Is this an accurate summary of Middle Knowledge?

[RamistThomist]

God knows what decision we would make in every possible world (world = scenario). He just doesn't know which world we will choose.

 

[Philip]

God knows what decision we would make in every possible world (world = scenario). He just doesn't know which world we will choose.

Not quite. It's more that God knows what decision we would make in every possible world and then only actualizes one of them. There are a couple of different ways to cash it out.

Basically, the theory depends on there being causal indeterminism. Say I roll a six-sided die in a world where the rolling of dice is causally undetermined. In this case, my action of rolling the die would result in six actualized realities. Middle knowledge means that God would know what those possibilities were and then only actualize one of them.

The problem (at least for the Molinist), naturally, is that in this case we're back to Divine determination.

The other explanation is that God simply knows what choice we will take in a given situation and so manipulates the situations to elicit certain choices. But here again, the situation looks a lot like certain construals of Calvinism.

 

[Justified]

Yes, I'd say so. He also knows what all possible free creatures (ones that perhaps don't exist in our world) would make. I guess the second statement might depend on who you ask.

Some are rather inconsistent, it seems to me. WLC, for instance, thinks that the world God is actualizing is, in some sense, the best possible world: by that he means the world in which a maximal amount of people are saved. While that already seems problematic to me, God would at least know which possible world that would be. But I also heard him say around two years ago about the superbowl that our prayers about the superbowl can change the world that God will actualize (i.e., our prayers can actually change the outcome of the superbowl). It seems to me that God can't change the world he actualizes; for God is already committed to, in WLC view, the best possible world.

I grant that maybe there is another possible world in which the superbowl victor is different with the same number of people saved. Nonetheless, his view seems problematic in light of his view of the most people being saved.

That was a long way of saying I'm unsure about the second, and I think it might depend on the Molinist you ask.

EDIT: I concur with Phillip that it is God who actualizes the world, not us, in Molinism.

 

[RamistThomist]

God knows what decision we would make in every possible world (world = scenario). He just doesn't know which world we will choose.

Not quite. It's more that God knows what decision we would make in every possible world and then only actualizes one of them. There are a couple of different ways to cash it out.

Basically, the theory depends on there being causal indeterminism. Say I roll a six-sided die in a world where the rolling of dice is causally undetermined. In this case, my action of rolling the die would result in six actualized realities. Middle knowledge means that God would know what those possibilities were and then only actualize one of them.

The problem (at least for the Molinist), naturally, is that in this case we're back to Divine determination.

The other explanation is that God simply knows what choice we will take in a given situation and so manipulates the situations to elicit certain choices. But here again, the situation looks a lot like certain construals of Calvinism.

That's what I thought at first, which is why Dabney was willing to give it a fair hearing. Depending on how you could construe it, it can sometimes sound like Calviism.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Jacob,

You can listen to WLC debate Paul Helm here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZwywSLnJK4

I think it gives a pretty good summary of how WLC views middle knowledge. May not be the only way to define middle knowledge but he's definitely the most popular right now.

It "sounds like" Calvinism in the sense that whatever God ordains to come to pass actually comes to pass but the reason for His decree is not in Himself but based upon factoring in the free decisions of autonomous creatures. Though God can control how He will act in relation to free creaturely decisions in possible worlds, the idea leaves God at the "barrier" of autonomous free decisions. God has decided, as it were, that He will create autonomous men and then He figures out what the outcome will be for all the possible worlds. WLC states that He has to deal with the cards dealt to Him in the sense that He cannot control their decisions (they're autonomous) but can only seemingly act externally to them and figure out the world in which the maximum number of people will be saved. Once He has determined that world, He decrees the creation of the world and, for all intents and purposes, the beginning and the end is as "decreed" as it is for a Calvinist.

It's not the same as the Calvinist (read Biblical) conception because it's a fiction of philosophy. He doesn't determine his view exegetically but because it is "theologically fruitful". A few years ago, Mike Horton told me that WLC once told one of his classes that He believed God's and man's understanding of things is univocal. I think WLC, therefore, believes what is primary is not a theology that is grounded in exegesis but first in philosophy. He is able to determine the philosophical "good" and because his notions of "good" are co-extensive with God's then he is able to construct a theology and as long as there are verses in the Bible that "seem to support his view" then it is a theologically fruitful way of understanding God because proper exegesis and hermeneutics would yield a God and a system of thinking that is contrary to what he thinks is good (and since WLC thinks the way God does then that can't be correct).