Dr. William Lane Craig has an article called A Middle Knowledge Perspective on Biblical Inspiration. In this article he offers Molinism as the answer of how God can work with man to write inspired Scripture. This preserves man’s freedom while still giving God a level of control of the outcome. If this position is satisfactory for the inspiration of written Scripture, why is it not satisfactory for other areas in which God works in peoples’ lives?
Taking Craig’s conclusion built upon Molinism of how the Bible was inspired and applying it salvation seems to offer no valid reason why all are not saved. The first paragraph below are Craig’s actual words. The second is my re-written paragraph using Craig’s position, but applying it to salvation.
In conclusion, it seems to me that the traditional doctrine of the plenary, verbal, confluent inspiration of Scripture is a coherent doctrine, given divine middle knowledge. 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, which 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 version re-written and applied to salvation.
In conclusion, it seems to me that the traditional doctrine of hell and damnation due to free will choices of men outside of inspiration is incoherent, given divine middle knowledge. 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 “would be” condemned would freely compose their respective free choices, which God intended to be His gracious gift to us. In the providence of God, the choice to believe the gospel is thus both of God and of man.
See also: Is God merely trying to save everyone?
tagged as middle knowledge, Molinism in Arminianism,calvinism,theology
About the author
Mark is a Christian, husband and father. He is a businessman attending seminary in the off hours working on his M.Div. preparing for vocational ministry.
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Interesting thoughts, but your argument suffers at least one (potentially) fatal misstem (and is thus disanalogous). In the case of the Word of God, we know that if A) dictation is not true, and B) counterfactuals of creaturely freedom exist, it is at least feasible that such an account of the inspiration of the Word is true. This is because the Word of God was written, and thus the counterfactual “If Paul were in prison in Rome, he would freely write the book of Galatians” is true on the face of it.
However, in order for your argument to hold, you must hold that there are such relevant counterfactuals for each individual that are also compossible with each other.
Randy said –
Are you claiming that their are not such relevant counter-factuals for each individual? If so, what do you base this position on? If not, why make the statement?
Hi Mark, thanks for the response. My claim, from my comment, is that in order for your argument to be successful, you must posit that there are such counterfactuals, and that they are true, and that they are compossibly true. You evidently do not dispute that.
Implicitly, my contention is that we have no epistemic justification, given Molinism (which is what the original post presupposes), that there are such counterfactuals that are compossibly true in regards to the unsaved people in the actual world. In fact, you can make the case that we are not in an epistemic position to know if any such individual would come to Christ in any feasible circumstances in which they were instantiated (feasible being defined as above–compossible states of affairs in a complete possible world).