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 here.

Could you give me your name? Oh no I can't do 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. Time out. 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. Isn't that 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.

Introduction to Apologetics Live and the Night's Topic

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, Alaya. 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, you see how we could say is 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 Rapoport 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 or just 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 have 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 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. 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 it. I understand now. You're bad, man.

Revealed Apologetics and the Meaning of the Name

Oh, so Eli, we need to get you to get a little lower third there so you can promote 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, I'm revealing the fact that... What is it all about? You're not letting me answer. Whenever you're ready, Andrew, we're talking out 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. And 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.

And so 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. And so I called it Revealed Apologetics for that purpose.

If folks are interested, you can check me out on iTunes and YouTube. And 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. And the presuppositional conversations and discussions that I do have on the podcast are excellent.

So people can check.

That out over at Revealed Apologetics. Okay. And so you mentioned Eric Hernandez. And there's really, 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.

So if folks go back to older Apologetics Live shows, you're going to see full conversation that Eli and I had with Eric on this topic of maleness. 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. And so with that, we are packing everything up. And so unfortunately, the drawback to that is I didn't realize how much 8 ,000 books absorb the echo until I remove them.

And there's nothing. But see, you guys only see these empty shelves here. There's empty shelves all around this room. And except for right there, there's my cold section hasn't been packed yet. And so, but I didn't realize how much echo comes through.

But, oh, I see. 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.

And so, yeah, they had, you didn't even get nominated. Well, you've got to up your game on your show, man. But yeah, they won. And folks want, they could go to christianpodcastcommunity .org. And there we have the winners.

We go through, there's a podcast that announces all the winners and they're all listed there. And so, 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.

So 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. So actually, Eli, if you came over to my house right now, you go in the garage and there is, what is it?

70, 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, you know, the guy came in, we had a guy moving companies come in to give estimates.

And the one guy comes in and he goes, he's like, okay. He goes, I had to move a rabbi. He had something like 20 ,000 books. And 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. That's basically what he said.

You do not want to help a theologian move.

Yeah. Well, you know, we were recording one of these when Matt Slicks had someone over helping to pack up his. So during the course of one show, we actually watched someone box up most of his books. And so, yeah.

So 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 much rather, 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. So that's the way to do it. So, you know, Chris Honholds recently, I don't know if you know, he dresses up as Captain America and he actually got a paid gig to be Captain America.

So, yeah. I mean, so it 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, that's, 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.

So 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. So, you know, Tyler doesn't have them in his car.

I actually do. I have a whole box full of it in the trunk.

Now, so 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 fronted road, so I'm going to get on the freeway here in about a minute and a half and that's about, that's going to be true.

And that's where.

We get to hear the freewayed thinker. So why don't we real quick give a plug for your podcast and.

The ministry you're with? Yeah, so 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 out that are fully scripted.

I have free to bite episodes, which are basically fully scripted, but short, you know, 10 to 15 minute episodes. And then I have my freedway thinker episodes, which are 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, you know, while I'm driving, I thought I've redeemed my drive time.

And so I just, I record, you know, it's hands free, so I'm, you know, I'm being safe,.

But I can record while I drive. So. All right. So tonight's topic that we selected is on Molinism. Now I have to admit I had, I've always struggled with Molinism and Modalism. I always get, I always get stuck with those two words.

It was really funny because I, I, I was at Living Waters doing a, they were asking me a question. I, they asked me, the question was on one of like, you know, 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. I, I, that was autocorrect. But, but Tyler, Tyler solved me of this because Tyler told me how to remember this term Molinism.

And now see, I'll never forget because hands, hands on the wheel there, sir. No, not over your eyes. You see the reality. Oh, that's right. You're not moving. I'm sorry.

It's LA. I'm not. I'm going five miles an hour. But you know, because anyone that watches,.

That's friends with Tyler on Facebook, they get to see that he has a, 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. And so 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, you know?

So, sorry, we got that solved now.

That's such a dad joke.

Yeah. You, you would understand that then, Eli. Well, I, yes.

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

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

So here's the thing. Let's, let me, let me give a brief overview of Molinism and 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.

But I want to, I'll, I want to give an overview first of what Molinism is. And then after that, you guys can add where you think I've left things out. And then what I want to do is kind of give some arguments of, 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.

And so I want to give some time for you to jump in. So, so let's, let me just start with this as a quick overview. Molinism, you know, his son is started by a, you know, Roman Catholic. I forget his name is something, Molin, whatever.

Lewis then Molina. Molina. That's it. So basically I think what I noticed the most is that what 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. And then we all know Eric Hernandez. We've, we've, you know, Eli, you and I've had a discussion here with him, but he actually would be very much thinking that philosophy is a higher study than theology.

I disagree with him. We've, you know, I've had that debate, but 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, 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.

And 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.

And he knows the outcomes of every choice that we would make. And 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. And God looks at all of those different worlds with every free choice that was made and selected the one that we're in now. And therefore the choices that we make are completely free will.

And it's not predestination because that seems to be the big thing they're against. They seem to be very much against predestination. And they seem to define that really as determinism, right? That God determines everything.

And so now I want you guys to 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 kind of a general definition of Molinism. Well, let's just be clear. They disagree with the definition of predestination. They think 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. And 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 that 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, and 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 would 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.

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, you know, 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, already just seems to be somewhat special pleading to me.

It's already making it shift away from what 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 is specifically, it's not, right, it's not that the tree, it's specifically where it gets its teeth, 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, and, 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 if 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, determined that. Does that mean that suddenly during that point of decision, I no longer have the capacity to do it?

Well, no, I mean, I, 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, it's not whether or not I have the capacity or the facility to do it. And there, there's an equivocation that happens on those. I mean, even in, even in a reform view, we're not going to say, well, you know, you, you, you don't even have the, the facility, like your, 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, right?

That.

Would be nonsense. 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, 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 an acorn, 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 mean 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 causes, that's when I realized like, oh, you mean some, 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. You know, 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, you know, the genetic capacity that's coming out.

Like, well, 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... Yeah, 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.

Questions About Possible Worlds, Freedom, and Divine Knowledge

And 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. You're parked for an hour and then you move a bit.

So let me,.

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. Yeah. 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 a Logos, my Bible software program, typed in the word Molinism to see what the, 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 of his, his 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 pop, possible worlds will actually.

I guess it wasn't a good either. Okay. We'll see if he,.

Are you there, Tyler? Yeah, I'm here. 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 bed. Yeah. I think, um, I'd have to see the context of the paragraph, but I think simple knowledge is referring to natural knowledge.