Abstract
The Molinist notion of middle knowledge has been much discussed in recent days.1 Though a great deal of attention has been paid to the question whether or not God possesses such knowledge, relatively little has been given to asking precisely how such knowledge would be of assistance to God in his providential activity.2 One area in which one might think it would be of assistance is that of prophecy. Middle knowledge, it might seem, would be of inestimable value to God in deciding when and how to convey to his creatures his knowledge of future events.3
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Notes
For a couple of exceptions, see William Lane Craig, “‘No Other Name’: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ”, Faith and Philosophy 6 (1989): 172–188, and my “Middle Knowledge and the Doctrine of Infallibility”, Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 373-393.
It is not my intention to claim that a necessary condition of something’s being called a prophecy be that some event in the future be foretold. Clearly enough, though, some rophetic utterances do have this revelatory aspect. It is prophecy in this sense which will be my focus in this paper.
The point the Molinist wants to make here is not that an eternal God could not act, or even that the eternalist is wrong in saying that God is outside of time. The point, rather, is that, if we try to say that God knows the future solely as a consequence of his being outside of time, then we end up with a God whose knowledge of the future is understood on a perceptual model, and this model renders whatever actions God performs more reactions than partially determining, providential ones.
In speaking of God’s having knowledge of persons who might have existed, we’re speaking a bit loosely. One way to tighten up our discussion here would be to see God as having prevolitional knowledge, not of persons, but of individual essences.
For more on Molina’s position and his criticisms of the alternatives, see the translation by Freddoso of Part IV of his Concordia cited above in n. 1, especially Disputation 52.
See Freddoso, “Introduction”, p. 50. The notion of the causal history of the world-basically, the conjunction of all the “hard” facts-also comes from Freddoso; see p. 59.
The response offered here bears obvious similarities to the manner in which I attempted to reconcile papal infallibility with papal freedom in my “Middle Knowledge and the Doctrine of Infallibility”.
Of course, someone could have caused Peter to say the words which he actually uttered to deny Jesus. Had Peter’s utterance taken place in such a way, however, it would have been (at best) extremely misleading to say that Peter had denied Jesus.
See Molina, On Divine Foreknowledge, Disputation 52, section 13, p. 173, where Molina refers to God’s act of will as “in itself infinite, unlimited, and lacking any shadow of alteration”, one which “reflects an absolutely complete and unlimited deliberation”.
See my “The Problem of Divine Freedom”, American Philosophical Quarterly 20 (1983): 257.
I am grateful to David Burrell, Scott Davison, Alfred J. Freddoso, William Hasker, Michael Kremer, Alvin Plantinga, William Tolhurst and James Wetzel for comments on an earlier draft of this essay.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Flint, T.P. (1992). Prophecy, Freedom and Middle Knowledge. In: Clark, K.J. (eds) Our Knowledge of God. Studies in Philosophy and Religion, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2576-5_8
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