God's Natural Knowledge and His Decree

One of the most difficult areas of theology concerns the interplay between God’s knowledge (or foreknowledge) and what comes to pass in space and time. Every theological position comes at this issue in a different way, depending on their other theological commitments.

The specific issue is between the content of what is often termed "God’s Natural Knowledge" (also sometimes called "God's Necessary Knowledge") and everything that happens in reality from the first instant of creation through to the final consummation of all things in the new creation.

God’s natural knowledge could be defined as that part of God’s knowledge by which he perfectly knows himself, his very nature or essence. Since his essence is necessary, it follows that his natural knowledge includes all necessary truths. Since God's knowledge of himself must, by definition, include knowledge of everything God could do or permit in his creation, this knowledge includes knowledge of all possible creations, all possible creatures and all possible events that could happen to all those possible creatures. His natural knowledge contains every logically possible truth.

God's natural knowledge is often spoken of by Molinists, who distinguish between God's natural knowledge of possibilities and God's free knowledge of what will come to pass. Molinists also posit a third type of knowledge called "middle knowledge" which comes between the other other two and is God's knowledge of what free creatures would do in all feasible circumstances in which they could be placed.

Calvinists, by contrast only speak of God's natural (or necessary) knowledge and God's free knowledge of what will come to pass because God has decreed it.

Because Molinists often speak of natural knowledge, some of the best defintions of natural knowledge come from the Molinists. Here are some definitions:

“God knows all possibilities, including all necessary truths (e.g., the laws of logic), all the possible individuals and worlds he might create, as well as everything that every possible individual could freely do in any set of circumstances in which that individual found itself and everything that every possible stochastic [chance] process could randomly do in any set of circumstances where it existed…God knows his natural knowledge…as indispensable to his very nature, such that God could not lack this knowledge and still be God.” —Kirk R. MacGregor, Luis Molina: The Life and Theology of the Founder of Middle Knowledge (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, Kindle Edition, p. 92)

“With natural knowledge God knows everything that could logically happen.”—Max Andrews, An Introduction to Molinism (Kindle Edition, pp. 38-39)

“God’s natural knowledge includes knowledge of all possibilities. He knows all the possible individuals he could create, all the possible circumstances he could place them in, all their possible actions and reactions, and all the possible worlds or orders which he could create. God could not lack this knowledge and still be God; the content of God’s natural knowledge is essential to him.” —William Lane Craig, The Only Wise God.

The following quote is from the Reformed theological perspective:

“Natural knowledge is God’s knowledge of all necessary truths. What this means is that God’s natural knowledge includes those things that are impossible not to be true, such as the law of non-contradiction (LNC) and God’s attributes. For example, there is no possibility that an object while being a rock is not a rock (LNC), or that God can be other than holy (divine attribute). We might observe up front that objects of natural knowledge are true without God willing them to be so. Rather, objects of natural knowledge are true because they are grounded in God’s unwilled nature. In addition to these sorts of necessary truths, God also knows all possibilities according to his natural knowledge. From a distinctly Reformed perspective, God’s natural knowledge of all possibilities correlates to God’s self-knowledge of what he can do. Which is to say, God can actualize all possibilities, which is not a tenet of Molinism.” —Ron DiaGiamo, “The Reformed Doctrine of Divine Foreknowledge – A Call for A Coherent and Unified Voice (https://philosophical-theology.com/2024/07/01/the-reformed-doctrine-of-divine-foreknowledge-a-call-for-a-coherent-and-unified-voice/)

This is an excellent point. Everything that God could have decreed (i.e. absolutely everything you could ever imagine having been decreed that is not illogical) and God’s natural knowledge of all possibilities are two ways of looking at the same body of possibilities. One limitation of Molinism is that there may be no feasible worlds in which person A would freely do act B at time C. But, provided A, B and C are not illogical nonsense, there is always a possible world in which God could decree that A would do B at time C in a Calvinist paradigm where free will means compatibilist freedom. There is less constraint on God—thanks to compatibilist free will—in Calvinism than there is in Molinism.

Also of interest are Paul Helm’s views found in his blog article “Shunning Middle Knowledge” (http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2009/05/shunning-middle-knowledge.html)

Helm’s views have been influencing on me (as they have been on theologians like Terrance Tiessen I believe) that in Reformed theology with a determinative decree and compatibilist freedom, there is no need for the concept of middle knowledge at all. All we need is natural knowledge (the knowledge God has in himself by his own nature as God) and the free knowledge of everything that will be in line with what he himself has decreed.

I believe this is correct and I think some Calvinists muddy the waters by arguing that all counterfactual truths and possibilities are also part of the decree and are dependent for their existence on the decree. I can see no need why anything other than what comes to pass needs to be part of the decree.

Finally, look at Terrance Tiessen who seems to hold a view similar to what I am proposing: https://www.thoughtstheological.com/introducing-calvinism-and-middle-knowledge-a-conversation/

It is interesting that it seems to be always Molinists who talk about God’s natural knowledge. Why don’t Reformed theologians make greater use of this concept?

Linking God's natural knowledge of all possibilities by way of the eternal decree to God's exhaustive free knowledge of what will come to pass seems to me to be a very fruitful way of approaching subjects such as God's sovereignty over evil and his power to decree evil to occur without in any way being the author of sin.

If God has natural or necessary knowledge in himself of all possibilities, this means he has such knowledge of all possible evils, as well as all the matrices and nodes of secondary causation, free choices, and the circumstances that precede any evils as well as the impact or outcomes of any evils. If God has such knowledge, his ability to sovereignly decree evil to occur is entirely possible by a purely permissive decree. 

In other words, by way of natural or necessary knowledge of all possibilities and by a permissive decree, God can allow evil to certainly occur without in any sense having to be the author of sin. He merely has to let creatures act in ways of their own choosing. This concept destroys criticism of Calvinism from Arminians and others who mistakenly think that if God decrees an evil to take place this means God somehow has to positively bring that evil about. 

A "Calvinist" God who knows all possibilities and chooses to allow certain evils to take place is no more blameworthy than a "Molnist" or "Arminian" God who does the same thing.

I believe this approach is fully in line with the relevant teachings of the Westminster Confession of Faith as outlined in these excerpts:

WCF, II.2: “In His sight all things are open and manifest; His knowledge is infinite, infallible, and independent upon the creature, so as nothing is to Him contingent, or uncertain.”

WCF, III.1: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

WCF, III.2: “Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.”

WCF, III.3: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.”

WCF, V.1: “God the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.”

WCF, V.2: “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly: yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.”

WCF, V.4: “The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be, the author or approver of sin.”

I don’t think Calvinists make enough use of God’s natural knowledge in our theology. I have heard Calvinists say that the reason God knows what will happen is because God decreed it to happen. That is true as far as it goes, but it is like looking at a cropped picture. This is where I think natural knowledge, which is prevolitional and logically before the decree comes in.

God’s decree does decide what will happen. As the Confession says: “God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (WCF, III.1). But God’s decree does not simply come out of nowhere. God has natural knowledge logically prior to the decree and the decree flows out of God’s natural knowledge. We might even say that God’s natural knowledge of all logical possibilities includes knowledge of all possible decrees God could have put into effect. From all these, he chose one to be the decree that ordains everything in this world. 

I think the important point, in terms of God not being the author of sin, is that God does not have to actively decree anything evil to happen. He can decree is permissively, genuinely permissively, as long as he has natural knowledge that an actor will behave in a certain way in certain conditions. While this is similar in some respects to the Molinist explanation of foreordination via middle knowledge of libertarian choices, this Reformed providential mechanism is different because it is based only on natural knowledge of all possibilities along with a compatibilist view of freedom. Compatibilist freedom or free will is the view that free will and divine determinism are compatible. The explanation for this is because the view accepts a choice was made freely as long as (a) the actor did what he wanted to do, (b) he was neither forced nor coerced so to act.

If God has natural knowledge of all possibilities, this must include knowledge of what any creature would choose to do in any possible matrix of characteristics, desires, conditions and situations, and all causal linkages from the first nanosecond of creation. That knowledge, in combination with a compatibilist view of human free will, is enough to account for a providential model in which God can decree everything which comes to pass yet is in no sense the author of sin.

And this is the Reformed or Calvinist model of providence I believe best accounts for the entirety of scriptural teaching.

We Need Another Bible Translation

You might be forgiven for thinking that the last thing we need is ye t another Bible translation in English. There are already a plethora or committee and single-author translations of the whole Bible or the New Testament.

There are some 56 versions available on the Biblegateway website alone. There are estimated to be somewhere around 900 English translations in total of either the whole Bible or the New Testament.

There are translations of every stripe from the historical King James Version on the one hand to "The Message" paraphrase on the other.

There are MANY excellent mainstream translations widely available in print or online including the King James Version, Revised Standard Version, New Amercian Standard Bible, New King James Version, New International Version, New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, Christian Standard Bible, New Living Translation and others.

Why on earth would anyone claim we need another one?

I have one good reason why we could do with at least one more.

Of all the versions widely available today and produced by a translation committee as opposed to the work of a single individual, there are two based on the historic Textus Receptus Greek New Testament (this is the text published at the time of the Reformation and on which the King James Version is based - as well as similar translations in other languages such as Luther's Bible in German). These are the King James Version (1611) and the New King James Verion (1982). The Textus Receptus reflects the majority of Greek manuscripts most of the time, but also includes a number of "minority" readings, and a few with little or no Greek support at all.

All other modern committee translations are based on what is known as the "Critical text" of the New Testament. The critical text, in places where there are textual variants in the Greek, tends to follow a low number of the oldest manuscripts rather than vast majority of Greek manuscripts.

There are currently NO versions produced by a committee based entirely on what could be called either the Majority Text or the Byzantine Text. This Greek text reproduces the text which the great majority of Greek manuscripts contain. In most variants, the Byzantine Text represents 95% or more of the existing Greek manuscripts. The Critical Text tends to accept the evidence of a very small number of witnesses (sometimes as little as one or two manuscripts) and often under 5% of the manuscripts.

The difficulty is that the oldest manuscripts that tend to be given more weight by textual critics are few in number while the Byzantine Text has the support of the great majority of manuscripts, but these are later in date. Which one is favoured is a complex issue. The question is which text represents to original authentic text? Is the few earliest witnesses (1-5% of the Greek evidence) or the majority of later witness (frequently 95%+ of the Greek manuscripts)?

I have always found it difficult to accept that the correct original text lay largely undiscovered to the church at large for over a thousand years before being recovered in the 19th century and reconstructed over the course of 100 years from the 1880s onwards. Equally, I find it very difficult that when the manuscripts are examined, often 95-99% of manuscripts are deemed WRONG (even where they frequently agree with one another) and the correct text is deemed to be found in a small handful of early manuscripts. Yet all modern translations widely available are based on this Critical Text (except the NKJV as noted).

To give a couple of examples to show how the weight of the evidence is ignored in many modern translations, consider these examples from the Gospels:

Luke 2:14

NIV: "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests."

ESV: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased."

The NIV does not even footnote this, while the ESV footnote says that "some manuscripts" read "peace, good will among men."

The truth is that the ESV and NIV readings are based on around 0.4% of the manuscripts, and the "some manuscripts" represent 98.8% of the available evidence.

Here, the Textus Receptus underying the KJV follows the majority Byzantine text and reads in the familiar words:

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

Matthew 6:13

Most modern translations end the Lord's prayer at "deliver us from evil" (ESV) or "deliver us from the evil one" (NIV).

The NIV footnote says "Some late manuscripts" read "for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever. Amen"

The ESV says "Some manuscripts add" before quoting the familiar ending.

Note the choice of words - "some", "late" and "add".

In fact, 92.6% of manuscripts have the extended ending to the prayer and only 1.2% lack it. 90% of anything is not "some". At the very least the footnotes should say "most" not "some".

John 3:13

Here the NIV reads: "No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man."

ESV is similar: "No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man."

The footnotes here read in the NIV that "some manuscripts" read "the Son of Man, who is in heaven."

ESV footnote: "Some manuscripts add..."

Here only 1.1% of manuscripts omit the extra words and 97.6% of manuscripts support having the extra words.

The NKJV reads, following the Textus Receptus and by extension the Byzantine majority text:

"No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man, who is in heaven."

There are hundreds of such texts in the New Testament where we are told that "some" or "a few" manuscripts read something which really means the overwhelming majority of Greek manuscripts favour the footnoted text.

So beware the footnotes in most bibles, they can be misleading as to the balance of the evidence.

Yet my point is not really which Greek text is more likely to be the original. The point is that it would be very useful to have a good English translation of this Majority or Byzantine text that reflects what by far the most Greek manuscripts indicate.

There are some good one-man translations out there, but they have the limitations and biases of the translator, and are unlikely to have a large impact on the churches.

I think it would be good to have a formal equivalent translation of the Byzantine text produced by a qualified committee of translators and backed up with the resources needed to get the translation on the main bible websites as well as produce a range of hard copies such as we have from Crossway for the ESV or Zondervan for the NIV.

If you are interested in an English translation from the Byzantine text there is one I would recommend and that is the "The Text Critical English New Testament" translated by one man, Robert Adam Boyd. I am grateulf to Boyd's work which not only translates the Majority text but has extensive footnotes on how this compares to a number of other Greek texts including the Textus Receptus and the Critical Text. The percentages referred in my examples come from this NT edition.

I would recommend reading Boyd's version alongside either the New King James Version, which also has good textual notes though not fully comprehensive, and the NIV or ESV to see where the variations lie and the real percentages of evidence rather that the misleading notes too frequently used in our main translations.

Supralapsarian Links

The following is a list of links to supralapsarian resources online. It should not be presumed that I agree either with the contents of these links, far less with other things these authors may have written, but I think they are useful in seeing what supralapsarians really believe. My own views are what I term a kind of "modified infralapsarianism" as outlined here which seeks to take into account some of the supralapsarian criticisms of standard infralapsarianism.

"Supralapsarianism" by Bernard Woudenberg: https://sb.rfpa.org/supralapsarianism/

"Suprlapsarianism is not a dirty word": https://www.apostolictheology.org/2013/01/supralapsarianism-its-not-dirty-word.html 

"Why Is Supralapsarianism The Correct View": https://www.baptists.net/history/2022/08/21-bible-doctrine-why-is-supralapsarianism-the-correct-view/ 

"Why Is Supralapsarianism An Important Issue?": https://www.baptists.net/history/2022/08/22-bible-doctrine-why-is-supralapsarianism-an-important-issue/

 "Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Herman Bavinck: https://www.the-highway.com/Bavinck_predestination2.html. Note that Bavinck gives pros and cons for each view and ultimately rejects both attempts to put the decrees in any order as all are eternal.

"Did God Foreordain Evil and Evil Doers?" by Al Baker: https://banneroftruth.org/us/resources/articles/2010/did-god-foreordain-evil-and-evil-doers/

"Super Supralapsarianism" by Al Baker: https://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2010/super-supralapsarianism/

"Supralapsarianism Preferable" by Herman Hoeksema: https://cprc.co.uk/articles/supralapsarianism/ 

"Supralapsarianism and Its Practical Implications" by Ward Fenley: https://www.pristinegrace.org/article.php?id=768 

"Supralapsarianism" by Vincent Cheung: https://www.vincentcheung.com/2010/05/11/supralapsarianism/ 

"The Counsel of God (11): Supralapsarianism and Infralapsarianism" by Herman Veldman: https://sb.rfpa.org/the-counsel-of-god-11-supralapsarianism-and-infralapsarianism/

A List of Supralapsarians: https://www.semperreformanda.com/theology/eschatology/list-of-supralapsarians-by-supralapsarian/

These links were working at the time this post was published. 

Why I Am Not an Arminian

Why I Am Not an Arminian
Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams
Inter-Varsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 2004

This very useful book is written by two Reformed theologians, both professors of theology at Covenant Theological Seminary in St Louis, Missouri. The book's purpose is to explain in some detail the problems these scholars have with Arminian theology and, indeed, the problems Arminian theology has with the biblical testimony.

The authors say in the Introduction that they would have preferred to have written a biblical defence of Calvinism and entitled the book Why I Am a Calvinist but the publisher wanted a polemical work against Arminianism to counterbalance another book they published called Why I Am Not a Calvinist written by Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell that was published around the same time. However, they state that the real answer to the question why are you not an Arminian is because they are Calvinists and so their treatment of the various subjects under discussion is to present the Arminian viewpoint as fairly as they can, to explain what's the problem with it, and thirdly to present a Calvinist alternative.

The book features a mixture of two types of chapters. Chapters Two and Five deal with historical theology, with Chapter Two exploring the fundamental difference between the theology of Augustine and Pelagius in the Fifth century AD, and Chapter Five exploring the 17th-century controversy between Jacob Arminius and the Calvinists of the Dutch Reformed churches, culminating in the Synod of Dort in 1618-19 which condemned Arminianism (though this happened some years after Arminius's death in 1609).

The remaining chapters cover subjects including predestination, perseverance, inability, freedom, grace and atonement in which they examine the problems with the Arminian view of each of these topics and explain the Calvinist view.

The authors are careful to present Arminian views carefully, often quoting from primary sources such as the writings of Arminius himself, as well as the likes of John Wesley, H. Orton Wiley, Carl Bangs, Ray Dunning, Kenneth Grider, and Clark Pinnock.

I also appreciated the gracious tone of the book as both authors affirm Arminians as fellow Christian believers. "We do not think of Arminianism as a heresy or Arminian Christians as unregenerate" (p.13) and "the Calvinist and the Arminian are brothers in Christ." Yet they are clear that "at certain points Arminianism presents a skewed picture of the gospel" (p.13)

Earlier, I said that the authors present a Calvinist viewpoint and I say so deliberately because there are places where not all Calvinists would agree with Peterson and Williams' views. For example, the authors clearly sympathise in some ways with Arminius's rejection of Beza's supralapsarianism, which they also seem to strongly reject, though of course they believe Arminius went too far. I'm also sure not every Calvinist would entirely agree with their treatment of how divine sovereignty and human responsiblity and free will co-exist.

Having said this, this remains a useful guide to the problems with Arminian theology and its shortcomings in the light of Scripture and in that regard, the criticisms are well explained and trenchant.