Thoughts on Middle Knowledge and Divine Inspiration

I get many questions regarding my view on Middle Knowledge (MK). Admittedly, mine is a somewhat unique view, for I do not hold to the libertarian view of human freedom that most MK folks hold. I believe that holding to that particular variety of MK underestimates the extent of our own depravity and the effectiveness of the Holy Spirit acting upon a human agent. So, I hold to a view of freedom that is much more similar (though not exact) to the classical Reformed view. I would label it "soft compatibilism." My view is more akin to the view of Terrance Tiessen which he labels, "MK Calvinism" in his excellent book Providence and Prayer.

At the PCRT this weekend, D. A. Carson mentioned in his excellent treatment of Matthew 11 that God has "contingent knowledge," and then said without elaboration that this was not equivalent to MK, and someone could question him about the distinction in the Q&A time. I did just that. I was disappointed that the question was not given to Carson as I directed it, but to R.C. Sproul. I was even further disappointed when Sproul caricatured MK with a straw-man argument that equated it with Open Theism. He dismissed the view curtly by alluding to Turretin (whom I have read thoroughly on the subject of MK), who said, (paraphrasing Turretin, but quoting Sproul exactly) "God knows all contingencies, but knows nothing contingently." Thankfully, Carson elaborated, and took issue only with the position of William Lane Craig on the idea of libertarian freedom, for if one grants libertarian freedom, one forces God's knowledge to be contingent on human activity. He paraphrased Jonathan Edwards, saying something to the effect that human beings are held accountable by God because we do what we want to do. While that sounds awfully libertarian, knowing Edwards, it was to be understood in a compatibilist sense.

Let me refer to Craig here on explaining precisely what MK involves. I am quoting extensively, paraphrasing where I see fit to condense, from Craig's article in Philosophia Christi (the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, Series 2, Volume 1, Number 1, 1999, pp 45-82), entitled "Men Moved By the Holy Spirit Spoke From God (2 Peter 1:21): A Middle Knowledge Perspective on Biblical Inspiration."

God's counterfactual knowledge involves His knowledge of what some creature would freely do, were he placed in a specific set of circumstances. "If God has such knowledge explanitorily prior (*as opposed to chronologically prior -- we do not want to assign chronological progression to the divine deliberations of God; the ordering is logical, or explanitory, rather than in a sense of time*JRR) to His creative decree then such knowledge is what theologians have called MK."

"The doctrine of MK proposes to furnish an analysis of divine knowledge in terms of three logical moments. Although whatever God knows, He has known from eternity, so that there is no temporal succession in God's knowledge, nonetheless, there does exist a sort of logical succession in God's knowledge in that His knowledge of certain propositions is conditionally or explanitorily prior to His knowledge of certain other propositions."

"In the first, unconditioned moment God knows all possibilia, not only all individual essences, but also all possible worlds. Molina calls such knowledge 'natural knowledge' because the content of such knowledge is essential to God and in no way depends on the free decisions of his will. By means of His natural knowledge, then, God has knowledge of every contingent state of affairs which could possible obtain and of what the exemplification of the individual essence of any free creature could freely choose to do in any such state of affiars that should be actual."

"In the second moment, God possesses knowledge of certain true counterfactual propositions, including counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. That is to say, He knows what contingent states of affairs would obtain if certain antecedent states of affairs were to obtain; whereas by His natural knowledge God knew what any free creature could do in any set of circumstances, now in this second moment God knows what any free creature would do in any set of circumstances."... "God thus knows that were He to actualize certain states of affairs, then certain other contingent states of affairs would obtain. Molina calls this counterfactual knowledge 'MK' because it stands in between the first and third moment in divine knowledge. ... Such knowledge does not depend on any decision of the divine will; God does not determine which counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true or false."

I will interject an illustration here to differentiate between natural and MK. God knows, by virtue of His natural knowledge, that if Fred is looking at a dessert menu, Fred could choose apple pie, chocolate cake, or ice cream. By this knowledge, God also knows that there are certain scenarios where Fred would never see a dessert menu, and would not have that choice to make. By virtue of MK, He knows that Fred will choose apple pie if he is indeed faced with a dessert menu.

"Intervening between the second and third moments of divine knowledge stands God's free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His MK. ... By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His MK. According to Molina, this decision is the result of a complete and unlimited deliberation by means of which God considers and weighs every possible circumstance and its ramifications and decides to settle on the particular world He desires. Hence, logically prior, if not chronologically prior, to God's creation of the world is the divine deliberation concerning which world to actualize."

"In the third and final moment God possess knowledge of all remaining propositions that are in fact true in the actual world. Such knowledge is denominated 'free knowledge' by Molina because it is logically posterior to the decision of the divine will to actualize a world. ... He could have decreed to actualize a different world. Had He done so, the content of His free knowledge would be different."

This has "profound implications for divine providence," for by virtue of His MK, God is able to "exercise providential control of free creatures without abridging the free exercise of their wills." He is able to decree certain circumstances to exist which will involve certain free creatures, thus bringing about indirectly the events which He desired and foreknew, but He does so through the decisions and actions of those free creatures.

Before jumping to oppose this doctrine from a Reformed position, consider how even such a stalwart Calvinist as B. B. Warfield applies this very line of logic to the doctrine of divine inspiration of Scripture (cited more fully in Craig's article): "There is to be considered ... the preparation of the material which forms the subject-matter of these books: in a scared history, say, for example, to be narrated; or in a religious experience which may serve as a norm for record; or in a logical elaboration of the contents of revelation whcih may be placed at the service of God's people; or in the progressive revelation of Divine truth itself, supplying their culminating contents. And there is the preparation of the men to write these books to be considered, a preparation physical, intellectual, spiritual, which must have attended them throughout their whole lives, and, indeed, must have had its beginning in their remote ancestors, and the effect of which was to bring the right men to the right places at the right times, with the right endowments, impulses, and acquirements, to write just the books which were designed for them. ... If God wished to give His people a series of letters like Paul's He prepared a Paul to write them, and the Paul He brought to the task was a Paul who spontaneously would write just such letters."

However, God is not "extraordinarily lucky that He finds Himself in a world in which the writers of Scripture just happen to freely respond to their circumstances (including the promptings of his Spirit) in just the right ways as to produce the Bible. This is incompatible with a robust view of divine providence." Certainly other individuals have written and said things that were irrefutably true at other times, other places, and for other purposes, and we do not consider their utterances as Scripture. For instance, suppose I write down the statement, "At 4:52 PM on Tuesday, May 1, 2007, I am seated at my desk typing these very words." This statement is just as true as John 3:16. However, there is a qualitative difference. My writing is not inspired by God and is not Scripture. Craig says, "What distinguishes a writing as Scripture is God's intent that that writing be His gracious word to mankind." So, he goes on to say, "Infallibility is insufficient to make a human utterance into the Word of God." It is Scripture, "because God in His providence prepared such a book to be His Word to us."

In conclusion, Craig states, "Because God knew the relevant counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, He was able to decree a world containing just those circumstances and persons such that the authors of Scripture would freely compose their respective writings, whcih God intended to be His gracious Word to us. In the providence of God, the Bible is thus both the Word of God and the word of man."

My disagreement with Craig's commitment to libertarian freedom would require nothing more than some minor tweaking of anything he has stated in this lengthy article, the surface of which I have merely scratched in these citations (I commend to the reader the entire article, and to those with a penchant for philosophical thought, a subscription to Philosophia Christi). Immediately, the usefulness of just such an article becomes evident when one surveys the writings of the most respected evangelical theologians on the subject of inspiration. Neither the major monographs on the subject nor the systematic theologies want to delve into the means of inspiration, and offer little in terms of a definition. They typically merely state what inspiration is NOT, and then offer a slogan like, "The Bible is God's divinely inspired Word, penned by human writers, but not in such a way as would require us to hold to a mechanical dictation theory of inspiration." This does not help us in defending the doctrine against its detractors. It merely asserts what inspiration is NOT. Even when some writers (e.g. Warfield) do go further, their statements sound awfully close to MK, though their most ardent supporters would want to reject that label with all vehemence. Only a view that allows for MK can be positively stated to touch on the means of inspiration that removes dictation and good fortune from consideration.

I have had three aims in this post. First, to elucidate exactly what MK is. Second, to demonstrate that it is espoused by even those who refuse to admit it. Third, to demonstrate that it is the only viable explanation we have for this subject of the inspiration of Scripture, not to mention a host of other theological issues. I hope I have done so, and the reader who has endured to the end of this lengthy post may be the judge. Feel free to comment and let's dialog as iron sharpening iron to further clarify our statements.