Craig on God’s Molinistic knowledge

Molinist William Lane Craig describes God’s knowledge:

As long as we understand that the object of God’s foreknowledge is logically prior to what he foreknows, it doesn’t really matter that God’s foreknowledge is chronologically prior to the event foreknown. What that means is that if the event were to be different then God’s foreknowledge would be different.

2 comments

  1. Alvin Plantinga also reiterates this statement in one of his interviews (youtube) with Robert Lawrence Kuhn’s “Closer to Truth” series on divine foreknowledge.

    Interesting example he gives – framing it in the (typical Plantinga) metaphor of possible worlds.

    Something like: There is a possible world in which [P] will raise his hand tomorrow at time-T. There is another possible world in which tomorrow at time-T, [P] won’t raise his hand. Plantinga believes God knows which possible world will be the actual world and which one won’t. Although I don’t believe in this interview he explains his view on how that knowledge is derived.

    According to Theological Determinism, God in the past determines which world will be the actual world. (in every instance of every world without exception). And [P] won’t have any say in the matter. C’est la vie – what will be is what will be. And [P] will only have a posteriori knowledge of what the THEOS fated concerning him.

    But Plantinga doesn’t prescribe to that view. Instead he believes God leaves the determination of which world will be the actual world open to [P].

    As a side note: There is a well done section within the Oxford Handbook on free will that lays out some of the weaknesses of the Molinist position. In the chapter “Foreknowledge is not enough” The Molinist Solution.

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