Why We Believe

Four Views on Providence

Calvinism

(a) Faith itself is a gift of God. That some receive the gift of faith is determined from God’s eternal decree. God has made us accepted; (b) Christ’s death is abundantly sufficient for the world, but is effective only for the elect (limited atonement); (c) Man, after the Fall begat children out of his own likeness. There is some knowledge of God but the light is polluted—insufficient for salvation; (d) God by his will and unmerited love made man capable of salvation without our aid; (e) Man cannot remain converted on his own strength. God confers, confirms and preserves grace. Scriptures that appear to support this position: Genesis 5:1, Romans 3:10-18, 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:1, 4-6, 2:8-10; Philippians 2:9; 1 John 3:20

Arminianism

(a) Election and condemnation conditioned by foreknowledge and made dependent on foreseen faith or unbelief. A man’s decision to believe brings salvation; (b) Christ died for all men. His grace extends to all. This is a rejection of limited atonement; (c) Man in the fallen state is unable to accomplish anything really good apart from the grace of God; (d) Man must co-operate with and assist grace for that grace to work in one’s life. Man can resist the Holy Spirit and, by extension, God’s grace; (e) Believers can fall from grace. No one can have a certainty of salvation except by special revelation. No man can be plucked out of Christ’s hands. However, they can remove themselves. Scriptures supporting this position: John 3:16, 12:32, 15:5; Acts 7; 1 John 2:2

Molinism

Formulated by 16th century Roman Catholic, Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, Molinism is a philosophical attempt to reconcile real libertarian free will and God’s sovereignty and does so by positing a “middle knowledge” in which God knows what any free creature would do in any given circumstance. This is also known as knowledge of counterfactuals. Essentially, through God’s knowledge (foreknowledge) of counterfactuals (all possible future outcomes), God creates a world (predestination) in which the greatest possible number of people would freely choose to come to Christ and be saved from their sins.

This middle knowledge is differentiated from “natural knowledge” which posits that God knows all necessary and possible truths and any possible combination of causes and effects (logical and moral truth), and “free knowledge” or the knowledge of what God freely decided to create (knowledge of the world as it actually is). Scriptures supporting this position: Exodus 13:17; 1 Samuel 23:8-14; Jeremiah 23:21-22; Matthew 11:21-24; 1 Corinthians 2:8

Open Theism

Men have real “libertarian” freedom to such an extent that God may be surprised or even mistaken about what men might do. He cannot know the future choices of men because the future does not yet exist. All other areas of knowledge remain completely under God’s sovereignty. Scriptures supporting this position: Genesis 22:12; Exodus 32:14; Isaiah 5:3-7

Open theists posit their view that God can be surprised by events as they happen on the notion that events that haven’t happened yet don’t exist; therefore, they cannot be known. But this rests on the assumption that God is limited by physics and time. God doesn’t live in time, but in eternity. He makes occasional forays into time (e.g., theophanies, Jesus), but His existence transcends time. There was never a time when He didn’t exist and there will never be a time when He doesn’t exist. He is the “I AM” (Exodus 3:24, John 8:58) the ever present one. His knowledge goes before and continues after time and that is why He MUST be involved in the events of our lives good and bad.

In the view of this author, Molinism, as a philosophical position, best explains how God’s sovereignty works with genuine, libertarian free will as opposed to Calvinism, which promotes determinism and negates free will. Though often seen as originating in Arminianism, Molinism stands opposed to Arminianism which unsatisfactorily elevates Man’s free will over God’s sovereignty. It also, avoids the pitfalls of open theism which claims God is not sovereign in terms of His knowledge of the future. Molinism also works best to explain the sovereignty of God and Man’s free will in the context of the scriptural understanding of foreknowledge and predestination.