Middle Knowledge

Human Freedom in Divine Sovereignty

John D. Laing

• Publisher: Kregel Publications
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780825476464
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

Most Christians believe God is in control, but they are unsure of how to reconcile that control with their struggles with sin, the command to evangelize, and the immense suffering in the world and their own lives.Laing offers an introduction to the doctrine of providence based on the theory of middle knowledge, first articulated in the sixteenth century. This view describes how creatures have true free will and God has perfect knowledge of what each creature could and would do in any circumstance. Middle knowledge helps answer the most perplexing theological questions: predestination and salvation, the existence of evil, divine and human authorship of Scripture, and science and the Christian faith. Laing provides extensive biblical support as well as practical applications for this theology.

CHAPTER 1

THE DOCTRINE OF MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE

INTRODUCTION

The doctrine of middle knowledge was first articulated by Jesuit Counter-Reformation theologian Luis Molina in his massive Concordia Liberi Arbitrii cum Gratiae Donis, Divina Praescientia, Providentia, Praedestinatione, et Reprobatione, ad nonnullos primae partis D. Thome articulos (henceforth, Concordia), a work originally meant to be a commentary on Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, but which wound up only addressing the relationship between human freedom and the efficaciousness of God’s grace in salvation. The Concordia immediately drew criticism from the Dominicans, who feared it came dangerously close to Pelagianism—a fourth-century heresy which claimed that humans did not inherit a corrupt nature from Adam and could therefore earn salvation by their good works—because it maintained that God’s grace was made efficacious by the free actions of individuals. This initial criticism grew into a full-fledged controversy within the Roman Catholic Church, and it occupied the thoughts and minds of many leaders for twenty-five years. Interestingly, the controversy was never fully resolved. Middle knowledge (sometimes called “Molinism” for Molina) was Molina’s attempt to reconcile God’s providence with human freedom.

MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE OR SCIENTIA MEDIA

The doctrine of middle knowledge is so called because it is thought to be in the middle of the traditional categories of divine thought, natural and free knowledge.¹ When it is said to be in the middle of God’s natural and free knowledge, two things are meant. First, it has characteristics of both kinds of divine knowledge, similar to a cross between natural knowledge and free knowledge. Second, it comes in between natural and free knowledge in the logical order of God’s thought process regarding creation (if such analogous language may be used of the mind of God). Before these concepts are fleshed out, a brief explanation of natural and free knowledge should be presented.

Natural knowledge refers to the truths God knows by his nature. Since his nature is necessary, He has knowledge of all necessary truths by knowledge of his own nature. Thomas Aquinas conceived of it as God’s knowledge of all to which his power extends by virtue of his being Creator and being omniscient.² Note that Aquinas did not say that this knowledge comes from God’s creating or his decision to create, but from his nature as the ground of all being.³ The basic point is this: God’s knowledge of all necessary truths is located in his natural knowledge. Necessary truths are of two sorts: 1) metaphysically necessary truths, such as theological absolutes, mathematical formulae, or tautological statements, and 2) statements of possibility. Since the content of natural knowledge is itself necessary, natural knowledge can be described as that part of God’s knowledge which could not have been different from what it is. It follows from this that it is independent of his will. Put differently, God has no control over the truth of propositions known by natural knowledge because they are necessarily true. As noted in the introduction, this is not to question his omnipotence or to go awry of good theology.⁴

Free knowledge refers to the truths God knows by knowing his own will. It is his knowledge of those items, persons, or true propositions that he knows will exist because of his knowledge of what he intends to, or will, create. Thus, in one sense, free knowledge comes by his freely exercising his will in creating or controlling events within the created order. The content of this knowledge are truths that refer to what actually exists, existed, or will exist. Aquinas calls this knowledge of vision because he conceives of it as directly tied to God’s infinity and his observation of all events in eternity.⁵

Since free knowledge comes from God’s creative act of will (which is a free decision), it follows that the content of that knowledge is contingent. In other words, because God did not have to create what he did create, any true propositions dependent upon his choice about what to create are contingent (i.e., not necessary). For example, the proposition, “John Laing exists” is true only because God chose to create me. It is a contingent truth because my existence is not necessary. So free knowledge includes only metaphysically contingent truths, or truths that could have been prevented by God if he had chosen to create different situations, different creatures, or to not create at all. God knows the proposition in the example, “John Laing exists,” by his free knowledge.

Thus, it is by his free knowledge that God has exhaustive knowledge of the future. As Molina states, it is by his free knowledge that he knows “absolutely and determinately, without any condition or hypothesis, which ones from among all the contingent states of affairs were in fact going to obtain and, likewise, which ones were not going to obtain.”⁶ So free knowledge can be described as both contingent and dependent upon or posterior to, God’s will. Flint has set forth the double distinction in divine knowledge in graph format:

		Natural Knowledge	Free Knowledge
	Truths
	known are:	(1)Necessary	(1)Contingent
		(2)Independent of God’s free will	(2)Dependent on God’s free will^7

To these two distinctions in divine knowledge, Molina added a third, which incorporated facets of each: scientia media, or middle knowledge. Middle knowledge is similar to natural knowledge in that it is prevolitional (prior to God’s choice to create) and therefore its truth is independent of God’s determining will. It is similar to free knowledge in that the truths that are known are contingent (in this case, dependent on creaturely will). Again, following Flint, the distinctions in divine knowledge can be represented graphically:

		Natural Knowledge	Middle Knowledge	Free Knowledge
	Truths
	known are:	(1) Necessary	(1) Contingent	(1) Contingent
		(2) Independent of God’s free will	(2) Independent of God’s free will	(2) Dependent on God’s free will^8

The doctrine of middle knowledge proposes that God has knowledge not only of metaphysically necessary truths via natural knowledge, and of truths expressing what He intends to do via free knowledge, but also a third class of propositions which have characteristics of each. The truths known by natural and middle knowledge inform God’s decision regarding what he will create by limiting the sorts of worlds he can create (or actualize). Thus, middle knowledge is characterized as God’s prevolitional knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. In order to unpack this mouthful, an examination of counterfactuals needs to be undertaken.

COUNTERFACTUALS

A number of years ago, I attended a high school reunion. It was good to see many of my old buddies from high school, most of whom I had not seen in years. It was interesting to see how our lives had turned out; there were not a few surprises, as is often the case with these sorts of meetings (at my ten-year high school reunion, I won the “Most Changed” award). As we visited, the conversation inevitably turned to our antics while in high school, reminiscing on some of the more humorous events. The conversation also included discussion about the people we used to hang out with, including those we used to date. I began to wonder what happened to my first serious girlfriend, who I will call Susan.

Susan and I dated during my senior year in high school. We were somewhat of an odd couple; she was one of the more outspoken Christians at our school, while I was a self-proclaimed and rather vocal atheist. Despite these differences, we grew very close, but a long-term relationship was not to be. When I graduated, I left for Army Basic Training and knew I would have to subsequently move to another state where my father’s job had transferred. We talked about long-term possibilities, but while I was at Fort Knox, Susan broke off contact and refused to see me when I returned. She had good reason for breaking up with me, as our relationship violated the dictum against being unequally yoked (2 Cor. 6:14), and thus compromised her commitment to Christ. It was heart-wrenching for me at the time, and I fell into a depression for several months.

It was during this time that I came to saving faith in Jesus Christ. I had attended chapel services while in Basic, and when I moved out to Kansas to attend Kansas University, I encountered an energetic group of young people who loved the Lord. I attended their weekly Bible study and worship, and even bought my own Bible. However, I still did not believe. In a somewhat strange event, I remember praying to God, “Lord, if you exist, help me to believe in you and have faith.” I never accepted Jesus during one of their Bible studies or worship services and I eventually broke with the group over a doctrinal issue. Yet I continued to read my Bible, pray and seek God, and faith came. I cannot point to a moment when that faith came (only God truly knows), but it was sometime between May and August 1988, by which time I was a convinced believer.

The discussions with my old high school buddies about the past got me thinking. Such reminiscences, especially with regard to past relationships, naturally lead to thoughts about how our lives have turned out and about how they may have been different. I could not help but wonder what my life would be like if Susan had not broken off contact with me, or if we had married. Would I still be a professor of theology and philosophy at a Southern Baptist seminary? Would I still be a Chaplain in the Army? Would I even be a Christian? None of the answers to these questions are clear or obvious. It may very well be that her breaking up with me at that point in my life was what I needed to come to faith in Christ; then again, perhaps not. I have often thought it was one of the key factors in breaking down my pride so that I might be humble before God, but this does not mean it was necessary. Who knows if it was (necessary)? Can such things be known, even by an all-knowing, all-seeing God? The answer to this last question has been the basis of much heated debate in Christian philosophical circles in recent years, as we will see in the next two chapters.

The idea that my life would have turned out a particular way if things had gone differently with Susan is dependent upon belief in what philosophers loosely refer to as “counterfactuals.” As the term is used in the literature, a counterfactual is a statement of how things would definitely be if things had gone differently. It seems that most people intuitively believe that counterfactuals can be true, that there are some true statements about how things would have been if other things had gone differently from how they did go. Some counterfactuals seem obviously true, such as the following:

If I had married Susan, my daughter Sydney would not have been born.

Since Sydney is a product of my wife Stefana and me, she could not have been the product of my marriage to Susan.⁹ Any time we wonder ab...