Molinism

There's a term you don't hear too often, right? Here, let me clear that up for you. It is the official name of the concept more popularly known as "middle knowledge". There, all set, right? "Uh, yeah, Stan, thanks for nothing. Clear as mud."

Molinism or "middle knowledge" is actually a fairly popular view. It is held by Christians (yes, genuine Christians) who are very smart and even whom I respect. Hey, even I held this view for a long time. Here's the idea. We have a problem. How do you correlate Man's Free Will with God's Omniscience and Sovereignty? (I capitalized the terms because they needed it.) If Man is going to have a genuine "Free Will" and God actually knows all things and is sovereign over all things, how do we put those together?

Well, people much smarter than I considered this question and posited two components of God's knowledge. One is "natural knowledge" and the other is "free knowledge". The former refers to all things true, such as mathematics, definitions (a square is not a circle), and principles. The latter refers to things as they actually are -- the world that God created. Thus, in the economy of the philosopher, it is said that God knows all things and all contingencies.

Now, to folks like me, that's the end of the question. God knows all things. What you will choose He knows. That means that you will choose it because He knows it, but I don't see that as an impediment to "free will". But to others, in order for the will to be considered free, it has to be able to choose other options as a real possibility. The fact that it can but won't is not "free will" to these libertarian-free-will folk. So while we have "natural knowledge" and "free knowledge", the Molinists offer a third category -- "middle knowledge". Luis de Molina (thus, "Molinism") suggested that, given all possible worlds (and God knows them all), God knows what humans would freely choose in every possible circumstance. Then the Sovereign God chooses the best combination of people and choices that most closely serves His purposes. And we've managed to preserve God's omniscience and sovereignty right along with Man's Free Will.

The value of Molinism is that it retains "indeterminism", the view of free will that demands that nothing outside of the person causes or determines the choice of the person. It is "libertarian free will" that necessarily excludes God as a cause in human choices. Biblical support for this view typically includes 1 Sam 26:6-13, where David asks God what will happen if he goes out against an enemy and God tells him what will happen. You see, if David did what God said to do, then the outcome would be as God said. Lots of those kinds of passages. A favorite would be Matt 11:21-24, where Jesus says something like "if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes". See? "What if?". (These serve to demonstrate that God knows "what if" -- all contingencies. Do they demonstrate "middle knowledge"?)

The problem with Molinism is that, well, it ends up negating the Sovereignty and Omniscience of God. Well, no, not entirely. And, no, they would not agree. But the suggestion is that God is limited to Man's Free Will if Man is to have "free will" in any reasonable sense. If this is so, God cannot be Sovereign. He is, by definition, limited in His sovereignty. (Again, the capitalization or lack thereof is intentional.) God is limited in the world He created to that which people would possibly choose. If He wanted Bob, my fictional friend, to choose Christ and there was no possible world in which Bob would choose Christ, God's will could not be accomplished where Bob was concerned. He can only accomplish that which most closely serves His purpose.

It also doesn't seem to solve the problem. Given all possible worlds, is this the best He could choose? Is there not a possible world where more people are saved? Molinism is determined (a little play on words there) to hold that God's greatest desire is to save as many as possible. Is this the most possible?

I really used to like this view (before I ever knew that it had a name). "Let's see," I would imagine God saying as He looked down the corridors of time, "if I do this and that and then that, Stan will come to faith and be saved. Now if I do this and that and then that, Hitler won't. Well how about if I do that and then this other and then this? No, not then. In fact, nothing I do will bring Hitler to me. So, Stan is one of the elect because he will freely choose me and Hitler is not because he will freely reject me." Nice. Not rational. Not defensible in Scripture. But nice. I can't do that anymore. I've had to set aside libertarian Free Will that holds sway over God's possible choices in favor of God's Sovereign Will that holds sway over Man's free will. Now, I don't doubt that Molinists can certainly be Christians. No problem there. I just don't see how to maintain the Sovereignty of God with the Man's Free Will. Molinism doesn't seem to fix that. I'll have to stick with what I have.