Psalm 16:4
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply; their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips.
Application
Are you running after another god perhaps without even realizing it? If you are the Bible makes it clear you can expect your life to stink. You have God’s promise that He will multiply sorrow in your life.
Yes that’s right—grief. God has NO tolerance for anyone who is running after any other god regardless of how pure your motive or how insignificant the God. He is a jealous God who refuses to share His throne with anyone or anything and that is in my best interest.
There isn’t anyone better to govern the universe than the God whose only begotten Son is Jesus Christ; therefore, it is in my best interest (and yours too) when He insists that He is the only God and all must serve Him and Him alone.
If your life is full of sorrow, if it feels like sorrow is being multiplied in your life, ask yourself am I putting a higher priority on anything than God? Are you pursuing anything more than God in your life? Repent.
If you are pursuing a future spouse more than God then you qualify. If you are pursuing a promotion, a tab, a badge, a position, a salary, an office, a trophy then you qualify. Repent.
God promises that your name will not be on His lips—now that’s scary. Repent. I want to know that God is thinking about me. I want to know that He knows me and knows my needs and is caring for me.
Even if I don’t fully understand all that the Psalmist meant when He spoke of God pouring out my drink offering—I know enough to know that when I offer to Him my prayers I don’t want them dumped out because God knows I am running from one god to another to another.
If I regard iniquity in my heart the only prayer God hears is my prayer of forgiveness, my petition of repentance—my cry for cleansing, from a repentant heart, full of God given faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Let me be on guard, at all times, that I am not pursuing anything more than the God whose Son died for my sins.
Master, We are Perishing!
Luke 8:22-25
22 One day he [Jesus] got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, 23 and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. 24 And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”
Commentary
One of the lies commonly presented about Jesus is that He never claimed to be God. Some suggest that everything about His deity was made up by His disciples after His death in order to justify their allegiance to their Master.
If this is correct, this would have to be the greatest conspiracy theory every concocted upon the entire world.
The truth is the Disciples knowledge and understanding of who Jesus was grew everyday as they followed Him. Notice they are shocked that the Master can calm the storm. Men don’t stand up in boats and speak to the wind as though it is a person that can obey or if they do we assume that they are crazy. But when Jesus speaks the wind obeys and the disciples are amazed. In the KJV the rendering is: “What manner of man is this! He commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”
The Jews understood that only God can control nature like that and this is precisely the point. Everything that Jesus did like that was done to prove or demonstrate He was the Son of God—possessing all the power and authority of God His Father.
Muslims are convinced that Jesus was a prophet. Hindus believe that Jesus is one of many, many gods. Many believe that Jesus was a good man and great teacher. Christians believe the truth—Jesus is the God-man the only begotten Son of God. And anything less is a heretical doctrine and those who believe this heresy will spend all eternity perishing because they didn’t acknowledge Jesus as their only Master.
What manner of man are we dealing with in Luke 8—the manner of man who in just a few verses later brings the dead back to life—again just another miracle performed with the express purpose of authenticating that Jesus was and is the Messiah—choose you this day whether or not you will believe the truth and then embrace it with all your heart, mind and soul until absent from the body means present with the Lord!
.
22 One day he [Jesus] got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, 23 and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. 24 And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”
Commentary
One of the lies commonly presented about Jesus is that He never claimed to be God. Some suggest that everything about His deity was made up by His disciples after His death in order to justify their allegiance to their Master.
If this is correct, this would have to be the greatest conspiracy theory every concocted upon the entire world.
The truth is the Disciples knowledge and understanding of who Jesus was grew everyday as they followed Him. Notice they are shocked that the Master can calm the storm. Men don’t stand up in boats and speak to the wind as though it is a person that can obey or if they do we assume that they are crazy. But when Jesus speaks the wind obeys and the disciples are amazed. In the KJV the rendering is: “What manner of man is this! He commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”
The Jews understood that only God can control nature like that and this is precisely the point. Everything that Jesus did like that was done to prove or demonstrate He was the Son of God—possessing all the power and authority of God His Father.
Muslims are convinced that Jesus was a prophet. Hindus believe that Jesus is one of many, many gods. Many believe that Jesus was a good man and great teacher. Christians believe the truth—Jesus is the God-man the only begotten Son of God. And anything less is a heretical doctrine and those who believe this heresy will spend all eternity perishing because they didn’t acknowledge Jesus as their only Master.
What manner of man are we dealing with in Luke 8—the manner of man who in just a few verses later brings the dead back to life—again just another miracle performed with the express purpose of authenticating that Jesus was and is the Messiah—choose you this day whether or not you will believe the truth and then embrace it with all your heart, mind and soul until absent from the body means present with the Lord!
.
Are You Angry with God?
In 1 Chronicles 13:10-11
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God. 11 And David was angry because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzza to this day.
Application
In this selection of the Word of God, we see David angry with God. Sometimes God does things (or we perceive that God does things) that make us angry with Him. The other day I was speaking with a lady who had not been involved in the body of Christ for years because she was angry with God over taking the life of her husband. This lady like David was angry with God.
Has God done something that angered you lately? These feelings of anger are not necessarily sin, but they often quickly lead to sin if they are not confessed and forsaken.
If anger against God is interfering with your fellowship with Christ or the church He died for then Satan has accomplished his intent. He has done in your life what he did with Adam and Eve. He has you questioning God’s right to Sovereignly rule as He sees fit and has put a wedge between your fellowship with God.
Don’t let Satan do that. Confess your sin of being angry with God to the point of interfering with fellowship and forsake your anger. Each of us must trust that God always acts in the best interest of the world as He pursues and preserves His glory. If this is hard for you to understand or you are angry with God; instead, of running away from God in anger run to Him in your anger and tell Him you are angry and ask His grace to help you understand His wise, benevolent, just decisions and ask Him to help you get over your anger.
If you are still struggling see a good Christian friend, with a Biblical worldview, or your pastor and ask them to help you seek God’s grace together to gain the victory.
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God. 11 And David was angry because the LORD had broken out against Uzzah. And that place is called Perez-uzza to this day.
Application
In this selection of the Word of God, we see David angry with God. Sometimes God does things (or we perceive that God does things) that make us angry with Him. The other day I was speaking with a lady who had not been involved in the body of Christ for years because she was angry with God over taking the life of her husband. This lady like David was angry with God.
Has God done something that angered you lately? These feelings of anger are not necessarily sin, but they often quickly lead to sin if they are not confessed and forsaken.
If anger against God is interfering with your fellowship with Christ or the church He died for then Satan has accomplished his intent. He has done in your life what he did with Adam and Eve. He has you questioning God’s right to Sovereignly rule as He sees fit and has put a wedge between your fellowship with God.
Don’t let Satan do that. Confess your sin of being angry with God to the point of interfering with fellowship and forsake your anger. Each of us must trust that God always acts in the best interest of the world as He pursues and preserves His glory. If this is hard for you to understand or you are angry with God; instead, of running away from God in anger run to Him in your anger and tell Him you are angry and ask His grace to help you understand His wise, benevolent, just decisions and ask Him to help you get over your anger.
If you are still struggling see a good Christian friend, with a Biblical worldview, or your pastor and ask them to help you seek God’s grace together to gain the victory.
Even the Greatest Man had an Occasional Doubt
Luke 7: 18-19
18 The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John [from prison], 19 calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord [Jesus], saying, “Are you the one [the Messiah] who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Devotional Thought
Here is an amazing thing. John the Baptist is struggling with questions about the person of Jesus. Is He really the Messiah? From prison, in low point, and because he go himself, John sends His disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you really the Messiah?”
Now remember this is the man who out of prison was inspired to declare, “Behold [look] Jesus is Lamb of God who takes away sin!” (John 1:29).
At that time, John the Baptist according to Jesus was the greatest man to live and yet he too is occasionally plagued with doubt and questions (Matt 11:11)
Reject your doubt as a plaque from the Wicked One who seeks to destroy your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. The wicked say there is “no God” but the just live by faith (Ps 10:4; Gal 3:11).
There is no need to look for another but there is still a need to look for His return—are you looking? Are you anxiously awaiting His glorious return for His church—I hope so. The challenge is to keep our eyes off of the world and keep them on the prize that awaits those who long for and love His Second Coming!
18 The disciples of John reported all these things to him. And John [from prison], 19 calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord [Jesus], saying, “Are you the one [the Messiah] who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
Devotional Thought
Here is an amazing thing. John the Baptist is struggling with questions about the person of Jesus. Is He really the Messiah? From prison, in low point, and because he go himself, John sends His disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you really the Messiah?”
Now remember this is the man who out of prison was inspired to declare, “Behold [look] Jesus is Lamb of God who takes away sin!” (John 1:29).
At that time, John the Baptist according to Jesus was the greatest man to live and yet he too is occasionally plagued with doubt and questions (Matt 11:11)
Reject your doubt as a plaque from the Wicked One who seeks to destroy your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. The wicked say there is “no God” but the just live by faith (Ps 10:4; Gal 3:11).
There is no need to look for another but there is still a need to look for His return—are you looking? Are you anxiously awaiting His glorious return for His church—I hope so. The challenge is to keep our eyes off of the world and keep them on the prize that awaits those who long for and love His Second Coming!
Learning from Noah & Sons
Genesis 9:20-23
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
Commentary
Notice the respect for preserving modesty in the text. Set aside the fact that Noah should not have been so drunk that he didn’t know whether he was clothed or NOT! Notice the actions of the brothers in the respect for keeping the body properly clothed and not looking upon nakedness.
Where is that in the 21st Century? Christians dressing in just as revealing ways as non-Christians—how can that be?
Cover it up! The sons covered the nakedness of their father. It was the father’s responsibility to remain properly attired, but he didn’t and the boys took over.
One brother taking care of another family member or one sister encouraging another sister to speak to nakedness can all be described as acts of love done with the intent of covering up nakedness in the body of Christ.
Anytime a Christian is out and about in a coed environment they should be concerned with the degree of nakedness they are revealing. Christians should be more modest than the world around them.
Never let yourself get to the point where someone else feels it their duty to cover up your nakedness.
Thighs, breasts, midpoint of the stomach all need to remain covered with cloth. After Adam and Eve sinned God established the standard by clothing our first parents Himself and from that moment forward set the standard that men, women, boys and girls are not to run around partially naked—even if everyone else is doing it!
Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. 21 He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness.
Commentary
Notice the respect for preserving modesty in the text. Set aside the fact that Noah should not have been so drunk that he didn’t know whether he was clothed or NOT! Notice the actions of the brothers in the respect for keeping the body properly clothed and not looking upon nakedness.
Where is that in the 21st Century? Christians dressing in just as revealing ways as non-Christians—how can that be?
Cover it up! The sons covered the nakedness of their father. It was the father’s responsibility to remain properly attired, but he didn’t and the boys took over.
One brother taking care of another family member or one sister encouraging another sister to speak to nakedness can all be described as acts of love done with the intent of covering up nakedness in the body of Christ.
Anytime a Christian is out and about in a coed environment they should be concerned with the degree of nakedness they are revealing. Christians should be more modest than the world around them.
Never let yourself get to the point where someone else feels it their duty to cover up your nakedness.
Thighs, breasts, midpoint of the stomach all need to remain covered with cloth. After Adam and Eve sinned God established the standard by clothing our first parents Himself and from that moment forward set the standard that men, women, boys and girls are not to run around partially naked—even if everyone else is doing it!
BEWARE: God's Mercy in a Unique Way
Just the other day I learned a great lesson and saw the hand of God working in a unique and merciful way. Let me tell you about it. My son and I were driving to Mt. Holly for a day of skiing and a local pastor friend of mine came up on the Gmail instant messaging on my smart phone. We exchanged pleasantries and then he told me he was vacationing in London and had the unfortunate event of being robbed. He described in detail the event and we went back and forth in discussion. He said that they took all his cash and he was in need of $400. He is a fellow pastor and I know him well enough to trust him. He asked if I would Western Union the cash to help him out of a bind and promised to repay when he and his wife were stateside again. I made a phone call and asked someone at church to help this fellow pastor out. The staff person began working on setting up a Western Union account and getting the help to this pastor he needed. I let my friend know we were working on it and making it happen. While the staff member was working on the computer our Internet connection went down and all the work was lost. My friend was asking me what was taking so long and I explained we were working on it. After the Internet came back up the staff member went back to work and then sent me all the data so I could relay it to my friend on the Gmail instant messaging feature.
The Gmail instant messaging was going in and out so we were having trouble communicating. The necessary data to make a Western Union cash pickup was not getting through so I decided to send it to both of the email addresses I have for my friend.
To be frank I was trying to ski and my fingers were freezing every time I had to chat with him on my blackberry. Don’t misunderstand I wanted to help my buddy out in London but I also had already paid for my ski ticket and was ready to enjoy the snow and the skiing.
My friend got the email I sent on his smart phone and realized that someone was fraudulently using his Gmail account and we were about to get ripped off. He immediately called the church and told the staff to stop the transaction; it was all a fraud. He was not in London; he was in Virginia driving back from Christmas vacation. My staff called Western Union to stop the transaction and we were able to do so.
Now is where I get to tell you about the sovereign mercy of God. If the Internet had not went down the first time during the initial setting up of the account it is doubtful we would not have been able to realize we were being scammed and stop the transaction.
And if I had not sent the email out to get back to skiing my friend might not have called the church and we would not have caught the scam soon enough. Isn’t God good!
And I certainly learned an awesome lesson! Yes, I know you are saying I can’t believe you fell for that. But I must tell you; it never crossed my mind even for a moment that the person I was chatting with wasn’t my friend. The idea that someone could hack into his Gmail account and begin instant messaging was beyond my comprehension. Yes, I know that email accounts get compromised, but that’s for famous people like Sarah Palin. Until this event it just never crossed my mind that the average guys email account could be hacked into and data compromised. I have changed the complexity of my password and do not have it written down anywhere.
I know after reading this that you, like me, will verify and verify if anyone ever comes up on email or chat asking for anything. And I again am so thankful for God’s mercy in this situation.
The Gmail instant messaging was going in and out so we were having trouble communicating. The necessary data to make a Western Union cash pickup was not getting through so I decided to send it to both of the email addresses I have for my friend.
To be frank I was trying to ski and my fingers were freezing every time I had to chat with him on my blackberry. Don’t misunderstand I wanted to help my buddy out in London but I also had already paid for my ski ticket and was ready to enjoy the snow and the skiing.
My friend got the email I sent on his smart phone and realized that someone was fraudulently using his Gmail account and we were about to get ripped off. He immediately called the church and told the staff to stop the transaction; it was all a fraud. He was not in London; he was in Virginia driving back from Christmas vacation. My staff called Western Union to stop the transaction and we were able to do so.
Now is where I get to tell you about the sovereign mercy of God. If the Internet had not went down the first time during the initial setting up of the account it is doubtful we would not have been able to realize we were being scammed and stop the transaction.
And if I had not sent the email out to get back to skiing my friend might not have called the church and we would not have caught the scam soon enough. Isn’t God good!
And I certainly learned an awesome lesson! Yes, I know you are saying I can’t believe you fell for that. But I must tell you; it never crossed my mind even for a moment that the person I was chatting with wasn’t my friend. The idea that someone could hack into his Gmail account and begin instant messaging was beyond my comprehension. Yes, I know that email accounts get compromised, but that’s for famous people like Sarah Palin. Until this event it just never crossed my mind that the average guys email account could be hacked into and data compromised. I have changed the complexity of my password and do not have it written down anywhere.
I know after reading this that you, like me, will verify and verify if anyone ever comes up on email or chat asking for anything. And I again am so thankful for God’s mercy in this situation.
How Can the Bible Affirm Both Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom?
God is most glorified when men wrestle with deep things like this. Enjoy.
by William Lane Craig
The biblical worldview involves a strong conception of divine sovereignty over the world and human affairs even as it presupposes human freedom and responsibility (cp. the accounts of Saul’s death in 1 Sm 31:1–6 and 1 Ch 10:8–12). An adequate doctrine of divine providence requires reconciling these two streams of biblical teaching without compromising either. Yet this has proven extraordinarily difficult. On the one hand, the Augustinian-Calvinist perspective interprets divine providence in terms of predetermination, God choosing in advance what will happen. It is hard to see how this interpretation can preserve human freedom or avoid making God the author of sin, since (for example) it would then be He who moved Judas to betray Christ. On the other hand, advocates of revisionist views (e.g., open theism) freely admit that as a consequence of their denial of God’s knowledge of future contingent events a strong doctrine of providence becomes impossible. Ironically, in order to account for biblical prophecies of future events, revisionists are often reduced to appealing to the same deterministic explanations that Augustinian-Calvinists offer.
Molinism offers an attractive solution. Luis Molina (1535–1600) defined providence as God’s ordering of things to their ends, either directly or indirectly through secondary causes. In explaining how God can order things through secondary causes that are themselves free agents, Molina appealed to his doctrine of divine middle knowledge.
Molina analyzed God’s knowledge in terms of three logical stages. Although whatever God knows, He knows eternally, so that there is no temporal succession in God’s knowledge, nonetheless there does exist a sort of logical order in God’s knowledge in the sense that His knowledge of certain truths is conditionally or explanatorily prior to His knowledge of certain other truths.
In the first stage God knows all possibilities, not only all the creatures He could possibly create, but also all the orders of creatures that are possible. By means of this so-called natural knowledge, God has knowledge of every contingent state of affairs that could possibly be actual and of what any free creature could freely choose to do in any such state of affairs.
In the second stage, God possesses knowledge of all true counterfactual propositions (statements of the form “If x were the case, then y would be the case”), including counterfactuals about what creatures would freely do in various circumstances. Whereas by His natural knowledge God knew what any free creature could do in any set of circumstances, now in this second stage God knows what any free creature would freely do in any set of circumstances. This so-called middle knowledge is like natural knowledge in that such knowledge does not depend on any decision of the divine will; God does not determine which counterfactuals are true or false. By knowing how free creatures would freely act in any set of circumstances He might place them in, God thereby knows that if He were to actualize certain states of affairs, then certain other contingent states of affairs would be actual as a result. For example, He knew that if Pontius Pilate were the Roman procurator of Judea in A.D. 30, he would freely condemn Jesus to the cross.
Intervening between the second and third stages of divine knowledge stands God’s free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His middle knowledge. By His natural knowledge, God knows the entire range of logically possible worlds; by His middle knowledge He knows, in effect, the proper subset of those worlds that it is feasible for Him to actualize. By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His middle knowledge. In so doing He also decrees how He would freely act in any set of circumstances.
Given God’s free decision to actualize a world, in the third and final stage God possesses so-called free knowledge of all remaining propositions that are in fact true in the actual world, including future-tense propositions about how creatures will freely behave.
Molina’s scheme effects a dramatic reconciliation of divine sovereignty and human freedom. In Molina’s view God directly causes certain circumstances to come into being and brings about others indirectly through either causally determined secondary causes or free secondary causes. He allows free creatures to act as He knew they freely would when placed in specific circumstances, and He concurs with their decisions in actualizing the effects they desire. Some of these effects God desired unconditionally and so wills positively that they occur. Others He does not unconditionally desire but He nevertheless permits due to His overriding desire to allow creaturely freedom, knowing that even these sinful acts will fit into the overall scheme of things, so that God’s ultimate ends in human history will be accomplished. God thus providentially arranges for everything that happens by either willing or permitting it, and He causes everything that does happen, yet in such a way as to preserve freedom and contingency.
Ted Cabal, Chad Owen Brand, E. Ray Clendenen et al., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 1850–1851.
by William Lane Craig
The biblical worldview involves a strong conception of divine sovereignty over the world and human affairs even as it presupposes human freedom and responsibility (cp. the accounts of Saul’s death in 1 Sm 31:1–6 and 1 Ch 10:8–12). An adequate doctrine of divine providence requires reconciling these two streams of biblical teaching without compromising either. Yet this has proven extraordinarily difficult. On the one hand, the Augustinian-Calvinist perspective interprets divine providence in terms of predetermination, God choosing in advance what will happen. It is hard to see how this interpretation can preserve human freedom or avoid making God the author of sin, since (for example) it would then be He who moved Judas to betray Christ. On the other hand, advocates of revisionist views (e.g., open theism) freely admit that as a consequence of their denial of God’s knowledge of future contingent events a strong doctrine of providence becomes impossible. Ironically, in order to account for biblical prophecies of future events, revisionists are often reduced to appealing to the same deterministic explanations that Augustinian-Calvinists offer.
Molinism offers an attractive solution. Luis Molina (1535–1600) defined providence as God’s ordering of things to their ends, either directly or indirectly through secondary causes. In explaining how God can order things through secondary causes that are themselves free agents, Molina appealed to his doctrine of divine middle knowledge.
Molina analyzed God’s knowledge in terms of three logical stages. Although whatever God knows, He knows eternally, so that there is no temporal succession in God’s knowledge, nonetheless there does exist a sort of logical order in God’s knowledge in the sense that His knowledge of certain truths is conditionally or explanatorily prior to His knowledge of certain other truths.
In the first stage God knows all possibilities, not only all the creatures He could possibly create, but also all the orders of creatures that are possible. By means of this so-called natural knowledge, God has knowledge of every contingent state of affairs that could possibly be actual and of what any free creature could freely choose to do in any such state of affairs.
In the second stage, God possesses knowledge of all true counterfactual propositions (statements of the form “If x were the case, then y would be the case”), including counterfactuals about what creatures would freely do in various circumstances. Whereas by His natural knowledge God knew what any free creature could do in any set of circumstances, now in this second stage God knows what any free creature would freely do in any set of circumstances. This so-called middle knowledge is like natural knowledge in that such knowledge does not depend on any decision of the divine will; God does not determine which counterfactuals are true or false. By knowing how free creatures would freely act in any set of circumstances He might place them in, God thereby knows that if He were to actualize certain states of affairs, then certain other contingent states of affairs would be actual as a result. For example, He knew that if Pontius Pilate were the Roman procurator of Judea in A.D. 30, he would freely condemn Jesus to the cross.
Intervening between the second and third stages of divine knowledge stands God’s free decree to actualize a world known by Him to be realizable on the basis of His middle knowledge. By His natural knowledge, God knows the entire range of logically possible worlds; by His middle knowledge He knows, in effect, the proper subset of those worlds that it is feasible for Him to actualize. By a free decision, God decrees to actualize one of those worlds known to Him through His middle knowledge. In so doing He also decrees how He would freely act in any set of circumstances.
Given God’s free decision to actualize a world, in the third and final stage God possesses so-called free knowledge of all remaining propositions that are in fact true in the actual world, including future-tense propositions about how creatures will freely behave.
Molina’s scheme effects a dramatic reconciliation of divine sovereignty and human freedom. In Molina’s view God directly causes certain circumstances to come into being and brings about others indirectly through either causally determined secondary causes or free secondary causes. He allows free creatures to act as He knew they freely would when placed in specific circumstances, and He concurs with their decisions in actualizing the effects they desire. Some of these effects God desired unconditionally and so wills positively that they occur. Others He does not unconditionally desire but He nevertheless permits due to His overriding desire to allow creaturely freedom, knowing that even these sinful acts will fit into the overall scheme of things, so that God’s ultimate ends in human history will be accomplished. God thus providentially arranges for everything that happens by either willing or permitting it, and He causes everything that does happen, yet in such a way as to preserve freedom and contingency.
Ted Cabal, Chad Owen Brand, E. Ray Clendenen et al., The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 1850–1851.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)