#804 Forgiving Sins that I Would Commit

Dr. craig’s response

Oh, no, Peter, God’s forgiving sins that He knew via His middle knowledge that I would commit is even more implausible than His forgiving sins that I will commit. For I may never commit sins that He knew I would commit, so that there is nothing to forgive. Suppose, for example, that had I been raised in Germany prior to the Second World War, I would have become a Nazi. That counterfactual conditional is true in the actual world. But since the antecedent is not actualized, neither is the consequent.

Only in the case of a counterfactual whose antecedent and consequent are actualized at some point do I actually commit the sin. But in that case we’re just back to the question of future sins: prior to my actually committing the sin, does God forgive me? If I am not guilty prior to actually committing the sin, then I am certainly not guilty of a sin that God knew via His middle knowledge that I would commit in the actual world.

I agree that Christ’s atoning death paid for all sins, past, present, and future, but the benefits of his atoning death are not actually applied until a person commits the sins and turns to God in repentance and faith. This is the old distinction between “redemption accomplished and applied.”

Finally, I have argued Molinism does, indeed, provide the means of an acceptable doctrine of limited atonement. One could hold that Christ died only for the elect and that the sins of the non-elect are not paid for by his atonement. Nevertheless, the non-elect can still be saved because were they to turn to God in repentance and faith, as they are free to do, then God via His middle knowledge would have known this, and Christ’s atonement would have paid for their sins! The question, then, is not whether the doctrine of limited atonement is coherent but whether it is biblical.