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Friday, December 16, 2011

What might have been

I don’t think omnipotence (i.e. God’s capabilities) is enough to account for these passages. Imaging God creates Santa (which of course He could do). God could have Santa deliver toys this year or He could have Santa occupy Wall Street instead. How does He know which would happen if Santa existed? God must not only be able to do either, but He must choose one.

One of the problems with responding to Dan is that he doesn’t spell out what he means. There’s no argument. Rather, he drops these elliptical, enigmatic statements or questions, then expects his opponent to respond. Well, respond to what, exactly?

Why does he think God wouldn’t be in a position to know the outcome, given my stated views? Dan doesn’t say. Why does he think God couldn’t choose one over the other, given my stated views? Dan doesn’t say.

The Dominicans (early opponents of the Molinists) said God decrees not only what will happen, but also what would happen under every possible scenario. If you believe in God’s decree about what would happen in every hypothetical world, then you could use that view to account for these texts. And they accuse me of imposing speculative philosophy on scripture. James White once said middle knowledge reminded him of the Star Trek episode when Spock had a beard. Welcome to the club.

Once again, he doesn’t explain why that’s “speculative.” Where’s the argument?

In Calvinism you have the generic principle that nothing will happen unless God decrees it. And Calvinists think that’s a scriptural principle, which they’ve established on exegetical grounds. You may disagree, but that’s not speculative.

All we’re doing is to apply the very same principle to what might have happened. How is that “speculative”? And how is that “speculative” compared to the permutations of Molinism?

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