I thought it was Canadian...................
I’m sorry. This stuff tends to read like Marxism — The praxis of the proletariat underclass is subsumed, and even reified by the divergence and sublimation of the political class from which, and through which a Marxian interpretation would insist, the political class is therefore justified.
Errrrr, what?
I’m a Calvinist...
I know what that is...
I don’t know what molinism is or is supposed to be..
Its a new term to me...
Try supralapsarianism for another mental pickle over the bible.
The Molinism described here looks, at first blush, to be what others call “Calminian.” A Free Methodist pastor I know says “it’s safer.” Trying to out-think God in any direction quickly lands one into some deep logical pickles and diverse temptations that stand squarely against New Testament commands.
And St. Paul warns: knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. Factoring pride out of the mix should lead to the humbling conclusion that we CAN’T trace everything God does, or has done, or will do. Even the answer, if it even exists, to the logical order of Divine acts and Divine perceptions may exist in a domain that we don’t understand and never will because nobody has been His counselor.
“What is, is. What ain’t, ain’t.” That’s what Dr. Arthur Holmes once told me.
And God KNEW it all beforehand.
With respect to everything He created EXCEPT man, He ORDAINED it to be that way: physical processes, biological processes, weather patterns, etc.
With respect to man alone, God granted awareness and free will. Some would say that diminishes God’s sovereignty (as though He needed them to safeguard His sovereignty). Not so. God’s sovereignty is infinite; hence, for Him to donate a little bit of sovereignty to man (i.e., the privilege of choosing) CANNOT DIMINISH His sovereignty one iota, especially considering that He is the One who decided to grant this privilege to man. God thus has the sovereignty issue well contained.
This issue comes to the fore in the matter of eternal salvation. God established new birth regeneration as the one and only mode of salvation. He chose to make it a matter of man’s choosing it (or not), i.e., exercising the prerogative God granted to him (whether yea or nay).
God foreordained (predestinated) that there would be a body of people who would take Him up on His offer of eternal life, by choosing it.
God foreknew the individuals who would be saved, because, from His vantage point that is outside of time, it already happened.
The only need for molinism seems to be if God were somehow subject to time, as though He had to wait in line like the rest of us (for time to unfold). But that’s not true. So, I would submit, molinism is unnecessary.
The big mystery to me is how God is still able to intervene “in time”, such as by answering prayer, or the Incarnation itself! If I understood that, I’d be God; but I don’t and I’m not. But the “middle knowledge” of molinism is surely not the answer to the mystery.
From the Catholic Dictionary:
MOLINISM
Definition
The theory on grace and free will developed by the Spanish Jesuit theologian Louis Molina (1535-1600). It teaches that there is no built-in difference, but only an external accidental difference between sufficient and efficacious grace. God gives every person sufficient grace for all supernatural actions he or she is to perform. If one freely accepts the grace offered and cooperates with it, a salutary action is produced; this co-operation automatically makes a sufficient grace an efficacious one. If the free will refuses its co-operation, the grace remains sufficient only. God from all eternity foresees the free consent of the human will by his infallible foreknowledge of what a person would do with whatever grace he or she received. Why God chooses to give the person the precise grace he does, foreseeing whether that person will accept or reject it, is left as a mystery in God.
Eternity is far more than "very long, really, really long, Time".
To quote Michael Card in Joy in the Journey, "To those who've been born of the Spirit, who share Incarnation with Him, who belong to Eternity, stranded in Time...". Time is contained within Eternity. God is outside of Time, above it, looking down on Time as History plays out. He has seen/is seeing ALL of time at once. Thus, He is not 'foreseeing', predicting or prophesying what will happen or what any one individual will do.
He knows it ALL!
Romans 8:28-30 J.B. Phillips New Testament
Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. God, in his foreknowledge, chose them to bear the family likeness of his Son, that he might be the eldest of a family of many brothers. He chose them long ago; when the time came he called them, he made them righteous in his sight, and then lifted them to the splendour of life as his own sons.