Why I am Not a Molinist (Part 1)

As a Calvinist, there have been times when I have been attracted to Molinism and sought to explore this alternative model of divine providence. For those who do not know, Molinism is named after a Spanish Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina, who was a counter-Reformer. His view is sometimes thought of as being somewhere between Calvinism and Arminianism.

Molinism teaches that God sovereignly controls everything that comes to pass (seemingly agreeing with Calvinism), but also holding that human beings have libertarian free will (seemingly agreeing with Arminianism). How can both ideas be reconciled? Molina accomplishes this by positing that God possesses scientia media or middle knowledge and that God is able to utilise this type of divine foreknowledge to have divine providential control over human free will choices (free in the libertarian sense). 

It works like this (according to Molinism).

God has three logical "moments" of divine foreknowledge. 

First, God has what is called natural knowledge. Natural knowledge is God's knowledge, in himself, of himself, and all logical possibilities that God could bring about. Natural knowledge contains everything that could happen.

Third, God has what is called free knowledge. Free knowledge is God's knowledge, after the divine decree of everything that will occur in the world God has decided to create. Free knowledge contains everything that will happen.  

Divine natural knowledge and free knowledge are accepted by all classical theists, including in Reformed theology and these are not controversial.

Molina's unique idea was to suggest that between the pre-decree natural knowledge and the post-decree free knowledge of God, there is something called middle knowledge, which is before the decree and prevolitional, i.e. not something that originates in God's will, but precedes it. Middle knowledge contains God knowledge of everything beings with libertarian free will would do in any possible circumstances. The best way to think of it is as a subset of God's natural knowledge of all possibilities. Middle knowledge are all the possibilities that could happen if human beings have libertarian free will. Middle knowledge is often summarised as containing everything that would happen.

Another way these three moments are sometimes described is that natural knowledge comprehends all possible worlds, middle knowledge (with libertarian free will granted) comprehends all feasible worlds, and free knowledge comprehends the one actual world God decided to create. 

This is a summary of what Molinism means. We will now outline the main reasons why Molinism is not a feasible view (pardon the pun) for the Bible-believing Christian in my view.

In summary, the problems with Molinism are the following:

1. Molinism denies the idea of an Exhaustive and Unconditional Divine Decree.

2. Molinism teaches a form of Creaturely Independence which contradicts Divine Aseity and God's Absolute Sovereignty.

3. Molinism relies on libertarian free will. Indeed, Molinism was created by Molina in an attempt to show that God's sovereignty could be harmonised with libertarian free will. Yet the Bible teaches that even human free choices are under the control of God's sovereign choice.

4. Molinism smuggles in a kind of semi-Pelagian anthropolgy whereby sinners are able to do good, including saving good, in response to God's grace merely if put in the right set of circumstances.

5. Molinism undermines divine simplicity and immutability. It makes God's knowledge partly dependent on his creation and makes his decree reactive rather than eternal and simple. 

6. Molinism weakens God's providence and efficacious grace. God is restricted and can only select from feasible worlds one which matches his desires as closely as possible rather than the biblical view that God's sovereign decree reflects God's own desires perfectly and the world perfectly matches God's desires and wishes.

7. Election in Molinism can only be a kind of conditional election, in that God chooses those he knows will believe when put in certain circumstances. This is not the unconditional election taught in the Scriptures.

8. Likewise, Molinism usually teaches that God choose to actualise the world in which the maximum number of people are saved, but that there were feasible worlds in which any other people would be saved, though no feasible worlds in which everyone is saved. Thus, person A's election in the real world does not rest on God's sovereign choice primarily, but on the fact that A was part of the maximum number of saved people in this world. On the other hand person B, might have been saved in another world, but he is lost in the real world merely because the world in which he would have been saved did not deliver as many saved people overall. This seems ridiculous compared with the Calvinist view that in the real world God saved everyone for whom he has saving love and desires to actually save.

9.   Molinism rests on the concept of middle knowledge, which is not found in the Scriptures. It is merely a clever philosophical speculation. Calvinism does a better job of reconciling divine sovereignty, which is absolute, and human free will and responsibility, which is derived from God's decree and is compatible with God's determining all things.

10. The grounding objection has never been satisfactorily answered by Molinism. The grounding objection states that the central claim of Molinism is either completely incoherent or impossible. There is nothing in Molinism that explains (or grounds) why God possesses such knowledge of what people would freely choose to do in any circumstance in which they were placed.

11. Closely linked to this, Molinists cannot explain where middle knowledge comes from as it comes from creatures with free will before God has decreed to create such creatures. Middle knowledge comes across as a series of brute facts about the universe with no explanation of why such facts or truths exist as they do not come from God's will, not from the creatures. 

We will explore these eleven objections to Molinism, from a Reformed theological viewpoint, in Part 2.

Great Theologians 3: John Murray

John Murray (1898-1975)

John Murray was a Scottish-born Presbyterian theologian who spent most of his career at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He was an ordained minister of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).

Born in Sutherland in the far north of Scotland in 1898. Murray served in the Black Watch regiment during the First World War, losing an eye in the war. After the war, he became a theological student at the University of Glasgow and was a member of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He went to the USA to pursue further studies under J. Gresham Machen and Geerhardus Vos at Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1930, he broke with the Free Presbyterian Church and also moved with Machen from Princeton to the newly formed Westminster Theological Seminary, where he lectured in systematic theology for many years. He was also a trustee of the Banner of Truth Trust.

Murray never wrote his own systematic theology. His many essays and papers are published in four volumes of Collected Writings. His other major work was an excellent commentary on Romans in the New International Commentary series. He also wrote some popular-level works, including Redemption Accomplished and Applied which was the first book of Murray's that I read.

In my view, Murray's importance as a Reformed theologian lies not so much in the volume of writings he produced, but in some of the shorter works and essays he wrote. His short work The Covenant of Grace for example represents an important and novel approach to this key Reformed doctrine. The report he co-authored with Ned Stonehouse on The Free Offer of the Gospel is another short, but important and influential work.

After retiring from Westminster in 1966, Murray returned to Scotland to help look after his elderly sisters who still lived in Ross-shire. He joined the Free Church of Scotland and got married at the age of 69 in 1967 and had two children. Murray died on 8th May 1975 at the age of 76 and is buried in the Free Church Cemetery at Creich in the Scottish Highlands.

Great Theologians 2: W. G. T. Shedd

W. G. T. Shedd (1820-1894)

 

William Greenhough Thayer Shedd was a 19th century American Presbyterian theologian. Originally from Acton, Massachusetts, Shedd taught for most of his career at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.

His work reveals a sharp mind familiar with a wind range of academic disciplines, though his theology was staunchly Reformed and evangelical. 

He was an orthodox voice who argued for the doctrine of eternal punishment in his work The Doctrine of Endless Punishment (1885) and who argued against proposed revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith to soften its Calvinist and predestinarian teachings, in Calvinism: Pure and Mixed.

Shedd's magnum opus is his brilliant work of systematic theology, Dogmatic Theology (1888), which was originally published in three volumes.

I first came across Shedd's systematic theology in the early 1990s and found explanations of a number of doctrines both clear and convincing as I read them in a theological library and was able to find a set to buy in a second hand bookshop. Much later, a new printing of the work was issued and I recommend it highly.

His work comes from a similar place on the theological spectrum from the Hodges at Princeton, but Shedd does not follow Hodge in all matters and I think is sometimes a clearer writer, though Charles Hodge often goes into subjects in greater detail than Shedd. More on Hodge later in this serious probably.

Any work you find by Shedd, whether his books of sermons, his commentary on Romans, or his theological works is well worth reading if you come across it. His writings on everlasting punishment in hell remain some of the key texts in the debate even now, whether the relevant chapter in Dogmatic Theology or his earlier work on the same subject.

 

Refuting the "Calvinist Conundrum" of Jerry Walls

In a presentation available on YouTube, the Arminian philosopher, Jerry Walls, presents what he calls a "Calvinist Conundrum".

His whole presentation is available here and the relevant section for our purposes starts at 19:55 and runs through to 23:29.

Walls presents the conundrum with the following premises and conclusion:

1. God truly loves all persons

2. Truly to love someone is to desire their well being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you can.

3. The well being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.

4. God could determine all persons freely to accept a right relationship with himself and be saved.

Therefore, 5. All persons will be saved.

As Walls points out, few evangelicals will accept the fifth premise, as not all persons will be saved. Therefore, he says, one of the four premises must be wrong.

As an Arminian, his choice is simple. He rejects premise 4. For the Arminian, God cannot determine someone to freely accept a relationship with himself. 

Yet premise 4, is a key Calvinist belief (known as irresistible grace in a world where divine determinism is compatible with human free will).

So, says Walls, the Calvinist must reject one of premises 1-3.

In my view, Jerry Walls's conundrum fails because his conclusion 5 does not logically follow from the first four premises.

There is logical leap that he makes here, which is unwarranted. 

Let's look at the first three premises again and then suggest a logical conclusion based on those premises first, before we come to Walls's fourth premise.

1. God truly loves all persons

2. Truly to love someone is to desire their well being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you can.

3. The well being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.

Therefore, 4A. God truly has a desire to save everyone.

Many Calvinists would agree with 4A. Those who don't would likely question either 1 or 2 (i.e. either God does not love everyone or that God can truly love someone but not desire their wellbeing in a saving sense).

Now, if we take our new first conclusion along with Wall's fourth premise (we will call this 4B) we have this:

4A. God truly has a desire to save everyone. 

4B. God could determine all persons freely to accept a right relationship with himself and be saved.

I believe it is clear that Walls's conclusion does not follow logically from 4A and 4B:

Therefore, 5. All persons will be saved. 

For Wall's conclusion to be valid, it rests on a hidden premise. The necessary hidden premise would be this:

4C. God must fulfil any desire he has if he is capable of doing so.

Only if 4C is true would Walls's conclusion 5 be valid. However, it is precisely this hidden assumption that Calvinists reject. For it is that this point precisely that God's sovereignty comes into the equation. God has the right to choose which of his desires he acts on, or rather decides to to act on in his decree, and which he determines will remain mere velleities (wishes or inclinations not acted upon).

Most Calvinists accept that God has desires for some things, considered in themselves, that he nevertheless chooses not to fulfil in his decree because of other conflicting desires or when considering something in light of everything else or in a connected way with everything else. In this context, God can desire the salvation of all when considered simpliciter yet desire the salvation of some and the condemnation of some when considered complexiter and in the light of God's desire to display his own glory and attributes above all else.

For these reasons, the existence of premises 4A and the hidden assumption in 4C, Walls's conundrum fails to present any significant problem for the Calvinist theologian. Rather than being a concundrum, it is a Calvinist explanation of the wisdom, knowledge and sovereignty of God.

 

 

Great Theologians 1: Louis Berkhof

Louis Berkhof (1873-1957)

Louis Berkhof was a Dutch American Reformed theologian. His Systematic Theology (1941) is still one of the finest one-volume summaries of the Reformed faith. The book is particularly dear to me because it was one of the first "serious" theological book I bought not long after I became a Christian in 1987.

I remember being amazed that a single book could seek to cover the whole range of Christian doctrine. I have loved systematic theology ever since.

One of the things I still love about Berkhof's work is that he represents a kind of mainstream, centre-cut Reformed theology, which rightly or wrongly I have always thought of as the standard by which to judge other Reformed theologians idiosyncrasies. Berkhof never seemed to have any. He was fully in line with the Reformed confessions and a standard Reformed understanding of the Scriptures. 

Obviously, he writes from the Dutch Reformed tradition, which I hold in the highest esteem, second only to the Scottish Presbyterian tradition, which it closely resembles, of course.

Like many Dutch-American Reformed theologians of the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century, Berkhof was born in the Netherlands and moved to the United States with his family in childhood. In Berkhof's case, he moved to American as a boy in 1882. The family settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which has remained an important centre for Dutch Reformed people in the USA.

He studied at college in Grand Rapids and then Calvin Theological Seminary in that same city. He became pastor of a Christian Reformed Church in Allendale, MI in 1900. He pursued further theological studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, gaining a BD in 1902. He studied under the likes of B. B. Warfield and Geerhardus Vos at Princeton.

After another pastorage in Grand Rapids, he joined the faculty of Calvin Theological Seminary and 1906 and worked there for the next four decades, retiring in 1944. Among his many students, the most famous is probably Cornelius Van Til (1895-1987), the great presuppositionalist apologist and theologian.

As well as his famous Systematic Theology Berkhof wrote many other important theological works, including The History of Christian Doctrines and Principles of Biblical Interpretation. He also produced two simplified versions of his magnum opus suitable for younger readers or new Christians, which he named Summary of Christian Doctrine and Manual of Christian Doctrine.

Clearly, a book written in 1941 is of its time. It engages with theology as the discipline stood at that time, though Berkhof's main focus is on the Scriptures and the Reformed creeds, rather than say liberal or neo-orthodox theologians. However, given that Berkhof's treatment is thoroughly Bible-based, the book's value cannot diminish or date very much and certainly remains one of the most useful explanations of classic Reformed theology.

Should City Churches Celebrate the Harvest Festival?

 

This may seem a strange question perhaps, especially as we still bask in the heat of summer here in the UK. The question is straightforward. Should an urban church celebrate the harvest festival or is this something only relevant for rural parishes surrounded by the farms?

Growing up in church, the Harvest Thanksgiving Service as a fixed point in the church calendar, though I grew up in the inner city. Each October we had a Harvest Weekend, which consisted of a Harvest Supper—a church meal held on the Saturday evening—and a Harvest Thanksgiving Service held on the Sunday. Produce that had been donated for the harvest service was then distributed to elderly and needy people in the parish as well as to local charities working with the homeless and foodbanks.

In the church I now attend, we do not mark harvest in any way and I have always thought that was strange. The answer I once received was that as we are a city parish, harvest is something for rural parishes and so it is not relevant to us.

I didn't agree with that thinking then and I don't agree with it now.

So here are my reasons why I think celebrating harvest should be a part of urban church life as well as in rural churches.

1. Harvest Thanksgiving is about giving thanks to God for his provision for us. Christians in city parishes have no less reason to thank God for the production and supply of crops, fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and dairy produce than anyone directly involved in the production of these foods. Likewise, we can thank God for fresh and clean water, essential to life.

2. A Harvest Thanksgiving service gives us an opportunity to speak about God's creation and creation care more widely, which is obviously of relevant to all Christians wherever they live.

3. Harvest Thanksgiving can also provide an opportunity to reflect on those parts of the world that do not have enough food or clean water and encourage Christians to support charities working in these areas.

4. In urban areas, the concept of thanksgiving for the Harvest, can be broadened to include the "Harvest" of all the talents and work done by others that are good gifts from God—teachers, doctors, nurses, manufacturers, tradespeople, etc.

5. Harvest Thanksgiving in urban areas gives an opportunity to remind children (and indeed all city dwellers) that food does not ultimately come from supermarkets, but from farms and fisheries, and ultimately from God's providing hand.

These are practical reasons and possibilities to make an urban harvest relevant. There is no particular need to gather food in church for the service, though there may be benefit in doing so to support local foodbanks and charities.

It just seems really restrictive to me to suggest that only farmers or fishermen have any reason to give thanks to God when the harvest of food comes in each year. As the harvest hymn says:

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above;
Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all His love. 

Theocast Podcast

I've recently come across the Theocast Podcast on YouTube. So far I thoroughly recommend the approach towards justification and sanctification in these videos, as well as the way they use the law and gospel distinction.

Seems to be to be very helpful for the Christian life and much better than those approaches that give freedom in Christ with the one hand in justification and then take it away again immediately afterwards in sanctification.

https://www.youtube.com/@THEOCAST 

Christian Standard Bible Anglicised Edition

When the Christian Standard Bible came out in 2017 I thought it was one of the best English translations to come out in a while. It ticked pretty much every box for me in what I look for in an English translation, except that back then in was not available in a British English or anglicised edition. This is important to me as a reader as the American spelling of many important biblical words are jarring, especially Saviour and other "our" words.

 I actually wrote to Holman (the publisher) to ask if there were any plans to bring out a British English edition. Initially, there were no plans, but I was delighted when the CSB Anglicised edition came out about a year ago in summer 2024.

I really do think the CSB is an exceptionally readable and accurate translation that does not consider itself bound by Bible translation tradition. A good example would be John 3:16, which is traditionally rendered something like: "For God so loved the world that he have his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.

 The CSB reads: " For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

I would highlight three improvements in translation in this rendering.

1.  The Greek word Houtos normally refers to the manner in which something is done, not the degree to which something is done. Although "so" can used in either sense, the natural understanding in English of "For God so loved the world" would be that John was referring to the degree of God's love rather than the manner of God's love (which is what the Greek word means). Therefore the CSB's "For God loved the world in this way" is more accurate to the Greek.

 2.  Most scholars now recognise that monogenes does not refer to someone being only begotten, but to them being unique (literally one-of-a-kind). The CSB's "one and only" is therefore preferable to the traditional "only begotten".

3. The Greek literally refers to "every believing one" in the second half of the verse. There is no generic "whoever" in the Greek. The CSB's "everyone who believes" is much more accurate than "whoever believes".

This is just one verse, though a very famous verse. I'm sure similar points could be made throughout the CSB.

 I use the Bible Gateway website for much of my Bible study and I was delighted to see that the Christian Standard Bible Anglicised edition is now an option on the site. I haven't checked the app but I'm sure it will also be on there.

Having the CSB in British English is a great move by Holman and I now plan to use the CSB as my main Bible from now on.

On the translation spectrum, the CSB is somewhat more literal than the NIV and more natural than the ESV, which I think is an ideal balance. The footnotes in the CSB with alternative, sometimes more literal translations, are also excellent in this version. 

My Mother's Death

Christina Allan Miller (née McCulloch) (1945-2025)
 
My mother died peacefully in her sleep at Glasgow Royal Infirmary after a long battle with illness just after midnight on Sunday, 16th March. She was 79 years old. My sisters and I and the rest of the family are all deeply mourning her passing.

Christina Allan McCulloch was born in Glasgow on 3rd October 1945 and was the eldest of two children of Aaron McCulloch (1917-1990) and Jessie McCulloch née Purdie (1920-2002). Coincidentally, she shared the same birthday as my father, 3rd October, though born in different years.
She was baptised on 21st November 1945 at St Thomas' Church of Scotland on Gallowgate and remained a church member her entire life.

Her father, Aaron ('Ernie') was a Battery Sergeant Major in the Royal Canadian Artillery, stationed in the UK during World War 2 where he met my grandmother. They were married in 1944. As well as my mother, they also had a second daughter, Jean ('Jeanette') born in 1947. The family moved to Canada after the war, but unfortunately, the marriage did not endure and my grandmother and mother returned to Scotland before Jean was born.

As an adult, she later met her father and her half-siblings, Ian and Susan, in Canada and continued to be in contact with them from then on.

My mum grew up in the house she had been born in at 227 Abercromby Street and she attended St James's Primary School in Calton and John Street Secondary School in Bridgeton. She left school at sixteen and worked in several office jobs, going from office junior to senior positions in the accounts and wages departments of several local firms in Bridgeton including the large Welma Bakery.

The family were always churchgoers and my mother became a member of Greenhead and Barrowfield Church in London Road when she was about 16 years old. After it was closed down, she became a member of Calton New Parish Church near the Barras (later named St Luke's).

She later joined the Orange Lodge and it was there she met my father, James Miller (1929-2011). They were married on 23rd October 1971 and the marriage lasted until his death in 2011, less than a year short of what would have been their Ruby wedding anniversary.

After she got married, my mother gave up work and became a mother when I was born in 1972. My parents then went on to have three more children, all daughters in 1974, 1977 and 1981.

My mother was always shortsighted but in 1978 she suffered a detached retina which resulted in the loss of sight in one eye. Although this must have been a lot to come to terms with for a young woman in her early 30s, she never showed it and went on to have another child in 1981 and thereafter went back to work as a Home Help from 1985 until she retired.

The family moved to a bigger house in 1978, where she lived until her death (she only lived at two addresses from birth to death) and soon after we all started going to Bridgeton St Francis-in-the-East Parish Church in Queen Mary Street. It was there she became heavily involved in the life of the congregation.

An important event for my mother was the Billy Graham rallies held in Glasgow in 1991. Although going as a member of the choir, she came to Christ personally at one of those meetings and always felt that her faith had deepened and strengthened after that.

She was ordained as an elder of the church in 1992 and served in many ways in the church, including the church singing group, session and board meetings, fundraising, social events, and a spell as the church's cleaner. She also attended the midweek prayer and Bible study meeting faithfully for many years and two services on Sundays most weeks.

Although with four kids to look after she must not have had a lot of free time when we were growing up, she had many hobbies and interests.

She loved dogs and always had a dog or two dogs as pets all her life. They became her constant companions in later life. 
 

She loved watching films, especially thrillers, westerns and war films. Before her eyesight started to fail, she loved reading books and was a big fan of the thriller writer Jeffery Deaver. Later she would listen to audiobooks with my sister.

She was a lifelong Rangers supporter and used to attend regularly at Ibrox during the 1960s before she got married. She was still listening to games right up to when she had to go into hospital for the last time. She also loved other sports including Rugby and has been to Murrayfield several times to watch Scotland. On TV and the radio, she also liked to watch or listen to boxing matches, especially heavyweight world title fights.

She also used to knit and she was good at drawing.

She was a good singer and loved listening to all kinds of music, from the Beatles to Lady Gaga. She also enjoyed listening to classical music at times. Puccini was her favourite composer.

Every week she would write letters to her sister in Canada, and later she regularly corresponded with her father and half-sister in Canada also.

She loved East Lothian and we spent many holidays through at Port Seton. She also liked the bustle of seaside holidays at Blackpool and went to Spain on holiday several times. She later enjoyed trips to Canada a few times and New York. Later she enjoyed many holidays on the Isle of Mull or up in Nethybridge or Boat of Garten, as well as the Peak District at Chatsworth. One of her last big holidays was a cruise to Norway just last year after her first stroke.

Aside from all that, she was a fantastic mum and was very proud of her children and anything we accomplished. She doted on her grandchildren.

Above all she was my friend—I could talk to her about anything and everything—and I will miss her wisdom, her wit and her love. The whole family will always miss her, though we are grateful her health struggles are over.
 
My wife once asked her what she would like to be remembered for. She said: "That I was a formidable woman."

Rest easy mammy. You were that and so much more.

The Value of Reading Books You Don't Agree With

There's only so much time for reading in any week or any year for that matter. I confess that I mainly read books in the Reformed tradition, not because it's the tradition I agree with (though I do) but because there are so many great books of Reformed theology and by Reformed theologians and so many that haven't read yet. If I aim to read 8-12 a year that is quite good going, depending on their length, in among the other things that take up my time in any normal week. It is my belief that it is best to mainly read books that teach Christian truth and I believe Reformed theology is the best expression of Christian truth we have, outside Scripture itself.

Yet I also believe there is value in reading Christian books from outside my own comfort zone. By this I would include evangelical books that are not Reformed as well as books outside the evangelical tradition.

Even though I believe such books will contain errors, sometimes more and sometime more serious errors, sometimes less, there is still value in occasionally reading books where you know in advance that you will disagree with the author. There are at least three good reasons for doing so.

1. The first reason to read books you don't or won't agree with is because they will help you define and defend what you believe better. They will force you to think through what you really believe and when you hit points in such books where you find yourself reacting against it, this will help you focus on where those points are and why you disagree.

2. Secondly, reading books from other theological positions will help you understand the teachings of those you disagree with by having those positions explained to you by their best exponents and not just by their critics. This will help you criticise positions you disagree with more fairly and in many cases more strongly when arguing against them.

3. Thirdly, reading books you don't agree with will help you to refine your own beliefs and bring them into closer conformity with the truth. Understanding other views better will often give you a better understanding of those you disagree with, without agreeing any more with them. Occasionally, you may even be more committed to your original views having seen "the best your opponents have to offer."

I would not advise new Christians to read a lot of books like this, but mature Christians could benefit in these three ways from reading maybe one or two books a year outside your own comfort zone.