In this two part series, the biblical fidelity of Molinism with be examined from a self-consciously and confessionally Reformed perspective. However, before its biblical fidelity can be evaluated, which will be the focus of the forthcoming post, we must seek to understand Molinism on its own terms. Therefore, it must be asked: What is Molinism, and to what does “middle knowledge” refer?

Middle knowledge, otherwise known as Molinism, derives its name from a 16th century Jesuit named Luis de Molina (1535-1600). There is evidence that within a decade of Molina’s death, his view of middle knowledge had a profound influence upon the theology of James Arminius–though there is some scholarly disagreement as to the extent of that influence. Among the more academic and influential contemporary advocates of Molinism are Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig (who has proposed that Molinism is the key to a Calvinist-Arminian rapprochement).  But interest in the doctrine also seems to be growing in the more popular and accessible world of internet blogs, videos, and podcasts. If you have not yet encountered it, there is a good chance that either you or one of the members of your church will.

In this two part series, the biblical fidelity of Molinism with be examined from a self-consciously and confessionally Reformed perspective. However, before its biblical fidelity can be evaluated, which will be the focus of the forthcoming post, we must seek to understand Molinism on its own terms. Therefore, it must be asked: What is Molinism, and to what does “middle knowledge” refer?

Middle Knowledge Explained

The principal concern of its advocates is to reconcile the certainty of God’s decree and the contingency or liberty of man’s actions, i.e., divine agency and human agency. The problem, as they see it, is this: because God’s foreknowledge and will are immutable and infallible, whatsoever He foreknows must necessarily come to pass. But, if all things occur necessarily, genuine freedom, or the contingency of free agents, seems to be impossible. For instance, because God infallibly foreknew that I would presently be writing this analysis of Molinism, it would seem that it is not genuinely possible that I not be writing this at this moment. How can we affirm the certainty of God’s foreknowledge and decree without reducing man’s liberty to some form of necessitarianism or determinism, i.e., fatalism? The Molinist maintains that this is the logical consequence of the Reformed position and proposes the doctrine of middle knowledge as the solution.

However, we cannot accept the problem as they see it, nor the assumptions that lie behind it. But leaving that aside for the moment, in order to understand the Molinist solution we need to bear in mind two things with respect to God’s knowledge. First, we must maintain that the foundation of all of God’s knowledge is His own essence and does not depend upon any thing other than Himself. “I Am Who I Am” (Exodus 3:14). In other words, God just is what He is, and He possesses all that He is from Himself. “God … is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creature which he hath made, …. In His sight all things are open and manifest, His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain” (2LCF 2.2; WCF 2.2); “Known to God from eternity are all His works” (Acts 15:18). Medieval and Reformed alike have always confessed that God knows by His own essence, i.e., He necessarily knows all things in perfectly knowing Himself and every way in which His own perfection and goodness can be imitated and reflected in the creature in finite and limited ways. In this way, God’s knowledge is grounded in His own essence as imitable–as the Prototype and Exemplar of all reality, whether of things actual or merely possible.[1] This is an important biblical presupposition, to which we will return in a moment, that undermines the Molinist position.

The second thing we must bear in mind is the various logical and biblical distinctions that have been customarily made with respect to the knowledge of God. The medieval and Reformed consensus has been to distinguish two logical (not temporal) moments in the divine knowledge relative to the divine decree: the natural or simple knowledge of God and the free or visionary knowledge of God. Another way to say this is that God knows both all that He can do and all that He, by virtue of His decree, will do.

The first moment–the natural knowledge of God–is logically prior to the divine decree, i.e., it does not presuppose the decree, but comprehends His absolute knowledge of all possible things-and-worlds in which His essence can be imitated in created things. As such, His natural knowledge is His knowledge of His own absolute power (de potentia absoluta), i.e., whatsoever God’s power can do.

The second moment–God’s so-called knowledge of vision–refers to His fore-knowledge, not of whatsoever He is capable of doing, but more narrowly of those things that He has freely willed/decreed to do. As such, the visionary knowledge of God presupposes, or logically follows from, the decree of God and rests not only upon the absolute power of God but more particularly the ordained power of God (de potentia ordinata).

The former, being logically prior to His decree, refers to whatsoever God can do, including many possibilities that God might have done but has chosen not to do. The latter, presupposing His decree, refers to God’s foreknowledge of whatsoever He has freely chosen to actualize or bring to pass. Things are known as possible by virtue of His power and fore-known as future by virtue of His will. And yet, “although God knoweth whatsoever may, or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions” (2LCF 3.2; WCF 3.2; cf. Rom. 9:11-18).

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