May God bless you all

or something like that.

I think to make things more simple, we have to work between the positions that espouse indeterminism and determinism. Middle-knowledge, or Molinism, is by nature of LFW, an indeterminist position whereby the final cause or determining factor is not God but man, even if God knew all counter-factuals or alternative worlds. Soft determinism, considered as compatibilism, is the position where I believe you will find most if not all Calvinists–in that human beings have free will, a will that is based on their affections and inclinations so that they do exactly what they want to do. Those who hold to LFW argue that a persons decisions is utterly arbitrary and not grounded in anything. The grounding objection to Molinism has been well argued by others. Anyway, I don’t want to get too deep in the woods.

“middle knowledge”– I’m impressed. For all the SB theologians names being tossed around here, I hardly expect to find William Lane Craig’s heavy-t term among us popbloggers.

As much as a middle knowledge view of predestination goes, it is not another factor to consider in a way around compatibilism, CFW, or even determinism, if you will. The middle knowledge concept attempts to explain a LFW, incompatibilist point of view, an avenue where it could work while preserving God’s sovereignty. So, we are still left with arguing wether or not we have LFW in the first place.

I have not heard many theologians make a distinction between free will pertaining to salvation and free will pertaining to everything else. I think the issue of salvation (necessitated through conversion) is a category unto itself. With everything else, it is reasonable to think that we have LFW.

Well, I’ve fairly blathered my way into a lonely wing of the issue…Frank Page–another misconstrual of Reformed Theology, yes. Good work.

Thanks, man, I see now where you were coming from.

As for middle knowledge, I learned quickly through discussing with a good friend (also a UPSer, there seems to be a lot of that these days, Timmy) that I couldn’t really hold it. As we were discussing it that night he said to me something that has stuck with me since: “I don’t think there is any future to know until God declares it!” That statement made so much sense I dropped middle knowledge that night.

I do, however, still hold “freedom of inclination.” It makes sense of why we still sin despite now being enslaved to Christ — our will hasn’t been totally subjected to Christ just yet and the old inclination to sin continues to hold sway from time to time. When I phrased Paul’s injunction to “bring his body into subjection to Christ” in this way (bring my inclinations into subjection) it made sense.

But I still think the will isn’t truly “free” in the sense non-Reformed seem to want to argue; after all, we’re slaves, aren’t we? That freedom of inclination is still a freedom that has to be granted by our master!

But seriously, I just wanted to point out (and probably should have made that clear) a rare flaw in Gene’s argumentation where he says:

The non-Calvinist, semi-Arminian, whatever you wish to call him, always and invariably invokes libertarian free will, elsewse known as libertarian action theory or LFW.

This is simply not true. We had classes with plenty of non-Calvinists who don’t hold LFW, and remember that Dr. Ware is the same way? It may be true of some of the most outspoken objectors to Calvinism (i.e. Yarnell, Caner & Co.), but by no means is it always the viewpoint of the non-Calvinist.

By way of reply, I’m only taking addressing the objection in the terms it supplied, which was using Dr.Page as his foil. He’s a Libertarian.

Here’s the problem, the “non-Calvinists” don’t want to be labeled “Arminians.” but, they, with the exception of the Amyraldians, whom I’m willing to include under the general term “Reformed” since they do stand within that sphere, disavow irresistible grace, and you can only do that, like it or not, from a platform of LFW.

The term “non-Calvinist,” you see gets shifted around a great deal. They tell us what they aren’t, not what they are. Frankly, I find that duplicitous at worst, intellectually unstable at best.

As to the issue of LFW, well, go to my blog and search for posts to Henry and Robert on the freedom of the will. He’s one of those, “I don’t believe in LFW” people, but, when you pin him down, he invariably invokes LFW. That’s my point. At some point, all of these people, with the exception of the Amyraldians, wind up doing it. Like Henry and Robert, they try to blend together two utterly incongruent action theories and then, because they wish to make “free will” of the agent that which either/or (or both/and) grounds the foreknowledge of God with respect to our futures or the possible worlds from which he could choose (as in Molinism) or simply makes the difference between who believes and who does not, they wind up falling into de facto LFW. They’ve just equivocated over it and abused it several times. They have tried to go, by the way, the route of some 19th century libertarians, to whom the reply was made that, no matter how they tried to do this, it would invariably result in simple libertarianism. See:

http://www.niu.edu/phil/~kapitan/Agency%20Theory.pdf

For example, Robert disavows the notion of uncaused choice, yet he has no doctrine of Arminian prevenient grace, and he rejects the very idea of an effectual calling, so he’s left with an intellectually confused position. He can only deny effectual calling on a platform of LFW, but in doing so, he commits himself to the notion of uncaused choices.

FYI, both you and Timmy, Dr. Thiessen discussed his view of Molinism with Steve, Turretinfan, and Greg Welty on T-blog awhile back.

See: http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/09/middle-knowledge-truth-makers-and.html

I posted it on behalf of TF. The thread went to 72 posts, but I think it’s very useful for understanding Thiessen’s position.

The bottom line with his view is that it will reduce to natural knowledge, no matter how you cut it. Molinism is designed to uphold LFW, once you drop LFW, it’s no longer a theory of “Middle Knowledge,” because MK is predicated upon LFW, not CFW. The question to be answered is “What grounds God’s knowledge.” The Molinist says, “Man’s choices.” IN Reformed theology, and I would argue classical theism, God’s foreknowledge is a species of His self-knowledge (ergo, “natural knowledge”), He knows what He knows about us because He knows His decree.

Another, often overlooked problem is that, while the Calvinist can stipulate that some elements of the final decree of this world are predicated on our responses to circumstances, grace, etc. (we have no problem with a broad idea of “cooperation” in our theology of agency or foreknoweledge), we have a problem with the idea that God chooses worlds out of “possible worlds” like items on a buffet. Where do these items come from if not God’s own mind? He has to decree them for them exist, even if only as “possibilities.” Any actions we take in those “possible worlds” would only be the result of His decree of such a world. So, he’s not choosing to decree from a group of “possible worlds” anything that He did not design and create. A theory of “Middle Knowledge”that involves God dong that runs afoul of the independence of God, which is why I can’t understand why men of any theological persuasion would put forth such a theory. The Libertarian who holds this theory must deny classical Christian theism to do so, for CCT holds that the first non communicable attribute of God is what? His independence. If God is GROUNDING His foreknowledge in our choices, then He is made dependent on those choices in some manner, thereby attacking the independence of God.

The BIGGEST problem with Molinism is that it’s greatest proponents (like William Lane Craig) say candidly it has little exegetical warrant and is mostly philosophical. In fact, the texts that they invoke only show that God knows counterfactuals (eg. what would happen if x and not y occurs). Nobody denies this. Rather, we deny that He knows this because of LFW choices; rather He knows this because He knows what He chose to decree and what He chose not to decree. It’s like if I wrote a book and a character asked me, “What if Bob does x?” Even knowing I had chosen to have Bod do y, I could look at my book, and, because I wrote the book, know that if I changed what Bob did from y to x then z would be the outcome. So, the reason I know z would be the outcome does not depend on Bob being a libertarian agent. It only depends on me knowing my book, eg. what I would have to change if I decided to have Bob do x and not y. So, my foreknowledge displayed to my asking character would be a species of my own self knowledge, which, in theological terms is what we call natural knowledge. “Middle knowledge” is therefore, superfluous, which is why Dr. Ware’s position amounts to a redundancy.

I would say that Dr. Ware is in a very small, and albeit odd, theological camp, arguing for compatibilist middle knowledge. The only other person I know who has written about this in print is Terrance Tiessen (Providence and Prayer). They basically use the Molinist model and simply replace libertarian free will with freedom of inclination. I think the majority of those in the Reformed camp will not find this model useful or a better (or more biblical) model of providence. Tiessen, however, I believe, considers himself to be a five-point Calvinist while Dr. Ware as a multiple-intent view of the atonment (though not exactly Amyraldianism).

The more I looked over Dr. Page’s book on free will, the more convinced I am that he is neither Arminian or Calvinist but semi-Pelagian. When speaking of accepting or rejecting Christ, both which a sinner can do (power of contrary choice), he makes no argument for being influenced or aided by grace. For the Arminian, prevenient grace is necessary to overcome the effects of the Fall and enable one to believe, though it is synergistic (you cooperating with God). For the Calvinist, irresisitlb egrace is necessary and provided by regeneration wherein a sinner’s will is renewed through the new covenant promise (I will give you a new heart and cause you to walk in my ways . . .). HOWEVER, Dr. Page presents the case that a sinner, although affected by sin, can still accept Christ on his own, without the grace of God. I don’t see how this cannnot be a semi-Pelagian position, which is far more man-glorifying than Arminian man-centered theology. But, according to Dr. Page, his position of biblical understanding of salvation, is the right one to take. God forbid!