Middle Knowledge One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election God is omniscient. That means He knows everything – but what does that mean? – First of all, He knows everything that is logically possible – including anything that might ever happen in any universe (world) He might ever create. This is called His Natural Knowledge. – On the basis of Natural Knowledge, God was free to create any possible world.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election Possible worlds would include: Worlds in which the sky was green and the grass was blue. Worlds in which you or I never existed. Worlds in which you or I existed, but under very different circumstances. Worlds in which we were not free to trust in Him or believe in Jesus. A world such as this one, in which we have the ability to freely exercise our faith – or refuse to.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election Again, Natural Knowledge is God’s knowledge of all that is logically possible. But we live in this world which God created. This world only includes what God freely causes to happen or, at the very least, permits. His knowledge of all that will really happen in this world, including whether or not we will trust in Him, is called His Free Knowledge.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election God’s Natural Knowledge is His knowledge of all that is logically possible. God’s Free Knowledge is His knowledge of all that will actually happen, which is limited at some level by His will. (These two categories come from Thomas Aquinas.) Between these two, is His Middle Knowledge (a term from Luis de Molina) the knowledge of what free creatures will freely do under any and all circumstances.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election Middle Knowledge is like Natural Knowledge in that it is logically prior to God’s decision to create a particular world. – We say logically prior, rather than chronologically prior, because technically time didn’t exist until God created it – another subject entirely. Middle Knowledge is like Free Knowledge in that it is conditional. What can happen depends upon the world that God actually creates.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election God’s Middle Knowledge is, then, in the middle – somewhere between: – All that is logically possible (Natural Knowledge) – And all that will actually occur (Free Knowledge) It shares some characteristics of both of these.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election The fact that God chose to create this particular world out of all possible worlds, and create you in it within a given set of circumstances out of all possible people in all possible circumstances, knowing what you would do in them, gives us a very substantial view of God’s election. God from the beginning chose you for salvation - and had the ability to do otherwise.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election The fact that God chose to create a world in which His creatures were truly free, and create you and me among His creatures, means that we are genuinely responsible to Him. He created us with love and grace in mind, but He is not forcing anyone to believe. Our salvation is, therefore, a gift, which we must freely receive – or reject. We have to believe in the truth.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election On this view: We are not saying, “God chose you because He foresaw that you would believe.” In that case, God’s choice would be almost meaningless, because you would have believed anyway. It’s really another way of saying that it’s all up to you. Nor are we saying, “You believed simply because God chose you or decreed it to be so,” in a way that makes humans seem more like puppets doing only and exactly as God directs.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election On this view, we are saying: There is no one who believes who is not elect. There is also no one who is elect who does not believe. Those who believe and those who are elect are, in effect, one and the same.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election On this view, we are saying: Only God fully understands all the reasons why He created this actual world with these actual people in these actual circumstances. His Middle Knowledge of what each person would freely do in any set of circumstances helps us to see how our faith and God’s election can both play a part.

Middle Knowledge: One Means of Balancing Our Faith and God’s Election Additional Resources: Craig, William Lane. Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom: The Coherence of Theism, Omniscience. New York: Brill, Craig, William Lane. The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom. Grand Rapids: Baker Bookhouse pdfs/Craig.pdf Molina, Luis de. On Divine Foreknowledge: Part IV of the Concordia. Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso (Ithaca: Cornell, 1988). Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974).