Predestination and Free Will - Part 9
Objections to Middle Knowledge
Middle knowledge has been our focus for the last few articles
in our series on predestination and free will. (To read all the
articles in this series, log onto http://www.comereason.org/newsletters/.)
Last month we looked at some of the advantages to the
Molinist (middle knowledge) position. This month, I'd like to
highlight some of the objections raised against middle
knowledge. If you're just joining us, I recommend that you
review the Sept.
2002 newsletter for a good general explanation of what the
middle knowledge position is.
1. God Cannot Know Future Free Actions
As we mentioned in our study of Open Theism, many believe
that the idea of God knowing the future actions of free
creatures is inconsistent. They maintain that if actions are
truly free, they don't exist until the person choosing them
makes that choice. Before the choice is made, the future is
nothing more than a bunch of possibilities - some more likely
than others - but possibilities nevertheless.
William Hasker, in his article "The Openness of
God", states his dissatisfaction with Molinism from his
first exposure to it. "Right from the very beginning, this
theory struck me as being entirely implausible. When a person
makes a free choice, it seemed (and still seems) to me, there is
nothing whatever either in the circumstances involved or in the
nature and character of the chooser that determines in advance
the decision that will be made. So if God knows such a choice,
it is the actual choosing itself that he knows, and nothing
else. But if the choice is never in fact made, then there is no
'actual choosing,' and thus nothing for God to know."
C. Matthew McMahon echoes this when he writes "no future
conditional thing can be knowable before the divine decree.
Thus, things not true cannot be foreknown as true."
Hasker and others assert that God can only know true things
not false things. God can know a thing is false, but given His
nature, He cannot know facts that do not exist. He then argues that
future events do not yet exist - so therefore there is nothing
yet for God to know - especially those situations and choices
that do not come to pass.
2. Middle Knowledge Reduces To Fatalism
Another charge that has been levied against middle knowledge
is that it doesn't escape the problem of fatalism. William Lane
Craig summarizes David P. Hunt's objection to middle knowledge
thusly, "Certain people exist in circumstances which are
more conducive to their receiving God's grace than are the
circumstances in which others exist. 'God appears to be in the
position of a casino operator who stacks the deck in favour of
the house at certain tables while stacking it in favour of the
patron at other tables.'"
Since God is choosing which people fall into certain specific
situations and God knows what their choices will be in those
situations, then how can the choices of people be truly free?
Isn't God locking people's choices in place so they cannot in
reality choose anything other than what they did choose? If they
truly could choose differently, then God's knowledge would be
wrong - which doesn't make sense.
3. Middle Knowledge makes God Dependent on His Creation
One of the more powerful objections to middle knowledge is
the idea that it makes God's knowledge dependent in some way on
His creation instead of His knowledge being part of His perfect
nature. Does God have to wait on man to know something?
C. Matthew McMahon in his article entitled "The Heresy
of Middle Knowledge" writes that the idea of man's
contingent choices is not Biblical. ". . .middle knowledge
states that God cannot know the future free acts of men in the
same way He knows other things absolutely. Thus, this middle
knowledge is dependent upon the free acts of what men will do.
God, in His "omniscience", waits for men to act and
then will choose them to be saved based on their choice to be
saved. . . The Bible does not ascribe to God any type of
knowledge this is uncertain". He goes on to state that
making God's knowledge contingent on man's choices calls into
question the sovereignty of God. "God's knowledge is not
dependent on the on the conditions of the object known. . . If
God's knowledge is dependent on the free actions of men, then
God is not really God at all."
4. Middle Knowledge is not a part of apostolic and historic
Christianity
A fourth charge against middle knowledge come from the idea
that the founding church fathers never held to the belief,
therefore it should be dismissed. Robert Morey argues in this
fashion, stating that "First, from Jude 3, it is obvious
that 'the Faith,' i.e. the body of doctrines that constitutes
biblical Christianity, was delivered once and for all of time in
the first century in the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles
(Eph. 2:20; 3:4-5). The Christian Church is to defend the
doctrines given by the Apostles (Acts 2:42). If a doctrine was
not taught by the Apostles, it does not constitute a part of
'the Faith.'"
Morey then argues "Since Molinism (or Middle Knowledge)
is clearly of recent origin, it is not a part of 'the Faith'
once for all of time delivered to the saints." Thus it
cannot in principle be found in Scripture because the authors of
the Bible died many centuries before Molina invented the
doctrine."
5. God chooses us because He foresaw that we would first
chose Him
As we cited above, Matthew McMahon objects to the idea of God
waiting on men to choose Him before He chooses them. His
statement " God. . . waits for men to act and then will
choose them to be saved based on their choice to be saved"
demonstrates the last objection to middle knowledge: that
God is not really doing the choosing. McMahon sees Molinism
teaching that men are the ultimate power of their salvation and
God simply looks into the future and chooses them.
These are five of the most common objections to middle
knowledge, but certainly are not the only ones, though space
doesn't permit us to explore further. Next month we will revisit
these and see if they stand scrutiny. Until then, God bless.
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