Predestination and Free Will - Part 10
Answering Objections to Middle Knowledge
We're wrapping up our overview series in the
predestination/free will debate. Last time, we looked at some
objections to the Molinist position, known also as middle
knowledge (see http://www.comereason.org/newsletters
for those specific objections as well as back issues on this
series).
In this issue, we'll try to answer them successfully.
1. God Cannot Know Future Free Actions
We said last time a noted objection to Molinism deals with
truly free actions. If actions are truly free, they don't exist
until the person choosing them makes that choice. Since they
don't exist, there is nothing for God to know.
However, it doesn't necessarily follow that because a choice
has yet to be made that God cannot know future contingent
events.
William Lane Craig notes this in The Only Wise God. He
states that there is an assumption underlying this objection,
namely "all genuine knowledge is based on either immediate
perception or causal inference."(1) In other words,
we can only know something if we experience it or experience its
effects.
But this assumption is unwarranted. As Craig points out, we
know many things without having to see their effects, such as
ethical values. We know that not only do we see other people
(that's the perceptual knowledge) but those people truly have
minds of their own and they're not robots running through a
program (that's the imperceptible knowledge).
In all, as Craig remarks, "the burden of proof lies on
the objector, who must prove that divine foreknowledge is
impossible."(2) If we are to accept the objection that God
cannot know future free actions, then it is up to the person
objecting to show us why He cannot hold such knowledge.
2. Middle Knowledge Reduces To Fatalism
Molinism claims God determines which world and its events
will be actualized based on His middle knowledge. Since all
outcomes will be as God has chosen, isn't this really a
different way of stating fatalism? Not really. Fatalism contains
the idea that people cannot choose other than what they do. They
have to perform certain actions. Middle knowledge, although
stating that a certain course of events will happen, doesn't
claim that those things must happen.
As an analogy, perhaps we can draw on history.(3) We know
certain historical events to be true: Columbus discovering
America, Kennedy's assassination, etc. These events cannot
change; they are fixed. However, our knowledge about those
events doesn't determine them to come to pass. Similarly, God's
knowledge of future free choices doesn't determine the chooser's
selection. It is simply knowledge held by God prior to the
event, just as history is knowledge after an event. To be
fatalism, God must compel the chooser to move in one direction,
rather than allowing that world-scenario to play itself out.
3. Middle Knowledge Makes God Dependent on His Creation
This charge claims that God must rely on the choices of His
creation to accomplish His will, thus making the Creator, who
should be self-sufficient, dependent upon His creation. But is
this really so? The objection strikes me as misstating the
middle knowledge position. God chooses to create a possible
world to achieve His desired ends. However, because God chooses to act in this way doesn't make Him dependent on His
creation, rather He allows His creation to be part of His
plan.
We first see that logically, prior to God creating the world
at all, He chose to create one where there would be being with
freedom of choice. He then chose to create a world where the
events would play out to His purposes. God is in control in all
of this. He never had to create such a world, but He did so
because it suited Him.
This idea is much the same as how God could spread the gospel
to the world in any way He chooses, but He wants to use
Christians to do so. Does this mean that God is also dependent
upon His creation to spread the gospel as well?
If God did decide to create a world of free creatures, He
must act within the logical parameters of that world. In other
words, God cannot create a world where beings are both free to
choose and not free to choose the same things at the same time.
Alvin Plantinga, in his book God, Freedom, and Evil, deftly
shows how God, given a desire to create free beings, cannot
create just any world at all, because such worlds would hold
contradictions like the one above. For example, Plantinga notes
that God could not have created a world where He Himself does
not exist.(4) This is not a proof of non-omniscience, but rather
an absurdity. Similarly, for a world to contain truly free
beings, other non-contradictory facts would come into play. God
is not dependent on His creation in this way. He is merely
working within the boundaries of logical limits.
4. Middle Knowledge is not a part of apostolic and historic
Christianity
We also saw that some have objected to Molinism because it is
a doctrine that was codified well after the apostolic period
ended. Robert Morey argued that it is not part of "The
Faith once and for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3).
However, Morey's reasoning here seems a bit arbitrary. There are
certainly other doctrines accepted as orthodox that clearly have
their origins after the apostolic age. The codification of the
doctrine of the Trinity did not occur until Tertullian in 150
A.D. (5)
Now, many may step in at this point and raise the objection
that "the formal definition of the trinity did not arise
until then, but the apostles certainly taught the concepts of
the trinity," and I would agree with that statement.
However, the same claim can be made for the idea of God knowing
future contingent events. As I wrote in the July newsletter,
Acts 27:22-31 clearly shows an incident where God knew what
would happen depending on whether all the sailors remained on
Paul's ship.(6)
5. God chooses us because He foresaw that we would first
chose Him
This last objection is one of the most common, but it is
really based on a misunderstanding of the middle knowledge
position. Middle knowledge doesn't assume that our choices are
fixed (i.e. we will choose God and He just picks us out ahead of
time.) Instead it holds that God can create a world where the
conditions are right and His Spirit leads and you do choose Him.
He can create other worlds where the conditions are changed and
you would not choose Him. He is in control of what worlds He
creates, and in those worlds He knows that certain choices will
have certain effects. He also knows what situations will affect
choice and when they happen. He just plans it all out in
advance, although still allowing humans to be free.
I hope this study in Predestination and Free Will has been
helpful, if in no other way than to expose you to some new
ideas. Next month we will begin a more topical approach to the
newsletter articles, dealing with current events and hot topics.
Until then, God bless.
|
