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Is God's Knowledge of Counterfactuals Necessary, Middle or Free? A Calvinistic Proposal
by Terrance Tiessen
A Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Valley
Forge, PA, November 17, 2005.
I. Introduction
In Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World,
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I proposed a model of
divine providence that I dubbed "middle knowledge Calvinism." More recently, Bruce Ware has
argued for the same position, which he identifies as "compatibilist middle knowledge."
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As
William Lane Craig has observed, "Christian theologians have typically affirmed that in virtue
of his omniscience, God possesses counterfactual knowledge. . . . Not until Friedrich
Schleiermacher and the advent of modern theology did theologians think to deny God knowledge
of true counterfactuals. Everyone who had considered the issue agreed that God has such
knowledge." What theologians disputed was "so to speak, when God has such counterfactual
knowledge."
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It is possible that some of the confusion about "when" God has the knowledge of
counterfactuals derives from a definitional ambiguity. I am using the term as William Lane Craig
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Terrance Tiessen, Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World? (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 2000).
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Bruce Ware, God's Greater Glory: The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith (Wheaton, Ill.:
Crossway Books, 2004), 110-30. John S. Feinberg has also stated: "While I doubt that an indeterminist could
consistently hold that God has middle knowledge, I see no reason for a determinist to deny this" (No One Like Him:
The Doctrine of God. The Foundations of Evangelical Theology [Wheaton, ILL.: Crossway Books, 2001], 752.
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William Lane Craig. "The Middle Knowledge View," in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views, eds. James
K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 120.