance exactly what a free agent will do, although he may predict it with high probability.[i]”

Given that Open Theism were true or even plausible, in that system is God a “free agent” acting as freely as His creatures—I should hope so or the proponents of that position have conceded far more than I believe even they would care to admit. One would have to ask Pinnock, does God know His own future choices? If so, then why are His choices free? And if not, then God could not be the Uncaused Cause. He then is like the rest of us, subject to a vastly unknown and unknowable future. True, God may be able with even infinitely more accuracy, predict what He will do, but the Open Theist should admit that He must be caught in the struggle to second guess Himself.

Regarding the first few statements, it sounds similar to that non-Calvinistic presentation of providence that goes a bit like this, well we know that God could have created a world in which He retained His sovereign control over the will of man but we know that He decided to withhold His sovereign reign over the will of man and His choices in order to establish human culpability. The evidence for this is the fact that evil exists. I have heard similar arguments from several persons, and though they would stand whole-heartedly with us against Pinnock’s claims, the similarity to the tenor of the first few sentences in the Pinnock quote above is striking. In the earlier statement I quoted from Pinnock and he said this, “It is settled in that much can be foreseen and God’s victory is assured.” But his statement above seems to contradict that. Why is God’s victory among those things that can be known? Assuming that his statement about God is true, that He chose to make a world that is not “all-determined”, there are still many yet future choices that men must make before the victory of God is realized in time. So how can the open theist suggest that God knows that His victory is certain if He doesn’t know the future choices of men (because they are not real) on which His victory is contingent. Some try to make man a little bit like God in their assumptions about humanity’s capabilities, but this theology seems to make God like man—perhaps the most impressive superhero you can imagine, a bit like Dr. Manhattan in “Watchmen”.

As I see it the ultimate problem with open theism is that (according to their view) in order for man to be free and responsible for his actions and in order to exonerate God of the charge of being the author of evil, He necessarily cannot know what we will choose. Though Pinnock would say that God infallibly knows everything that is knowable, He cannot know His creature’s free choices beforehand, because those choices do not exist in order to be known; they are not yet real and thus not yet knowable. As Pinnock would say, God has not ordained them or decreed them because if He had then they would be known to Him and determined by Him, rendering His creatures without the freedom to do otherwise. I find it very difficult to imagine how any event could be certain in God’s knowledge if He does not have certain knowledge of all the future choices of His creatures because most events (excluding natural disasters as a whole) are inseparably linked to the free choices that men make. I suggest that the certainty of any event is based on God’s certain knowledge of that event and by extension, the future en toto. Conversely, if an event will certainly occur then God’s knowledge of it is also certain. As a matter of fact, events certainly happen because He knows them. Because God has decreed a particular event He then (and only then) knows it will happen. This is an essential element to establishing the existence of the Christian God—omniscience. Even so, God is not the primary cause of all the events He decrees but rather, He uses secondary causes to affect His plans in time. Take for instance the way He used Satan in the life of Job, or Joseph’s brothers in his life, or Pontius Pilot in the trial of Christ. The secondary causes sinned against Job, Joseph and Jesus. So God knew it would happen because He ordained it but whether you believe that God decreed those things to happen or that He simply allowed them to happen, He did not sin. Nor did He make Satan, Joseph’s brothers or Pontius Pilot to act evilly against their will by His decree—His decree was that they do as they wished.

Even the Molinist or the proponent of middle knowledge faces only a slightly less severe charge of unorthodoxy than that of the open theist.  If God (as suggested of the Molinist’s claims in the quote from gotquestions.com) had to consider multiple possible outcomes generated by the possible, future choices of men, and He created men knowing that evil would exist, then He is not any more insulated from the Open Theist charge that God would be the author of evil, if in fact He knows what will occur—not even the open theist system can escape this charge. Whether this is the claim of the Molinist or just those who reject both the Compatibilistic and Open view, their position needs to be scrutinized at this point. Many will say to the Calvinist that if you believe everything happens because or within the purview of God’s providence or His ordination, then that makes Him the author of sin. So in an attempt to acquit God of this charge they claim that God has not ordained one single strand of outcomes but instead, He has perfect knowledge of all the possibilities that result from all of man’s possible choices. So in effect (and this is my commentary on their position) according to the Molinist, the proponent of Middle Knowledge, God created Adam with the distinct future possibility that he could either have sinned or not sinned. Though God knew that Adam would sin, because of the existence of real counterfactuals, the fact that he might not have sinned was equally possible from God’s perspective. Thus God knows all the future choices of men in the alternate world history that was possible if Adam hadn’t sinned. Though God knew he would sin, it was still really possible for Adam never to have sinned because God knew all the resulting effects and contingencies of his having never chosen to sin. This in effect renders God as the passive observer of history rather than the sovereign One over it.  In fact, both things cannot be true. This is different than saying Adam was simply capable of not sinning (this we know to be true) and I think is the sentiment of Augustine’s significant phraseology in his fourfold description of human nature throughout redemptive history, “posse non peccare”. The open theist rightly critiques this position by saying that if God actually knew whether or not Adam was going to sin, then Adam couldn’t actually have done otherwise. I share their critique. Alternatively, the Middle position is a frustration of the very omniscience of God, suggesting that He bothers to know something that certainly will not happen. What seems true from the human perspective may not really be true; our senses are basically reliable, not absolutely reliable.

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[i] Pinnock Clark. Same source as endnote 4.

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 4

The bible, openness, and the spaces between (continued)

     Another author writes, “Middle knowledge pertains to possibilities and it comes after His decree to create.” In other words, God knows every combination and contingency fathomable.  One modern-day Molinist is William Lane-Craig and this is what he had to say about that subject.

“Third, the Scriptures are replete with counterfactual statements, so that the Christian theist, at least, should be committed to the truth of certain counterfactuals about free, creaturely actions. The Church has never, until the modern age, doubted that God possesses knowledge of true counterfactuals concerning free, creaturely decisions; the whole dispute focused on whether He possessed that knowledge logically prior to the divine creative decree or only posterior to the divine decree. The Church's confidence that God knows such truths is rooted in the Scriptures themselves. To pick but one example, Paul, in reflecting upon God's eternal salvific plan realized in Christ, asserts, "None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory" (I Cor. 2.8). By "the rulers of this age" Paul means either the Jewish and Roman authorities such as Herod and Pilate who were the historical agents who instigated or carried out the crucifixion (cf. Acts 4. 27–28) or, more plausibly, the spiritual principalities and powers who rule "this present evil age" (Gal. 1. 4; cf. I Cor. 2. 6). In either case, we have here a counterfactual about creaturely free actions. So is Paul's assertion true or not? Will we have the temerity to say that Paul was wrong? Since the Church believes that Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these words, she accepts them as revealed truth from God. Thus, we have strong prima facie warrant for holding that there are true counterfactuals concerning what creatures would freely do under various circumstances.[i]”

We must first observe the deficiency of Craig’s exegesis of the passage. Paul’s point has nothing to do with the presumed assertion that Christ might not have been crucified. Does Craig actually mean to suggest that among the possible threads of contingencies (futurabilia), from which God chose, there existed the possible future where Christ did not have to die for the Church? Craig falsely states that the church has never doubted God’s knowledge of counterfactuals. He contends that the Church in all times prior to the modern age (which depending on who you ask, started sometime in the 1900’s) upheld his Molinistic view as orthodox; this simply is not true. The Westminster Confession of faith clearly discredits his assertion.

“I. God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions; [4] yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions

III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.[ii]”

The contingencies spoken of in this confession are in regards to second causes or creaturely actions. In II it is stated that God knows whatever “may or can come to pass” but the statement following (4) explicitly denies the idea of counterfactual knowledge—that God may have decreed the actual future because He foresaw all “possible” futures.

And the 1689 London Baptist Confession echoes the essence of this sentiment exactly. Craig affirms that the debate is actually the debate between him and open theists, and while it is true that the essence of Open Theism has a history that reaches far back, so also does the current denial of counterfactuals find its history rooted in Reformational theology.  It is easy for one to say that Paul said X means y, so non-y is false.  Don’t we find it clear that one could easily interpret Paul’s statement differently thus concluding something different?  Craig fails to substantiate his interpretation here and falsely asserts that anyone taking a position contrary to his own would in fact be calling Paul a liar. If it was much more obvious that Paul, as Craig seems to think, was clearly substantiating a doctrine of counterfactuals in that passage, then Craig’s argument might have weight. But Paul’s words aren’t clearly, or even implicitly, making a case for the possibility of “futurabilia”.

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[i] Lane Craig, William.  “Middle Knowledge, Truth-makers, and the ‘Ground Breaking’ Objection” Article on

[ii] Westminster Confession Chapter III.  Of God's Eternal Decree

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 3

The bible, openness, and the spaces between

The exegetical conclusions of Old Testament study insist that God does not simply create man and then stand back without the knowledge of his free choices, simply waiting to see what he will choose, as is inferred from the arguments of Open Theists. Listen to what Clark Pinnock has to say regarding God’s supposed “openness”.

“In contrast to other, more abstract approaches to theism, the open view of God is a relational model of understanding. In conventional theism, God is seen as an all-controlling and unchangeable Being who determines directly or indirectly all things that happen. He exists out of time and is unaffected by anything. He knows all things in advance and sovereignly ordains what he knows. The open view, on the other hand, sees God as a relational and triune God who exists as a community (Father, Son, and Spirit) and seeks loving relationships with creatures. In order for such relationships to be possible, God imparts genuine (or “libertarian”) freedom to human beings. This freedom allows them the possibility of loving God or of acting in ways unconstrained by God’s will. God chooses to achieve his goals by means of collaboration with humans rather than by predetermination. Out of this view emerges a God who is vulnerable as he experiences the pain of human rejection and the consequences of disobedience. But God is also infinitely resourceful and competent, responding to our choices in ways that enable him, in cooperation with us, to achieve his purposes. One aspect of this approach has to do with God’s foreknowledge. God does not (we think) have exhaustive, definite foreknowledge of every detail of the future, but has so arranged things that the future would be created through divine-creaturely interaction. In terms of divine sovereignty, it means that God exercises general rather than meticulous providence; that is, he leaves the future partly settled and partly unsettled. It is settled in that much can be foreseen and God’s victory is assured. It is unsettled in that the circumstances in which God achieves his ends are open to change. As we like to say, God’s goals have open routes.[i]”

It is Pinnock’s position that the Reformed view of God (even the evangelical view of God) is antithetical to the possibility of God being relational. Neither does it allow for His creatures to genuinely love Him, thus the introduction of the idea of “libertarian freedom”. It is neither right to claim that God simply knows all the potential choices that might be made by all the beings that may possibly exist, as the Molinist would suggest or to make the heretical assertions that Pinnock makes. Pinnock is also wrong when he criticizes what he calls “conventional theism” for believing that God is “unaffected by anything”. Surely he must remember that classical Reformed theology is not “Neo-Platonic”, making the error that the “divine” cannot cooperate with the flesh because its transcendence is absolute; that God is utterly “other”. No, Christian theology affirms that God condescends to His creation as the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth. So, at least in that way, God is affected by that which He has created and this is no small point; the New Testament itself claims that Christ identifies with our suffering. On the other hand, Molinism (sometimes referred to by a primary tenet—middle knowledge) bears the name of its early popularizer, Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina[1] and is in contrast to Calvinism and open theism, as this quote from an article at gotquestions.com suggests.

“According to Molina, God knew perfectly what you would be have been like if you would have lived in Africa, or had a car accident that paralyzed you at age 9. He knows how the world would have been changed had John F. Kennedy not been assassinated. From small to big, from people to animals, God knows every possibility that can exist. And according to Molina, it is by this knowledge God governs the world. God has all possibilities laid out before Him, and He chooses which is best. This system might satisfy the intellect when it comes to evil. For God only allows evil to happen if He sees it will result in a good outcome. But in reality, all events, whether good or evil, are not dependent on God’s wise decrees, but on what history gives God to work with. [ii]

He (Luis de Molina) wrote a book called The Harmony of Free Will with the Gifts of Divine Grace, in which he advocated a theory of the relation between grace and free will. He maintained that efficacious grace does not move the free will to cooperate with it but that the free will makes grace efficacious by cooperating with.  The Molinists emphasized an universal divine salvific Will and often maintained that God elects to salvation those whom He foreknows will cooperate with his grace. Thus God’s foreknowledge, the scientia media, was held to act as a sort of “middle” mechanism between the human free will on the one hand, and the efficacy of grace and of divine election on the other.  Modern Proponents Include: Luis de Molina, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, and Thomas P. Flint. [iii]”

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[1] Luis Molina (born 1535 in Cuenca, Spain; died October 12, 1600 in Madrid) was a Spanish Jesuit.

Having at the age of eighteen become a member of the Society of Jesus, he studied theology at Coimbra, and afterward became professor in the university of Évora, Portugal. From this post he was called, at the end of twenty years, to the chair of moral theology in Madrid.Besides other works he wrote De liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia (4 vo., Lisbon, 1588); a commentary on the first part of the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas (2 vols., fol., Cuenca, 1593); and a treatise De jure et justitia (6 vols., 1593-1609). Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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[i] Pinnock Clark.  article at thecatalyst.com.  Sanders, Cf. J. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence (InterVarsity, 1998) Boyd, Cf. G. God of the Possible: An Introduction to the Open View of God (Baker, 2000)

[ii] What is Molinism, and Is It Biblical? Article at www.gotquestions.org

[iii] Middle Knowledge (Molinism) Article at www.monergism.com

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - part 2

Defining God’s sovereignty in absolute terms

Regardless of God's revelation to us, our perception of God is bound up in time; the fact that our senses and perceptions are limited by our temporal existence is perhaps a reminder that men's descriptions of God are always abstractions of the reality of God’s being—we can’t help it. In the same way, a photograph—however realistic—is still an abstraction of the reality which it attempts to represent.

Regarding the sovereignty of God, I think a definition is in order. I, and those concerned with the definition within biblical categories, would refer to sovereignty as a word of totality such as the words: unique, pregnant, dead, and alive. Those words describe absolute states of being in which there are no varying degrees. When one is dead, there is no variation between that one and the other dead body beside them. One cannot be any more or less dead. One either is or is not dead. Furthermore, in that condition or state of being one does not become deader. Even if there was a spectrum where at one end existed the state of being that represents life and at the opposite end existed the state of being that represents dead, there is no space between them—where one ends the other begins. Similarly the divide between the air above a body of water and the water itself are close. Once one is no longer alive, then he is dead. One exists either in one state or the other, not in both. There are no varying degrees between life and deadness. One moves so immediately from one state to the other that it may approach irrationality to speak of such a transition in reference to time and space at all.[1] As another example of a word of totality or an absolute word: one either is or is not pregnant; no degrees of pregnancy exist. A woman does progress further along in her pregnancy as the baby grows and is eventually delivered but she is no more pregnant as state of being on the day preceding her delivery than on the day conception took place. She is pregnant to the same degree on both days. Therefore we must conclude that the same thing applies to the word sovereignty but because we have a finite perception of the infinite God we see that, at the same time, God has ordered our paths and yet He appears only to be responding to our choices. Thus the concept of “Compatibilism” is introduced.

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[1] Though it is not the point of this present topic, one can hopefully see the importance of this discussion concerning the manner in which Paul refers to the unregenerate man in his letter to the Romans. 

God's Knowledge, Who Can Know it? - Introduction

     With this post I am introducing an article on the providence of God, a study of His knowledge of future things, events, people and their choices, and an inquiry into human freedom and responsibility. At the onset, I'd like to provide a general disclaimer, some of the thoughts included in this series of posts will likely fall into the category of the speculative. Though it is not my purpose to present, for their sake alone, conclusions that have little or no explicit Biblical data to support them, it seems to be a necessary by-product of any discussion that touches on the knowledge of the Infinite God, Yahweh.

     This series is related in a loose way to the information I presented in a series of post about two years ago which was called, "Eight Revealing Questions". So, if curiosity demands you can refer back to those posts for more information about my thoughts and perhaps even to compare and contrast my conclusions now to my conclusions then. So with my next post I will begin the body of the article