Do Calvinists believe that middle knowledge exists at all?

squirrelyguy

Well-known member
Or more specifically; do Calvinists believe that true subjunctive conditionals (or true counterfactuals) exist and have actual truth value?

I just watched this video by James White in which he takes issue with the idea. The problem is that I've seen other videos of White in which he seems to say that he does believe in the existence of counterfactual information; so I'm not sure if he's just being inconsistent or if I've misunderstood him. But in this video he seems to argue (without explicitly saying so) that true counterfactuals simply cannot exist.

Notice how he argues based on the myriad of possible circumstances humans could have been placed in by God that it would be impossible to know how any of us would have acted if we had been placed in different circumstances. That seems to me to be, in principle, not far removed from an open theist position. An open theist would say that God cannot exhaustively know the future as settled because of things like free will and the nature of reality. White is saying that God cannot know anything other than what He has decreed. To White, the existence of true counterfactual information would imply that things exist independently of God. At least that's how I interpret his argument.

I have more thoughts on this but I'll wait and see what others say. I actually am not totally persuaded by Molinism (I think open theism is closer to the truth than Molinism), but I think White's attempts to rebut WLC's argument are quite problematic for his own views. How can anyone have a problem in principle with open theism if they themselves don't believe that God is capable of knowing something other than what He has decreed to happen?
 
Or more specifically; do Calvinists believe that true subjunctive conditionals (or true counterfactuals) exist and have actual truth value?

I just watched this video by James White in which he takes issue with the idea. The problem is that I've seen other videos of White in which he seems to say that he does believe in the existence of counterfactual information; so I'm not sure if he's just being inconsistent or if I've misunderstood him. But in this video he seems to argue (without explicitly saying so) that true counterfactuals simply cannot exist.

Notice how he argues based on the myriad of possible circumstances humans could have been placed in by God that it would be impossible to know how any of us would have acted if we had been placed in different circumstances. That seems to me to be, in principle, not far removed from an open theist position. An open theist would say that God cannot exhaustively know the future as settled because of things like free will and the nature of reality. White is saying that God cannot know anything other than what He has decreed. To White, the existence of true counterfactual information would imply that things exist independently of God. At least that's how I interpret his argument.

I have more thoughts on this but I'll wait and see what others say. I actually am not totally persuaded by Molinism (I think open theism is closer to the truth than Molinism), but I think White's attempts to rebut WLC's argument are quite problematic for his own views. How can anyone have a problem in principle with open theism if they themselves don't believe that God is capable of knowing something other than what He has decreed to happen?
Do you think our future....history....has already hapened from God point of view?
 
Do you think our future....history....has already hapened from God point of view?
Not exhaustively. I am essentially an open theist. I don't wholeheartedly accept the label because I don't believe (as all of the main open theist proponents believe) that God's reason for not knowing the future as settled has to do with the nature of reality itself, and that God literally cannot exhaustively know the future as a result. I don't share that view; my belief is that God self-limits His omniscience so that the free-will choices of His creatures are only known to Him as possibilities before those creatures make them in real time. This has the advantage of making sense of all the passages in Scripture in which God says He changes His mind, or something like "Now I know that you fear me..." and so forth. It also incentivizes prayer since God is to an extent waiting to see how His creatures react to their circumstances before He acts within history.
 

Do Calvinists believe that middle knowledge exists at all?

This Calvinist does not. The idea of "middle knowledge" is an invention of the 16th century, and not something the Church historically held to be mainstream or orthodox. The issue of human agency in salvation has been debated almost since Christians began to organize our faith into an institutional religion and formalize doctrine, so I don't lay the view of salvation bearing his name solely on the head of Luis de Molina, but the fact we have this third option between Calvin and Arminius (or Luther and Erasmus, since they were the more likely influences on Molina) is due to him.

It's point of development does not inherently make it wrong but it's a useful tool because Molinism says there is a knowledge that exists apart from God that is consequent to our a product of His omniscience. In other words, they fact that some priest develops an idea somewhere along the timeline of human history is analogous.

From my perspective this question, concern, point of knowledge is thoroughly misguided because time is irrelevant to God! Time is a created feature of creation. From God's perspective outside of creation there is no before or after. There is "I God know Q, and because I know Q I will also know all possible Xs, Ys, and Zs. There is a foundational error in the whole system of middle knowledge salvation because it assumes time as a given for the Creator of time, and not solely as a human, creaturely, experience. Time is nothing more than a measure of cause and effect. The Uncaused Cause's knowledge of His creation is instantaneous and all encompassing.... and precedes His having caused anything. Even the existence of human knowledge.

There is also the assumption within all synergisms that it is assumed that for an action to be free, it must be decided by the agent performing the action, but the theological problem for most of us is that humans are not free. We are dead and enslaved by sin. That is why those on the Pelagian end of the debate deny what we now call "total depravity." Arminians and Wesleyans are synergists who acknowledge, accept, and teach the effects of sin are such that they don't prevent morally good actions but none of them can merit salvation. The Pelagian, the Humanist, the Traditionalist says, "No, something of the human faculty to choose God in the sinful flesh still remains and it is that remnant that is necessary to be exercised before God will save a person."

Molinism says God knows who those people will be because God knows the effects of His own work. The effects of God's own work are not all predetermined because God can, or could have chosen to do things an infinite number of ways (all of which are known to Him). Had God done A then He would know all that occurs consequent ot "A," but if God had done B, then God would also know all that ensues following His doing B. We hear that in the debate to which White is listening.

The fact is there is no B. God made A and A is all there is and His omniscience is all knowing irrelevant of time, or cause and effect.
Or more specifically; do Calvinists believe that true subjunctive conditionals (or true counterfactuals) exist and have actual truth value?
I gotta go but I'll take up the rest of the opening post when I have a break later today. Blessings on you all.
 
my belief is that God self-limits His omniscience so that the free-will choices of His creatures are only known to Him as possibilities before those creatures make them in real time.
Would that mean what is written in the prophetic book of Revelation is simply one possibility?
 
Would that mean what is written in the prophetic book of Revelation is simply one possibility?
That actually is a great question. As far as I know, every open theist believes there are some things about the future that God has settled in advance. For example, the fact that Christ will return at some point in history is settled. God knows it precisely because He has determined it to happen. But the timing of Christ's return is a different matter; open theists tend to say that God does not have a fixed day in mind yet as to when Christ will return. They base this on verses in 2 Peter 3 that speak of Christ's return being presently delayed but which we can help hasten by our conduct. If His return can be delayed or hastened, then by definition the date of His return has not be fixed.
 
That actually is a great question. As far as I know, every open theist believes there are some things about the future that God has settled in advance. For example, the fact that Christ will return at some point in history is settled. God knows it precisely because He has determined it to happen. But the timing of Christ's return is a different matter; open theists tend to say that God does not have a fixed day in mind yet as to when Christ will return. They base this on verses in 2 Peter 3 that speak of Christ's return being presently delayed but which we can help hasten by our conduct. If His return can be delayed or hastened, then by definition the date of His return has not be fixed.
I didn't see that in 2 Peter 3. Perhaps I missed it.
Can you present the particular verse?
 
I didn't see that in 2 Peter 3. Perhaps I missed it.
Can you present the particular verse?
3:9 is Peter's explanation of why God appears to be delaying in bringing about the return of Christ; it is because God is factoring in the opportunity for people to repent since He doesn't want anyone to perish.

Then he says in 3:11-12 "Therefore...what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." There's the word "hastening." Peter exhorts his audience that (since he has just explained why God is delaying the second coming) they can hasten His return.

As an aside, this would also explain why Jesus says that even the Son does not know the day of His return, but only the Father (Mark 13:32). If the Father has already fixed that day, then the Son (being a member of the Godhead) would have access to that information and would know it.
 
From my perspective this question, concern, point of knowledge is thoroughly misguided because time is irrelevant to God! Time is a created feature of creation. From God's perspective outside of creation there is no before or after. There is "I God know Q, and because I know Q I will also know all possible Xs, Ys, and Zs. There is a foundational error in the whole system of middle knowledge salvation because it assumes time as a given for the Creator of time, and not solely as a human, creaturely, experience. Time is nothing more than a measure of cause and effect. The Uncaused Cause's knowledge of His creation is instantaneous and all encompassing.... and precedes His having caused anything. Even the existence of human knowledge.
The question of whether God is completely outside of time is a hotly debated one. There is a certain logic to saying that God must necessarily exist outside of time, but there are also valid problems with supposing that He does. One big problem is that it makes God's self-description as revealed to us in Scripture to be completely incoherent. It also raises the question of whether the Son, being incarnated in the flesh (and in time necessarily) is fully God. I prefer to think that God doesn't experience time in the same way that we do, but that He does somehow experience time as a sequence of moments. In other words, there was a time when God existed all by Himself, and once He undertook the act of Creation, He ceased being alone. That's a before and after state of affairs from His perspective, not just ours.
Had God done A then He would know all that occurs consequent ot "A," but if God had done B, then God would also know all that ensues following His doing B. We hear that in the debate to which White is listening.

The fact is there is no B. God made A and A is all there is and His omniscience is all knowing irrelevant of time, or cause and effect.
"The fact is there is no B." That statement is true enough. But the issue is whether God exhaustively knows the content of B even though He did not decree it into existence. That's middle knowledge. A verse that WLC uses a lot to make this point is 1 Cor. 2:8 in which Paul describes God's hidden wisdom by saying "which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." That's a true counterfactual of creaturely freedom; and it must exist because Paul somehow knew it to be true. Jesus also gives a rather remarkable example of counterfactual information in Matt. 11:20-24 about certain OT cities that God brought judgment upon.
 
One big problem is that it makes God's self-description as revealed to us in Scripture to be completely incoherent.
Make the case for the incoherency of scripture if time is a created condition.
It also raises the question of whether the Son, being incarnated in the flesh (and in time necessarily) is fully God.
That is due to a false equivalence. What happens inside of creation and what happens prior to creation are two completely different paradigms. Comparisons between the two are always and everywhere false comparisons. Jesus incarnation can be nothing more as an entrance into creation by the Creator.
I prefer...,
Personal preferences have no merit in this discussion.

Unless, that is, all you're interested in everyone's personal opinions and ont what can be objectively ascertained from an objective reading of scripture and logical inference :).
to think that God doesn't experience time in the same way that we do
If time is a created condition then there is no time for God. God is not limited to any of the constructs of that which He creates. Logically, the moment time is asserted as something within which God exists then the power of God is no longer infinite. The moment a difference between the Creator and the creature is asserted within a finite condition God is no longer omnipotent and there are challenges to his omniscience and omnipresence. Simply put, if God is limited in any way by time, and that includes the inherent sequential nature of time, its relativity, its linear causality, and its contingent aspects, then he is not God. He's just another being living within a finite condition.
...but that He does somehow experience time as a sequence of moments.
I see. So it's magic. He just "somehow" does it, and does it differently.
In other words, there was a time when God existed all by Himself....
Except for time. Time existed with Him. There was something else beside God. Time may lack consciousness, or volition, or purpose, but it is nonetheless a "thing" that existed apart from God.

And not only did time exist with God BUT, according to you, He experienced it. It had effect on Him, not just the other way around.
and once He undertook the act of Creation, He ceased being alone.
So God had to create in order to solve the problem of aloneness? Are you Trinitarian?

Perhaps I have misunderstood something. Were you arguing as a proverbial "devil's advocate"? Because if it is being suggested God had to create in order not to be alone then several more compromises to the divine omni-attributes exist. For one, God has no experiential knowledge of relationship if he is a sole, lone, lonely deity exiting alongside of time absent any and all relationship. This, in turn, has serious compromises of what the Bible tells us are His divine, ontological qualities. God cannot possibly have any experiential knowledge of love if He was all alone prior to creation. He cannot fully be love. He can be loving, but not ontologically love because love is be nature, by definition a relational condition. The same is true of God's being just. Justice, or morality, is inherently a condition of relationship. The moment relationship is denied God because He is alone, a lot more is compromised.

The god is not a God, and he most definitely is NOT the God of the Bible.
That's a before and after state of affairs from His perspective, not just ours.
I do not see any evidence demonstrating that claim. Nor do I see any rational rationale supporting that claim. It is a position fraught with error, imo.
"The fact is there is no B." That statement is true enough.
It is not true in Molinism.

Perhaps that's part of the problem to be solved = a lack of familiarity with the "middle knowledge" model. Molinism asserts the possibility of many possible creations, with God "knowing" what He decided and all the possibilities due that knowledge (or choice). They are the theological equivalence of probability-ists.
But the issue is whether God exhaustively knows the content of B even though He did not decree it into existence.
Only in the mind of Molinists. I think God knows everything that can possibly be known.
That's middle knowledge.
I encourage you to investigate that a little more.
A verse that WLC uses a lot to make this point is 1 Cor. 2:8 in which Paul describes God's hidden wisdom by saying "which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." That's a true counterfactual of creaturely freedom; and it must exist because Paul somehow knew it to be true. Jesus also gives a rather remarkable example of counterfactual information in Matt. 11:20-24 about certain OT cities that God brought judgment upon.
I disagree. That's a statement about God's knowledge that creatures don't possess. That's all. It is, imo, a statement about human hubris. The idea humans might not have done something if they had known something is debatable. Jesus was always going to come into creation, and he was always going to live, die, and resurrect. There was not an option for it not to happen. Calvary is not a contingency. It was decided before the world was made, and was a fait accompli. In order for them not to have crucified Christ there'd first have to be no mortality, no corruptibility, and no sin.
 
3:9 is Peter's explanation of why God appears to be delaying in bringing about the return of Christ; it is because God is factoring in the opportunity for people to repent since He doesn't want anyone to perish.

Then he says in 3:11-12 "Therefore...what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." There's the word "hastening." Peter exhorts his audience that (since he has just explained why God is delaying the second coming) they can hasten His return.

First of all, I find your presentation less than honest, as you spoke of Scripture referring to "hastening" or "delaying" Christ's return, when there is only ONE mention of "hastening".

Secondly, the passage in question is NOT about the timing of Christ's return, it is about appropriate godly behaviour that Christians should be engaging in.

Third, even if this passage was suggesting that we could play a part in hastening Christ's return, God would STILL know that we did this, and when Christ would return, since God is all-knowing.

Fourth, you are clearly misinterpreting 3:9 saying God wants "everyone to be saved", since vv. 8-9 is referring SPECIFICALLY to the "beloved" (v.8) and "us-ward" (v.9, KJV), not everyone exhaustively.

Fifth, God would have this poin already KNOWN that not everyone would be saved, and in fact He knew this from the foundation of the world, since (again) He knows all things and at the very least has foreknoweldge/prescience.

Finally, I find it amusing that anti-Calvinists try to argue that since determinism (allegedly) only originated 300 years after Christ, so it "must be false", yet a theology that didn't originate until 1500 years after Christ should be considered "true".

As an aside, this would also explain why Jesus says that even the Son does not know the day of His return, but only the Father (Mark 13:32). If the Father has already fixed that day, then the Son (being a member of the Godhead) would have access to that information and would know it.

This is philosphical rationalization, not Biblical exegesis.
 
3:9 is Peter's explanation of why God appears to be delaying in bringing about the return of Christ; it is because God is factoring in the opportunity for people to repent since He doesn't want anyone to perish.

Then he says in 3:11-12 "Therefore...what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." There's the word "hastening." Peter exhorts his audience that (since he has just explained why God is delaying the second coming) they can hasten His return.
Sigh...for the sake of others so they aren't deceived by the above twisting of Scripture.

The "hasting/hastening" here refers to those of us earnestly desiring His return. It has zero to do with us speeding up that event. I can't believe I have to straighten out such a mess.

James 3:1 is in order. Stop twisting the word due to your unbiblical "theology."
 
So God had to create in order to solve the problem of aloneness? Are you Trinitarian?
If it bugs you that I said God was alone, then let me change my words: There was a time when the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit existed alone. Upon God's act of creation, this ceased to be the case. That's a before-and-after state of affairs. Do you think that we have always co-existed with God from His perspective? If not, then you also believe that God has experienced a before-and-after.
The idea humans might not have done something if they had known something is debatable.
It is? Paul doesn't seem to indicate that this is up in the air. For that matter, the Bible is full of examples of God going out of His way to make sure humans don't mess up His plans. That verse in 1 Cor. 2:8 is just one explicit example. The wisdom of God had to remain hidden so that the rulers of this world would crucify Christ.
Jesus was always going to come into creation, and he was always going to live, die, and resurrect. There was not an option for it not to happen. Calvary is not a contingency. It was decided before the world was made, and was a fait accompli. In order for them not to have crucified Christ there'd first have to be no mortality, no corruptibility, and no sin.
What if the crucifixion was ordained but not the means of achieving it? Couldn't God have worked with what He was given (in terms of the myriad of free will choices His creatures would make) in bringing about Christ's crucifixion according to prophecy? I don't see any reason to think He couldn't.
 
If it bugs you that I said God was alone, then let me change my words: There was a time when the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit existed alone. Upon God's act of creation, this ceased to be the case. That's a before-and-after state of affairs. Do you think that we have always co-existed with God from His perspective? If not, then you also believe that God has experienced a before-and-after.
That's definitely an improvement, but it's still not wholly accurate. God has always existed inherently in-relationship. God did not create in order to have relationship, and He did not create because he had to have relationship, or in any way something He was "previously" missing. In point of (logical) fact, it could be argued God created because He already existed inherently in relationship. To say the three were alone is self-contradictory. If there were three of them, then the "they" is an indication of not-aloneness.

But more importantly there's the problem of time again. Your posts uses the phrase, "before-and-after," but that is completely incorrect. There is no "before" before the before-and-after!

:cautious: I know. It kinda fries the head a little o_O. Just think it through :unsure:.

Think of time like direction. If you were floating around in the middle of outer space there would be no "up," "down," "left," right," "north," "south," "east," "west," or any other direction, nor any labels for them. You'd need a fixed point of reference. If I said, "The star in front of you is our reference point. Move to the left of the star." That would have meaning, and that reference point would give meaning to the words, as well as purpose and measure to your actions. Now, alternatively, consider YOU are the star in front of you and I say. "Move to the left of the star." You cannot move to the left of yourself.

God cannot exist prior to His existence. He cannot move to the left (or right) of Himself. He is the I Am. There is no "before" He makes a before. He is the Uncaused Cause and cause is one of the many things the Uncause Cause caused. There's no cause before that cause. God's "experience of before-and-after" does not occur WITHIN the before and after, but external to it, aside from it, and unaffected by it.

Furthermore, This entire conversation - including my post - is all misguided and incomplete because the larger truth of the matter is that time is a function of gravity, or what we now call "singularity." Matter and energy are interchangeable, time and space are functions of gravity and neither are linear. Under certain conditions the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line! On the quantum level it is possible to be two places at once or for two objects to simultaneously occupy identical space.

Humans living in THIS time and space cannot do any of that.

To say "God can do any of that" is misguided because God does not "do" time, space, matter, energy, or any of it. God IS. It's not even wholly accurate to say, "God does cause and effect," because the more accurate statement would be something like "God caused the cause and everything else is."

We experience it as a passage of time, a sequence of events that are measured by what for us is a complex chain of causes and effects. God IS. He does not stop being being when He looks into, or "steps" into creation, observing and experiencing our version of things. He doesn't stop being is. God is the pentultimate existentialist ;)! Always everywhere ever present in the Now that is Him. He is thte aforementioned "star" to which He is left, right, up, down, above, and below Himself.

And this is why Molinism is wrong.

It assumes temporal conditions are relevant to the Uncaused Cause. It assumes - presuppositionally - there is a "before" for the Cause simply because the first before-and-after was caused. In other words, Molinism's presupposition(s) is wrong.

It's understandable. Molina did not have a clue. He did not fathom a fraction of what we now know about time and space and what we in the 21st century think we know is likely to be a laughable smidgen of reality, of what God knows.

God knows everything that is logically possible to knowable and it is not even accurate to say, "He knows it all at once," because the concept of "once" is irrelevant to His knowledge, and not applicable to His existence. The term "once" is an idication of a point along some "timeline," or a single point in and endless series of causes and effects. There's no "once" for a Guy who "sees" and "experiences" everything all at once without reference to up, down, before or after.
Yes.
Paul doesn't seem to indicate that this is up in the air. For that matter, the Bible is full of examples of God going out of His way to make sure humans don't mess up His plans. That verse in 1 Cor. 2:8 is just one explicit example. The wisdom of God had to remain hidden so that the rulers of this world would crucify Christ.
All of which are spoken about conditions INSIDE of creation..... using anthropomorphic language the creature can understand. If God were to say, "Gleer snabbin florzfon bueble dyoqa tevpic" we wouldn't have a clue what He meant even though He and He alone is the Creator. Twenty centuries from now that gibberish I just typed might actually be actual words with actual definitions containing meaningful information about time, space, cause, effect, anf God's knowledge thereof. God did not speak in an unknown language, though. He spoke in words His creatures could understand, even if they did not fathom the whole meaning of all His words.
The wisdom of God had to remain hidden so that the rulers of this world would crucify Christ.
Nope. Our Molinist brothers are reading a causal relationship into that verse that is not actually stated in the verse AND AS i HAVE ALREADY STATED, they do so in direct contradiction to 1 Peter 1:20 AND the ontological nature of Christ. In other words, it is a very selective use of a single verse. They remove it from the context of whole scripture and give it a meaning, a possibility, that does not exist once the determinism of Christ is accepted.

If Jesus IS God (and we Trinitarians all agree that he is God), then there has never been a moment anywhere at any time in all of creation when he was no God. Never a time, or a place, when he was not the Son (even though the "Son" is a New Testament soteriological term), and never not THE Son. There was also...... never a time or place when he was not the resurrection. Before the resurrection..... He "was" the resurrection. Or... more accurately, before the resurrection he IS the resurrection.

That is, after all, exactly what he stated.

Did not have quite the same meaning when he spoke those words in Israel during the first century after his incarnation in creation. But now that we understand time better, we understand his words to be existential and ontological in ways neither Caiaphas nor Molina could fathom. Jesus has always been the resurrection. Before creation was created, before a single atom was ever spoken into existence, before a single human cell was formed by God's life-giving breath changing dirt into a human, before a single sin had ever been created Jesus was foreknown as the perfect, blemish-free sacrifice by which we would be resurrected AND resurrected incorruptible and immortal. None of it is a contingency. None of it is a probability.

So when Molinists predicate Calvary on God withholding His knowledge lest the (sinful) creature not murder Jesus they are reading scripture in a manner contradictory to other facts of scripture. Calvary was inevitable. Calvary is the fulcrum of human history. There's no "Let's no kill him now that we have more knowledge."
What if the crucifixion was ordained but not the means of achieving it?
Well.... what does scripture say?

I ask because according to scripture his means of death (hanging cursedly on a tree) was foretold before anyone in the first century was born. We might even say the fruit hanging on the tree of life (eternal life) goes all the way back to Eden. If we leverage or apply the matter of "mercy" to Calvary then Romans 9 informs is in no uncertain terms God has mercy on whomever He has mercy and it most definitely unequivocally does NOT depend in any way shape or form on the will or the work of the creature. There are many ways elsewhere in scripture by which we understand the means of death were decided upon long before they killed him and long before Paul wrote about it. It was foreknown before a before existed.
Couldn't God have worked with what He was given (in terms of the myriad of free will choices His creatures would make) in bringing about Christ's crucifixion according to prophecy? I don't see any reason to think He couldn't.
Hypotheticals? We're now basing sound Christian thought, doctrine, and practice on hypotheticals, probabilities, and the selective use of single verses?

What God could have done is infinite.

That's why Molina gave consideration to his idea, the possibility of "middle knowledge." But what God could have done never conflicts with 1) what God did actually do, 2) what He says He knew "before" He created the creation in which it would happen, and what He prophetically stated about it before it happened in creation.

It's brain-bending, but it's not impossible to fathom once the presuppositions are corrected.
 
3:9 is Peter's explanation of why God appears to be delaying in bringing about the return of Christ; it is because God is factoring in the opportunity for people to repent since He doesn't want anyone to perish.

Then he says in 3:11-12 "Therefore...what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." There's the word "hastening." Peter exhorts his audience that (since he has just explained why God is delaying the second coming) they can hasten His return.

As an aside, this would also explain why Jesus says that even the Son does not know the day of His return, but only the Father (Mark 13:32). If the Father has already fixed that day, then the Son (being a member of the Godhead) would have access to that information and would know it.
Sounds like God is waiting for all of who will be saved prior to the pre-trib rapture being saved.

The signs say that day is very close.
 
Do Calvinists believe that middle knowledge exists at all?

Nope. This’n doesn’t.
Do you not believe in the existence of counterfactual information? Or do you believe the information exists, but that God just doesn't let it factor into His decision of which world to create?

Do you believe that God exhaustively knows what decisions you would have made if you had been born in another time and place? If not, then I don't see any principled distinction between your view of reality and the average open theist's view of reality. You both would argue that the nature of reality is such that God cannot know anything other than what He has decreed.
 
I don't believe we were ever created for another time or place.....but for now....the end times.
The fact that we were created for this time and place is so obvious that it hardly needs to be stated. Our very existence is proof that we were created for the time in which we currently exist. But my question pertains to the hypothetical worlds that God could have created instead, and to the extent of God's knowledge regarding those hypothetical worlds.
 
Back
Top