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world he has made, and human moral freedom as working in way compatible with Gods
sovereign control. In other words, I wish to outline a framework for a fundamentally Calvinistic
understanding of the God-human relationship. And, I wish to do so in a way that addresses some
commonly perceived difficulties with this model, attempting to give some suggestion of how to
proceed. While much more must be done to give full explanation, at least the outlines of this
approach may be considered.
"Neo-Molinism" as a Model of the Divine-Human Relationship
First, then, what is Greg Boyds recent appeal to what calls "neo-Molinism" and how
does it conceive of Gods knowledge of, control over, and interaction with free creatures? To
begin, consider briefly what Boyd means by "neo-Molinism." According to Boyd, besides there
being "would-counterfactuals" as proposed in Molinism,
1
there are also "might-counterfactuals"
that an omniscient Being would know. He explains,

Between Gods precreational knowledge of all logical possibilities and Gods
precreational knowledge of what will come to pass is Gods "middle knowledge"
of what free agents might or might not do in certain situations as well as of what
free agents would do in other situations. If it is true that agent x might or might
not do y in situation z, it is false that agent x would do y in situation z, and vice
versa.
2

And in the Glossary of his Satan and the Problem of Evil, he defines neo-Molinism, saying:

In the neo-Molinist view God knows what agents might do insofar as agents
possess libertarian freedom. And God knows what agents would do insofar as
they have received from God and through circumstances or acquired for
themselves determinate characters. God knows both categories of counterfactuals
as they pertain to every possible subject in every possible world throughout
eternity.
3
What shall we say of this proposal? First, it appears to me that Boyd has proposed a category of
Gods knowledge, i.e., knowledge of "might-counterfactuals," which is both unnecessary and
misleading. It is unnecessary because all such "might-counterfactuals" are about logically
possible states of affairs in which an agent with libertarian freedom might or might not perform
x, but then since God already knows all logical possibilities, he already knows such "might-
counterfactuals" as part of his knowledge of these possible states of affairs. Boyds so-called
"might-counterfactuals" are merely a subset of Gods exhaustive knowledge of all logically
possible states of affairs, which knowledge includes everything (logically possible) that all
possible (libertarianly) free agents might or might not choose to do. Or, more simply, "might-
counterfactuals" comprise the subset of logically possible states of affairs, all known by God, in
1
But, as explained below, the Molinist and neo-Molinist understandings of "would-counterfactuals" are
significantly different.
2
Gregory A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove,
Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 126.
3
Ibid., 425.