6. A Middle Knowledge Perspective
Related MediaA perspective on the unevangelized which does not fit neatly within one of the previous mentioned categories is that of middle knowledge. Belief in middle knowledge is sometimes called “Molinism,” due to the fact that it was articulated by the Jesuit, Luis de Molina (1535–1600). It was Molina’s contention that God knows not only everything that does or will happen, but also what any of his creatures would do in any given circumstance.1 He thus is able to arrange human history in such a way that his purposes are fulfilled without violating human free will.
In his discussion of the middle knowledge perspective, Terrance Tiessen identifies two distinct approaches by adherents of this view to the problem of the unevangelized.2 The first is the view proposed by Donald Lake, that “God knows who would, under ideal circumstances, believe the gospel, and on the basis of his foreknowledge, applies that gospel even if the person never hears the gospel during his lifetime.”3 Tiessen also quotes Brethren evangelist George Goodman, who asks: “What if an omniscient God, seeing that (the unevangelized) take a true attitude to the light they have, is able to see that had the Greater Light, the True Light, been given to them, they would have rejoiced in the light? Does the fact that the light never reached them prevent the outflow of His grace to them?”4
A second approach is that of William Lane Craig, who summarizes his view in these words: “God in his providence so arranged the world that those who never in fact hear the gospel are persons who would not respond to it if they did hear it. God brings the gospel to all those who he knows will respond to it if they hear it.”5 Craig expands on his view in another place:
Since Christ is God’s unique expiatory sacrifice for sin, salvation is only through Christ. Since Jesus and his work are historical in character, many persons as a result of historical and geographical accident will not be sufficiently well-informed concerning him and thus unable to respond to him in faith. Such persons who are not sufficiently well-informed about Christ’s person and work will be judged on the basis of their response to general revelation and the light that they do have. Perhaps some will be saved through such a response; but on the basis of Scripture we must say that such ‘anonymous Christians’ are relatively rare. Those who are judged and condemned on the basis of their failure to respond to the light of general revelation cannot legitimately complain of unfairness for their not also receiving the light of special revelation, since such persons would not have responded to special revelation had they received it. For God in His providence has so arranged the world that anyone who would receive Christ has the opportunity to do so. Since God loves all persons and desires the salvation of all, He supplies sufficient grace for salvation to every individual, and nobody who would receive Christ if he were to hear the gospel will be denied that opportunity.6
He also states: “(I)t is our duty to proclaim the gospel to the whole world, trusting that God has so providentially ordered things that through us the good news will be brought to persons who God knew would respond if they heard it.”7 In a sense, Craig seeks to reconcile both the Calvinist and Arminian approaches to the issues of divine sovereignty and free will, and to the problem of the unevangelized.
Tiessen objects to the view proposed by Lake and Goodman by noting that: “it requires no faith at all.” He thinks “that a synergist who wishes to appeal to middle knowledge would do better to posit that this group of the elect would have some form of faith proportional to the revelation they received.”8
He finds the fundamental problem with these proposals, however, in the fact that “knowing future counterfactuals of libertarian human freedom is impossible for anyone, including God.”9 He contends that middle knowledge is only possible if people have “compatibilist freedom.” He states: “Only if some form of determinism is correct can God know what a person would do in a situation that never actually occurs, because he not only knows the situational factors completely, but he also knows the person so completely that her action is predictable . . . . It is because God know us so thoroughly in our inner being, what Scripture calls the ’heart,’ that he can know what a person would do in a given situation. Within the context of God’s sovereign and unconditional elective grace, God chooses those to whom he gives faith. So the concept of his simply foreknowing who would not believe is not useful to the discussion of the unevangelized; it does not make salvation more accessible.”10
1 See “Molinism,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/molinism 1 December, 2020. (Accessed December 14, 2020.)
2 I am relying in part on the discussion found in Terrance L. Tiessen, Who Can Be Saved?, 158-63.
3 Donald M. Lake, “He Died for All: The Universal Dimensions of the Atonement,” in Grace Unlimited, ed. Clark H. Pinnock (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975), 43.
4 Quoted by J. Oswald Sanders, How Lost Are the Heathen?, 62.
5 William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1987), 150-51.
6 William Lane Craig, “’No other Name’: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on the Exclusivity of Salvation Through Christ,” Faith and Philosophy 6.2 (April 1989), 186.
7 Ibid., 186. William Hasker has attempted to rebut Craig’s case in his article “Middle Knowledge and the Damnation of the Heathen: A Response to William Craig,” Faith and Philosophy 8.3 (July 1991), 380–389. Hasker’s rebuttal is essentially based on his belief that God does not possess middle knowledge.
Related Topics: Evangelism, Missions, Soteriology (Salvation)