Today we will be wresting with the concept of Gods knowledge, namely the question of how does God know? Does God learn, or does His knowledge come from within Himself? The two major concepts that deal with this issue are; Molinism and Reformed Theology. This is not meant to be an exhaustive composition but rather a brief overview of the two views.

Molinism

Molinism is a theological and philosophical system developed in the late 16th century by the Spanish Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina. It arose as a direct response to the intense debates over divine sovereignty and human responsibility that were ignited by the Protestant Reformation. At the heart of Molinism lies the concept of middle knowledge (scientia media). For the purposes of this article, we will use the term in the precise sense Molina intended: God’s pre-volitional knowledge of what every free creature would freely choose to do in any possible set of circumstances—a knowledge that logically stands between God’s natural knowledge of all possibilities and His free knowledge of what will actually take place in the world He creates.

On the surface, Molinism appears to offer an elegant solution to the longstanding tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. It affirms that human beings possess genuine libertarian freedom: we make real choices without external compulsion, acting solely according to our own desires. At the same time, it maintains that God possesses perfect foreknowledge of every choice we will make, yet He is not the author or cause of those choices. This framework seems to preserve both divine sovereignty—since God knows and actualizes the world—and human accountability—since our decisions are truly our own. Yet when one probes more deeply into the details of the system, troubling implications about the nature and authority of God begin to emerge.

Issue #1

Molinism teaches that God’s knowledge of what actually occurs in time is not derived solely from within Himself, but is instead grounded in a pre-volitional middle knowledge—truths about what free creatures would do in any possible circumstance. This middle knowledge is said to exist logically prior to God’s decision to create, meaning its content is true independently of God’s will and therefore lies beyond His control. This is deeply troubling. To posit any domain of truth that is independent of God’s will is to imply the existence of something uncreated and self-existent alongside God. Yet Scripture is unequivocal: God alone is the uncreated, self-existent One. As Psalm 90:2 declares, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

Issue #2

Molinism further claims that, prior to creation, God possesses exhaustive knowledge of an infinite number of possible worlds or “feasible timelines.” From among these, God supposedly selects which world to actualize—potentially one in which you never become a Christian but remain a Buddhist, or one in which you never exist at all. This raises a serious theological difficulty: it implies that God possesses unrealized potentiality and is capable of choosing something less than the most perfect outcome. Scripture, however, presents God as incapable of anything less than perfection. Deuteronomy 32:4 affirms, “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” If God truly “could have” actualized a lesser or different world, it suggests He has the capacity to do what is imperfect—an idea that is incompatible with His immutable, infinitely wise, and perfectly holy nature.

Issue #3

Finally, Molinism attempts to address the problem of evil (theodicy) by asserting that because humans possess libertarian free will and make genuinely free choices, God cannot be held responsible for evil. This claim is ultimately untenable. If God had before Him an infinite array of possible worlds, then logically He could have actualized one in which evil never entered—one in which Adam and Eve were never deceived, in which no one ever sinned, and in which suffering never arose. Yet He chose to create a world in which evil and suffering exist. Molinism insists this choice absolves God of authorship of sin, but it actually makes the problem worse: it portrays God as deliberately selecting a world filled with evil and pain when a sinless alternative was supposedly available, all without any higher purpose or necessity for that evil. In contrast, Reformed theology maintains that God ordains evil for wise and holy ends—most supremely displayed in the cross, where the greatest evil (the murder of the Son of God) was ordained for the greatest good (the redemption of His people)—so that every instance of sin and suffering serves the ultimate manifestation of His glory (Rom 9:22–23; Acts 2:23). Molinism leaves evil arbitrary and purposeless; Scripture reveals it as encompassed within God’s unchanging, perfectly righteous plan.

Reformed Theology

Reformed theology, as it emerged during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, represents a comprehensive theological framework most closely associated with the teachings of John Calvin and the subsequent confessions and catechisms that bear his influence. In response to medieval scholasticism and the prevailing views of human merit in salvation, Reformed theology placed supreme emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God over all aspects of creation, providence, and redemption. Central to this system is the doctrine of divine election, wherein God, in His eternal decree, sovereignly chooses certain individuals for salvation—not on the basis of foreseen faith or merit, but solely according to His good pleasure and grace. Reformed theology insists that God’s knowledge is exhaustive and that His will is the ultimate cause of all that comes to pass, including the free actions of creatures, yet without violating their voluntary nature or making Him the author of sin.

Reformed theology resolves the tension between Divine Sovereignty and human responsibility by affirming both without compromise: man is genuinely accountable for his choices because he acts according to his own desires, while God remains perfectly sovereign because He ordains whatsoever comes to pass. This framework claims to preserve the biblical portrait of a God who is both infinitely glorious in His authority and perfectly just in His judgments.

Response to Issue #1

Reformed theology firmly denies that any truth—middle knowledge or otherwise—exists independently of God or is prior to His will in such a way that it limits or stands outside His decree. God’s knowledge is not reactive or dependent upon anything outside Himself; He knows all things because He knows Himself perfectly and because all things exist by His eternal decree and sustaining power (Rom 11:36; Eph 1:11). The notion that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom possess some autonomous ontological status that God merely “discovers” is rejected as incompatible with divine aseity and simplicity. Scripture teaches that God is the fountain of all truth and being (John 14:6; Acts 17:28); there is no realm of truth that is uncreated or co-eternal with God apart from His own mind and will. The Reformed position is that God has eternally determined whatsoever comes to pass (Isa 46:10; Eph 1:11). Middle knowledge, as conceived in Molinism, introduces an unacceptable dualism between God’s will and a realm of “bare possibilities” that constrain Him; Reformed theology insists that all that is, is, only because God has eternally willed them to be.

Response to Issue #2

Reformed theology does not speak of God surveying an array of possible worlds and then choosing among them as though He were confronted with options some of which were less than perfect. God’s will is singular, eternal, and perfectly self-consistent; He does not deliberate among alternatives in a temporal or potential sense. God is free in the sense that nothing external compels Him and He acts according to the counsel of His own perfect will (Eph 1:11; Ps 115:3), but He is not free in the libertarian sense of possessing unrealized potentiality or the capacity to choose what is less than perfectly good. Scripture presents God as immutable, infinitely wise, and incapable of anything less than absolute perfection (Mal 3:6; James 1:17; Deut 32:4). The decree of God is not one choice among many imperfect options; it is the one most glorious expression of His holy character. To suggest that God “could have” created a world in which someone remained a Buddhist or never existed implies a voluntarism or arbitrariness that Reformed theology explicitly denies. God’s actual world is the only world that perfectly manifests the full display of His attributes—justice, mercy, wrath, grace, and glory—in exactly the way He eternally purposed (Rom 9:22–23).

Response to Issue #3

Reformed theology does not claim that God is “the author of sin” in any sense that makes Him morally culpable or the efficient cause of evil actions. Sin arises from the voluntary transgression of creatures acting according to their own fallen desires (James 1:13–15); God is never the author of sin in the sense of tempting, compelling, or inwardly moving anyone to evil. At the same time, Reformed theology affirms that nothing—including the fall of Adam, the entrance of sin, and every subsequent sinful act—occurs outside the sovereign decree of God (Acts 4:27–28; Eph 1:11). God permits sin and ordains its existence for the ultimate manifestation of His glory, both in judgment and in redemption (Rom 9:22–23). Molinism’s attempt to absolve God of responsibility by appealing to libertarian freedom and “possible worlds without evil” fails on two fronts: first, it assumes God was somehow presented with worlds containing evil that He then “chose” to actualize, which implies imperfection in the decree itself; second, it cannot explain why God did not actualize one of the supposedly better worlds if they truly existed as genuine possibilities independent of His will. Reformed theology answers theodicy by pointing to the cross: the greatest evil (the crucifixion of the Son of God) was ordained by God for the greatest good (the redemption of His people) (Acts 2:23; 4:27–28). Evil has meaning and purpose precisely because it is encompassed within God’s unchanging plan to display the full spectrum of His attributes—wrath against sin, mercy to sinners, and grace to the elect—in the way that most glorifies Him. Molinism’s framework ultimately leaves evil purposeless and accidental; Reformed theology insists that no evil occurs apart from God’s wise and holy purpose.

Conclusion

In conclusion, when we carefully examine the two systems side by side, Reformed theology offers the more biblically faithful and God-honoring resolution to the question of divine knowledge and the tension between sovereignty and responsibility. Rather than positing a pre-volitional middle knowledge that stands logically prior to God’s decree—thereby implying truths that are independent of His will—Reformed theology confesses that God knows all things, including every free creaturely choice, precisely because He has eternally and unchangeably decreed whatsoever comes to pass (Eph 1:11; Isa 46:10). His knowledge is not reactive, contingent, or constrained by any realm of “bare possibilities”; it flows entirely from the infinite perfection of His own mind and the sovereign counsel of His will. Far from making God the author of sin, this view upholds His absolute aseity, immutability, and exhaustive sovereignty while simultaneously affirming that humans act freely according to their own desires and are therefore justly accountable for every sinful choice (James 1:13–15). The cross stands as the supreme demonstration: the greatest evil ever committed was not an accident or an unfortunate necessity among many options, but the very centerpiece of God’s redemptive plan, ordained from eternity for the display of His justice, wrath, mercy, and grace (Acts 2:23; Rom 9:22–23).

Ultimately, the Reformed position refuses to soften or compromise the biblical portrait of God in order to make human freedom more palatable. It does not shrink from the mystery that God’s sovereign decree encompasses every event—good and evil—without violating creaturely volition or diminishing His perfect holiness. Where Molinism seeks to protect God’s goodness by limiting the scope of His determining will, Reformed theology exalts His goodness by declaring that nothing escapes the wise and holy purpose of the One who works all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11). In the end, the believer finds deepest comfort not in a God who merely permits or reacts, but in the God who reigns over every detail of history, turning even the darkest acts into instruments of His glory and the eternal good of His elect. To God alone be the glory forever. Amen.

Grace and Peace,
Duke.

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