THE ALL-KNOWING GOD

In the discipline of Christian theology, we do not delve far into the study of God without running headlong into dealing with His omniscience and the ramifications thereof. There have been many attempts to elucidate this attribute of God, but the most popular forms often terminate in the realm of logical incoherence. In particular, when it comes to what God knows about contingent events, most of the popular arguments logically reduce to either fatalism (radical Calvinism) on the one hand, or radical indeterminism (Open Theism) on the other. It is my aim in this article to avoid both of these unmitigated extremes, and present what I find to be a more theologically, logically, and philosophically coherent account of God’s omniscience. In plainest terms, that God cannot fail to possess any knowledge whatsoever, because it is logically and Biblically incoherent to hold the premise that an ‘all-knowing-God’ can succeed in lacking knowledge of any kind. To this end I will attempt to present, as well as recommend a philosophical-theological approach to reconciling two aspects many deem incompatible; namely that God knows all things, (God’s omniscience) and yet His creatures remain significantly free and responsible for the decisions they make during the course of this life (creaturely freedom/culpability).

This approach is now popularly termed “Molinism,” because of the 16th century Jesuit priest, Luis de Molina, who first successfully proposed it as a cogent argument.

I will now provide a brief overview of its major claims, and reasons for recommending this view as the most logically sound, and the one that seems to best adhere to the God we encounter within the Biblical account.

Molina held in agreement with Thomas Aquinas that God possesses Natural Knowledge (all things God knows are logically possible) & Free Knowledge (that which will be/is ontologically achieved); but he added betwixt these two a third category: Middle Knowledge (God knows which possibilities would ‘be’). To put it another way, God knows by virtue of his unencumbered omniscience all the “woulds” and “ifs” in every possible scenario that is logically possible for Him to create. These are referred to as “subjunctive conditionals,” or “counter- factuals of creaturely freedom.” Therefore, the concept of middle knowledge is proposed to be the type of knowledge which allows God to know with certainty what His ‘free creatures’ would do in any logically possible scenario, irrespective of whether or not those free creatures ever exist or even find themselves in such scenarios. This knowledge would fit logically between God’s natural knowledge and God’s free knowledge. Molina describes God’s knowledge of contingent events in this way:

“...it is not because He [God] knows that something is going to be that that thing is going to be. Just the opposite, it is because the thing will come to be from its causes that He knows that it is going to be.”

This is an important point, because people often make the mistake of thinking Molinism would seek to suggest that God looks down the corridor of time to essentially ‘find out’ what people will do, but this misses the point precisely. This is why a clear distinction between God’s free knowledge (what will obtain) and His middle knowledge (what would obtain) is essential in our understanding of Molina’s view. The nuance and distinction here is important because one of the key benefits to Molina’s view is that it relieves us from the problem of hard determinism, or fatalism, which logically terminates with God being personally culpable for sin/evil. While it is true that sin/evil could not exist had God chosen to create nothing, it does not follow from this that God is the author or progenitor of sin/evil.

When we talk of God’s middle knowledge, we are talking of what I will call ‘God-known-concrete-hypotheticals.’ Hypothetical in the sense that they have not or will not obtain ontologically, but that God nevertheless has the capacity to perceive and evaluate them with absolute certainty. They are ‘truths’ to the mind of God precisely because of the fact that He cannot be mistaken about what He knows would happen in any given scenario, should He choose to actualize such a scenario. He has no control over these ‘truths’ in that they ‘logically follow’ from the scenarios for which He conceives as possible. It is eminently important to remember that there are an innumerable percentage of ‘possible’ scenarios that He is free to actualize, but these scenarios are not true merely because they will actualize (for most will not), but because God cannot fail to know how a possible scenario would play out. They are not based on what actual creatures who will exist will in fact do, but on what the ‘God-known-concrete-hypothetical’ happens to be in any given scenario for which God might conceive of providing it. Thus these truths are not grounded in their eventuality, but in God’s certainty.

Among these many certainties then, God has chosen to actualize that one which will serve His purpose best, and bring about that which He has ordained from the moment of creation onward. Again though, it is important that we attempt to maintain perspective here when considering what this means then for creaturely agents to retain significant responsibility for their actions. This means that God’s creatures are significantly free, and yet the scenarios afforded them cannot fail to achieve God’s overarching purposes. Again though, God is not ‘looking down the corridor of time’ to discover what His free creatures will do and then basing His decisions on their choices, but rather amongst His infinite options, God’s middle knowledge informs Him about what His unactualized free creatures would do in any number of humanly-incalculable scenarios. He then chooses the one He deems would best achieve His will, while also leaving His creatures significantly free and responsible for their actions, because these actions were by nature not causally determined by God’s intentions. Before God created the universe (if we can even speak this way of God, since He is timeless) He is essentially desiring to create, which entails something rather than nothing, and He apparently wanted to create a world with significantly free personal agents whom He holds responsible for their actions.

These two factors alone give rise to what we might think of as guiding His ‘God-known-concrete- hypotheticals.’ It may be instructive to recount Thomas Flint at this point concerning these distinctions:

“It is important to note that, on this Molinist picture, God’s foreknowledge is neither the effect nor the cause of our free actions. Foreknowledge follows immediately from God’s conjoining his creative act of will to his prevolitional knowledge; he has no need to observe or be causally impacted in any way by the events he foreknows in order to know them. ...counterfactuals, on the Molinist picture, are known by God prior to his creative act of the will, and thus are true prior to any decision by God as to which creatures to create. Were God aware only of counterfactuals concerning those beings which turn out to be actual, there would be no free decision on God’s part to create them.”

Within God’s considerations are an infinite array of creatures/people, who will never exist outside the certitude of God’s consideration, and yet He knows unfailingly, if left significantly free, what they would do in any world He is capable of actualizing for them. This means God is not relying on these concrete-hypothetical creatures’ choices to make His decisions, but rather on how well His own ‘God-known-concrete-hypotheticals’ would ensure that He will achieve His ultimate goals for any actualized creation. To help with trying to appreciate the difference between a human being considering hypotheticals with merely predictive guesswork, and an omniscient mind considering ‘counterfactuals of creaturely freedom,’ it may be helpful to reflect on Alvin Plantinga’s description of what he terms a “state of affairs:”

“...God did not bring into existence any states of affairs at all. What He did was to perform actions of a certain sort—creating the heavens and the earth, for example— which resulted in the actuality of certain states of affairs. God actualizes states of affairs. He actualizes the possible world that does in fact obtain; He does not create it. And while He has created Socrates, He did not create the state of affairs consisting in Socrates’ existence.”

In other words then, as God considers (via His middle knowledge) what He will in fact do, He does not have control over the “state of affairs” but rather over which one He chooses to actualize. God is not causally determining or controlling these “states of affairs” but rather measuring them against His final goals. What this means then is very significant, in that His creatures remain significantly free and responsible with respect to their actions, but also that God ‘cut His losses’ (if you will) when He chose the one world that He did in fact ‘settle’ on, so to speak. At this point one might object by suggesting that these “states of affairs” seem by definition to be greater than God Himself. This would be a mistake. Because these “states of affairs” arise from the certitude of the mind of God, they are those thoughts which God believes would be the case concerning any number of possible worlds, and are thus in congruence with the kind of thought-precision that only the omniscient mind of God can possess.

It may also be tempting to suggest that there are ‘limits’ to what God can know, though he is ‘all- knowing,’ just as there are limits to what God can do, though He is all-powerful. This too would be a mistake. The popular assault on God’s omnipotence is posited in the question; “Can God make a rock so big that even He cannot lift it?”—This demonstrates a logical contradiction, and is therefore an incoherent and failing objection. Thus, just as this question does not defeat God’s omnipotence, so too we cannot successfully defeat God’s powers of omniscience by applying this kind of question to what we are dealing with concerning God’s powers of Middle Knowledge. The question posited in application to God’s omniscience could be stated as: “Can God know about things that even He doesn’t know?”—Again, this demonstrates a logical contradiction, and is thus impotent as a charge against Molinism because Molina’s claim is not a logical contradiction. In fact, it merely affirms that God does in fact know infallibly what He Himself does actually claim to know concerning counterfactuals. So God is omnipotent (though not illogically so) and omniscient (though not illogically so), but it does no good to attempt to defeat these attributes by merely employing logical contradictions, which merely rely on semantic-word-tricks, (i.e.—a round triangle) rather than coherent logic, and argumentation.

Thus these “states of affairs” exist within the mind of God as logically possible realities, and are therefore not greater than Him. Keep in mind also that the “states of affairs” which have in fact obtained, are what they are because they terminate in best congruence to His ultimate goals (a world with free creaturely agents who bear His image) and His certitude about how best to achieve those goals among the infinite options available to Him. As the late theologian John Walvoord once stated concerning God’s ultimate achievement of His own sovereign will:

“But how can we explain life’s tragic situations and acts? Since God is perfect, He would not adopt any plan if there were a better one. Humanly speaking, God might have determined any one of several equally good plans. In one plan Mr. Black is saved, and in the other plan Mr. Brown is saved. Because of His perfection, God in keeping with His character chose the best plan—there could be none better. While we in our human limitations cannot understand tragedies and events in history that seem so contrary to what God would wish, we can only conclude that if we had the full picture and understood everything, we would choose to do exactly what God did.”

Walvoord captures a salient point here, and it is one that is least likely to be lost on the conscientious Molinist, because he is concerned with maintaining the classical Christian belief that man is, and should be, held fully responsible for his actions; and that God is not the cause, nor the creator of evil. If man is not free, but God insists on holding him responsible for that which he could never hope to avoid, terminating in eternal torture in the Lake of Fire, we have what amounts to a God lacking in Omnibenevolence. And if God has not actualized a world with significantly free creatures, but automatons, then He is also the direct creator of evil itself, because His creatures were not free to refrain from performing the very evil which God has disclosed that He abhors and condemns.

Thus the Molinist view is prodigious in responding to these concerns, and outstrips any alternative view in being able to cogently apprehend these crucial issues; issues on which the very philosophical fabric of Christianity either rises or falls.

As Flint rightly observes:

“...the view of providence common among orthodox Christians simply is rough-hewn Molinism.”

— MOLINISM’S EXALTED VIEW OF GOD, AND SOME OBJECTIONS —

To some, the concept of God actually possessing such mental powers of ‘super- comprehension’ seems outside the realm of plausibility. Fortunately for the Molinist, there have yet to be seriously compelling reasons to give credence to this objection. Essentially, objectors are saying, “Well, I just can’t believe that God’s omniscience is truly unlimited.” This is not a cogent response, but rather a simple exaltation of doubt over and above what the Scriptures clearly present God as knowing with respect to counterfactuals. What’s more, it is intriguing that we would attempt to bar the mind of God from that which average people - imbued with common sense and sheer imagination - engage in on a regular basis, both intentionally and unintentionally. Take the following excerpt from a recent National Public Radio article for instance:

“All Things Considered wants you to help us imagine a counterfactual history of the last 100 years. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand propelled the world into a war that left millions dead, shattered empires and rearranged power throughout the world. But what if the assassin in Sarajevo had missed? What if, like his small band of amateur co-conspirators, he didn't hit his target? That's hardly unthinkable. Moments before the murder, Franz Ferdinand's car made a wrong turn. The vehicle was pushed backwards to turn around and came to a stop right in front of the gunman. So, what if Franz Ferdinand had lived? EXAMPLE: Without World War I, Russia remains prosperous and the Bolshevik Party's October Revolution fails. As a result, Vladimir Lenin moves to the United States where he becomes a professor of Russian history at Columbia University. Having maintained his left-wing connections, he comes in contact with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and helps write the pro-union musical, "Pins and Needles.””

It is intriguing that NPR deems this ‘thought experiment’ as something its listeners would be able to freely engage in without considerable effort. In fact to quote the article verbatim, it literally says,

“What if, like his small band of amateur co-conspirators, he didn't hit his target? That's hardly unthinkable.”

NPR received hundreds of responses, as people easily posited what they thought would have happened. Taking a well-known event (such as WWI) and constructing a counterfactual history of events is apparently quite within the capacity of the human psyche for most people, and something we often engage in without even meaning to. In fact, one could argue it is part of what makes us human. When we accidentally engage in this kind of thinking, we are doing what psychologists call ‘self-talk,’ saying to ourselves things like: “Oh, if I would have just left the office five minutes earlier, then I would have caught the bus.”— Or “If I would have remembered to bring my umbrella, I would have got the job, instead of walking into the interview looking like a wet dog.” On and on we could go. The point is that it is quite astonishing that so many would easily entertain the idea that God does not have the powers necessary to engage in this kind of thought; or that if he did, he could ever succeed in being mistaken about the certainty of their outcomes.

On a more tangible real-life example of a ‘greater-mind’ understanding a ‘lesser-mind’ and being able to count on the outcome of their actions while they remain significantly free, take Hollywood bug-wrangler Steven Kutcher for example. He’s been the industry’s ‘go-to’ bug-guy for nearly 40 years, having provided reliable bug performances for over 100 feature films. Concerning the nature of his work he shares that:

“...the most involved one I ever did ... I had a cockroach come out of a shoe, walk onto a bag of Cheetos, turn left, walk through some Cheetos, and stop on a magazine that had a picture of a surfboard, for a movie called Race the Sun. I did it by understanding how cockroaches think. Cockroaches are thigmotactic, which means that they like to run along the edges of things. And so what I do is guide them by creasing the bags of Cheetos and placing things in such a manner that I know that the odds are that the cockroach will go that direction.”

Obviously there is a difference here between man predicting with accuracy what a bug would do, and God knowing what a person would do; and admittedly every illustration ‘breaks down’ at some point. Yet, is it not significant that Kutcher can with amazing accuracy be counted on to ‘get the shot’ for creatures which he cannot actually ‘train’ to act a certain way? In essence, he must provide these insects with particular scenarios based on what he knows about their very nature. So he provides them with these scenarios, but these bugs are actually, and really free to do other than he wishes (and sometimes do). Yet they more often than not do what he intends for them to do, on cue, and have no idea they are part of a bigger-narrative-event called a ‘movie.’ They have no idea what role they are playing, and yet they are fulfilling the will of a ‘greater mind,’ of which they cannot begin to appreciate, while remaining genuinely free with respect to their actions. Thus, is it such a difficult concept to think of God exercising such prowess concerning His free creatures? Of course there is one marked difference; namely, that God cannot fail to know that which He knows, regardless of the content of which it consists. So what does it mean then for God’s creatures to be significantly free with respect to their actions, and yet still have God achieve His will? Plantinga’s thoughts on this are helpful, when he states:

“So how does Free Will Defense work? And what does the Free Will Defender mean when he says that people are or may be free? What is relevant to the Free Will Defense is the idea of being free with respect to an action. If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t. It is within his power, at the time in question, to take or perform that action and within his power to refrain from it. Freedom so conceived is not to be confused with unpredictability. You might be able to predict what you will do in a given situation even if you are free, in that situation, to do something else. If I know you well, I may be able to predict what action you will take in response to a certain set of conditions; it does not follow that you are not free with respect to that action.” 

So now we have come once again to Molina’s important distinction concerning the difference between God knowing something, and causing something. It is popular folk theology to conceive of God knowing something as synonymous with Him wanting it to happen and/or causing it to happen. But again, consider Molina’s assertion, as well as the earlier clarification that God does not cause the “states of affairs” which He evaluates against His larger goals, when Molina says:

“... it is not because He [God] knows that something is going to be that that thing is going to be. Just the opposite, it is because the thing will come to be from its causes that He knows that it is going to be.”

And so once more we cannot stress enough the importance of absolving God from causing or determining the “states of affairs” which are possible, but rather evaluating them and measuring them against His own character and ultimate purposes.

One of the most outspoken opponents to the premise that God can possibly possess such knowledge is the philosopher Robert Adams. In his essay, “An Objection to Middle Knowledge,” Robert Adams proposes that the idea of God possessing Middle Knowledge is incomprehensible, and thus highly unlikely because he claims it has no “knowable determinative truth value.” He also objects to Molina’s heavy reliance upon God’s cognitive powers, since they bear such a heavy burden concerning the theory of middle knowledge. This reveals what I believe is the quintessential problem for Adams’ and others’ objection to the belief that God can know counterfactuals with certainty. It seems that one’s conception of the greatness of God’s mind is the crucial element when considering the plausibility of God possessing Middle Knowledge. Underscoring this problem in Adams’ reasoning we see him in agreement with Suarez in a critique against Molina’s assertion concerning God’s “super-comprehension,” when he says:

“...to comprehend something is already to understand about it everything that is there to be understood, and it is absurd to suppose that anyone even God, could understand more than that.”

This statement betrays the problem succinctly because it reveals that Adams views Middle Knowledge to be a priori, outside or beyond God’s normal comprehension. But given the corpus of counterfactuals made by God in Scripture on the whole, which are presented in the form of His own divine assertion, this is simply not the case.

In response to Suarez’s bold statement, I would simply observe that God’s comprehension naturally involves His Middle Knowledge in His comprehensive understanding, and that it is more logically and scripturally natural to view God as having such knowledge than it is to conceive that He would lack it. Thus there is no need to make such nonsensical statements to the effect that God needs to know “more than He understands” in order to possess such knowledge. In fact it does not seem obvious at all that He could lack such knowledge, since the Old and New Testaments impinge us with clear texts presenting His quality of knowledge in just this light. It seems difficult to conceive of the mind of God functioning apart from such knowledge when we encounter these texts, and it creates considerable confusion when trying to understand them to mean something other than God having certain knowledge of contingent truths. Essentially, an awkward and unnecessary anthropomorphic reading of the text must be employed to achieve an understanding of how the quality of God’s knowledge lacks that which it is plainly being presented to possess.

When it comes to reading the Scriptures, this is more than highly problematic, and should be avoided unless there are compelling reasons to do otherwise. But are there compelling reasons? Merely expressing strong doubt against Molina’s view is not persuasive in the least. The simplest solution seems that we grant God possesses such perfection of knowledge, just as He Himself clearly and repeatedly claims, when condescending to talk with man concerning contingent truths in the Scriptures. When it comes to responding to Adams’ objection to the mind of God being able to ‘bear the burden’ of such great knowledge, I find that the most obvious solution to this objection is tied to Anselm’s classical argument for the existence of God.

Not surprisingly, when dealing with trying to conceive of the mind of God and its abilities, we are not far off from trying (as Anselm) to articulate what it is like to conceive of the greatest possible being. “that than which one cannot conceive a greater.” Essentially I am arguing that God’s mind is a mind than which no greater can be conceived, and therefore must exist in the greatest conceivable state. In other words, we do in fact have the concept of a mind than which we cannot conceive a greater, and therefore that mind cannot be understood to lack those characteristics, which would make it the greatest mind whatsoever. Thus, it is not clear in the least why God, who is the greatest conceivable being, could fail to possess such knowledge, since we can plainly conceive of Him possessing it, not to mention why it would be advantageous for Him. It seems a moot point to try to conceive of a mind which would be even greater than one which possesses natural, middle, and free Knowledge; and thus we triumph over the objection of infinite regress concerning our conception of the ‘greatest possible’ mind. Furthermore, it is plain that we can appreciate, even in our limited way, why it would be invaluable for God to command such knowledge. As William Lane Craig points out:

“...divine foreknowledge without prior middle knowledge would be exceedingly strange. Without middle knowledge, God would find himself, so to speak, with knowledge of the future but without any logically prior planning of that future. To see the point, imagine that logically prior to the divine decision to create a world, God has only natural knowledge. If creatures are going to be genuinely free, then God’s creation of the world is a blind act without any idea of how things will actually be. True he knows at that prior moment all possible worlds, but he has virtually no idea which world he will in fact create, since he does not know how free creatures would act if he created them. All he knows are the possibilities, which are infinite in number. In a sense, what God knows in the logical moment after the decision to create must come as a total surprise to him.“

I think it is becoming plain that Molina’s view is the most a priori conception of the mind of God, as well as the greatest conceivable mind. Such a mind cannot lack knowledge of any kind whatsoever. For if we can conceive of a ‘mind’ which possesses merely natural knowledge and free knowledge but lacks middle knowledge - but we cannot conceive of anything greater than a ‘mind’ which possesses not only natural and free knowledge, but middle knowledge as well - is it not obvious that a ‘mind’ which has such knowledge is superior to a ‘mind’ which does not? If we grant Anselm’s argument as showing at the very least that God must be understood in terms of the greatest conceivable being, then we would do well to consider what exactly this means concerning God’s omniscience. Can God have limited omniscience? This seems like an oxymoronic statement, but warrants serious consideration. If we are truly committed to the view that God must be the greatest conceivable being, and His omniscience is an integral part of that belief, then we must ask ourselves what Adams is doing when he says that it is “absurd” for God to know with certainty counterfactuals which would have obtained under certain contingencies. In other words, is it rational to believe that God is omniscient, but also hold to the premise that He lacks knowledge in some areas? Let us for a moment grant that Anselm’s assertion that God is indeed the greatest possible being is true, and He therefore possesses the greatest possible mind, thus being omniscient. What is at stake, then, if we deny Him knowledge of counterfactual truths? To explore this question, let’s borrow from Alvin Plantinga’s modal version of Anselm’s articulation for God’s existence. Now allow us to frame it concerning the proposition of God having the greatest possible mind in the following premises:

(1) A God with the greatest possible mind exists in the understanding but not in reality.

(2) A God with the greatest possible mind who exists in reality is greater than existence in understanding alone.

(3) A God with the greatest possible mind in reality is conceivable.

(4) If God did possess the greatest possible mind in reality He would be greater than He is. [(1) and (2)]

(5) It is conceivable that there is a being with a mind greater than a God with the greatest possible mind. [(3) and (4)]

(6) It is conceivable that there be a being with a mind greater than the being with a mind than which no greater can be conceived. [(5) by the definition of “God”]

But surely (6) is absurd and self-contradictory; how could we conceive of a mind greater than the mind than which no greater can be conceived? So we may conclude that:

(7) It is false that a God with the greatest possible mind exists in the understanding but not in reality.

So now we begin to see that Adams’ objections to God possessing middle knowledge are fraught with theological and logical dilemmas too formidable to dismiss. On the one hand he would require the divine assertion concerning counterfactuals to ‘obtain’ in time and space for them to actually be ‘true,’ and on the other, he would attempt to grant God omniscience, but then limit what He can know. Both of these assertions seem logically and theologically self-contradictory. Thus it is highly improbable that God lacks middle knowledge for several reasons:

(1) Because the nature of a counterfactual is that it is known only truly to the mind of God who possesses such knowledge, and is true by virtue of His divine nature, infallibility, and assertion; (2) to demand that counterfactuals “demonstrate a knowable determinate truth,” ontologically would mean they were no longer counterfactual, causing them to lose any intelligible distinction from God’s free knowledge and making one wonder why God insists on speaking with such clarity concerning things He clearly asserts would have obtained, that in fact do not; and (3) it greatly injures God’s omniscience, making Him not the “greatest possible,” being, but rather a being which is markedly less than we can conceive; and what is more problematic, less than He presents Himself as knowing. If we grant that Anselm was right, and God is indeed “a being than which no greater can be conceived,” then how can we read God’s divine assertions concerning counterfactuals and insist on limiting God’s knowledge to that which is less than He clearly asserts He knows?

Therefore, although I have great respect for Adams as a philosopher (who is far my superior), we must conclude that his argument against middle knowledge is untenable in at least two arenas: the logical and the theological. As the Scripture says: “Great is our God and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.” (Ps.147:5).

— PRACTICAL REASONS FOR RECOMMENDING MOLINISM —

Now that we have digested a short overview of Molinism, and dealt briefly with some objections, I will turn to reasons for recommending this philosophical-theological approach.

Molinism is attractive for many reasons, which recommend themselves to the conscientious orthodox Christian. (1) It allows God supreme sovereignty, without characterizing Him as a disingenuous tyrant, holding individuals responsible for their actions for which they have no choice but to carry out; (2) it makes prayer and inquiry concerning contingent-outcomes asserted by God in Scripture logically coherent and honestly interactive; (3) it provides the most convincing basis for understanding how God can be free from the charge for being the author and creator of evil; and (4) it makes sense out of the assertions of Scripture that man must believe to be saved, yet God is the sovereign author and finisher of salvation. In short, as Thomas Flint aptly surveys:

“As we have seen, there seem to be solid reasons for orthodox Christians to embrace libertarian traditionalism—that is, to endorse both the traditional notion of providence and the libertarian conception of freedom... Yet there appear to be a couple of problems here, problems which at first glance suggest that the theist needs to choose between providence (traditionally conceived) and libertarianism. Thinking about these problems offers us a useful way of introducing the Molinist picture of providence, for, from the Molinist perspective, it is only by adopting that picture that these problems can be adequately resolved.”

These traditional Christian commitments have been the cause for years of debate and stalemate among deep thinking theologians who found themselves often choosing between what they believed were the ‘lesser of two evils’ when it came to understanding how God is ultimately sovereign, while man is still morally responsible. It seems (as Flint suggests) good to remember that these characteristics of God and man are so essential to making cogent sense of Christianity, that most, if not all, Christians are at a loss as to how (or to what degree) we can sacrifice any ground on either side. This is precisely where Molina’s proposition comes to our relief, because his view uniquely offers a supremely sovereign God, freedom from being responsible for sin/evil, as well as maintaining man’s responsibility before God, making him truly culpable for his actions. Flint recommends Molina’s view in the following terms:

“The problem of foreknowledge and sovereignty are solved on this picture due to the fact that God’s foreknowledge of contingent events flows from a combination of knowledge beyond his control and decisions under his control. Because he has middle knowledge and makes free choices concerning which creatures will exist in which circumstances, God has both complete foreknowledge concerning how those creatures will act and great control over their actions, in the sense that any act they perform is either intended or permitted by him. Yet because the knowledge which generates this foresight and sovereignty is not itself a product of free divine activity, our actions remaingenuinely free, not the robotic effects of divine causal determination.” 

So what we have is a very powerful and fruitful philosophical-theological concept that does justice to both the sovereignty of God and the freedom of mankind.

So how then does this impact day-to-day life? How does this view cause us to interact with God and our world differently than if we espoused an alternative view? Because of space I will limit my exploration of these questions to Molinism’s impact on how we can view prayer, and how we look at and process the presence of evil in the world.

Let’s begin with prayer. I have often been asked in a pastoral context, “Why should I even pray, since God already knows what I’m going to say, and He already knows what His answer will be?” If I was a Christian Hard-determinist and I was answering honestly, my response would probably have to be limited to something such as: “Because it’s the right thing to do, it’s good for us, and God deserves the honor of such an action.” But this does not really answer the person’s question. It’s really the answer to a different question such as: “Why do we worship God?”—But even if this were the question, it’s still not a very good response. No, there is something more going on here in this person’s inquiry, and it deserves an answer that gets at the heart of the matter. Really what the person is wrestling with is why should I make the effort to pray, when it does not really affect God in any significant way? —Since what He has determined to do, He did before all eternity. What they’re really asking is; “Is interactive prayer merely an illusion?” If I were an Open-theist, my response would probably be something like: “Well, God doesn’t actually know the future exhaustively, and so your prayers matter because the future is not yet determined. So pray away!” But this has serious theological problems such as the overwhelming accuracy of Old Testament prophecy, not to mention almost the whole of the book of Revelation.

Admittedly, the Open-theist at least makes more sense out of prayer than the Hard- determinist, but the lack of sovereignty it affords God is Scripturally embarrassing. It would require us to edit the Bible in such an exhaustive way that prophecy and God’s Word in general become so highly suspect in regards to its accuracy, we would overwhelmingly be at a loss to constantly explain away God’s confident assertions about the future. Even Jesus specifically says “...your Heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” In the end then, it is only the Molinist view that can respond with a fair handling of the Scriptures; affirming that, yes, God knows what you will pray beforehand, but that He also genuinely interacts with those prayers.

So how would I respond to the person who asks why they should invest time and energy into their prayer-life, given the fact that God already knows what they will pray and how He has decided to respond? I think that it would go something like this: “You should pray out of a true and utter dependence on God, because we are free creatures whose actions matter to Him, and because our actions are genuinely ours, not determined by God. He genuinely responds to our petitions, for our greatest good and His greatest glory.” Of course, this response would not be a full-blown defense of such a statement, but it would nonetheless be truly Molinist.

Because God knows what his free creatures will pray, He can before actualization of his creation decide how He will respond to our free action to pray. It does not matter when we ‘catch up’ to Him in the process. He is genuinely responding, and would not have had we chosen not to pray. Thomas Flint summarizes the Molinist approach to prayer as:

“If we wish... to think of prayer as making a difference to God’s activity, one direction seems to me clearly suggested by Molinism... Suppose we agree with the claim that God will do what is good for us whether or not we direct petitions toward him. It still might be that our decisions have an impact on what God decides to do. Why? To put it simply: Because what is good for God’s creatures will in part be a function of the circumstances in which they find themselves, and petitionary prayer changes the circumstances.”

Of course this does not deal with the whole picture of why God does or does not always answer our prayers in the ways we hope or expect. It merely demonstrates the cogency of believing that God genuinely interacts with our prayers from before creation via his middle knowledge about “states of affairs” which would result in free creatures calling out to Him in prayer. And God, aware of such petitions, is free to respond to these petitions (among others of which He is aware but has never obtained) and “change circumstances” in time at that point for which the prayers are being offered, in His actualized world.

So prayer, humanly speaking, is indeed the most powerful act a human can freely engage in. Because we are finite, and cannot see the immense web of how our different actions are interconnected on a cosmic level, we might be tempted to assume that God simply ignores most prayers, forgetting that even what we might perceive as God’s silence is actually a strategic decision on His part. A God who simply ignores our prayers because He already knows the future would be out of step with what we know about the character of God as presented in Scripture; for Peter admonishes believers to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” No, I think that it would make more sense to understand that often (if not most often) our prayers are probably misplaced, and therefore something God loves us too much to grant. Take Flint’s hypothetical prayer scenario, for example:

“Imagine Cuthbert on his way to the pet shop, where he intends to buy an iguana as a birthday present for his wife. We may assume that Cuthbert’s aim in doing so is to please his wife and demonstrate his devotion to her, thereby strengthening their (to his mind unaccountably) fragile marriage. Knowing that the pet shop is sometimes unable to keep up with the demand for iguanas, and realizing that, should they be out of these lovable lizards, he would be forced to settle for a more conventional gift (say, flowers and candy), Cuthbert prays as he walks, “God, please let there be an iguana for sale at the pet shop!” God of course, hears Cuthbert’s plea. But God knows much more about the overall situation than Cuthbert does. In particular, if he has middle knowledge, then God knows how things would turn out if there were to be an iguana at the pet shop and if Cuthbert were to purchase it for his wife. And perhaps what God knows is that things would turn our rather miserably for Cuthbert and others.”

So we begin to see the very practical effect that a Molinist view of prayer provides: A picture of an infinitely wise, caring, and intervening God, but one who sovereignly knows what we need before we even ask. God’s real-time interaction with our prayers does justice to the admonishments we receive from Christ concerning prayer, and makes sense even of Christ’s own petitions in the garden of Gethsemane, wherein He prays “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” For Christ had earlier revealed that He knew why He had come into the world; namely to be a ransom for many and to be crucified according to the Father’s will. Yet in His humanity He is praying that if His Father, who is outside of time, knows of any other way to accomplish His will, to bring that alternative about. If Christ did not believe that prayer could truly change or affect real-life circumstances, though He knew the purpose for which He had come into the world, then it makes no sense for Him to pray this way.

Though space does not allow me to handle this particular aspect more fully, suffice it to say that the Molinist position is the only theological view that can make plausible sense out of how God can genuinely answer and interact with our prayers, as well as why it is so important to engage in.

Lastly then, we turn our attention to the problem of the existence of evil in the world, according to the Molinist account. Though this last issue is a prickly one, and not of the least importance, I think it can be dealt with rather concisely at this juncture. Essentially it comes down to the desire of God to have a relationship of love with His free creatures. Now, love by its very nature involves the will. One cannot love without volitional will, and a will that cannot achieve ‘decision’ destroys its own essence; for to possess a will is to possess the power to execute ‘decision,’ and to possess the power to execute decision entails unity or discord with other wills whether those wills be greater (God) or lesser (man/angels). Therefore, for love to maintain its own definition it must be endowed with ‘choice.’

This is a monumental assertion when put in the context of the creation of mankind. For God created mankind alone, in his own image, intending to live in love with them, all the while knowing they would fall (Eph. 1:4). Thus, choice was a necessary ingredient in the making of mankind, in so far as it ensured God’s achievement of a creature that could be truly made in his own image; a creature that could love; moreover, a creature that could love like God loves. In essence, God “factored in” (via middle knowledge) the free choice of Adam and Eve to “break” from him and die through sin (though they are entirely responsible for this choice), as well as all the subsequent sin that would ensue, when he fashioned this existence. Yet, because his knowledge is limitless, he is able to fully account for all the possible scenarios free creatures with sin natures could or would and will make; sovereignly achieving his will with meticulous precision while at the same time being completely blameless, due to the fact that evil entered the world by the volition of his free creatures who betrayed the dignity and majestic office of Love that afforded them choice in the first place. Therefore people are free to do evil things, and God manages the fallout flawlessly. He allows evil things, (by virtue of his decree to create man in the context of a love relationship, which necessitates will, which entails possessing the power of ‘decision’)—and yet is not responsible for evil, nor the cause of it. All that can be said of him here concerning the existence of evil is that he allowed for the possibility of evil, but only because he actualized beings that could love. Therefore, evil has come into the world via Satan and Adam by means of the self-mutilation of their chief gift—the limited but real power of choice by virtue of the fact that they could love.

When we writhe against evil in the world, we ought not blame God, but rather look no further than the inner recesses of our own hearts. Plantinga’s sharp insight at this juncture seems appropriate:

“A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can’t cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren’t significantly free after all: they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can’t give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God’s omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good.”

So in short then, it would seem that the reason there is evil in the world is because God deemed that in a creation wherein true love and therefore choice exist there will inevitably be those who abuse that freedom, and thus there will within such a system exist evil and suffering.

It bears stating here, lest we forget ourselves and indict God for this, that along with electing this particular world to actualize, God also chose to be a willing victim of death and suffering in the most brutal way, showing His deep identification with our condition, as well as providing for our salvation through His own suffering. Furthermore, while our suffering seems to us unbearable, or even unfair at times, it also bears mentioning that while we are fallen creatures who deserve the suffering we are experiencing, Christ underwent much more severe suffering on both a physical, emotional, and spiritual level, and all while totally innocent. Thus we have the most humanly unthinkable answer to the problem of evil, and it is the fact that God elected to give us the power to choose, and therefore the power to love - both Himself and one another. Hence to have a world with moral choice is to have a world with both good and evil.

On a practical note, this should be a great comfort to us, in that God does not delight in nor cause evil, but is constantly responding to it redemptively in the world, to bring about the salvation of as many as possible. Though not all will be saved, I believe it is plausible on the Molinist view to believe that God chose to actualize the world in which the most possible would be saved.

In conclusion then, we have seen Molinism is attractive for many reasons, which recommend themselves to the conscientious orthodox Christian. (1) It allows God supreme sovereignty, without reducing Him to a disingenuous tyrant, holding individuals responsible for their actions for which they have no choice but to carry out; (2) it makes prayer and inquiry concerning contingent-outcomes asserted by God in Scripture logically coherent, and honestly interactive; (3) it provides the most convincing basis for understanding how God can be free from the charge for being the author and creator of evil; and (4) it makes sense out of the assertions of Scripture that man must believe to be saved, yet God is the sovereign author and finisher of salvation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Calvin, Jean. The secret providence of God. [new ed.] Edited by Paul Helm. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2010.

Craig, William Lane. The only wise God: the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000.

Flint, Thomas P. Divine Providence: The Molinist Account. Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Molina, Luis de. On divine foreknowledge: (part IV of the Concordia). Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso. Ithaca, N.Y. ;: Cornell University Press, 2004. Peterson,

Michael, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger. Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2010.

Plantinga, Alvin God, freedom, and evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977, 1974.

Radio, National Public. “How Bad Directions (And a Sandwich) Started World War I.” National Public Radio, March 6th, 2014. Accessed March 10, 2014. http://www.npr.org/2014/03/06/285893848/how-bad-directions-and-a-sandwich- startedworld-war-i.

Walvoord, John Flipse. End Times: Understanding Today's World Events in Biblical Prophecy. Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998. Weingartner, Paul. Philosophische Analyse. Vol. Bd. 23 =, Omniscience: from a logical point of view. Frankfurt: Ontos, 2008.