One of the questions we invariably get from Determinists is "But HOW does God know the future??" Determinists often seize upon the difficulty of understanding God's knowledge, and insist that if God didn't cause the future, then He could not have known it. Besides being a rather silly stretch, this claim requires several unfounded assumptions about the nature of God.

The Basic Views

Now before I jump in any deeper, let's define what the major views of God's knowledge in relation to free will are (this is just a basic list, variations of these views exist):

1. Determinism: God determines absolutely all that will be, making absolute foreknowledge trivial. There is no such things as libertarian free will, and our choices cannot be otherwise.

Affirms foreknowledge, but has the very unfortunate side-effect of making absolutely everything that occurs the will of God, and possibly essential to His nature, as we'll touch on below.

Thomas Ralston now tackles the necessitarian objection that God’s foreknowledge of our actions renders the power of self-determination impossible. My comments are in bold print.

II. The next grand objection to the doctrine of free agency is, that it is supposed to be irreconcilable with the Scripture account of the divine prescience.

Necessitarians argue that free agency, in the proper sense, implies contingency; and that contingency cannot be reconciled with the divine foreknowledge. It is admitted by Arminians, and the advocates of free agency generally, that the foreknowledge of God extends to all things great and small, whether necessary or contingent - that it is perfect and certain.

The subject of the Will of God was a topic of interest for James Arminius. Many have wondered if he was a Molinist. Richard Muller acknowledges that Arminius read from Molina,1 but Arminius never claimed to be a Molinist.

However, Arminius left in his writings the notion that perhaps he was at least influenced by Molina's pattern of thought on what God knows and what God has willed according to that knowledge. Muller noted

The divine knowledge of possibility, since it is knowledge of what things can come into existence, is also a knowledge of the way in which all possibles could exist ideally or perfectly, without defect and a knowledge of impossibility as well. Arminius even argues an order in the divine knowledge of possibles. Thus God knows, first, 'what things can exist by his own primary act.'

The subject of God's knowledge has been a seed bed of debate lately. Modern day Molinists believe that their system offers a middle-ground approach to theology, avoiding both Calvinism and Arminianism. One of my professors at SEBTS is somewhat convinced that Arminius was a Molinist.

The Calvinist theologian Richard A. Muller noted that Arminius had studied from the likes of Luis de Molina, as well as others, but Arminius never declared himself to be a follower of Molina's systematic thought concerning God's knowledge. However, there are traces of Molina's thought in the writings of Arminius (see Muller, God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius, Baker Books, pp. 159-161).

Please click on the attachment to view Robert Hamilton, "Philosophical Reflections on Free Will".

What decree is that? The "dreadful" decree I am referring to today is the decree of Reprobation, its consequence being Unconditional Election (for how could there be one without the other?). Now, calling it "dreadful," while I would agree, actually comes not from me or any other Arminian today, but from John Calvin himself!

Calvin wrote, "The human mind, when it hears this doctrine, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated (Bernard, in Die Ascensionis, Serm. 2).

Predestination As Temporal Only

From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
J. Kenneth Grider

One of the most interesting theological finds I have made in recent years is that God's predestinating of us does not seem to have to do with eternal destiny.

God does indeed predestinate us in certain ways. Six times the word for "to predestinate" is used in the NT. Besides the instances of cognates of that very word "proorizo," other "pro" words are found in both Testaments which also show that God makes pre-decisions on various matters. And God sometimes makes decrees, even as kings do, according to Scripture. But my recent study suggests that none of these references has to do with our eternal destiny, but only with other matters.

Molina, Arminus, Plaifere, Goad, and Wesley On Human Free-will, Divine Omniscience, and Middle Knowledge

From the Wesleyan Theological Journal
Barry E. Bryant

Upon first glance the title of this paper contains a strange mix of individuals, one or two of whom are perhaps more obscure than the others. What each has in common with the others is a vested interest in the issue of free-will. What they also have in common is the realization that arising from the doctrine of free-will is the paradox of omniscience.

Andrew Telford, "Foreknowledge"

From the Book, Subjects of Sovereignty by Andrew Telford
Pastor, Berachah Church, 1608 W. Allegheny Ave., Philadelphia, PA.

Please click on the attachment to view Richard Watson, On Omniscience, which is an excerpt from his Theological Institutes. This treatment of God's omniscience contains an important discussion of the concepts of necessity, contingency, and certainty, showing how God's absolute foreknowledge in no way contradicts genuine contingency resulting from the free choices of human beings and does not necessitate the free acts of human beings. This vindicates the Arminian view of free will against Calvinist claims that God's foreknowledge demands determinism and that the Arminian view logically leads to open theism even though standard Arminianism holds to God's absolute and actual foreknowledge of the future as part of his omniscience.

This article defines Libertarian Free Will (LFW) and then reviews Jonathan Edwards' arguments against LFW based both on causation and divine foreknowledge.

DEFINITION OF LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL

LFW is the idea that man is able to choose otherwise than he will choose. It’s contrasted with Compatiblism Free Will (CFW), the idea that free will and determinism are compatible. These are alternative views of the will; both can’t be true about a persons’ will at the same time.

The descriptions “libertarian” and “free” distinguish LFW from CFW, but are otherwise redundant. For those holding to LFW, the will is always at liberty, and is always free, else it’s not a will. Arminius put it: “the will cannot be forced”.

Cottrell, Jack. "Sovereignty and Free Will"

Taken from http://library.freebaptist.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=25

A DISCOURSE ON THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL
By RANSOM DUNN

The following discourse was prepared by the request of the Boston Quarterly Meeting, and but for a request for its publication from the same source would never have gone beyond the limits of the congregation before which it was presented.

by
James M. Leonard
arminianbaptist.blogspot.com

Robert E. Picirilli, in his excellent work Grace, Faith, and Free Will, broaches the subject of Divine Foreknowledge of future events. (See his JETS article here: http://evangelicalarminians.org/files/Picirilli.%20Foreknowledge,%20Free... )

He's very clear on the subject, and convincing. He draws from Arminius himself and from Richard Watson, although he admits that the 19th century theologian's style is belabored. I'm not sure what is original either to Dr. Picirilli or to his sources.

There is a common argument that says God’s knowledge causes all things. It goes like this: If God foreknows that something (x) is going to occur, then something else (non-x) cannot occur. If something (x) does not occur, then God’s knowledge was false. Curiously since they make strange bedfellows, this argument is used by theological determinists like Calvinists as well as those holding to process theology and Openness against orthodox Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and orthodox non-Calvinist Protestants. The argument is used by theological determinists to show that God must determine all things before they come to pass and alternatively, by those who hold that God cannot know the future for free will to be actual and not mere rhetorical sophistry.