In 2010, I went to an apologetics conference at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth. During the banquet I was saddened to hear sympathetic conversation of "middle knowledge" at my table. William Lane Craig (aka Craig w/ a "K") is one of the prominent advocates of Molinism and middle knowledge (scientia media). Craig received his Doctorate in Theology from Universität München (Germany) and studied under Wolfhart Pannenberg (Jesus - God and Man). According to Luis de Molina (d. 1600), God sets up the cosmos, among all the myriad upon myriad of possible worlds, so that given a certain situation, you will make the free choice that the Lord wants you to make. Almost sounds like the Multiverse escape mechanism to avoid Intelligent Design, doesn't it? Speaking of ID, I met Bill Dembski at the same meeting!
It seems clear from Scripture, that the King of Kings
directs his plans without middle knowledge:
My times are in your hands ... (Ps. 31:15)
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, "My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." (Is. 46:10)
In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will. (Eph. 1:11)
... it is not at all clear how God can know by middle knowledge just what choices free creatures would make in various sets of possible circumstances. Sometimes called the "grounding objection," the problem here is that, since freedom in the libertarian sense is defined as the ability, all things being just what they are, to choose differently, it is impossible to know what decision will be made simply by controlling the circumstances ... nothing grounds God's knowledge of what free creatures would do in various possible sets of circumstances; and hence, God cannot know what middle knowledge advocates claim he knows, that is, what free creatures would do in any and all possible sets of circumstances. [1]
In 1597, the Pope established the Congregatio de Auxiliis which tended toward condemning Molinism. In 1611 and again in 1625 a decree prohibited
any discussion of middle knowledge.
The Catholic
Encyclopedia of 1911 comes down hard on Molinism:
... the Thomists [followers of Aquinas] urge with great emphasis the grave accusation that the Molinists, by their undue exaltation of man's freedom of will, seriously circumscribe and diminish the supremacy of the Creator over His creatures, so that they destroy the efficacy and predominance of grace and make impossible in the hands of God the infallible result of efficacious grace. ... [Molinism] is contrary to the warning of St. Paul, that we must not glory in the work of our salvation as though it were our own (1 Corinthians 4:7), and to his teaching that it is Divine grace which does not only give us the power to act, but "worketh" also in us "to will and to accomplish" (Philippians 2:13); it is contrary also to the constant doctrine of St. Augustine, according to whom our free salutary acts are not our own work, but the work of grace.
Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) clearly teaches contrary to de
Molina:
God wills to manifest his goodness in men, in those whom he predestines in the manner of mercy by sparing them, in those whom he reprobates in the manner of justice by punishing them. This provides a key to the problem why God chooses some and rejects others… Why does he choose some to glory while others he rejects? His so willing is the sole ground. Augustine says, "Wherefore he draws this one and not that one, seek not to decide if you wish not to err."
If we take the absolutist view of human choice, then as
Paul Helm, who has written for the Guardian,
points out,
[God] cannot instantiate complete possibilities respecting anyone's free choice. And so, because his middle knowledge of such free choices is necessarily incomplete, he cannot exercise a "no-risk" providential control over his creation via his middle knowledge. [2]
As Helm says, in
Molinism we see our Sustainer orchestrating the affairs of life so that we act
in a certain way: "God actualizes those files [viewing God as the Great
Programmer] which refer to circumstances which, if the individuals are placed
in them, and act freely, they will choose accordance with the end which God
desires." [3]
... either God's knowledge is completely causal, determining all events, or it is determined by these events. There is no third alternative. Molinists say that God's knowledge is determined by future free acts. This sacrifices God as ultimate Cause. He is determined by events, not Determiner. This is contrary to the nature of God, for he becomes an epistemological spectator. [4]
Remember the film Altered
States with the sensory deprivation tanks?
Now there are "no" circumstances. Should I go to sleep at 2:34 pm? I am nearly completely isolated - how will my
state of affairs push me toward one choice versus another?
This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. (Acts 2:23)
Craig not only has a wrong view of God's Providence, he
also seems to imply that Jesus erred when he spoke of the early chapters of
Genesis as real history (Pannenberg anyone?).
Notes:
1) God's Lesser
Glory by Bruce Ware (Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL, 2000), p. 40.
2) The Providence of God by Paul Helm (IVP,
1994), p. 61.
3) Ibid., p. 59.
4) Baker
Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler (Baker Books, Grand
Rapids, MI, 1999), p. 494.
#WilliamLaneCraig #Genesis #Molina #Molinism #Providence #Ware #Helm #Aquinas #Choice #Freedom #AlteredStates #IS46_10
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