Does Molinism Lead to Determinism with Matt Slick, Eli Ayala & Tyler Vela

With every Christian, there is a theology. For every theology, there is a defense of truth.

Is there or is there not a single shred of factual historical information to substantiate what you're asserting that this is an addition to the text?

Personally, I don't know of manuscripts, but I read scholars who are specialists in that field, and they have looked at those manuscripts or seen the lack of them there.

Could you give me your name? Well, no, I can't give you that now. So are all the popes actually believers?

Are all the popes? I don't know. Some could, some couldn't be. I don't know. So it's possible for the vicar of Christ to be an unbeliever?

Possible. Yeah. That's an interesting view. This creature from the dirt defied the everlasting holy

God. After that, God had said, the day that you shall eat of it, you shall surely die.

And instead of dying thanatos, that day, he lived another day and was clothed in his nakedness by pure grace and had the consequences of a curse applied for quite some time.

But the worst curse would come upon the one who seduced him, whose head would be crushed by the seed of the woman.

And the punishment was too severe. What's wrong with you people? I'm serious.

I mean, this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is. He doesn't have faith.

He has confidence. Confidence. Confide.

From the Latin with faith. This is

Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

All right, welcome to another Apologetics Live. We're glad to have you with us.

We're going to have probably an entertaining discussion tonight. Topic, at least, that we're going to start off with until those of you who want to join in join, is going to be on Molinism.

Does Molinism lead to determinism? So if you have any friends that believe in Molinism, it would be good to send them out this link right now and tell them to join to defend their views, if they can.

But we're going to be joined, at least for now, we're going to be joined by Eli Alayla, Alayla, Alaya, Alaya, Alayla, oh yeah,

I don't know. He's going to correct it. He'll have some, you know, way of pronouncing it. It just sounds like someone's like, because I can see him in the back room and he's like laughing as I'm butchering his name.

It sounds more like, you know, Eli's last name sounds more like the guys who are chanting. You know,

I think that's what his last name actually is. It was, you know, they were like, what's your last name? So that's,

I think that's how he got his last name, but we'll find out. I can see

I'm going to get some grief in a few minutes. But I am your host, Andrew Rappaport from Striving for Eternity Ministries, and we're glad to have you.

We are at Apologetics Live. We do this every Thursday night, 8 to 10, Eastern Time. I see that in the house, we got

Prescribed Truth, the one and only, the doctor. Okay, he's prescribing truth, so he must be a doctor.

That is Jamal Bandy. So maybe he'll come in and weigh in on some of these things. If you want to join the hangout and get into discussion, the best way to do that is go to apologeticslive .com.

It's the one place to go. You get all the information, you'll get the topics, you'll get who's the guest speakers, guest apologists, you will get the times, and you will get the links to both watch and participate.

So grab the link to watch, share it where you can. And this week, Matt will not be in,

I do not believe, for folks who are been keeping up with things. And I don't know that he hasn't told me

I can't say this publicly, but I guess I will. His wife is not doing well.

She is going, looks like she's going in for surgery, unexpected, unplanned surgery tomorrow.

He was in Nashville, had to return early to come home and take care of her. So a friend of theirs had to take her to the hospital.

And so be praying for the Slicks, both Matt and Mrs. Slick, and you guys could be doing that.

That would be appreciated. So he won't be here. I don't know where Mr. Villa is.

Tyler Villa should be coming in. He'll do his drive -by. So he usually is driving home and comes in at this time.

So I'm actually going to ask him whether he's, you know, coming in, because I don't see him in here, but I'm going to bring

Mr. Eli in. Hey, man.

Matt said that my last name sounds like a Muslim war cry. That's what he said.

No, it sounds like the cry when they're getting ready to, you know, go for prayer. You know, it's -

That's right. I did grow up in a Pentecostal church, so maybe that's how my name was. You were speaking in tongues. That's right.

That's it. I understand now. You're bad, man.

Oh, so Eli, you are, see, we need to get you to get a little lower third there so you can promote your, you know, your apologetics show that you do and your podcast.

So why don't you talk about that real quick? Oh, yeah. I have a podcast called Revealed Apologetics and a

YouTube channel. Reveal it. What's it called? Revealed Apologetics. That's what it's called. I know. That's what

I'm asking you to do. Reveal it. Ah, yes. Well, I can tell you a little bit about why I -

You have really awkward jokes. I don't know why you're joking.

I don't know why you're joking sometimes. I don't know what to do with that. I could explain why it's called

Revealed Apologetics, if that would help. Sure. Why not? Okay. Well -

What are you revealing? I'm revealing the fact that - What is it all about? You're not letting me answer or what, man?

Whenever you're ready, Andrew, we're trying not loud. Okay. It's called Revealed Apologetics because I believe, and I'm sure you agree with this, that apologetics is something that is revealed in scripture.

It is part of the divine revelation that we are to engage in a rational defense of the faith.

As a Reformed Christian and a presuppositionalist in my apologetic methodology, I believe that the presuppositional method of apologetics is the method that is reflected in the scriptures.

I called it Revealed Apologetics because not only are we engaging in a discipline that the Bible has given to us, but it also reveals to us the manner and method by which we are to do it.

I called it Revealed Apologetics for that purpose. If folks are interested, you can check me out on iTunes and YouTube.

I have a bunch of guests that are not necessarily presuppositional. I do try to cover general topics as well, but we have some interesting interviews there.

I had Dr. James White. I had some classical apologists on, like Eric Hernandez, Braxton Hunter over at Trinity Radio.

The presuppositional conversations and discussions that I do have on the podcast are excellent.

People can check that out over at Revealed Apologetics. Okay. You mentioned

Eric Hernandez. Some of what we're going to discuss tonight comes from a conversation you and I had with Eric some time ago on this show.

If folks go back to older Apologetics live shows, you're going to see the full conversation that Eli and I had with Eric on this topic of Molines.

Now, I should mention, because Ethan is asking, what happened to all my books? They got raptured.

They got raptured. Yes. You actually have now more books going in your office than I have in mine.

Yes. I'm planning on moving. With that, we are packing everything up.

Unfortunately, the drawback to that is I didn't realize how much 8 ,000 books absorb the echo until I remove them.

There's nothing, but see, you guys only see these empty shelves here. There's empty shelves all around this room, except for right there.

My cold section hasn't been packed yet. I didn't realize how much echo comes through.

Hey, give a shout out on YouTube. I see that we have none other than the award winning podcaster

Chris Honholds from Voice of Reason Radio. They were the recent winners of the 2019

Best Christian Podcast episode. You didn't even get nominated.

You've got to up your game on your show, man. They won.

If folks want, they could go to christianpodcastcommunity .org. There we have the winners.

We go through. There's a podcast that announces all the winners, and they're all listed there. Chris and his co -host

Richard Story are the recipients of a $75 gift card that's coming their way by courtesy of Christian Podcast Community.

Chris is saying, I expect the delivery of my library any day now. Yeah, that wasn't what you want,

Chris. You didn't win all my books. I can't afford to ship 8 ,000 books. Actually, Eli, if you came over to my house right now, you go in the garage, and there is, what is it, 70 to 80,

I think 80 boxes right now, 85 boxes of books in my garage, just all packed up, waiting for us to sell the house and movers to come and just load them all in.

I made it easy. I put them all in the garage so that they could just... We had a guy moving companies come in to give estimates.

The one guy comes in and he goes, I had to move a rabbi.

He had something like 20 ,000 books. The moving guy said he had two guys all day doing nothing but moving boxes of books.

Everyone else moved furniture. They had two guys doing nothing but books all day.

That's basically what he said. You do not want to help a theologian move. We were recording one of these when

Matt Slicks had someone over helping to pack up his. During the course of one show, we actually watched someone box up most of his books.

I'll give a mention. There's some folks who are on Facebook.

If you go to Apologetics Live on Facebook, we will be able... There's a link there to basically give them permission so we can get your name so that we can put up your comments and not see that Facebook user.

We'd rather see something like this where we get, oh, look, it's Chris Honholds.

We get to see his picture. We get to see his name. That's the way to do it.

Chris Honholds recently, I don't know if you know, he dresses up as Captain America.

He actually got a paid gig to be Captain America. Just goes to show you that some children never grow up, but there's ways that some people can get paid for it.

There's nothing wrong with not growing up. Oh, okay. Wait. I'm going to have to go back and check something because Chris just said, yes,

Bonservant. Her name's Melissa, but her YouTube page is

Bonservant. Yes, Bonservant, don't remind Andrew. He'll bring it up again. What am I bringing up? Let's go back.

Oh, look. Bonservant for Jesus says, Chris, aren't you the Captain America cosplayer?

Yes, he is. He likes to play Captain America. All right. Let's bring in our...

See, now this is more like theology driven, see, because we got our driver and he's going to talk theology.

How are you doing, Tyler? We are constantly putting his life in danger. Still sunny out there in California.

Tell me the weather I'm going to have next week when I come out to you. Right now it's a little overcast, but it's like 75 degrees.

I can't wait. I'm so jealous right now. Look at that. You bring Tyler in and you cause me to sit and I'm coveting his weather right now.

Well, hey, at least I'm just glad that Tyler doesn't have more books over his shoulder than me. At least I have a couple right there.

Tyler doesn't have them in his car. I actually do.

I have a whole box full of it in the trunk. I knew it. Here's the thing, folks.

If you're watching live, you're going to see that Tyler is going to move about four or five feet and then he's going to stop.

He'll sit there for 20 minutes and he'll move another four or five feet. That's called LA traffic. Only rivaled by New York traffic.

No. That's about to start happening. I'm on a front end road.

I'm going to get on the freeway here in about a minute and a half. That's going to be true.

That's where we get to hear the freewayed thinker. Why don't we real quick give a plug for your podcast and the ministry you're with?

Yeah. I do the free thinker podcast. You can find it at freethinkerpodcast .blogspot

.com. I do full length episodes, scripted episodes. That's where I go through some various topics and some papers that I've written and some things that are fully scripted.

I have free to bite episodes, which are basically fully scripted, but short, 10 to 15 minute episodes.

Then I have my freeway thinker episodes, which are basically me just winging it off the cuff, reflecting on something that I had read or someone

I've been talking to or something while I'm driving. I've redeemed my drive time.

It's hands free, so I'm being safe, but I can record while I drive. All right.

Tonight's topic that we selected is on Molinism.

Now, I have to admit, I've always struggled with Molinism and Modalism.

I always get stuck with those two words. It was really funny because I was at Living Waters.

They were asking me a question. The question was on one of what is

Modalism, and I ended up going into Molinism. I have such a hard time with those two, but -

You have trouble spelling it too. In the text, you spelled Molianism. I thought we were discussing something completely different.

Well, actually, I don't know. That was autocorrect. Tyler solved me of this because Tyler told me how to remember this term,

Molinism. Now, see, I'll never forget because - Hands on the wheel there, sir.

Not over your eyes. See, the reality - Oh, that's right. You're not moving. I'm sorry.

It's LA. I'm going five miles an hour. Because anyone that watches, that's friends with Tyler on Facebook, they get to see that he has a problem in his backyard.

He has, I don't know, gophers or moles or whatever they are, but he's been trying to eradicate them.

Really, it's just I think of the problems of Tyler trying to get rid of moles in his backyard and Molinism in his theology.

Sorry, we got that solved now. Yeah, solve that. That's such a dad joke.

Yeah, you would understand that then, Eli. Well, yes. You got the young ones.

Once you go over 35, your jokes are no longer funny. At least that's my experience.

Well, you could also think of it as there's no possible word where mole is bad.

That works too. Here's the thing. Let me give a brief overview of Molinism.

Then, until folks come in, I see John is in. John will let me know in the chat if he's got a specific question or if he wants to jump in.

I want to give an overview first of what Molinism is. Then, after that, you guys can add where you think

I've left things out. Then, what I want to do is give some arguments. I want to give some of my arguments,

Eli, some of yours, but Tyler, you've been working on this the most and coming up with some newer stuff.

I want to give some time for you to jump in. Let me just start with this as a quick overview.

Molinism is started by a Roman Catholic. I forget his name is something,

Molin, whatever. Lewis then Molina. Molina, that's it. Basically, I think what

I noticed the most is that a lot of it that gets people into Molinism is really,

A, it's typically philosophers versus theologians, guys who get into philosophy versus theology.

We all know Eric Hernandez. Eli, you and I have had a discussion here with him. He actually would be very much thinking that philosophy is a higher study than theology.

I disagree with him. I've had that debate. Guys who are into philosophy, I think, seem to be enamored with Molinism.

The other thing that I noticed with it is it seems to be—now,

I'm trying to say this carefully because, Eli, you and I were trying to be real careful with this on the show we had with Eric.

They wouldn't say that they're all anti -Calvinists. They wouldn't say that they're all

Arminian, but it sure seems that way. It seems like the big thing that they're trying to do is answer the question of God's sovereignty and human free will.

The way that they go about doing this is to argue that there's this counterfactual knowledge that God would have where he knows all of the real things that happened past, present, future.

He also knows all things that could happen. He knows the outcomes of every choice that we would make.

What they would argue is that God, in his infinite knowledge, had looked at all of the possible worlds with people of their own free choice.

They have the free choice to make decisions, absolutely free. God looks at all of those different worlds with every free choice that was made and selected the one that we're in now.

Therefore, the choices that we make are completely free will. It's not predestination because that seems to be the big thing they're against.

They seem to be very much against predestination. They seem to define that really as determinism, that God determines everything.

You guys will give a more technical definition, I'm sure. I want to give you the overview, so go for it.

Which one of you guys wants to start? Well, just a caveat real quick.

I don't think any Molinist would deny predestination. Remember, anyone who's an

Orthodox Christian will hold to predestination since the term is in the scriptures. We'd have to hash out how they understand predestination.

But just getting back to a general definition of Molinism. Well, let's just be clear.

They disagree with the definition of predestination. Typically, they'll say that what

Calvinists believe of predestination is that God forces everything, determinism. They would have issue with the

Reformed understanding of predestination, and they would have predestination couched within the context of their theological and philosophical framework.

So we all adhere to the terms. It's biblical. I think the difference is going to be in how we understand that term.

It's like the debates over sovereignty. An Arminian believes God is sovereign, but they don't mean the same thing we mean as Reformed Christians when we say that God is sovereign.

So we want to be careful not to, you know, a lot of within popular debates, the Calvinist will say to the

Arminian or to the Molinist or the guy who holds to some form of libertarian freedom, oh, you guys don't believe that God is genuinely sovereign.

Well, they do, but they don't understand sovereignty the way we would. And that's not to say that we don't think that their view is insufficient.

We think there are issues with how they understand sovereignty and freedom and things like that. But they do hold to those terms.

So I wouldn't say that they would reject predestination. They would just have kind of a different understanding as to how they would think that term should be used.

But just in regards to the definition, I think what is helpful to understand if people get confused as to how to understand what

Molinism is, I like how Kenneth Keithley set it out. Kenneth Keithley is a professor over at Southeastern Theological Seminary.

He wrote the book, Salvation and Sovereignty, and he frames the definition of Molinism like this.

He says that God has three moments of his knowledge, three logical moments that can be categorized as his could knowledge, his would knowledge, and his will knowledge.

God's could knowledge is his knowledge of all possibilities. That is what we call God's natural knowledge. God's would knowledge is his knowledge of all hypotheticals and counterfactuals.

And so we have God's free knowledge, his knowledge of everything that will in fact happen after he executes his decree.

Okay? So his middle knowledge is the knowledge that is located between his natural knowledge, his knowledge of everything that could happen, and his free knowledge, his knowledge of everything that will happen.

God's middle knowledge is located in the middle of that. And so Molinists believe that when God chooses a world to actualize, it is out of the options of his middle knowledge.

Say, for example, if God desires a world in which there are libertarily free creatures, that limits the options of the possible worlds he can create, since it would limit worlds that would be, you know, that would say, like, determinism would be true.

So those would be out if God desires to create libertarily free creatures within a particular world.

And then he decrees, and then you have his knowledge of what will in fact happen. Would you agree with that summary, Tyler? Yeah, yeah,

I think that's right. The only caveats that I would add. Well, I would add a couple things, or alter a couple things.

The first one is somewhat of a... Keithley is somewhat confusing for me, because that, and a lot of Molinists have been starting to take that, is that that use of natural knowledge seems to be somewhat of a redefinition, because natural knowledge was typically

God's knowledge concerning himself and necessities, right?

So it's God's natural knowledge, his knowledge of his nature, so to speak.

So to simply go that it now becomes his knowledge of what could be, of what, you know, just logical possibilities that may be not restricted to feasible things, already just seems to be somewhat special pleading to me.

It's already making a shift away from what it, that term historically meant. But that's an issue with Keithley.

Beyond that, the only thing that I would, and you touched on it, you said that I would just emphasize more clearly, because it's really important you're getting the criticisms, and you want to show that you do understand their position and not engage in straw man.

The middle knowledge, specifically, it's not perfectuals, right?

It's not that a certain tree leaf does.

It's specifically where it gets its key, is the counterfactuals of what they call creaturely freedom, which they mean libertarian freedom.

Because, you know, the reform don't mean the same thing when we say creaturely freedom, we actually mean compatibilistic freedom.

So it's an expression of God's knowledge about what people would, according to libertarian freedom, would freely choose to do if God places them in some specific circumstance.

Right. And it's located logically prior to the decree. That's what preserves the libertarianly free aspect of it.

If it's located after the decree, then some form of determinism would follow from that.

So they need it to be logically located where it is in that system. Yeah. Yeah.

And yeah, I mean, we're not getting into critiques yet, but I don't think that placing it prior to the decree helps that any.

So. Well, and this is the thing, you know, Tyler, I know you probably have not heard the argument that I was making with Eric when he was on the show some time ago, probably a year or so ago with Eli and I, but one of the things

I had asked him is once, so you step into their worldview, right?

And they say, okay, God has looked at all these possible worlds he could create and he figures, okay, this one right here, this one's going to give me the most glory.

I'm going to choose that one. And so the question I ended up asking is can people, once that happens, can we do anything other than what we chose to do in this world?

And the reality is he ended up saying, well, you could, but you won't.

Well, if you won't, then realistically, once God has chosen a world in their worldview, in their view of Molinism, once he's chosen a worldview, then it is determinism.

We will only do what we chose to do in the world that God selected.

If he chose a different one, we would have done something different. And so in reality, I think the thing they try to avoid with their view of Calvinism being all about determinism with the decrees ends up leading them right into the very thing

I think they're trying to run away from. Because once God selects a world, we can't do anything but what

God selected for us to do. And therefore, it is the ultimate indeterminism is my argument.

Yeah, I agree with the direction of the argument you're making.

The only thing is that I think the way that it's stated, they have a way to get out of it, right? Because there's an ambiguity in when you say could, right?

It's kind of like the Bill Clinton, it depends on what is, is. So it depends on what could, could mean, right?

So what he what, and I've been trying to think of Eli and I talked about this,

I've been trying to think of a good term to distinguish these two concepts. But the question really comes down to the difference between having the faculty to do something, and then having like the actual ability or the metaphysical metaphysically real possibility of doing something, right?

And they really rely on the first one, having the faculty to do something, right? So let's say that God has, because this is true, even on determinism, let's say that God has determined that I'm going to, that I'm going to grab my steering wheel, like with both hands right now.

My, my, I have the capacity, the muscle and skeletal and the physics, like the, there's the capacity to do that.

Well, let's say that God hadn't determined that. Does that mean that suddenly during that point of decision,

I no longer have the capacity to do it? Right? Well, no, I mean, I always have the capacity, right?

So my, my will, I always have the capacity, the will to choose to do other than the thing that I do.

The question is whether or not I have the ability or the metaphysically real possibility to actualize and to, and to choose to do that.

It's not whether or not I have the capacity or the facility to do it. And there's an equivocation that happens on those.

I mean, even in a reform view, we're not going to say, well, you know, you don't even have the facility, like your arms stop working every time you're not determined to do a specific, like your arms are muscularly determined so that you can only do whatever specific action, but they don't have the actual facility to do any other action.

Tyler, wouldn't it be related also to the idea of the bones of Jesus? This is often brought up that there's a prophecy in which the bones of the

Messiah wouldn't be broken. And that, that, that prophecy would be fulfilled with a hundred percent certainty, but that doesn't mean that there was something special about Jesus's bones that prevented them from actually being broken.

They have the ability, well not ability, but it is possible that they could be broken in one sense, and it's not possible in another sense that they would not be broken.

And they have, they have the facility, they have the, they have the attribute of being breakable, you know, just, but, but it's been determined.

It's not a, it's not a metaphysically real possibility. In the actual world, you know, the guards had no metaphysically real possibility of actually choosing to break his bones.

Right, and when I spoke with Eric, I spoke with Eric, we spoke together at Texas A &M at an apologetics day,

Matt was there as well, and we had a really good conversation after the conference where we were at our hotels and we were talking about this very thing, and Eric brought up, and it kind of became a running joke between he and I, he brought up the issue of an acorn.

Now, if you have an acorn, the acorn has the capacity to grow into a tree, and that capacity is still there even though that acorn is never actually planted.

You see how that works? We don't plant the acorn and it never grows into a tree, but that doesn't it lacks the capacity to grow into a tree, and I think that's somewhat related to this issue here.

Yeah, it's actually Eric using that example, that exact analogy, that caused, that's when

I realized like, oh, you mean something, you mean a different, you mean something else by could.

You mean that type of, you mean the capacity for something. That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about determinism.

No determinism is going to say that just because God has determined that that acorn will never be the oak, that therefore like biologically it ceases to be an acorn with the genetic capacity that's coming out.

That would just violate the law of identity, right? That would just say the acorn isn't actually an acorn.

Right, that is what I think they end up doing with their whole thing of free will, because once God selects a world, you essentially lose free will altogether, right?

Because once God selects that world, even though they would say you could choose something different, you just won't.

But if you won't... And for them that's not grounded. There's no, that just, it's inexplicable why that is, because nothing determines that fact on their view, right?

So I normally give them, you know, I try to give them some robust thought experiments. So I say, you know, let's just call some choice, some trivial choice

X, right? I love pralines and cream ice cream.

I also really like a good like coffee or latte flavored ice cream with nothing in it, right?

I really like those types of two types of ice cream. And let's say I go into, you know, a kind of a boutique ice cream shop, really high quality, and they have both of those things, and there's nothing in my nature, there's nothing in my desires, right?

Nothing determines that, right? It's just, it's a trivial, you know, on libertarian freedom, it just becomes a trivial choice, because there's no determining factor, right?

So my question is, let's say God has, you know, there's two possible worlds

God could create. There's world A and there's world B. They are identical worlds in every single possible way, except at a certain time, in one of them

I pick the pralines and cream, in one of them I pick the latte ice cream, right?

They're identical worlds up to that point. Nothing has determined them. That's the only difference between those two worlds.

God actualizes world A, right? Why is it then, if this is an arbitrary choice, why is it that in world

A I'm going to choose, it's, you know, I could choose latte, but I'm going,

I won't, because it's world A, it's not world B. Why am I going to choose pralines and cream?

The only causal difference is that God determined it to be world

A and not world B. That's the only difference in the entire causal actualizing chain up to that point where I make that decision.

That's it. And now I'm going to bring, I'm going to bring John in because he's got a question, but I do, you can't read this,

Tyler, what's showing on the screen, but Ethan says, Tyler is really trying to talk with his hands while driving.

Let me explain something to you in California that you can talk with your hands while driving because you're not actually driving.

All right, let me bring John in here. You're parked for an hour and then you move a bit.

Think of it like when you're, when you're leaving like a concert or a, or like a really crowded venue and you're just waiting for your turkey, that's what

I'm doing right now. And that's, that's the whole way home. I mean, that's, that's all of LA in that.

Yep. Oh, all right. So John, John's trying to show that he's out in the country there.

You're out of the bunker. Hey, yeah, I'm out of the bunker. Well, to be honest, my wifi is getting really cruddy right now.

So I decided to go ahead and switch over to my, my phone. So I did a

Google, not a Google, sorry. I, I, I cracked open Logos, my Bible software program, typed in the word

Molinism to see what my library would would offer. And it was really interesting because there was a book,

I guess, from a guy. And the book is called

No One Like Him. And there's a chapter that's called Middle Knowledge. And I think the last guy, the name is, is

Ferret, I think is the, the, the writer. So anyways, he, he mentions this.

It's like, so with Molinism, God really knows the future. He knows not only what's, what possibly could occur, occur, but also knows what will occur.

In addition, he knows what would have occurred freely if he had placed his creatures in situations that obtain in other unactualized worlds.

Um, since God's middle knowledge is knowledge of what his creatures will do freely in a libertarian sense, in any circumstance, choosing one of those possible worlds will actually...

Did we lose him? I guess it wasn't good either.

Okay. We'll see if he can. Are you there,

Tyler? Yeah, I'm here. Are you there? Yeah. Okay. All right.

Did you catch all that or no? No, we lost you halfway through. Ah, yeah.

Well, anyways, uh, to, to, to make it simple, I guess there's middle knowledge. And then what the book says here that I was reading is simple knowledge.

I think it is, but is that the same thing as like a natural knowledge? Like, uh, are you following me?

Yeah. Are you referring to No One Like Him by John Feinberg, right? That's yes. It's like a big book with a red.

Yeah. I think, um, I'd have to see the context of paragraph, but I think simple knowledge is referring to natural knowledge.

You got to be careful because when you're talking about different, uh, views of God's knowledge, sometimes people use the simple foreknowledge view, which is a particular view in which

God's predestination is based on his foreknowledge. So it depends on the context there. I would imagine he'd have to be referring to natural knowledge, um, because the context there is, um,

Molinism. So there is a difference between, um, natural knowledge and middle knowledge.

As, uh, Tyler said before, and I think I alluded to before that God's middle knowledge is his knowledge of counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, which exists logically prior to the divine decree.

That's middle knowledge. And his natural knowledge is, uh, God's, uh, it's kind of just his knowledge of himself, all necessities, all things that are necessary, um, and all possibilities.

That's why some of the critiques of Molinism is that middle knowledge is an unnecessary, uh, category of God's knowledge since God's knowledge of counterfactuals is subsumed within his natural knowledge.

Um, so there is a difference there, although some might argue it's not really useful to make another category, um, called middle knowledge.

No, I, I agree. Um, in fact, I don't even agree with Molinism period at all.

Um, I think it's silly for them to, to assume that there's more than other possible timelines or, or other possible worlds, uh, in the knowledge of God's omnipotent, you know, omniscience.

I, I just don't get it. John, they need free will. Yeah. Well, well, to be, to be fair, uh,

I mean, um, I think that there, I think that God has knowledge of, of ways that, you know, other ways and other timelines of the world could have been.

Um, I just don't think, I think middle knowledge is trying to shoehorn in a libertarian free view into it, uh, which

I, which I think actually starts to violate the aseity of God because it means, um, that, that God only has this knowledge in virtue of, um, the truth makers within, you know, an uncreated creation.

And so therefore, um, God only has this knowledge in virtue of, um, the, the truth makers outside of himself.

And so I, you know, I think that, that, that's a problem. Um, but like on a reform view, cause the, the

Molinists a lot of times, you know, they're going to, they're going to play, and I don't mean that they're going to be deceptive.

I think that they don't always understand other views. Um, and so they'll say things like,

Oh, well, you deny minimalism. So therefore you, you think God knows those things that we think he knows, right?

Or you, you, you can't affirm omniscience because you, you deny that God has exhaustive counterfactual knowledge because they're thinking the only way

God can know these things is if middle knowledge is true. And, and I'm just going to say, well, no, because as a, as a determinist,

God has natural knowledge of himself. He knows that he knows the fact about himself, that he's sovereign and whatever he decreed to create would be true.

He knows what he does to create and it's truth in his decrees.

And so therefore he also knows, had I decreed, he knows the subjunctive, had

I decreed every other possibility, then I know that that would be the case.

So God, God can have exhaustive counterfactual knowledge in that subjunctive sense. We know that in scripture that Jesus said that he knew what would happen in Sodom and Gomorrah if Christ came to them, he knew they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.

And so he's saying something that didn't actually happen. So in that,

I would say, well, he knows the real and he also knows the possible. But I think Tyler, I agree with you.

It's the issue that I see is that they're trying to get into libertarian free will to say somehow we had the ability to choose things and yet we're working with God's sovereignty instead of just looking at it with it.

Yeah. And there's almost like an Occam's razor, like we get the exact same amount of, you know, amount of omniscience out of it.

We just, we don't have to create a whole third category of, of God's knowledge and violate aseity and create all these other problems to do it.

Right. I mean, it's just, it's just a function of his natural and his free knowledge. The other thing that I would say is, you know, and Andrew, I mean,

I think you're being a little too charitable actually to the Molinists. While there are some passages that may reflect that, right?

Like maybe the story of, you know, about the mid of Kayla, maybe that's a, you know, a true counterfactual.

I think when, when Jesus is saying, you know, if I had come to Sodom and Gomorrah, or if, you know, if, if, if the miracles that you've seen me done entire site and all those, you know, they would have repented and leave.

I think that it's just a mere hyperbole. I don't know if that's a statement of an alternate timeline. That's just, it's, it's like saying, you know, if I had presented these same miracles to my dog, then even he would have believed, right?

It's just, it's just a hyperbolic statement. How dumb are you guys? We'll see, but this is the thing, and this is where, where I think we end up having to try to put ourselves in their thinking to understand because, and I know you do this and, and I want to encourage folks who are watching and listening.

What, just like Tyler said, that they will often misrepresent our view. We can often misrepresent their view.

There's many people who misrepresent Molinism when, when arguing with them. But the, the issue that I would say is, you know,

God can know the possible, but it's not these different parallel timelines that they would argue.

And that's where I think that the distinction needs to be made, because I think God in his infinite knowledge could know the results of things absolutely of, you know, choices we don't make.

That doesn't mean that he's got, oh, this is world A, world B, world C, world

D, and so on, that, you know, all the possibilities, if there's like one or the other, his knowledge is something that we can't understand.

Here, here's a simple reality for folks who may be listening, because a lot of when we talk about Molinism, it, for some people it goes right over their head.

We're trying to break it down simply, but the point is, whenever we speak of God, we must remember that he is a being unlike anything we understand.

We learn, right? We learn through observation. We observe things, we build up that knowledge, and so there's a point where we don't know something, we observe it, now we know it.

God never had that. God literally never learned a thing, ever.

He just knows it all. We cannot conceive of that type of knowledge, where he just knows it, not through observation.

A second is, he's eternal. And so being outside of time, being, you know, an infinite being, is very different than you and I, who are in time, and there's a progression of thinking, of thought.

God doesn't have that. We cannot understand that, and I think what we have is really a couple things.

One is that there's some people who are trying to understand what is impossible to understand, and try to explain it.

That gets us into dangerous territory. There's a point where we just have to say, that's it, we can't go further than this, because God is a different being than you and I.

Some people, that's not satisfying to them, and they try to go further, and that causes problems.

Now Andrew, I do think we need to be careful as well, that it may be the case that there is no way to fully understand how they're reconciled, but if we have that, if we push that to its limit, then any time we find a difficulty in Scripture, we just stop and not explore it.

I agree with you. I don't think that the Scriptures explains it, but I would, I wouldn't have a problem with people trying to attempt to reconcile them.

I think the problem with Molinism is that it tries to do it in a very speculative way.

If I could just share one of my primary problems with Molinism, besides the philosophical issue, which is the grounding objection, which

I keep hearing, is not a big deal for Molinists, but when I hear them explain an answer to it, I'm not convinced.

Here's my primary issue, is that the idea of middle knowledge, the idea that God has these counterfactual knowledge that's logically prior to the divine decree, is something that is not itself derived from Scripture, because the

Scripture doesn't, it's not answering the question that Molinists are trying to answer, and Molinists would admit this, that the

Bible does not explicitly present this idea of middle knowledge.

And I think it was Tyler mentioned before that there's a problem, in a different context, not in this podcast here, but he mentioned that there's a problem when we come to the text with a certain philosophy so as to prove text and make, to find passages that are consistent with that philosophy, and then say, okay, look, it can work.

I think it really becomes problematic when we take a speculative idea such as middle knowledge, and it becomes kind of this philosophy that is overlaid the

Scriptures, and it becomes almost like something that affects how we interpret the Scriptures, you know, overall.

We take the speculative idea, and then we run with it and apply it to all areas that seem to be related to that topic, instead of deriving the position from an exegesis of the text.

Not this issue of let's find Scriptures that are consistent with it, no, let's derive our beliefs from the soil of the

Scripture itself. And I am just, I used to be a Molinist, I speak with a lot of Molinists, and I'm sure they have answers and explanations.

I don't see Molinism as something that comes out of the lifeblood of the text, and that's very much consistent with the idea of why

Molinism was invented to begin with. It wasn't something that was just derived from the text, it was purposely developed to respond to a position.

That doesn't make it false, right? But it is, my antennas go up when a view is created in response to something else, and then we later then argue this is what the

Bible is teaching. Well, but, okay, so let me give a caution with that, because most of the theology comes out of answering heresy, right?

That's fair enough. So I know you put a little bit of a caveat, but we do have historical evidence that does bring about a lot of our theology, so.

We have a check, but consider that also, and I agree with you, a lot of, I don't think doctrines derive from responding to heresy,

I think clarification of doctrine and the utilization of vocabulary that helps us clarify.

For example, are you clarifying my vocabulary with that? I just want to make sure. Well, no, but I would say, for example, we all believe, we're all

Trinitarian Christians, we believe in the Trinity, yet the word Trinity doesn't appear in the Bible, nor do the philosophical terminology that we use to define the

Trinity, right? This distinction between being in personhood, the Bible doesn't speak in those categories, but in responding to heresy, we're not creating a theology, we're clarifying a theology whose principles are already found within the

Scriptures, and we could exegete Scriptures to demonstrate that there is one God, and there are these three persons who are called

God. I don't think you can do the same thing with Molinism in my estimation. Okay, so,

Tyler, let's work through, for folks who may not know on your podcast,

The Freedthinker, you did, I want to say, three episodes, at least, you've done more than that, but you did three in a row on Molinism answering some things.

There were some interesting things that came out of that. You've done more research and study on it, but one of the things that did interest me was some questions that you raised with this, so, and I want to get your input, not because I don't know what your view is, but I want the audience to hear your view.

You brought up some questions when it comes to all these worlds that God could have, and you asked the question, why didn't

God choose the world where Adam and Eve never sinned? Why didn't God choose a world where, you know,

Christ never came? So, in the first one, everyone goes to heaven because there's no sin in the world, and this latter one, everyone goes to hell because there was no savior in the world, and you've got some answers for things like that, and some of those, you didn't seem very satisfied with how

God, how they argue God chose the world that we're in. So, maybe you could address some of that.

Yeah, well, let me start by just saying that one of the reasons why we're even talking about Molinism, well,

I should actually say one of, but like, it's like 95 % of the pie for reasons, is because apologists have started advancing

Molinism because it's apologetically useful, right? There's utility to it, specifically in how you answer something like the problem of evil, right?

Because the problem of evil is going to ask, well, why didn't God create no evil?

And they're saying, oh, well, because of free will, right? And so they start having to answer some of these questions, and so for the

Molinists, they think it's a satisfactory answer. They think it's actually the best answer for why there is evil and suffering in the world, and it's based on freedom, and yet they don't want to become total open theists.

They don't want to just become, you know, complete anarchists, right? So they still want to try to maintain some semblance of the sovereignty of God.

So, Molinism is the option. So, the reason we're even talking about it is because of the perceived apologetical utility, but that raises a whole bunch of questions for me, because part—well, let me actually say, the other part of the apologetical value is it's kind of coupled with this, with this almost—

Oh, you're breaking up. Am I breaking up? Better?

Worse? Yeah, you're good now. Hello? Yeah, better. Okay. There's—it's tied to, in conjunction with that view that God desires all to be saved, right?

That it's not Calvinism, where God has redeemed and elect people for himself.

It's God really, really, really, really, really wants all people to be saved.

And, well, if God is all -powerful, why couldn't he accomplish that, right? So, Molinism says, well, libertarian freedom, right?

This causes a bunch of problems for me, right?

Because if God can—if God is all -powerful, right, if God is omnipotent, and being omnipotent means you can—the ability to do any logically possible thing, right?

God can't make a square circle, because a square circle isn't— that's not a possible thing.

That's a meaningless thing, right? Because a square circle is just an incoherent—I mean, it's like asking if God can do a swivel sword.

It's just—it's not a thing. So, if we say God is omnipotent, it means that he can do any logically possible thing.

Well, then you could ask the question, well, why couldn't God create a world where, if Adam and Eve had libertarian freedom, then there's a logically possible world where Adam and Eve could have never chosen to sin, right?

That's a logically possible thing. I see no reason to think that's logically incoherent. So, why couldn't

God have just actualized that world? And the Molinists come along and say, well, because of freedom,

God could—you know, God had the power to actualize that world, but that's not a feasible world, because Adam—you know, given that context,

Adam wouldn't have ever chosen not to sin. But then at that point, they're now saying you now have to define omnipotence not as the ability to do any logically possible thing, but as the ability to do any feasible thing, right?

So, there may be logically possible things that are strictly logically possible, but are now unfeasible for God to do.

Or else they would have to say it's a necessary fact about Adam that he would choose to sin, because then you can't say, like, if Adam just is definitionally a being that would choose to sin, he would never choose to sin, right?

That just becomes a logically incoherent concept if choosing to sin is part of the definition. Well, that has their problems, right?

Who gave Adam his nature? What makes Adam, Adam? Well, God fashioned

Adam. So, God is determining Adam's nature, and so is Adam even—you're back to determine him—anyways, it creates—so,

Molinism, in attempt to give a simple answer for the iceberg of my objection, it just compounds problems.

And I think right there when you mentioned with who created Adam's nature, when

I had my discussion with Tim Stratton over at—I keep confusing—there's the

Free Thinking Ministry, and I don't want to confuse—you're the Free Thinking, or Free Thinking—it's not the

Free Thinker, it's the Freed, because he's now— Ah, okay. It's really difficult to talk about them both without confusing them.

So, if you want to understand the history of his podcast, then it makes it very clear he was an atheist and thought of himself as a

Free Thinker. Now that he's a Christian, he's freed from the bondage of sin, and a

Freed Thinker. Now you'll never forget. You won't forget the in the back of his house that he's probably still dealing with.

But what I was trying to say is that when I was having my discussion with Tim Stratton, and we got to this very point where it's

God who creates the nature, but then he would push back and say, well, if God has libertarian freedom, then what prevents him from creating a being who also has libertarian freedom?

We are created in his image, aren't we? And I think that's an important—that's a mistake, I think, or a logical leap to say, that because God may have libertarian freedom, that therefore it's logically possible for a derivative creature to have that sort of freedom.

And I'm not sure one is in a position to make that logical leap. Yeah, I agree.

I think that's a big problem. I think that's a violation of the creator -creature statement.

And it may be the case that there are certain attributes of God, such that God is personal, and God has some type of freedom.

That might be communicable. But the exact attribute of libertarian freedom, which I don't actually think

God has libertarian freedom—I think God has limited libertarian freedom, since God isn't free to lie, for example.

His nature constrains his abilities. So there's a fundamental, different ontological difference between the two things, though, which is namely that we are created, right?

We had to be actualized, and we are objects that God foreknows, right?

So that's simply not the case of God. So a lot of the problems for Molinism arise specifically—and this is why the episode—I parked, by the way.

That's why I can now stop and look. A lot of the issues arise because we are in a world that God has created, that God has actualized, that God has foreknowledge of.

And that metaphysical condition is just not the same as what

God is by nature. God's never been created. God's never been actualized. God is not the object of prior knowledge of another being, right?

So another problem that I raise—and I know this is kind of a shotgunning without engaging much with the joinders—another problem is, if I have libertarian freedom and I have the ability to choose

X or not X, right? Remember, trivial choice—pralines and cream ice cream or coffee latte ice cream.

If I have the choice libertarianly to choose either one of those, right? And it's a real possibility for me to either one of those.

If God actualized world A with the foreknowledge that I would freely, by libertarian choice, choose pralines and cream ice cream, that means that if it is possible for me to choose latte ice cream, right?

That means it's possible for there to be categorically something that God could not know, because that just definitionally is something that God did not know.

He foreknew the other, right? Which means that it is logically possible there are categorically things that God cannot know, which is a major problem for omniscience, because what that actually means—what the entailment of that is—is that even if God is right, that 100 % of the time that what he foreknows ends up being true, it means that every instance of choice where I could have—that could have been the instantiation of that categorical, that type of category of action that God couldn't have known—God learns that every single choice, that choice isn't actualizing a—that, you know, the opposite choice.

He's basically learning that his foreknowledge is correct, right? So he can't ever know that he knows his knowledge is correct, which is a major problem for omniscience.

So there's all kinds of problems, but they're rooted in the fact that we are, as creations, we are specifically a different kind of thing.

So we can't just say that because God and humans—because we're made in the image of God—that therefore, we have identical attributes as God, even in the communicable attributes.

So, you know, knowledge is a communicable attribute, but we do not categorically have omniscience.

We just—we fundamentally have a different kind of thing, even though we have a derivative of being made in the image of God.

Yeah, and I think a lot of people just assume we're made in the image of God, and they start inserting what the image of God has to be.

Well, free will. God has free will. We have free will. We're made in his image. They kind of sneak that in there when that's not necessarily appropriate,

I don't think. Yeah, that's right. And I think that, you know,

I just—the more I talk with Molinists, the more I think that the very thing they're trying to avoid, they back up into.

And that's the thing I kind of find interesting with it, because to me, it seems like the big thing they want to avoid is the idea of determinism, and that's exactly where their system ultimately leads, you know?

So, Tyler, you've been doing some newer stuff with this. Anything that you—I don't know if you have anything written out yet, because I know you were working on some newer stuff with it.

Do you have any new articles? Yeah, well, I have some articles that are out on it.

I, a while ago, had released an episode called Metaphysics and the Failure of Molinism, and it's somewhat technical, and so I released a text of that in a series of different articles.

I, you know, I release them all up in one day. I just put them as separate articles. And then

I had been working on a little bit more robust critique of feasibility, that notion that there are logically possible things that God can't do.

And so I just recently released a lengthy article on that.

It's a part 12 in that series, so that's actually the most recent series on the blog.

Do you want to go into some of those details, what you've been covering in the topics?

Yeah, so, I mean, it's some of that, what I spoke about, the problems of saying that there are logically possible worlds that God—that aren't feasible for God to create.

You know, that has so many problems for me. Some of the other problems are things that arise, they're not necessary to Molinism, but they're views that lots of Molinists hold, mostly because the two most famous Molinists, William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga, hold them.

And so William Lane Craig offers a possible, what he considers a possible solution to what's called the problem of the un -evangelized, right?

So, you know, how is God good, or how do you explain the problem that there are whole populations that we know about that never would have the opportunity to hear the gospel, right?

Are they, you know, do they just automatically go to hell? How is that fair? How is that just, right?

A lot of people, you know, historically have tried to answer that by saying, well, God gives them the benefit of the doubt on the light that they've received, so that, you know, are they acting faithfully in accordance with, you know, general revelation?

Are they believing in a creator God and some type of general, you know, theistic ethic or something?

You know, that's one answer that's typically to be given, but someone like William Lane Craig comes along and says, well, maybe, and he builds on Plantinga, maybe there's these types of persons that have an attribute so that there's no possible world that they would have ever believed, right?

And they call it trans -world depravity, so that in any logically possible world that that person could, in any context that that person would have been placed in, they never would have believed.

So God kind of stacks the deck in those areas, you know, the Mayan people, maybe all the

Mayans just are trans -world -depraved people. He just stacks them all there so that even if they had heard the gospel, they wouldn't have believed anyways.

That's what Craig thinks is a possible answer. This has a...I think that's problematic for a lot of reasons.

First, I think that's a very deficient anthropology. I don't think that that's the biblical view of how

God relates to humans. I don't think we're these little, you know, static cubes that God just moves around in place and time, and it's the same person, right?

I don't know what it means to say that Tyler would believe in a possible world, but Tyler wouldn't believe if God had placed me in Mayan culture.

That just, to me, seems like that's not me anymore. So I don't know what that...

You wouldn't even look like you. You wouldn't even look like you, since the fact that you look the way that you do. I wouldn't look like me,

I wouldn't act like me. You would have different parents. Yes, I mean,

I don't even know what that means to say something like that. Andrew, you're good with the cults.

What's the one that has the soul bank that God can draw from? Is that Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons?

Mormons. Yeah, actually, there's several of them, because actually, rabbinic

Judaism would argue that as well, but yeah, it's Mormonism is probably what you're thinking, where everyone's already has...when

God created all the souls, and then he just puts them in.

Now, it used to be that the people that had black skin were cursed people. They were those that rebelled against God in a previous life in heaven, and somehow that was a sign of a curse, but now

I guess it's okay. But it's this idea of a soul bank, so God can zap you down to whatever time and place, so that you're born in a particular...so

in that sense, there's a you, a person who, as a soul, would later be...I

mean, you wouldn't even be called Tyler, so I don't even know how that would work. Your soul would be in some conception without different parents.

You're right. I don't see how that's the same person in that sense. It's kind of a weird way to look at it, and I think also, at least when defending middle knowledge,

Molinists will try to show Scripture that seems to support it.

I have never seen any attempt to defend what Dr. Craig is saying right there, scripturally in any way, shape, or form.

Maybe I'm not as well -read in Molinism as many others, but I've never seen a

Biblical attempt to ground that. Are you familiar with anything,

Tyler? Anyone who tried to provide a Biblical defense? Or is it one of those things, well, it doesn't contradict anything in Scripture, and so therefore this is a possibility.

Sorry, I lost signal there for a minute. Okay. What I was saying is that...

I lost that whole question. That's okay. So what I was saying is that when

Molinists try to defend the concept of middle knowledge, at least they give an attempt to defend the idea scripturally.

We disagree, and we think it's a deficient defense, right? But they try to provide Biblical references and exegesis and things like that.

Have you read any attempted Biblical defense of the notion that Dr. Craig is putting forth, namely that there are these people that regardless of where they were born, just in any possible world, they would just not believe?

These trans -worldly depraved people. What would be the

Biblical defense? Or is it, like you say, what we shouldn't do, namely it is a philosophical position in search of a proof text?

I think it's a philosophical position in search of a proof text, because it's not from William Craig.

Calvin Planning came up with it, right? So there's so many...

I mean, there's problems with it. Again, it's just a deficient anthropology. There's no Biblical work for it.

But then my question becomes, okay, well, because there's a seemingly infinite amount of ways that God could create someone who's trans -world depraved, right?

Because there seems to be a potentially infinite number of possible humans, right?

Or at least an exceedingly large one. And so the question then becomes, well, why isn't there an equal amount of trans -world righteous people, right?

People who would believe in any possible context, right?

That concept to me seems equally plausible. It seems equally logically coherent.

I mean, it seems... I see no reason to think that there wouldn't be such persons.

Wait, isn't that what the position is, though? I always thought that there is a view there that says that the people who do believe are the people who would believe in any possible world, and the people who don't believe perhaps are people who wouldn't believe in any possible world.

No, I don't think that they would say that the people who believe are the ones who are trans -world righteous.

Okay. Right? So there may have been a possible world where I wouldn't have believed. Okay, so there's a difference between the righteous and the trans -worldly damned.

So the righteous, there is a possible world in which those who are saved are not saved, and then for some people who are not saved, they might be people who would have never been saved in any possible world.

Is that what you're saying? Yeah, so trans -world depravity is that there's no logically possible world where these people will be saved.

Okay. Right? So, you know, I don't...

So my question, I have a couple questions, again, it's a weird anthropology, but why couldn't there be a nearly infinite number of trans -righteous people, and why couldn't

God populate... You know, there's what, seven billion people on the earth?

There's what, been like 11 billion that have existed altogether? Is there not that many trans -righteous people that would believe no matter what situation they were put in?

Why, you know, all God would have had to do is take this one trans -world person and make that person problem solved.

So there's that problem, but my real problem is that it might be the case that a trans -world depraved person isn't logically possible.

So unless God is making them such...

Like, it's not possible on libertarian freedom, right? Because they would have to say that that means this person, based on their libertarian freedom, would never choose to believe in any possible world, in any possible context whatsoever.

They would never choose to believe. Well, that seems to be... That then is...

Remember when I said it might be the case that Adam is such a being that there's no possible world in which he would have chosen not to sin.

And so that means that logically, that if he definitionally is a being that cannot choose to not sin, right, in Augustine's terms, if he is definitionally something that is non -posse, non -pecari, not able not to sin, then it may be illogical to make him a being that would ever choose to not sin, right?

Because then you're saying he's non -posse, non -pecari, and he's posse, non -pecari, which is a logical contradiction.

So they would have to say that these people are almost a different species of people, so that they are by nature something that cannot ever choose to not be sinful.

But what does that sound like? You're saying that there are...

Oh, go ahead. If there are people... That's total depravity! That's total depravity!

That just says there's this whole group of people that are non -posse, non -pecari, and so they're not able to not sin.

God has made them that way, they're non -posse, non -pecari, and he's just punishing them for that, which just obliterates the objection that they have against Calvinism by us saying that the natural man cannot choose

God, and it's just for God to have created that way and judge him for it.

Even if they end up being right that that's a logically possible thing, it ends up undermining their main objection against Calvinism.

Yeah, so folks, there's a lag between Tyler and us here, but I want to put this up here.

Here's a question that Humble Clay had asked. Can you hear me,

Eli? I can hear you fine. Okay, so it's just Tyler. Okay, here's the question that I put up.

Okay, so Tyler can't hear me. Tyler, you have to go out.

Tyler, can you hear me? You can't hear me either? I can hear you, but I can't hear Andrew.

Yeah, Andrew, he can hear me. I can hear you, Eli, but I can't hear Andrew. Tell him to come back in. We found that that helps.

So Tyler, Andrew's saying if you just jump out and then kind of log back in, then that might work.

All right, I'll be right back. All right. We have had that problem before. We had that with you one time.

Well, I was upside down when I was using my iPad. Now with the laptop, it works much better.

Yeah, so I have a question up there, and when Tyler comes in, we'll ask him.

It's from Humble Clay. I'll give a shout out to folks. If you want to come in, because not only a shout out, but more informational, if you guys want to join and ask questions, you can go to Apologeticslive .com,

and there's a link to participate there. And that's how you join us and get into the discussion.

We'd much rather have you come in because Humble Clay is actually asking a couple of things or making some comments, and it'd be good to interact.

I think everyone seems to prefer just dropping comments. But if you are listening not live,

I'll encourage you to join us on Thursday nights, 8 to 10 Eastern Time, and you can watch live, ask questions, join in.

As we're recording this, we end up turning this into a podcast as well.

You can go to Apologetics Live Podcast. Just go to just on any app, search for Apologetics Live.

So Tyler, can you hear me now? Yeah, I can hear you. Okay. He looks like a dubbed

Asian movie when he moves his lips. He's ready for some kung fu.

That's right. So here's the question Humble Clay asks. With this view, would everyone not be damned and be damned simultaneously?

No, because there would only be one actual world. But I think there, you know, so he had a follow up,

I guess he said, but if there are infinite worlds, we're going to be damned in some of them.

Well, you have to remember, so these are logically possible worlds. You can't think of them as like parallel worlds or like multiverse worlds.

They're, they're, they're just, it's just, it's just a way in a lot to talk about the way the world could have been.

They're not actually, it's not like I have like, you know, a parallel world with me in it.

Right. That's confusing for the average listener. But within the philosophical literature,

I mean possible worlds, you're just dealing with examples like if God did this, if he created this particular world, then that's possible.

It's not like a multiverse or something like that. Yeah. You know, one other topic I want to, I want to address with you guys.

And it's, it's really the idea of something you said earlier, Tyler. Really, it's, it's guys like William Lane Craig, who's probably the most known that has influenced people with this.

Now, I think we could agree that William Lane Craig is a very bright guy.

He's very knowledgeable and has a lot of good things to offer. I think all of us here, we wouldn't agree completely with him, being presuppositionalists, but we would disagree with his approach on, on, on apologetics.

But I, but I think he's got a lot of good things and a lot of good things to offer. But what I find is that you see a lot of people that because of, they find him brilliant in one area, they pull that in and start following everything else that he's, he's arguing.

He's not a theologian. He's a philosopher. And I think that makes a difference.

Well, I do think he has a PhD in theology. Does he not? Yeah, I would say he's both.

He does both. Yeah, he's leaning towards philosophical theology, but. Yeah. Yeah, I thought his

PhD was philosophy. He's got two of them. Yeah.

Well, well, let me, yeah. You know, so a funny story.

So when I went to ETS in San Diego this year, the best, the best part of ETS was

I got to go to lunch. I mean, picture sitting at this table. It was me,

Chris Date, Mike Winger, and Tim Stratton. So it was a, you know, it was a, it was a very fun, fun lunchtime conversation.

We went to the cheesecake across from the, the convention center. And when we walk in, you know,

William Lane Craig and his wife are sitting at the bar. And I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to lie in our world.

I mean, William Craig's a big deal, like a girl. I was like, how do

I look like William Lane Craig? I mean, he's, he's, he's a giant in the field, whether or not

I have disagreements with him. He's a, he's a, he's a brilliant, he's just a brilliant man.

He's, you know, he's, he's a, he's a giant of the faith in our time. So, but you're right that that's because that's the case.

And, and I, and I think William Lane Craig is, I mean, he's a Christian. So I think he's right on a whole ton of things.

But even in apologetic things, I think he's right on a lot of things. We just, we disagree methodologically.

We disagree on some, you know, some soteriological issues. You know, we disagree on he's a

Baptist. We disagree on that type of thing. But I disagree with that. He's right on. So, but, but it is because of his influence that, that it's gone into a lot of, a lot of the, the apologetics world.

Although there are other people that are, that are pushing it. So one of the things that, that I've been complaining about, molding them about is that feasibility, this idea that there may be logically possible worlds that aren't feasible for God to create.

And God is kind of stuck with, William Lane Craig's way to put it is, he's, you know, he's got a hand that he's been dealt.

That entails some really bad things, right? That entails that, that there are parts about the world that, that God didn't want, right?

They're outside of his control. And they'll say that they want to maintain sovereignty, but they'll say, oh, well, you know, because of, because of even freedom, then, you know,

God, God has to save the most that he can. But, you know, there, there are some of these things that are kind of featured, just kind of artifacts of that libertarian freedom that are outside of his control.

I've been saying, well, if we move from that, from that position, that maybe it's the case that this, that this is the best of the feasible worlds, that entails, well, maybe the best of the feasible worlds has gratuitous evil suffering, right?

Maybe the best world that, that God could work with libertarian freedom to get himself the most glory, to save the most people he possibly could.

Maybe it's an artifact of that, that there are certain evils, there's no redemptive value to them.

They don't work all, they don't, they don't work together for the good of those who love it. They just are gratuitous.

They just are because the person was free to do it. And God had no, there's no way that God could work it together for, for something good.

For a long time, Molinists were saying, oh, no, no, no, no, that's, that's, that's, you know, we affirm sovereignty, we affirm

Romans 8, God works all things together for the good of those who love him. In about 2000, uh,

I think 2015, Kirk McGregor came out. He's one of the most famous Molinists that people know, came out and said, yeah, um, it, it, it's probably the case that there are gratuitous evils, and that, that, that's, uh, that, that's, this is the best possible world that God created given libertarian freedom.

That's the byproduct of what the world that God wanted. He has to deal with these things.

Right. All right. So, um, you know,

I think, I think for a lot of folks, this topic kind of goes over their head because this is a topic,

I think you guys would agree that it takes a lot of study, a lot of research to really understand rightly.

It's very easy to mischaracterize Molinists and just to argue a straw man.

That's easy. What I do want folks to notice what you're hearing from both

Eli and Tyler and hopefully me is, you know, not just knee -jerk reactions to what their views are, but to actually investigate, study, research to know what it is they believe and then be responding to what they rightly believe.

A lot of people don't want to do that. A lot of people want to do the easy work of just hearing something and, and jump in.

And we, we discussed that earlier with the whole idea where we see them using words that we would see different.

And so you, you, when arguing on these things, I want to encourage folks to take the time to dig into what a person's position actually is, not what you think it is, but what it actually is.

Cause there could be a difference there. And I do want to point out that you're hearing both, you know, from Tyler and from Eli that they've done that, they've put the time in, and this is not one of those topics.

I think guys, you'd agree that you just pick up and go, Oh, okay. I have an answer to that. I mean, this isn't like, um,

I was going to say a discussion on the six days of creation, but you know, Tyler doesn't, hasn't concluded on that one.

So, but no, I mean, and there are some, some easy to understand, you know, like understanding six days of creation would be an easy thing.

Either, you know, people, some people believe there are literal six, you know, 24 hour days and some don't.

That's, that's, that doesn't take all the hoops that you have to jump through with Molinism.

Molinism, I think, uh, Tyler might've been you who said it, that, you know, there, there are, you know, you mentioned

Ackman's razor. It's, it's like, okay, whichever is the easiest, the, the, you know, that's probably the right one.

Molinism is not an easy position to understand, let alone explain. It takes time, but you guys agree with that?

Oh yeah. I, yeah, I definitely, it takes time to understand it. It takes time to study.

Yeah. And that's not, and I don't think that's a negative. I mean, even Reformed theology, it can be explained simply, but then there, there's a depth there that requires more work and nuance and stuff.

So definitely not, it's not a negative aspect of the view, but definitely it's a reality that yes, it's not a very simple willy nilly.

Oh yeah, Molinism. It's kept me up late, late nights many times. Yeah. So, so, um,

I don't know if you guys have more that you want to touch on. Um, yeah,

I know Tyler's probably just sitting in outside his house, like, you know, oh, he's now driving.

He got bored getting outside his house. No, it, it, for some reason got really choppy.

And so I'm, uh, even though I have full reception, so I'm, I'm just, I'm seeing, I, I'm at a, like a grocery store shopping center down the street.

So I'm seeing if there's like a better place in this lot. So, you know,

I don't, you know, we can wrap up if, if you guys want, if, is there more that you guys want to cover on this topic? Uh, I could go for, for hours and hours on this topic, but, uh,

I mean, I think we've, we've touched on, I think we've touched on a lot of the issues and, and I have a lot of articles on it, um, that people can reference.

Okay. So, so real quick, why don't you give, uh, are you going to be doing any, any, are you planning to do some podcasts on this with, with the new articles or are you just going to do the articles?

Yeah, I'm going to, uh, I'm going to release, uh, um, this week I'm going to be recording the, the new, the new episode that, uh, with the latest content.

Okay. So real quick, why don't you give your, That's exactly what everyone does, right?

So give, uh, give the links to your website, to your, your podcast and all that.

Uh, the website is freedthinkerpodcast .blogspot .com, uh, freedthinkerpodcast .blogspot

.com. Or if you join the FreedThinker group page on Facebook, I'll normally post it, uh, there, or you can just, uh, find the

FreedThinker podcast on iTunes or Stitcher or Podcast or whatever,

KitKat or whatever, whatever you Android ear does use, uh, and you can subscribe there, uh, and listen and, and, uh, and find everything there.

So at least, at least Tyler has one thing, right? He uses a good phone. So, all right,

Eli, why don't you give a shout out for where people can find you and your podcast and work you're doing?

Yeah. Um, my podcast, as I said at the beginning is Revealed Apologetics. You can download it on iTunes and other formats.

Uh, subscribe to the YouTube channel Revealed Apologetics. And if you have any questions on presuppositional apologetics, um, apologetic methodology or Bible questions in general, you can email me at revealedapologetics at gmail .com.

All right. And you're looking very patriotic there with your USA shirt on that.

That's going to come in handy. Uh, I got, I'll let you guys know. So we have some new, uh, or at least not new, what we got coming, going forward for you guys on some podcasts.

The next show will not be March 5th. We'll have no show. I will be in California.

Uh, Tyler and I will be getting dinner instead of doing this show. No, we'll probably plan while I'm out there.

Um, we, Tyler and I usually get a good steak while we're together. Um, but we'll, there'll be no show on March 5th.

However, March 12th, you will want to be there. We're going to be dealing with a book called

Torahism. It's a new term, but basically it is answering

Hebrew roots and, and black Hebrew Israelites and these others, uh, all these groups that look to put people back under the law.

And that's cool. So the book is called Torahism. Robert Solberg is the author.

He's going to be joining us. So if you have people that are in the Hebrew roots movement, you have questions about it, you're going to want to join us.

March 12th, eight to 10 Eastern time. Apologize live .com. We'll have all the information.

So you want to make sure that's two weeks from when we're airing this one live, we will have no show on the fifth, but on the 12th, you want to join after that.

And maybe, you know, Eli will come in with his shirt, uh, because on the, uh, the, the following week from that, uh, from the 12th, which would be the seventh, uh, sorry, the 19th, uh,

March 19th, we will, we will have, uh, Dr. Anthony Svestro on and he wants to, he wants to start us off with a topic of not only can

Christians, but should Christians vote for Trump. So that'll be, um, an interesting one.

I'm sure to hear those arguments. So if you're for or against Trump, you'll want to come in on the 19th and, uh, and, and make your, your voice known.

Uh, maybe we'll do a poll and see, you know, whoever, you know, who our listeners vote for. But, uh, with that, um,

I, I don't have too much else to announce. I will say this. If you're listening live today, tomorrow, that's, uh, and, and Saturday, that's about the last chance you're going to get to enter into the

Christian podcast communities, uh, theology contest. So we have a contest, uh, 70, sorry, a 30 pound box of books,

DVDs, CDs, flash drives, over a thousand dollars worth of resources that we're shipping to someone.

And if you go to christianpodcastcommunity .org, that is the site where we have the contest.

It'll pop up in the banner and you go to the contest and you'll be able to possibly win, but that will close down on the 29th.

It's a leap year day. So that's it. You have to leap your day and then, uh, then that's it.

We'll, we'll shut it down. And March 1st, I should be, even though I'll be in California, I will pick a winner and announce that at some point.

So if you're watching this live or listening to this, just as it drops in podcast, um, you only have till February 29th to enter the contest.

So do that quick, Eli, don't be delaying. I would recommend or remind people to about the

Israel trip, but I think it's full. I think if you didn't sign up by now, you're too late.

Um, yeah, so that's, I think it filled up and, uh, if not, we only have a few spots.

You can still go to Israel to 2021israeltrip .com and get on the waiting list possibly.

So I think that's all the announcements that we have. Um, I will say that we got a couple of really good episodes of the rap report coming out starting,

I believe this Sunday, we go through a historical view of the church, looking at what is the church, what does it mean?

So check that out. And I'll also recommend you go to striving for attorney .org.

Look at some of the articles that we have coming out there. Check out our academy that we have offering you classes for free on YouTube.

So I want to encourage you to check those out. Um, and until next time, remember to strive to make today.