middle knowledge and compatibilism

[God] not only knows everything - he even knows what might have been under different circumstances (more or less what philosophers call 'middle knowledge'), and takes that into account when he judges (Matthew 11:20-24). There are plenty of examples where God knows what we now label free contingent future decisions (eg. 1 Samuel 23:11-13)...

The central line of Christian tradition neither sacrifices the utter sovereignty of God nor reduces the responsibility of his image-bearers. In the realm of philosophical theology, this position is sometimes called compatibilism. It simply means that God's unconditioned sovereignty and the responsibility of human beings are mutually compatible. It does not claim to show you how they are compatible. It claims only that we can get far enough in the evidence and the arguments to show how they are not necessarily incompatible, and that it is therefore entirely reasonable to think they are compatible if there is good evidence for them.

The biblical evidence is compelling. When Joseph tells his fearful brothers that when they sold him into slavery, God intended it for good while they intended it for evil (Genesis 50:19-20), he is assuming compatibilism. He does not picture the event as wicked human machination into which God intervened to bring forth good. Nor does he imagine that God's intention had been to send him down there with a fine escort and a modern chariot but that unfortunately the brothers had mucked up the plan, and so poor old Joseph had to go down there as a slave - sorry about that. Rather, in one and the same event, God was operating, and his intentions were good, and the brothers were operating, and their intentions were evil...

Perhaps the most striking instance of compatibilism occurs in Acts 4:23-29. The church has suffered its first whiff of persecution. Peter and John report what has happened. The church prays to God in the language of Psalm 2. Their prayer continues (4:27-28): 'Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.' Note carefully: on the one hand, there was a terrible conspiracy that swept along Herod, Pilate, Gentile authorities, and Jewish leaders. It was a conspiracy, and they should be held accountable. On the other hand, they did what God's power and will had decided beforehand should happen.

A moment's reflection discloses that any other account of what happened would destroy biblical Christianity. If we picture the crucifixion of Jesus Christ solely in terms of the conspiracy of the local political authorities at the time, and not in terms of God's plan (save perhaps that he came in at the last moment and decided to use the death in a way he himself had not foreseen), then the entailment is that the cross was an accident of history. Perhaps it was an accident cleverly manipulated by God in his own interests, but it was not part of the divine plan. In that case, the entire pattern of antecedent predictive revelation is destroyed: Yom Kippur, the Passover lamb, the sacrificial system, and so forth. Rip Hebrews out of your Bible, for a start.

On the other hand, if someone were to stress God's sovereignty in Jesus' death, exulting that all the participants 'did what [God's] power and will had decided beforehand should happen' (4:28), while forgetting that it was a wicked conspiracy, then Herod and Pilate and Judas Iscariot and the rest are exonerated of evil. If God's sovereignty means that all under it are immune from charges of transgression, then all are immune. In that case there is no sin for which atonement is necessary. So why the cross? Either way, the cross is destroyed.

In short, compatibilism is a necessary component to any mature and orthodox view of God and the world. Inevitably it raises important and difficult questions regarding secondary causality, how human accountability should be grounded, and much more. I cannot probe those matters here.

- D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

link: more on middle knowledge and compatibilism (29 may 09)