3 THE MIDDLE-KNOWLEDGE VIEW William Lane Craig
A-Data and D-Data
Scripture contains many such statements as the following:
"And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account." (Heb 4:13)
❑ "[God] accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will." (Eph 1:11)
❑ "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God,
who are called according to his purpose." (Rom 8:28)
❑ "Lord, you know everything: you know that I love you." (Jn 21:17)
Let us call these passages the "all things" data, A-data for short.
Neither side is going to convince the other side by swapping texts, however expertly or fully such swapping is attempted. Current debates about the canon of Scripture or about the present-day use of the Old Testament are debates about the status of the Bible (or of fundamental parts of it); they are debates not about the Bible's authority as such but about the range and nature of that authority. So, too, the debate between classical theism and the open position is not about individual texts but about which texts are to be given hermeneutical priority in formulating a doctrine of God.
So while I admire the detail of Boyd's essay and the ingenuity he shows in his interpretation of the various texts he examines, I want to suggest that, regrettably, such effort is, in the context of this particular debate, so much wasted effort. For the question is, which motif-the control-and-knowledge motif or the creative-flexibility motif-is (as Humpty Dumpty might have said) to be master? Accordingly, Boyd claims that on this question the open position does not distinguish between literal and anthropomorphic language but that "generally speaking, it interprets the second motif the same as it does the first. It believes that both motifs can and should be interpreted as describing what God and creation are really like" (p. 23). But anyone can see that this is not the case and that it cannot be the case, simply because the two sorts of data present prima facie contradictions. In this situation something must give, and in Boyd's treatment of the A-data, something does give. To start with, his treatment is highly selective. There are certain obvious passages of Scripture that can be classified as A-data to which he does not refer. But in the second place, in order to avoid the contradiction between the A-data and the D-data when each are understood without qualification, he has to interpret the A-data somewhat elastically. Thus Boyd says that the scriptural motif that exalts God as the sovereign Lord of history "clearly entails that much of the future is settled ahead of time and is therefore known by God as such" (p. 15). And here it is evident that Boyd is not taking the A-data with the same literalness as he does the D-data. For the A-data do not assert that much of the future is settled ahead of time; they assert that all of it is.
Theism and Philosophy
How are we to approach the difference in method between classical theism and open theism? A favorite ploy-going back at least to Adolf Harnack, and currently employed with considerable gusto by the open theists-is to blame philosophy, particularly Greek philosophy, for the crime of imposing alien forms of thought on the pure Word of God. Boyd himself appears to endorse this idea when he says "exegesis should always drive our philosophy, instead of the other way around" (p. 14). He says that classical theism is driven by a philosophical presupposition that has its source in ancient Greek philosophy of what is worthy of God (pp. 35, 40). But of course Boyd himself cannot avoid philosophical preconceptions and preferences in constructing his open position.
How so? It is a plausible principle that if p is a philosophical position, then the denial of p is also a philosophical position. So if it is a philosophical position that human persons are essentially immaterial, then the denial of that position is likewise philosophical. If it is a philosophical position that God cannot change, then the denial of that position-the claim that God can change-is likewise philosophical. And if I understand the position correctly, Boyd and the open theists assume from the outset that God changes in a way similar to that in which you and I change. They may say that they do nothing of the sort, that their view of God is drawn by careful induction from relevant biblical data. But the biblical data, however carefully interpreted, will only yield this theological conclusion, the open conclusion, if the protagonists of that position assume ab initio that such a view of God is cogent. So if we cannot dismiss one view as being corrupted by false philosophy and yet maintain that the other view is purely biblical, how are we to proceed?
Theism and Christian Supernaturalism: The Analogy of Faith
I suggest that what is at the heart of the contrast between open theism and classical theism is not only or principally a different understanding of the nature of God, or even a difference of interpretation of this or that passage of Scripture, but a profoundly different appreciation of the plight of humankind and the saving grace of God. (This same point applies also to those who espouse Arminianism or middle knowledge in the interests of maintaining libertarian free will, as I will argue in my own contribution.)
On the open view, however in detail divine saving grace is understood and defined, it is that action of God which is causally necessary for human salvation but never causally sufficient. The human will can always frustrate the grace of God. Let us suppose, with all evangelical Protestants, that faith alone in Christ alone is the instrumental cause of a person's justification. Then on the open view, God's grace can only ever be causally necessary for the production of such faith; it can never be causally sufficient. What, in addition, is causally necessary, is an autonomous free choice on the part of the would-be believer-a choice that, if exercised against the divine overtures of grace, could frustrate God's loving purposes toward that individual. But if the choice is exercised in compliance with these overtures, then divine grace and the choice are together causally sufficient for faith in Christ.
For the open position, the plight of humans cannot be so great (for they possess indeterministic freedom to choose for or against Christ), and the grace of God need not be so great either, for often people freely choose for Christ. There is no need of a covenant of redeeming grace to which God is immutably faithful or of divine promises on which the sinner can utterly rely. In particular, there is no need for a saving grace from God that is efficacious in renewing an alienated will. This is why, ultimately, the issue of openness in connection with the doctrine of God, isolated from other facets of the Christian faith, implies a shallow view of the need of humans and the power of God. On a more radical view, human need is such that men and women cannot want to want God, and his grace is needed not only to help them to want to want him, but to ensure that they do so. So the claim that such incompatibilistic freedom is consistent with divine omniscience, as Boyd claims at the start of his essay, even if correct, does not get to what should be the heart of things for the Christian; for only the efficacious grace of God can ensure the salvation of a person in bondslavery to sin. And for God's grace to be efficacious, God needs to be able to work all things after the counsel of his own will. And in order to do that, he has to be the God of classical theism.