But I digress.
The point I wanted to focus on was a question1 posted on Craig’s
website and the answer he gave. The question was about Calvinism and Molinism,
with respect to God’s foreknowledge. The questioner was obviously confused, yet
Craig’s answer only added to the confusion. I was baffled. I did some more
research and looked at other articles and questions he answered in this regard
to further ascertain his views. For those who don’t know, William Lane Craig is
a proponent of Molinism or what is called middle-knowledge, which is a strange
concept devised by a Jesuit theologian in the 16th century named Luis de
Molina. I won’t really get into that here except to say that it’s a concept
which tries to reconcile the mystery of God’s sovereignty with human free will
and culpability by positing that God has "middle-knowledge" of all
possible events, people, circumstances, etc. For more information on Molinism
and its errors go here. However, I want to address some of the fallacies of
Craig’s thinking and the logical consequences that inevitably follow.
When it comes
to the doctrine of God’s foreknowledge, the question that must be answered is:
since God is omniscient, how does He know the future? You can't simply appeal
to His omniscience to answer the question. Again, how does God
know the future? Does He have passive knowledge because He sees what will
happen, or does God know the future because He has ordained what will happen?
This is the point. If you don’t answer this question, you cannot proceed with
any meaningful discussion. The answer lies with the nature of God. God’s
omniscience by definition rules out the idea that many people have, that
somehow God looks into the future and “sees” what will happen. As if God, like
a clockmaker, sort of winds up the universe and lets it go to see how things
unfold. The basic problem with this is twofold. First, God is an eternal,
transcendent being who is outside of time. In fact He created time. So a Being
that is not bound by time and has infallible knowledge is not required to look
into the future. The future is already established. Second, there wouldn't be a
future in the first place unless God ordained that it should be. In other
words, you cannot separate God’s foreknowledge from His decree. This can be
seen in many passages of Scripture. Let's look at Isaiah 46:9-10 as an example:
“Remember the former things of old;
for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from
the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish
all my purpose.’”
So how can God
declare the end (future) from the beginning? How can He know the things not yet
done? It is because He has decreed the future. His counsel will stand, and He
will accomplish His purposes. Take a look at Acts 4:27-28.
"for truly in this city there
were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod
and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of
Israel, to do whatever your hand
and your plan had predestined to take place."
So the
crucifixion of Jesus and all the people involved in it, and all of the
circumstances surrounding it, happened exactly as God predestined. It doesn't
get much clearer than that.
Another great
example is where the Bible tells us that Jesus was the Lamb slain before the
foundation of the world, Acts 2:23, 1 Peter 1:19-20, Revelation 13:8. How is
this so? It is because God ordained it before He created the world. Some people
are not consistent in their theology at this point. They think that the fall of
Adam and Eve was a surprise to God and redemption is the clean-up operation
that God devised to fix the horrible mess Adam made. As if God turned to Jesus
and the Holy Spirit and said, “Did you see what Adam and Eve just did? I told
them not to eat that fruit! I can’t believe what they just did! Well, okay,
let’s see how we can remedy this situation. I've got it! Jesus, would you mind
going down there and becoming a man and dying on a cross, and so on, etc.” No!
Redemption was God’s plan from the beginning. How can Jesus be the Lamb slain
from the foundation of the world if this was an afterthought? Look at 2 Timothy
1:8-9:
“Therefore do not be ashamed of the
testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the
power of God, who has saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given
to us in Christ Jesus before time began.”
Did you catch
that? We were called according to God’s purpose and given grace in Christ
before time began! That is and incredible thought. It’s mind-boggling! I don’t
see anything in this passage that says God looked into the future and saw that
we would place our faith in Christ and so chose us on that basis. No, all of
this was settled in God’s mind long before you and I were born, before the
world was created, in fact, before time began.
This is the
biblical teaching. Now let's contrast it with William Lane Craig's erroneous
middle-knowledge view. In a nutshell Craig posits that when God created the
world, He was trying to maximize the amount of people that would freely choose
Him while minimizing those who would reject Him and so thereby end up in hell.
So God chose presumably, from an infinite number of possible worlds that
"could" have been created and arranged the circumstances so that the
majority of people would freely come to Christ. In this world some people may
never choose Him regardless of the conditions, but might have, given a
different world and different conditions. This concept starts getting
convoluted really fast. So with this idea as the backdrop, here is
what Craig says:
"The hypothesis is that God has
done the very best He can, given the true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront
Him….The counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him are outside His control. He has to play with the
hand He has been dealt."2
What? Are you
serious? I don't even know what to do with such nonsense! So God is doing the
best He can and has to play with the hand He has been dealt? Who dealt Him this
hand Mr. Craig? Is there some other deity that is more powerful than God? This
is so utterly absurd that it almost isn't worth mentioning. It's hard to
believe people entertain such foolishness.
Now Craig is
using the word "counterfactual" in the philosophical sense expressing
what has not happened but could, would, or might under differing conditions.
For example: If I would have gotten up earlier, I would not have been late for
work. This is true of course, but the glaring problem is, it is totally
hypothetical! Since God knew from all eternity exactly what time I would get
out of bed on a particular morning, then I couldn't possibly have done
otherwise unless God is not omniscient.
It gets worse.
In answer to a question on his website about the creation of possible worlds in
which certain individuals may or may not freely choose God, William Lane Craig
said this:
"It is of the very nature of
free will to make an arbitrary choice between equally good alternatives. So it seems to me that
God could choose arbitrarily between these two worlds (though there are countless other options)."3
Wow!
Unbelievable. I'm not even going to address his flawed notion of free will in
this post, but anyone who says such things loses all credibility. I am sorry to
say, I no longer respect Dr. Craig because anyone who can make such absurd
statements has left the path of wisdom. This is a direct assault against the
very character of God. Does Craig even read the Bible? God does not do anything
arbitrarily! He always has a purpose, and that purpose will always be
accomplished, (Ps. 33:11, Prov. 19:21). I think the problem is Craig's starting
point. It seems that he starts with philosophical presuppositions and then
tries to make the Bible fit them, instead of starting with the exegesis of
Scripture first. If you begin with the Bible, not philosophy, you won't end up
saying ridiculous things like this.
God has a plan
for all things. He doesn't play cards or roll dice. There is no "could
have been," or "might have been" with God. He didn't create the
world by an arbitrary decision. There weren't countless other options. It was
the only world He intended to create. And those whom God intended to
redeem will be saved. They will never be lost because God had
an eternal plan to save them, "In him we have obtained an
inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him
who works all things according to the counsel of his will," Eph.
1:11.
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