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Middle Knowledge and Classical Christian Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David Basinger
David Basinger
Affiliation:
Roberts Wesleyan College
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Extract

To say that God is omniscient, most philosophers and theologians agree, is to say that he knows all true propositions and none that are false. But there is a great deal of disagreement about what is knowable. Some believe that God's knowledge is limited to everything that is (or has been) actual and that which will follow deterministically from it. He knows, for example, exactly what Caesar was thinking when he crossed the Rubicon and how many horses he had in his army that day. And he knows exactly how Gorbachev feels about the use of nuclear weapons. And since he knows how the ‘laws of nature’ (which he has purportedly created) function, he knows, for example, how certain weather systems will develop and what their effects will be on certain natural environments. But with respect to any future state of affairs which includes free human decision-making as a causal component, God is said not to know what will occur. God, as the ultimate psychoanalyst or behaviourist, can with great accuracy predict what we will freely decide to do in the future in many cases. He might well, for example, be able to predict quite accurately who will win the 1988 Presidential election. But a God who possesses only ‘present knowledge’ (PK) cannot know who will win. Given that the election in question is dependent on free choices which have yet to be made, there is presently nothing for God to know.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 3-4 , September 1986 , pp. 407 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

page 407 note 1 There are, of course, other ways of defining omniscience. Some say, for example, that God's omniscience does not necessarily consist in his knowing all true propositions but rather in his knowing everything that it is logically possible from him to know. Such conceptions of omniscience, however, yield the same basic categories of divine knowledge with which I will be concerned, so I have chosen not to explicitly identify and discuss them in the text.

page 407 note 2 See, for example, Pinnock, Clark, Predestination and Free Will, ed. by David, and Basinger, Randall (Downer's Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1986), pp. 141–162.Google ScholarBloesch, Donald, Esssentials of Evangelical Theology (New York: Harper Row, 1978), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

page 408 note 1 See, for example, Reichenbach, Bruce, Evil and a Good God (New York: Fordham Press, 1982), pp. 14–16, 68–74.Google Scholar

page 408 note 2 See, for example, Geisler, Norman, Predestination and Free Will, pp. 11–84.Google Scholar

page 408 note 3 Plantinga, Alvin, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 180.Google Scholar

page 409 note 1 Feinberg, John S., Predestination and Free Will, pp. 99–124.Google Scholar

page 409 note 2 See Plantinga, , pp. 169–84.Google Scholar

page 410 note 1 See, for example, Anderson, Susan, ‘Plantinga and the Free Will Defense’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, LXII (1981), 274–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 410 note 2 This is argued more fully in Basinger, David, ‘Anderson on Plantinga: A Response’, Philosophy Research Archives, VII (1982), 315–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 411 note 1 Augustine, , Enchiridion XIV. 96.Google Scholar

page 411 note 2 William Craig, ‘ Divine Foreknowledge and Future Contingency’, sermons (forthcoming in reader on Process thought).

page 412 note 1 Craig, , p. 5.Google Scholar

page 413 note 1 Adams, Robert, ‘Middle Knowledge and the Problem of Evil’, American Philosophical Quarterly, XIV (1977), 100.Google Scholar

page 413 note 2 Reichenbach, , pp. 68–74.Google Scholar

page 413 note 3 Hasker, William, ‘A Refutation of Middle Knowledge’, forthcoming in Naus.Google Scholar

page 414 note 1 Some proponents of SFK deny that hypothetical conditionals of freedom can be known to be true because they deny that such propositions have truth values; others deny their truth can be known because they believe all such propositions to be false.

page 415 note 1 An interesting alternative response has recently been proposed by Reichenbach, Bruce, ‘Omniscience and Deliberation’, International journal for Philosophy of Religion, XVI (1984), 225–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Omniscience, Reichenbach argues, is only incompatible with divine decision-making if we conceive of such decision-making in terms of deliberation - i.e. if we see God as weighing viable options before a decision is made. But intentional decision-making, he continues, can be non-deliberative - i.e. can simply be a decision to implement certain goals or objectives. Thus this type of intentional divine activity is not ruled out by the fact that God knows what he will decide to do before the decision is made. Reichenbach's argument, however, is only helpful if it is the case that God never has or will make a deliberative decision. But there appears to be no good theological basis for believing that this is the case. In fact, there appears to be a strong theological argument against this contention in that while most theists have wanted to claim that God's decisions are freely made, it is not clear that non-deliberative decisions are truly free.

page 417 note 2 See, for example, Cottrell, Jock, ‘Conditional Election’, Grace Unlimited, ed., Pinnock, Clark (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975), pp. 68–70.Google Scholar

page 418 note 1 Some proponents of SFK may wish to hold that God's decisions are made ‘outside of time’ or ‘ before all worlds’ rather than at the time at which he acts. But even granting this possibility, the basic point still holds: knowledge of the actual results of a decision cannot be presupposed in making the decision.

page 421 note 1 Adams, , p. 111.Google Scholar

page 421 note 2 Ibid.

page 421 note 3 Ibid. p. 110.

page 421 note 4 Ibid. p. 112.

page 422 note 1 Hasker, , p. 16.Google Scholar