Four Views on Divine Providence

Transcript Four Views on Divine Providence

Kevin Harris: Glad you're here for the Reasonable Faith podcast. I'm Kevin Harris in studio with Dr. William Lane Craig. Dr. Craig, you've contributed to a book called Four Views of Divine Providence, and I really think this is an important book and topic in that the way we view God's providence in our lives, and how and why he saves us, truly shapes our view of God. Don't you agree that this is more than just theological hair splitting?

Dr. Craig: Oh, I do. I think that this radically affects your concept of who God is, what he's like, and how he relates to the world. And it also has a lot of apologetic cash value, too, because the resolution of human freedom and divine sovereignty, the very important advantage to be gained for any view that can do that in terms of commending a biblical view to the unbeliever.

Kevin Harris: Well, for example, our buddy Greg Boyd is one of the contributors, and he holds to a view called open theism. And if pastors or church leadership and others in the future or as a result of his work begin embracing his ideas, it would eventually get to the congregation and would really radically change our view of God and what God knows in God's foreknowledge and sovereignty, and so on. So this is important.

Dr. Craig: Yes, that's right. On Greg's view God does not know future contingent events – he does not know what's going to happen – and therefore he simply has to make contingency plans based upon what free creatures might do, but God ultimately doesn't know what's going to happen in the future on this view. Now by contrast on the view defended by the other two participants in the book – Ron Highfield and Paul Helseth – who are both Reformed theologians, God causally determines everything that happens, so that every morally evil act, every sin in the world, every evil movement of the human will, is caused by God, and then God in turn punishes people for doing those things that he made them do. So that also results in a radically different view of God that will affect how you view who God is.

Kevin Harris: And that's thrown at Christians all the time, from atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and people of other faiths: that's inconsistent or is at least a very undesirable view from a moral standpoint; that kind of goes against the grain. And your view that you're defending is Molinism.

Dr. Craig: Right, the view I am defending in the book is the Molinist perspective based on the work of Luis Molina, who was a sixteenth century counter-Reformer who developed a theory of divine providence and human freedom in response to the determinism that he saw in Calvin and Luther. And whatever deficits there may have been in Molina's soteriology, I think that his reconciliation . . .

Kevin Harris: Or his view of salvation?

Dr. Craig: Yes, that's right, his view of justification and salvation. I think the Reformers are absolutely right there. Nevertheless I think that his analysis of the compatibility of human freedom and divine sovereignty is brilliant. And once you grasp it it is, I think, the most fruitful theological concept that I've ever encountered, and goes a long way toward illuminating various biblical texts.

Kevin Harris: Bill, I don't know if you've noticed in your travels and in your interaction with people, but on the website it seems we get the most questions on the kalam cosmological argument, and the second level of questions that we get would always be in the area of Molinism—so it's very important; a lot of material, as well: some podcasts on the Molinist view. So it seems kind of unfair that there are two Calvinist views here. Did their views differ any?

Dr. Craig: They really don't differ very much, and this was one of the odd features about the book. I wondered why our editor Dennis Jowers picked two Calvinists who's views are virtually indistinguishable in the book. I thought it would be better to pick someone, for example, who represents the view that there is genuine libertarian freedom, there is full divine sovereignty, and their reconciliation is simply a mystery—we don't have any idea how to reconcile these. But there's no one in the book that really represents that point of view, rather our two Calvinist participants are determinists, they are universal divine determinists who hold to a compatibilistic view of human freedom. [1]And then on the libertarian side you've got Greg Boyd, the open theist, and myself, the Molinist. But there isn't anybody representing the sort of mystery view, I suppose, as one might call it.

Kevin Harris: It seems like you would be kind of in the middle of these two views.

Dr. Craig: Yes.

Kevin Harris: Greg Boyd would be an extreme on one end, Ron and Paul would be kind of extreme on the other end, if you were to line it out that way.

Dr. Craig: Very much so, and it's very interesting to me, Kevin – I can't help but smile about this – the way Molinism has become the sort of center of gravity of this debate such that the open theists are being pulled in toward Molinism from one end, and the Calvinists being pulled in toward Molinism from the other end. And so you have people like Greg Boyd describing his view as neo-Molinism, and people on the Calvinistic side as saying that, yes, they also accept certain elements of the Molinistic view. So by virtue of being the sort of moderating position it has become, I think, the center of gravity in this debate.

Kevin Harris: And I think that's very important—that fact alone, as we work on this, is very encouraging and we might get some very good insights, and come to some good biblical conclusions.

Dr. Craig: I hope so.

Kevin Harris: Let's talk about Greg Boyd's view for just a little bit. Very controversial. I mean, boy, has he been criticized in this view of open theism. He seems to be otherwise orthodox, been viewed as very unorthodox in this view by many.

Dr. Craig: Well, what Boyd argues is that the future isn't causally determined and that therefore there are no future contingent facts. Statements about what will contingently happen are not true or false—they're just indeterminate. And therefore it isn't an infringement of divine omniscience not to know these, because omniscience means knowing only and all truths, and if there aren't any truths about the future for God to know, then you can't impugn his omniscience for not knowing what is not true.

Kevin Harris: So in other words it'd be in the same way that omnipotence cannot create square circles, omniscience cannot know what is not there to be known.

Dr. Craig: Yes, it's even more radical than that, though. It's not that it's not there to be known, it's that there is no truth value to these future contingent propositions. Like 'Romney will win the 2012 presidential election'—that's neither true nor false because it's not yet causally determined. Now, I think the difficulty with Greg's view is that there's no reason to think that statements that are causally contingent about the future don't have a truth value. There's no reason to think that the only propositions about the future which are true or false are those that are causally determined now. I want to affirm with Greg Boyd the openness of the future in the sense that the future is causally indeterminate. I don't believe – as Helseth and Highfield do – that everything in the future is causally determined. I also agree with Boyd that time involves temporal becoming, that the future does not in any sense exist. It's not as though future events are down the line waiting for us to arrive at them, rather temporal becoming is real—things come into being and go out of being. So Boyd and I are on the same footing when it comes to the nature of time, as involving objective temporal becoming, and with respect to the nature of libertarian freedom, that the future is not causally determined. But the non sequitur in his view is to think that that thereby somehow entails that what logicians call the principle of bivalence doesn't apply to future contingent propositions. And the principle of bivalence says that for any proposition that proposition is either true or it's false, or in other words it's either true or it's not true, the false is that which is not true. So every proposition is either true or false. And this principle seems obviously true, self-evidently true, and indeed the denial of this principle would require us to change classical logic. It would force revisions in classical logic of a very radical nature. So what we would want to know from Greg is why can't there be true future-tensed propositions about contingent events? [2] It doesn’t mean, for example, that it's causally determined that Romney will win the 2012 election. It just means that when 2012 arrives, then Romney wins, or he doesn't win, and whatever happens is going to be in accord with what was the truth of that proposition or not.

Kevin Harris: Let me see if I can understand this. If it's true that Romney will win the future election, then it has truth value.

Dr. Craig: Yes.

Kevin Harris: Even though it hasn't happened yet, even though it's not causally determined. If it's true that he will win the 2012 election God knows that because God knows all true propositions.

Dr. Craig: Right, and I think Boyd would agree with that—that if it has a truth value God must know it. And in that sense he can't be accused of heresy, of denying God's essential omniscience. Rather he agrees that if it's true then God must know it. But what he denies is that these kinds of propositions are true. And he reinterprets propositions involving the future tense 'will' to mean causally determined. So if you say x will happen Greg interprets that to mean that it is causally determined that x will happen. Well, that's just an idiosyncratic view of the English language that's peculiar to Greg Boyd. I don't think you could find any dictionary that would tell you that that's the meaning of the word will. Indeed, in many languages you don't even have the future tensed expressed with an auxiliary verb like will. In French, for example, you just conjugate the verb to make a future tense form, or in German you often use the present tense to express future tense sentences, you don't use an auxiliary verb like “will.” So there's just no reason to think that future tensed sentences about contingent events in the future cannot have a truth value unless these events are causally determined. And – it's interesting – Boyd gives no justification for this. This is just a huge non sequitur in his view. There's no argument given as to why there cannot be future contingently true and false propositions.

Kevin Harris: It seems that the criticism delivered to Greg Boyd is that this erodes or could lead to the erosion of God's sovereignty and foreknowledge.

Dr. Craig: Yes, that's right. What Boyd has to say is that God is so smart that he has contingency plans for everything that happens. So he's like a sort of chess master who's playing a game against a novice and the chess master is so skilled that he knows whatever he will do in response to the novice's move. Now, he doesn't know what the novice will do – the novice may do things that are unexpected – but he knows that whatever move the novice makes he knows how he will respond to that. Now, what's odd about that is that ascribes to God a kind of divine middle knowledge of his own decisions, that God would know whatever the novice does this is how I would react. And that actually destroys divine freedom because it would make God have middle knowledge of his own actions prior to God's divine creative decree of a world. And on the Molinist view what God has middle knowledge of is statements about what creatures would freely do in any circumstances. But God doesn't know the truth of statements about what he would do in any circumstances prior to the divine creative decree—that would remove or annihilate human freedom. Rather what God knows by his middle knowledge is what any creature would freely do in any circumstances, and then God chooses to actualize one of those worlds involving those circumstances and, at the same time, simultaneously declares what he would do in any of these circumstances. So on Boyd's view, if he thinks that God has this pre-volitional middle knowledge of his own decisions that's actually going to destroy divine freedom, paradoxically. So I think Greg's view is not carefully thought out, and in fact ultimately he admits when it comes to God's freedom, he adopts a compatibilistic view of divine freedom. And he thinks that in heaven we will ultimately have compatibilistic free will in heaven, where everything we do we will not have the ability to do the opposite, [3] but we'll nevertheless be free in the sense that it will be voluntary. So I find it ironic that when it comes to God and the blessed in heaven Greg ultimately abandons libertarian freedom and adopts the Reformed compatibilistic view of the two contributors in the book.

Kevin Harris: So compatibilism is one thing that we can look up in this: it's one of the options in free will and the free will-providential debate.

Dr. Craig: Well, it would be the view that freedom is compatible with being causally determined to do what you do. And so the two contributors to the book from the Reformed perspective – Highfield and Helselth – both adopt universal divine determinism with respect to everything that happens, even sinful decisions. These are all causally determined by God. But because they're compatibilists they say this is compatible with human freedom, and therefore responsibility.

Kevin Harris: Well, Bill, the man on the street would be disturbed at both of those two views, it seems. First of all it's disturbing that God has to wait and see what takes place in order to act, in one sense, and then on the other hand it's very disturbing that God would be causally responsible for us sinning, and then blaming us for it.

Dr. Craig: I know. To me the Calvinist view is just morally unacceptable. The Reformed contributors to the book are very anxious, of course, to magnify the majesty and the glory of God. But it seems to me that this view does the exact opposite—it impugns God's character and greatness. I don't think it does anything to magnify the glory and majesty of God to say that he determines creatures to do sinful actions and then he punishes them eternally for doing the things that he made them do. I see nothing in that that glorifies God. So I think the libertarian view is much more biblical and much more redounding to the glory and majesty of God, that God would create a world of free creatures to whom he gives the ability to reject his gracious initiatives and to separate themselves from him forever, even though this is contrary to his will. And so he allows creatures to even damn themselves forever, if that's what they should choose to do.

Kevin Harris: Someone asked me the other day what's the first question I'm going to ask God when I stand before him? And I said, well, first of all, I'm not going to be asking God any questions.

Dr. Craig: No, that's right. [laughter]

Kevin Harris: Because I don't want to get the same treatment Job did. But I've got a lot of questions I want to ask Paul. [laughter]

Dr. Craig: Ah, okay, very good.

Kevin Harris: And if Paul doesn't know—then I'll go to God. [laughter] But that would be some of the famous chapters – like Romans 9, and so on – that have been interpreted in so many different ways, that seem to fall within orthodoxy but nonetheless erode that orthodoxy in some way if you're not careful. Boyd's seems to do this and these hardcore Calvinistic views seem to do this. They seem out of balance, not only biblically, but philosophically.

Dr. Craig: Yes, I think that's right. And, biblically, I think that they are an overreach, Kevin. Our Reformed contributors emphasize very strongly how biblical their views are. But in fact the Bible doesn't teach universal divine determinism. It teaches divine sovereignty, and God's control over everything that happens, but to say that this is to be explained by universal determinism is to provide a philosophical account, an interpretation of biblical teaching that goes far beyond what the Bible itself actually teaches. And I think this is very obvious once you understand the distinction that the Molinist draws between God's strongly actualizing a state of affairs, and his weakly actualizing a state of affairs. Now, what do I mean by that? Well God would strongly actualize a state of affairs when he would directly bring it about by his causal power. He would cause it to come into being—that would be to strongly actualize a state of affairs. But God can weakly actualize a state of affairs through his middle knowledge by bringing about persons in a certain set of circumstances who he knew would freely bring about some state of affairs. So, for example, he could weakly actualize the crucifixion of Jesus by arranging to have Joseph Caiaphas be the High Priest at the time of Jesus, by having Pontius Pilate be Prefect of Judea at the time, Herod, [4]the local puppet King, certain persons in the crowd who would favor Barabbas rather than Jesus if called upon to give an acclamation. By putting all of these free persons in these circumstances God knew what they would freely do, and therefore he weakly actualizes the crucifixion of Jesus through the free decisions of creatures. And once you have this distinction in hand, Kevin, between strong actualization and weak actualization, then you can see that when the Bible says things like, with regard to Saul's suicide, “thus the Lord slew Saul and delivered the kingdom to David” you can't say that this means God causally determined Saul to run the sword through himself. Or when it says of Joesph and his brothers in the book of Genesis “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good and has brought this to pass” you cannot infer that this is the result of universal divine causal determinism because it may have been through weak actualization, knowing that if the brothers were in these circumstances this is what they would freely do, and thereby God has brought this to pass. So the point is that even the Calvinist, you see, is doing more than just exegesis. He is giving a philosophical interpretation to the data of Scripture that goes beyond Scripture when he appeals to universal divine causal determinism. And so I think that the Calvinist view fails not only philosophically but it also fails biblically, too, or it isn't justified biblically – let's put it that way – because it has to interpret all of these passages about sovereignty in terms of strong actualization only, and thereby it runs roughshod over all those passages that teach human freedom and contingency.

Kevin Harris: This is why this is important. I mean, we said it at the beginning of this podcast, this is not theological hair-splitting in discussion among people who have PhDs. It is that latter, but at the same time, this is so vitally important. It is not theological hair-splitting. It would influence how we see God. And how you view God would affect how you view people. And these friends of mine who are really embracing this Calvinist view that we've been describing, they're pretty hardcore, they can be kind of tough-hearted sometimes. And they like the tough-mindedness of it, but they like the fact that God is this hardcore that he can pull all of this off at the same time. But it's not in keeping, I don't think, with the character of God that we see in the Bible.

Dr. Craig: I couldn’t agree more, Kevin. And I think you can be tough-minded without being hard-hearted. And that's what I want to be. I want to be tough-minded in the sense of intellectual rigor, good exegesis, good philosophy, good systemic theology that's first rate, but yet a heart that is tender and compassionate toward the lost, and wants to reach out to them with the Gospel.

Kevin Harris: Thank you, Dr. Craig. You know, this topic is way up at the top of the list of questions people ask about God. And I'm proud to point you to many of the resources we have at ReasonableFaith.org on this very topic. And I want to encourage you to take the time to study Dr. Craig's articles on this, review the questions he's answered in the Q and A section, and keep an eye on ReasonableFaith.org for information on this new book Four Views of Divine Providence. While you're clicking around on our website be sure and notice there's a one-hundred thousand dollar matching grant generously in place for the ministry of Reasonable Faith. This is a chance to double your impact when you give to this ministry. You can give online easily and safely, and we so appreciate your support. I think you'll agree that the work of Reasonable Faith is needed more than ever in today's culture. So please give what you can, and take advantage of the matching grant in place now. I'm Kevin Harris, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. [5]