Molinism vs. Calvinism: The Problem of Evil - William Lane Craig & James White

In a much-anticipated exchange, Dr. Craig and James White debate one another on Molinism and Calvinism, especially as it relates to the problem of evil.

Transcript

JAMES WHITE: If we're going to say that the great Yahweh is limited in what he can do (what is feasible for him to do) then we need to know from whence comes this strange delimitating of authority.

DR. CRAIG: And I don't think that James ever squarely confronted the objection to saying that it's true only logically posterior to the divine decree, namely that makes God the author of evil.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Welcome along to today's video discussion. I'm Justin Brierley. This is Unbelievable, the show that aims to get you thinking. If you'd like more from the show, do check out our newsletter. The link is with today's video. You can also find links to our podcast and get hold of regular debates wherever you are. Today on the show we're talking about Calvinism and Molinism – which view of God's sovereignty best addresses the problem of evil? Today is a long-awaited pairing. William Lane Craig and James White join me to talk about their very different approaches to divine sovereignty.

Bill is a well-known Christian philosopher, founder of Reasonable Faith, and has often defended a view of divine sovereignty known as Molinism that he believes makes sense of human freedom and God's will being done and the nature of moral evil ultimately in the world.

James is the founder of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and a well-known exponent of Calvinist theology through his books and broadcasts such as The Dividing Line. James will be responding with a Calvinist perspective to the question of evil – the view that God ultimately predestines all aspects of his creation including human action, thought, and will.

We'll be asking which one of these views, if true, best answers the problem of evil and suffering in our world. That's our subject today. Bill and James, welcome along to the show. Great to have you both with me.

DR. CRAIG: Thank you, Justin.

JAMES WHITE: Good to be with you.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Bill, let's start with you. You were last on this show to talk about your recent book In Quest for the Historical Adam. You joined me with Joshua Swamidass for that, but I know you're a busy person. I think there's plans I read for a William Lane Craig Center for Christian Philosophy, Theology, and Apologetics. Tell us a little bit about that, Bill.

DR. CRAIG: We're seeking to establish an online curriculum in Christian philosophy, theology, and apologetics that would be affiliated with an already accredited established Christian university or seminary so that students who took these courses would get credit toward a degree from one of these institutions. We're currently negotiating with some of these to see about the placement of the Center there. In fact, just today our team was in negotiations with one of these and I'm supposed to get a report tomorrow morning about how the discussions went. I'm very anxious to hear what progress has been made.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Well, that'll be very exciting, and we look forward to hearing more about it. I know that you're welcoming those who want to support it at your website at the moment. I’m really excited about today's show as well, and we'll return in just a moment to get you to explain what maybe for some people a new concept: Molinism.

James, welcome back to the show. It's been too long. How long since we last had you on the show? Must at least be a couple of years, I think.

JAMES WHITE: I think last time I was in London, we didn't get a chance to do a program, but for a few years there every time I was in London we would do one, sometimes two in a day.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: We would.

JAMES WHITE: The world has changed a lot since I was jogging around London last. So who knows if I'll ever get a chance to do that again, but I certainly enjoyed the years that I got a chance to do it.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: With everything that's changing in the world, I know that your show has really been picking up on some of the cultural issues. How would you say your ministry has been impacted in the last couple of years by COVID especially?

JAMES WHITE: Making application of the Christian worldview to what's going on has become an important aspect of that. I'll have to admit that the past number of years (even before COVID), the changes in our world has forced me to think through my theology to a deeper level in certain areas than before. And, yes, that has resulted in addressing issues that probably back in the 1990s wouldn't have seemed like it would have been a good idea to go there. But now we don't have a choice. Things have changed very, very quickly. Bill and I aren't as young as we once were. I don't know if Bill would agree but I don't like having the ground shaking under my feet. When I was younger you expected tomorrow to be pretty much like today was, and that's not the way it is anymore. So, yeah, it's a different world.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: It certainly is. Yes. The rate of change seems to have just been accelerated by social media and everything else going on in the world. Look, we've come to talk about though a particular theological, doctrinal, philosophical issue today, and we wanted to do this in the context of hopefully something that doesn't keep it too sort of abstract but something that most people will be aware of: the problem of evil and suffering in the world. It is a common objection to God – to a good and loving God at least – and in a sense we've lived through a great deal of suffering in the last 18 months to two years with the COVID epidemic. Maybe starting with you James, where would you usually go with a pastoral response to this, before you kind of get to a philosophical or doctrinal response, let's say. Because I know you have actually worked on hospital wards and things in the past, haven't you?

JAMES WHITE: Yeah. In fact, most people don't know my second best distributed book is called Grieving: Our Path Back to Peace. It came out of my work as a hospital chaplain. That was the toughest work I ever did. I have debated Muslims in Mosques in South Africa. I would rather do that any day of the week than the difficult work that I did in grieving and loss, sessions in ICUs and in emergency rooms in a major hospital. And so, yes, I was forced to deal with this back in the early 1990s when I was put in that position. It's interesting because most of the books that I read did not come from where I'm coming from as to God's relationship to evil, whether it's natural evil in the sense of a car accident, a flood, a lightning strike, whatever else it might be, or moral evil (shootings and drug overdoses and things like that). Most of the classes I had in seminary didn't address those things either. So at that time I was really forced to think through what I believed as a Reformed pastor. I was already involved in that type of work and as a theologian. It's a vitally important issue. I did have to come to conclusions as to how I was going to engage that subject that made it very difficult because the hospital I was working in was a secular hospital. In fact, I stopped doing that work when they required me to start working with Wiccan chaplains. It was just too big of a gap to be able to bridge in that way. So, yes, that was really where a lot of this for me took on flesh and became real life type stuff.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Let's start then before Bill introduces the Molinist perspective just with a brief explanation of the Calvinist perspective. It's potentially (of the two tonight) the one that people might be most familiar with as a way of understanding God's sovereignty. Tell us firstly what it is fundamentally and how you would address the question, as a Calvinist, of why God allows evil and suffering in the world.

JAMES WHITE: Well, Justin, you may remember that when Bill and Paul Helm had a discussion on your program in 2014 you got to the last five minutes and the most important stuff was said in the last five minutes. And even you said, “That's a really helpful discussion.” But it was in the last five minutes. You couldn't expand it beyond there. So hopefully we'll get back to that level before the last five minutes of the program because it's really where I think the rubber meets the road because from the Reform perspective the Westminster Confession of Faith, the London Baptist Confession of Faith very clearly says that God foreordains – decrees – whatsoever comes to pass in time, and then immediately discusses the issue of the will of man and everything flows from that. But first and foremost is the decree of God – that God not only is the creator of all things, but because he is the creator of all things then he is the one who has determined the very fabric of time and that's why events in time have meaning. That's why something like the incarnation can have meaning. And evil has meaning because Christ has to come to deal with this issue. So it has meaning, and that means the decree of God is not something that results in mankind being mere puppets. Instead that decree is what makes events in time meaningful. But the real question is: Where is the source of this decree? And the emphasis of the Scriptures is – there's a couple particular terms that are used but – in Ephesians chapter one we're told that this is according to the eudokia of his will (the good, kind intention; that which is pleasing to him). It's interesting that's about salvation but then later on in that same chapter when Paul talks about working all things according to the counsel of his will – that's the decision of his will that has worked all things out. So the Reformed perspective on the existence of evil has to take into consideration the fact that God is glorifying himself in all that he has created. So he is demonstrating the full range of his attributes. So, yes, there's the negative in dealing with judgment, in dealing with evil, his power, his justice, his holiness. And the positive: his grace, his love, and his mercy. These things are all being demonstrated in his decree in the creation that he has made. Where we're going to eventually have to discuss our differences, Bill has often talked about the meticulous providence of God and his sovereignty. So that's not a difference between us. It's the ground that gives rise to what that sovereignty actually does that is the issue between the Calvinist and the Molinist. And that has to do with God's knowledge – when he has knowledge and issues related to that. I'll let Bill define those things. But that's why I was saying at the beginning – that's the key issue. That's what was gotten to in the last five minutes of a program seven years ago (almost seven years ago). Actually, almost eight years ago, now that I think about it, doing my math right! So hopefully we'll be able to get to that and then be able to elucidate upon that a little bit more once we get there.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: James has a good memory there, Bill. It was eight years ago actually that you met Paul Helm in our London studio on that occasion. I think you were over for the C. S. Lewis Symposium.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, probably. Boy, how time flies.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: I know. My goodness. I will post that now that you've mentioned it, James, as another follow-up for people to go and listen to because that was an excellent discussion, too. But, yeah, well let's see. Let's get to the rubber and the road as well in today's conversation. But let's, for those who aren't familiar, perhaps you could sketch out the Molinist perspective, Bill? And explain just how it differs from Calvinism and ultimately why you think it is a more appropriate response or a way of understanding the problem of evil and suffering in the world.

DR. CRAIG: All right. Well, I think, Justin, since it is the advent season it would be very appropriate for me to appeal to Charles Dickens’ wonderful story A Christmas Carol as an illustration of the Molinist view. You'll remember in this story the climax comes when Scrooge is confronted by the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come who shows him terrifying visions of Tiny Tim's tragic death and Scrooge's own unlamented death. And Scrooge, shaken by these visions, says to the Spirit, “Tell me one thing only – are these the shadows of things that will be, or are they the shadows of things that may be only?” And the Spirit does not answer Scrooge, with good reason. Scrooge had failed to exhaust the alternatives. For between “what could be” and “what will be” is “what would be under certain circumstances.” What the Spirit was showing Scrooge was what would happen if Scrooge were not to repent and change. He was giving Scrooge a sort of hypothetical knowledge of subjunctive conditional propositions. And the Molinist view is that God has this sort of knowledge logically prior to his divine creative decree of a world. So while everything that happens is governed by God's decree, God's decree takes into account how people would freely choose under various circumstances in which they might be placed. Now, how does that impact the problem of evil? Well, it seems to me that with respect to the problem of natural evil (that is to say non-moral evil) the difference between the Calvinist and the Molinist is not great. We would both say that these afflictions are within the prerogative of God to impose upon us and fall within his sovereignty and are given for a greater good that God hopes to achieve. But it seems to me that the real difference emerges with respect to moral evil, that is to say the sinful acts of human beings. What Molinism holds is that since human beings have genuine moral freedom to make choices, God knowing how they would choose in various circumstances allows them to make sinful decisions that he does not directly will. By God's absolute will, he wills everything good. In every moral situation, God wills that a person do the right thing. But he knows that in many cases people would not do the right thing. They would choose to do evil. And so he permits them to do that evil with a view toward achieving his ultimate purposes. So God's ultimate plan and providential purpose is achieved not by overriding human free will but precisely through the free and sometimes sinful actions of human beings. I see this as being a vastly more plausible view of moral evil than the Calvinist view which says that God moves the will of creatures to do evil and is therefore the cause of their evil acts.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: That's very helpful, Bill, and a very succinct explanation. It involves this concept which you've alluded to: middle knowledge. This idea that God can see all of the possible worlds that could exist and what people would do under different circumstances and then presumably instantiates that world in which his ultimate purposes are fulfilled while not, as you say, overriding the free will because people are still freely choosing to do what they will do. But God is, as it were, set up the conditions knowing what they will ultimately freely choose to do. Am I understanding that correctly?

DR. CRAIG: Yes, that was very close, Justin. I would just be careful to use the subjunctive mood – that he knows what they “would do,” not what they “will do.” Because he may, seeing what they would do, decide, “Oh, wait a minute! I don't want to create that world. I'm going to make another one instead.” And so what they “will do” can be quite different than what they “would do” under certain circumstances. So it’s a very carefully articulated view.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: And part of the reason you want this very nuanced sort of perspective on this is that for you it's presumably very important to keep genuine human freedom. That that's an important part of your understanding of what it is to be human. And this effectively reconciles God's ability to bring about what God wants but nevertheless to allow humans true freedom. It's obviously a perspective, James, that Bill has been one of the foremost proponents of in recent years. Where do you go then with this usually? Why do you think, James, your perspective is a better understanding of evil and suffering? Because at one level, if you can have true human freedom a lot of people will say that that seems to be a better thing than effectively God micromanaging, if you like, every action, thought, and will of the human person?

JAMES WHITE: Well, there's a micromanaging on both sides. Obviously, in looking at possible worlds, feasible worlds, God ends up micromanaging all the circumstances that people are placed in. And that's why a lot of people reject Molinism. It seems like a strange autonomy when you say that everyone's doing everything freely except they've been put in a position where that's what they would do and God knows they would do that. And many people would say, look, mankind is not nearly that simple. We don't exist as just this thing floating in ether that you know what it's going to do. We are made up of so many complex moving parts, and we sometimes surprise ourselves about what we do. I've surprised myself more than once by what I said or what I did in the situation. So there's a lot of folks who would say, “How does God have this type of knowledge of what someone would do before he's decreed to make that person?” But the primary issue, and you said where do I go when I hear this, first of all we're asking the question which gives the better answer. And coming as Christians the answer to that is that which is in concert with and derived from what we have that the world doesn't have – and that is a divine revelation of Scripture. So it needs to be something that is taught by the apostles, it needs to be something that is consistent with their teaching, or we're going to have to admit that what we have in Scripture is insufficient to answer even the most basic questions. So when we talk about the difference between a Calvinist and a Molinist, the assertion that is being made (and this is what came up in the previous conversation; this was the clarifying remark that Bill made right toward the end of discussion), here's the quote: What the Molinist does say that the Calvinist does find objectionable is that God is not in control of which subjunctive conditionals are true. He doesn't determine the truth value of these subjunctive conditionals. That's outside his control. So let me ask Bill directly. Would you agree that these truth values of these subjunctive conditionals – that is the essence of what middle knowledge is? Would you agree with that?

DR. CRAIG: No. I don't think I would. But I would say that's certainly an essential aspect of it. The idea is that these counterfactual conditionals are true logically prior to the divine decree and are therefore independent of God's will. God does not determine what free creatures would do in any situation in which they find themselves. He takes hands-off, so to speak, and says, “OK, you make the decision.” I find the Calvinistic view less plausible, James, because it says that in any situation it is God who actually moves the will of the creature to do evil and therefore makes God the author of evil. Whereas on the Molinist view, as I say, what creatures would freely do in any situation is logically prior to God's will and therefore it is creatures that are responsible for natural evil, not God.

JAMES WHITE: OK. Well, you did say though that these subjunctive conditionals are definitional to middle knowledge. They are necessary to it.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

JAMES WHITE: And yet they are outside of God's control.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

JAMES WHITE: But they also do not arise from creatures because they have not been decreed to be created yet. Right?

DR. CRAIG: Right.

JAMES WHITE: So where do these truth values come from? They do not come from God, and do not come from God's creatures. Because you say that God's decree is delimited by and takes into account (that was the terminology used just a few moments ago on this program) middle knowledge. So we have something that has truth value that delimits and determines the range of God's decree (what's feasible for him and what's not) but it doesn't come about from God's creative action. So where does it come from?

DR. CRAIG: This is an objection to middle knowledge that's known as the grounding objection. It claims there needs to be some sort of ground of the truth of these counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. And here I frankly agree with Alvin Plantinga that it's much clearer to me that at least some counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are true than that they must be grounded in this way. This objection seems to presuppose a view of truth called truthmaker theory – that in addition to propositions that are true there are things (truthmakers) that make them true. I think that this doctrine is very implausible and that there are lots of counterexamples to truthmaker theory and truthmaker maximalism which says that every proposition has a truthmaker. Take just one example – the proposition that “Baal does not exist.” There's nothing that makes that true. Baal just doesn't exist. So if there is a truthmaker of that, it's just the fact that there is no Baal. Similarly, if one wants to identify truthmakers for these counterfactuals of freedom it would just be the counterfacts that are stated by them. If it were true that if I were rich I would buy a Mercedes then the truthmaker for that is just the state of affairs that if I were rich I would buy a Mercedes. I don't think anything more needs to be said about it.

JAMES WHITE: Except that you're saying that this is the claim that delimits (to use your term) the very decree of God and determines what are feasible worlds for him and what are not.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

JAMES WHITE: So when I look at the examples that are given and I look at any human being, I know that human being . . . the decisions that I make, I make because God has given me certain gifts and withheld others. It has never been a part of my decision making to be a center in the NBA because God did not gift me with the things that are requisite for being a center in the NBA. But the gifts that have been given to me are part of his decree. They are a part of the expression of his freedom in his creation. There are all sorts of those things that go into what any human being is. And I'm not even talking about fallen nature, depravity, the people around us. There's just so many of these things that would determine the things that we would do. But as Christians when we talk about plausibility the real question for us should be: Would the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, would the prophets when they were speaking in Isaiah concerning the nature of God . . . we have something more than just simply philosophical plausibility arguments. We have the light of Scripture.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, of course.

JAMES WHITE: And so if there is going to be the assertion, as middle knowledge makes the assertion, that there are these true subjunctive conditionals that are the basis upon which God's decree is acted out I think it is quite necessary for us as Christian theologians to say from whence comes that which limits what God can do and how we can do it.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Just before you come back on that Bill we're going to go to a quick break. I apologize for interrupting here. It'd be interesting to hear because there seems to be this specific problem that James has with the idea that God, if you like, is at some level hands-off, as you've said, as regards to this middle knowledge, and the options available in that sense to God are kind of not within, in a sense, God's purview to kind of create necessarily. But we'll come back to this. I do, of course, want to also give James the opportunity to respond to your objection to Calvinism – the issue that: Doesn't this make God the author of evil effectively? So we’ll come back in just a moment's time. Fascinating conversation today; philosophical, theological conversation, and one that applies to the real world as well though of suffering and evil. We're talking about Calvinism and Molinism, and we'll be back with my guest James White and Bill Craig in just a moment.

[break]

Welcome back to today's show. We're talking about Calvinism and Molinism today, asking which view of God's sovereignty best addresses the problem of evil. I’ve really been looking forward to today's show because William Lane Craig is probably the world's foremost proponent of Molinism (which he's talked about already on the show) and James White is one of the best known exponents, I think, in the world of Calvinism as well. So great to have two such minds joining me on Unbelievable today. Just to recap briefly, Bill. One of James's key objections to this Molinist view that effectively there is this middle knowledge that God has access to and then God instantiates the world in which his purposes come to being but still effectively allows freedom on the part of humans because he knows what they would do in such a world, and for James obviously this idea of there being this delimiting aspect to this seems to be a problem; that effectively there are truths that exist that are not effectively created by God. And you say this sounds like the truthmaker sort of objection and you just don't see that's a particular problem. Just to help me here, are you saying it's a bit like the objection to God that says can God create a stone so heavy that he can't lift it? That God isn't required to sort of be bound by effectively logically impossible things?

DR. CRAIG: No. No, I don't think that's the point, Justin. The point rather is that this grounding objection presupposes a particular theory of truth called truthmaking and in a particular version of that called truthmaker maximalism – that every truth has a truthmaker without exception. And, as I already indicated, I think there are very plausible exceptions to truthmaker maximalism and I think that most philosophers would probably agree with that. Certainly counterfactuals of freedom would be prime candidates for being exceptions to truthmaker maximalism. But let me address just a couple of other points James made. First of all, his point that people don't exist in a sort of vacuum but have a whole history of their character and background and characteristics that shape what they freely decide, and of course I agree with that. And the point is that these counterfactuals of creaturely freedom factor that in. The counterfactuals of creaturely freedom that God considers are usually thought to include the whole history of the world up to the time of the decision, and then God asks, “What would the creature do freely in that situation?” So of course it reflects the creature's background, abilities, proclivities, and so forth. But the key point that divides us is that God doesn't “determine” how the creature would act in those situations. He lets him decide. And this is so important with respect to evil decisions – that God doesn't move creatures to do evil and then punishes them for what he makes them do. Now, of course our view has to be biblical. In my work on this I always start with the Bible. And what I would argue is that Molinism, while not taught in the Scripture, is consistent with the Scripture. And this is part and parcel of Reformed theology. For example, we would affirm things like the necessity of God's existence. Most Reformed theologians would affirm God's timelessness and spacelessness. None of those things is taught in Scripture, but they are all consistent with Scripture. And so the idea of worldviews or positions that are consistent with Scripture, though not explicitly taught by Scripture, is familiar in Reformed theology. And I think that Molinism makes the best sense of the scriptural data concerning divine sovereignty (which says that everything falls under God's decree) and its affirmation of human freedom and responsibility. It's only by denying the latter that the Calvinist is able to treat the problem of moral evil by saying God is the one who determines how anyone would act in any situation God might place him in.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Do you want to respond to some of those problems Bill has there, James?

JAMES WHITE: Oh yeah. There are so many we'll never get to all of them. But obviously in the assertion that was made earlier when I quoted from, for example, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, I pointed out:

[blockquote]God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.[/blockquote]

So obviously Reformed theologians have strongly emphasized all the issues in regards to secondary causation and how God works in time. And, of course, I have argued for quite some time that the incarnation of Christ demonstrates that we're not talking about puppets on strings. We're talking about the reality of God expressing his pleasure in his creation and in such a way creating mankind so that what happens in the drama of redemption reveals all of God's attributes. So the real issue is when God decrees, is what flows from his decree freely coming from his will or is it delimited by something we don't know where it comes from? It doesn't come from God. It doesn't come from his creation. And that is this counterfactual knowledge that we are being told that's just a truthmaker theory of knowledge. I would say from a biblical perspective if we're going to say that the great Yahweh is limited in what he can do, what is feasible for him to do, then we need to know from whence comes this strange delimitating authority. I don't think that has anything to do with philosophy. It has to do with a claim is being made so we need to know where that's coming from.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Before Bill comes back on that again, I do just want to pick up though just for my sake as much as anything the fact that you say Reformed theology has always had in its confessions this view that God is not responsible for moral evil.

JAMES WHITE: Right.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: You talk about secondary causes and so on. Just for those who aren't familiar because on the face of it what Bill has said is in his view Calvinism does make God effectively responsible. Why isn't God responsible? Why isn't God, as it were, culpable and humans are even when God has ultimately set everything in such a way that it was always going to be this way.

JAMES WHITE: There's two things to recognize. We have God's eternal decree which is not accessible to us. We are time-bound creatures. Then we have his prescriptive decree which is what he's revealed to us as to what we are to do, what our duties are before him, etc. We only have access to that. And that is revealed to us in his Word, in Scripture, and in the nature of the world around us. And so in Scripture we are given numerous examples where God explicitly says . . . Genesis 50:20, it has been discussed on your program many, many times by all sorts of different people . . . but the text says what the text says. Joseph, knowing that his brothers have committed evil against him, knowing that what they did was wrong, knowing even that God had actually restrained their evil (I don't know why God didn't just put him in a situation where they would do freely), but God actually restrains men's evil, God actually hardens men's hearts in other situations. Why would he need to do any of this if he has just put them in situations where they act freely. But in the situation of what the brothers did to Joseph, God specifically says through Scripture, “You meant this for evil.” He does not excuse their sin. He does not say, “Oh, you're just puppets on a string so it doesn't really matter.” He knew what filled their hearts. He knew that God had restrained them from killing him. And yet in the very same sentence he says, “God intended it for good and to save many alive to this day.” He uses the exact same Hebrew term in both places. It can't be avoided. And so in one horrific act, I mean think of the evil of the brothers in deceiving their father and his grieving and wailing and sending their brother off into slavery. This is horrible stuff. And yet God intended it for good. And so, whatever you do, if you take Scripture as the highest norm as Jesus taught us to then you have to norm everything else by that, and we are given examples there, in Isaiah 10, in Acts chapter 4 of where God's sovereign decree limits man's evil and accomplishes God's purpose through that evil, and that God then judges men not for their knowledge of a divine decree but for acting upon the desires of their hearts. That's the basis of what the judgment is made upon. This has been discussed, and if you want to get real philosophical about it, by Jonathan Edwards and others for quite some time. But I just point out that in dealing with our subject – Molinism – we're dealing with a perspective unknown in the history of the church for 1500 years and it doesn't come into expression until someone is seeking to fundamentally undercut the Gospel being preached by the Reformers, by Calvin and Luther. And so it's a more of a modern situation but it wasn't something that people reading Scripture for 1500 years said, “Oh, yeah, there it is.” And I think that's very, very important. I want to be able to expand upon that.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: There's a number of objections there, Bill, coming back at you in that sense. Let's take that example from Scripture – Joseph and his brothers, “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.” Is that a kind of a good example of Calvinism or could it just as easily be applied to Molinism?

DR. CRAIG: It’s a great example of Molinism! I love the Joseph story because it so perfectly illustrates human freedom within the providence of God. “You” meant it for evil, but “God” meant it for good and has brought it to pass. God didn't move the brothers to hate Joseph, to kill him, to throw him into a pit, to lie to their father. That would make God the author of evil. But God knew that if they were in this situation they would behave in these evil ways but that ultimately this would redown to the salvation of Israel and its rescue from famine and all the rest. So this is a story that wonderfully illustrates, I think, how Molinism resolves the antinomy of human freedom and evil and God's sovereign providence. And the fact that this wasn't introduced into theology until Molina I think is a function of the fact that although people were groping for this view prior to Molina, you can show historically people foreshadowing this. It took a theological giant of the stature of someone like Molina to draft and defend this theory. It is brilliant. And so it wasn't an attempt to undermine the Reformation. What it was an attempt to do was to reconcile divine sovereignty and human freedom. Molina was under the conviction that Calvin and Luther had annihilated human freedom, and he wanted to show that you can affirm full divine sovereignty but without turning human beings into automata and making God the author of evil. If we can come back later – I want to give James a chance here – but I'd like to come back and offer an argument based on the Bible for the truth of the doctrine of middle knowledge.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: I would love to hear that. Yeah. I think that's a very important thing to do, and I'm sure James would respond. But there you go. As far as Bill is concerned, it fits Molinism better than Calvinism – the Joseph story. James, what do you say to that?

JAMES WHITE: Well, if you're actually going to take something from the Jesuits . . . and the Jesuits, by the way, were charged with undoing the Reformation. That's why Molina did what Molina was doing, to rescue the sacramental system of Rome. But if you take something that was developed 1500 years later, read it back into something that was about 1400 years before Christ (so almost 3000 years later), as if that's what was trying to be communicated by Joseph, that Joseph had this idea.

DR. CRAIG: No. I’m not saying that.

JAMES WHITE: Joseph understood . . . Why, if that's true (if this is a picture of Molinism), did God have to restrain the brothers from killing Joseph? Didn't he know that that's what they would want to do? He literally violated their creaturely freedom by restraining them from killing Joseph. Remember the older brother had to be brought in to do that. How does anything where God hardens hearts so that nations are destroyed, hardens Pharaoh's heart . . . he restrains evil with Abimelech, he restrains evil with Joseph's brothers. This seems to be God acting against autonomous actions of men. If middle knowledge gave him the basis for just putting him in the proper situations, why would he ever have to then, as Justin put it earlier, if it's a hands-off thing how come there's so much hands getting involved here?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I certainly wouldn't mean to deny God's miraculous intervention in the series of secondary causes. But in the case, for example . . . was it Reuben who said, “Let's not kill Joseph. Let's throw him in the pit.” What we can say is that God knew that this brother would do that and that the others would freely listen to him rather than say that God is determining them to act in this way. And I'm not suggesting that the biblical author had Molinism in mind. Of course not. What I'm saying is that this is a theory to reconcile sovereignty and human freedom that is consistent with the Bible. It affirms the facts of sovereignty and freedom without bruising or annihilating one set of the data.

JAMES WHITE: So, Bill, when I go to Ephesians 1 and I talk about the eudokia of his thelēmatos – the kind intention, that which is pleasing to him of his will – and that is made to be the very source of everything God has done in predestination, election. It's the council of his thelēmatos, his boulē of his thelēmatos in verses 10 and 11 that determines everything that takes place. He's worked all things after the council of his will.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

JAMES WHITE: That is central to what the Calvinist is saying in regards to how God is working, and it is coming forth from the text. Do you see a difference between that approach and what you just did with Genesis 50 where you go, “Yes. This theory comes along 3000 years later but we can consistently apply it to what was written all that way back then and come up with an interpretation of that.” Do you see a difference between having our theology derived from the text and having something that determines what our theology can be that comes from outside the text.

DR. CRAIG: Well, I don't think that your theology, or the Calvinist theology, is derived directly from the text in that way. It seems to me that we're both trying to enunciate theological models that will make sense of the data of Scripture. But the Scripture nowhere teaches unilateral divine determinism of every human act, especially evil acts. I mean, the Bible says God [is not] evil and cannot even be tempted with evil. And yet on this view it is God who moves the will of the creature to do sinful acts and then he punishes them for it. I mean, if it's evil to cause someone to do evil, it makes God himself evil.

JAMES WHITE: OK. So when the Bible in Isaiah chapter 10 says that God brings the Assyrians to punish Israel and then turns around and punishes the Assyrians for the haughty attitude of their heart, how is that not more clear than what you just said. You just said that you can derive something from the text, and you derived your desire to say that Calvinism is causing God to be the author of evil and so on and so forth. And we know he won't do that. You can derive something from the text in that way. How come when I go to Ephesians 1, and it specifically says it is the desire of his will that which pleases him that is doing all things. You say, well, no, you just have an outside system.

DR. CRAIG: We agree on that, James. God issues his decree for his good pleasure. And I would say this factors into it human freedom and how human beings would choose, and it is God's pleasure not to determine creatures to do evil – not to determine them to sin. It's so ironic because you keep appealing to these scriptural examples that I think support my view! How can God punish the Assyrians for something that he causes them to do! No! What it is is that God, knowing that the Assyrians would freely invade at that time, uses the unrighteous Assyrians to do something that he knew they would freely do, and then he can justly punish them because this unrighteous act was done of their own free will. So over and over again I'm finding that when I read these texts from a Molinist perspective it seems to me much more plausible than thinking that God is moving the wills of creatures to do evil.

JAMES WHITE: But what did Isaiah intend his audience? They didn't have Molinism. So they could not have understood these texts. No one can understand Genesis 50:20. No one could understand Isaiah 10. I guess we could just go, well, you know, it's going to take another couple thousand years before we can know?

DR. CRAIG: They clearly would understand Genesis when he says, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good and has brought this to pass.” It means God is sovereign over everything even though you committed these evil acts. I think they would be left basically with a big question mark as people have been for centuries – how do you reconcile this apparent antinomy of divine sovereignty and human freedom. And I think the answer didn't come until there arose a theological giant like Molina to craft this theory that reconciles them.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Essentially I'm getting the sense then, James, that whereas you think Molinism basically came a few thousand years later, Calvinism was essentially there in Scripture from the beginning – that it wasn't something that also came a few thousand years later.

JAMES WHITE: That's why I prefer Reformed theology to Calvinism anyways. But the point is the freedom of Yahweh to do as he pleases with his creation, yes. Isaiah 40 through 48. The fact that he not only knows the future but that he can challenge the false Gods not only to tell what the future is but to tell the past and why it happened demonstrates that it is God's self-revelation. He's revealing all of his attributes, all of his characteristics – his love, his mercy, his justice, and his righteousness. He's revealing all of this as he pleases to reveal himself, not as he is delimited by the creatures that he has yet to decree to make within the Molinistic system. I do not believe that any of the apostles or any of the prophets had any concept of such an idea. I do not believe it flows from Scripture. I'd like to ask Bill – I've read your books, I've listened to your lectures, I know what texts that you've used in the past – I'd like to know where do you derive this? Because I don't think that the Molinist reading comes forth from the text of Ephesians chapter 1 or Romans chapter 8 or any of the others. What do you have outside of anything . . . because you said something I didn't get a chance to get back to it. You said that the whole history of the world up to the point of a human decision is taken into consideration in the decree.

DR. CRAIG: Yes.

JAMES WHITE: My point is that the gifts that are given to me – when I'm going to live, what my intelligence level is going to be, who my siblings are – those are all a part of the decree.

DR. CRAIG: Right.

JAMES WHITE: They are part of the decree that God has made for me. So I challenge the idea that there is an essence of James White that exists outside of God's decree to make James White as James White is that could be known as to what I would do apart from the free expression of God's decree in making me who I am. Because it sounds to me like you're saying who I am is not the result of the expression of God's freedom – it was something God knew, but how he knew we don't know.

DR. CRAIG: That's because you're a determinist, James.

JAMES WHITE: Yeah. OK.

DR. CRAIG: And I'm not. I think that you could have been very different. It's not about an essence of James White. You might have been born in another country. You might have had different hair color, a different weight, different education. You might be speaking a different language rather than English. There's an indefinite number of possible worlds which could include James White in them, and what I'm saying is that God doesn't determine that James White does evil in any of the circumstances in which he might exist. He's going to let James White decide for himself what he would do. Now, let me answer the question about where do I get this. Here's an argument for this. These counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are either true logically prior to the divine decree or they are true only logically posterior to the divine decree. But they cannot be true only logically posterior to the divine decree because that makes God the author of evil. In that case, God is the one who determines how creatures would act in any of these circumstances. Therefore, by the very nature of the case, these counterfactuals of creaturely freedom must be true (if they are true) logically prior to the divine decree. So on pain of attributing evil to God, it seems to me that we have to say that these counterfactuals are true logically prior to God's decree of a world.

JAMES WHITE: Well, I was hoping for biblical argumentation. That is a philosophical construct that assumes a number of things that have already been disputed, specifically in regards to first and secondary causation, specifically in regards to how God judges the world, his relationship to his creation, all sorts of things like that. Is there not – will you admit then that there is no text that we can go to that you can point to and say that specifically teaches Molinism? That's where middle knowledge comes from.

DR. CRAIG: Of course not. I said that. Of course you can't. Neither can you go to a text in Scripture that teaches unilateral divine determinism.

JAMES WHITE: But I've already . . . then I'd like to know what you do with Ephesians 1:11.

DR. CRAIG: Well, that decree factors in human free will. Everything that comes to pass . . .

JAMES WHITE: Where is that in Ephesians chapter 1, Bill?

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Can someone just quote Ephesians 1:11 just for those who don't have a photographic biblical memory.

JAMES WHITE: OK. Let me get with chapter 1 verse 10 so we have it. This is talking about, he purposed

[blockquote]according to His kind intention [there it is, eudokia] which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the council of His will.[/blockquote]

DR. CRAIG: Yeah. The Molinist affirms that.

JAMES WHITE: This is the summing up of all of creation. His decree being accomplished, for example, the decree of Yahweh, Psalm 2 about the Messiah. All of these things. His decree is being accomplished, and it is the expression of the council of his will, not a decree that is based upon some type of external thing that delimits what is feasible for him to do and cannot do.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: A quick response, Bill, and then we'll go to a break. I would love to get to some biblical arguments as well that I know you wanted to sketch out before the program ends. But go ahead, Bill.

DR. CRAIG: I was going to say in terms of the biblical prooftexts, there are lots of these counterfactuals of creaturely freedom in Scripture. For example, one of my favorites is [1] Corinthians 2:8 where Paul says, “None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Now that counterfactual of creaturely freedom is true. It's in Scripture. You can't say that's a truth value gap. And so then my argument is: Is this true logically prior to the divine decree or only logically posterior to the divine decree? And I don't think that, James, you've ever squarely confronted the objection to saying that it's true only logically posterior to the divine decree, namely that makes God the author of evil. He is the one who determines how people act.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Let's let you come back on that, James, in just a moment. I know that you're keen to get back on that subject. We will be back in just a moment's time. I'm loving this discussion and debate on Calvinism and Molinism. Join us again in just a moment. We'll continue debating the rights and wrongs of these two positions.

[break]

We're returning to the final part of today's discussion on Calvinism and Molinism. And, by the way, if anyone's looking for a last-minute Christmas gift, I can highly recommend “Essence of James White” which apparently is the latest cologne on the market. [laughter] I just couldn't resist that when I heard the phrase “essence of James White” being talked about by Bill.

JAMES WHITE: Would you wear “Essence of James White” for a lecture if I sent it to you, Bill?

DR. CRAIG: You mean a shirt?

JAMES WHITE: I think it's a cologne.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: An aftershave or something. I just loved it when we started talking about the essence of James White as a philosophical . . .

JAMES WHITE: Oh yes, yes.

DR. CRAIG: Oh, right.

[laughter]

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: That was just my bad joke. Calvinism or Molinism? Which view of God’s sovereignty best addresses the problem of evil?

JAMES WHITE: Thanks, Justin. Nothing like knocking the entire conversation right off the rails. [laughter]

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: I'm sorry. I'm just trying to add a bit of levity to what is a very serious topic obviously. And I'm not actually trying to say anything else. It is an important one, and what we believe theologically makes a huge difference to what we then go and do and say and believe in the world. And you do hold very different positions on this. I want to sort of come back and give you the chance to respond again. Bill was starting to build a kind of biblical case there for Molinism, specifically this particular verse which talks about, “If they had known what they were doing, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” There are these counterfactuals in Scripture, says Bill. And Molinism is a very good explanation of that, and the fact that there are other possible things that would have happened given different circumstances but God instantiates the one in which his will comes to pass freely. Where do you go with these kinds of justifications of Molinism from Scripture itself?

JAMES WHITE: Prior to Molina's attempt to undo the preaching of the Reformation, theologians understood that there were two kinds of knowledge in God: his natural knowledge and his free knowledge. There is no difficulty in looking at any text of Scripture that has been raised in seeing it as part of his natural knowledge or his free knowledge. How do we know who rulers are? They're created by God. How do we know how they could have anything to do with the crucifixion of Christ? Because they were put in that position by God's decree. That is the very essence of these things. This flows from the free expression of God in sovereignly ordering the things that he does. So there's all sorts of counterfactuals, but that doesn't mean that these counterfactuals come from some place (we haven't been told from where as yet) that they are somehow truths that can determine the feasible worlds. And, for example, there is no essence of James White (whether a cologne or otherwise) because if I was living someplace else at a time, that wouldn't be me. I am who I am because God created me and placed me in this particular place. But I have to give Bill kudos because unlike some Molinists Bill has been willing to go, “Well, if this is true then these are some things that follow from this.” And one of the things that Bill has brought up has been to say maybe there are people who would never accept Christ – that God knows because of middle knowledge they would never accept Christ – and maybe they're the only people that are lost. They would never be saved in any feasible world. And I sit back and I go, okay, are we really suggesting that the apostle Paul believed that? He did all those discussions of sovereignty and the will of man and predestination and election, and he missed that? He didn't know about that? See, from a Calvinist perspective, and this is what Paul Helm said. He said the same thing I'm saying right now. That changes the expression of God's sovereignty in his decree from an expression of his personal being pleased to do it in this way to something where he's limited to feasible worlds. It's putting together a massively complex lego set but the shape of the legos was determined by somebody else, not the eudokia of God. That is the key issue here that must be understood in understanding where we're differing and why it is that Bill can say, “We're quoting the same passages. We mean the same thing.” No. We’re quoting the same passages, but one of us is saying God was pleased in light of these overarching considerations to do the feasible world thing. And I'm saying God was pleased to express his full glory in the creation of mankind in his just judgment upon some and his glorious redemption of others. That's a very, very different perspective.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: Bill?

DR. CRAIG: Well, certainly they are different perspectives. I think the essence of the difference is that the one is a form of unilateral divine determinism where God determines everything that happens (even evil choices of people), and it seems to me that that makes God evil – for being the author of evil. The other view says that God factors into his decree and will what free creatures would do in any situation. And then, as James says, according to his good pleasure God then decrees which world shall be actual and brings about the sovereign purposes that he has in mind. So it's all according to his good pleasure, as James says, but it is not part of the good pleasure of God to move creatures to do evil.

JAMES WHITE: But, Bill, wait a minute. The evil that exists God knew would exist when he looked at the feasible worlds, and yet he brought this evil into existence but not for any purpose in revealing his own character?

DR. CRAIG: No, he didn't bring the evil into existence, James. He brought into existence the circumstances and the free creatures in them knowing how they would choose. So his permissive will is to allow creatures to do things that his absolute will disagrees with. His absolute will is that in any situation a creature would always do the right thing, but he knows that often they will do evil things, and so he permits that to happen with a view toward these greater goods, like saving Israel from famine in Egypt, bringing the judgment upon apostate Israel, achieving the crucifixion of Jesus through the evil machinations of the rulers of this world. All of these things transpire with a view toward God's sovereign purposes for humanity. But what I just want to resist with every fiber of my being is that God moves creatures to do evil. I love the Westminster Confession that you were quoting before, and I agree with so much of it. But without middle knowledge, it seems to me that it's incoherent because it's middle knowledge that enables us to explain how everything can pass.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: I'd love you to explain a bit more, James. I'd love you to explain this then – why do you disagree fundamentally that God is effectively the author of evil in this?

JAMES WHITE: That's what I keep saying. He keeps saying that God is moving people's wills to do things. He is restraining evil. God is not sitting . . . We aren't a bunch of innocent individuals and God's putting this gun in the back of our heads saying “Go do evil things.” Nowhere has that been even hinted at. It is interesting that you can talk about permissive wills and yet when the Reformed person talks about God's sovereign decree and then his prescriptive will somehow that's just dismissed out of hand. This is where I'm really having a problem because when God directly says, “I do what I please in heaven and on earth,” and it sounds to me what you're saying is only within a certain realm because he is delimited by these subjunctive counterfactuals of creaturely freedom that you haven't explained the origin of, and basically said we don't need to know the origin of that.

DR. CRAIG: There is no origin – that's truthmaker theory. It's you who is presupposing a philosophical presupposition in demanding grounds for these things.

JAMES WHITE: But you're the one saying that God cannot save certain people because of it, and when I say “it” you say, “You can't ask where it comes from because that's some truthmaker thing.” I think it's just simply something that is absolutely necessary if we're going to take middle knowledge seriously. Right? You do admit – you've said that there are certain people that in no feasible world can they be saved. Right?

DR. CRAIG: That was a hypothesis to deal with the problem of the exclusivity of salvation through Christ. But, James, if we start down that road, we're going to go into a black hole and never finish. The thing about Molinism is extremely fruitful theologically. I have applied it to the exclusivity of salvation through Christ, to the problem of perseverance of the saints, and to the inspiration of Scripture. It is an extremely facund source of theological insight for the one who uses it. But we can't talk about those things today. The problem of evil is the one that's on the table today, and it seems to me that a view that allows for human freedom to do evil is much more plausible than a view that says God universally and unilaterally determines creatures to do evil.

JAMES WHITE: Bill, that's the difference. Over the decades when I've interacted with your materials and have provided criticism, it's the same criticism all along. You just said it's more plausible. And I believe that the standard for a Christian should not be plausibility. The standard for a Christian should be consistency with the essence of divine revelation.

DR. CRAIG: But there are multiple views which are consistent with Scripture.

JAMES WHITE: What that means is it has to be derived from, not coming from outside and creating a system over. And that's what Molina did because Molina was a Jesuit. He rejected Sola scriptura. He was not operating upon the same foundations. And to call him a theological giant when he's not functioning upon the ground that makes for theological giants is to me one of the biggest, biggest revelations of what we have here.

DR. CRAIG: Well, there's nothing about middle knowledge that denies Sola scriptura. I believe in Scripture alone as my authority, not church tradition. The point that I made earlier, James, comes back again. Reformed theology is permeated by models and theories of God that are not based on Scripture though they are consistent with Scripture.

JAMES WHITE: I have to disagree with you.

DR. CRAIG: I would point to things like the attributes of God: the necessity, timelessness, spacelessness, simplicity of God. These are all constructions theologically that are not based on Scripture but the Reformed theologian would say they're consistent with Scripture.

JAMES WHITE: I disagree when you say they are not based upon Scripture. I do not know how you can walk through the trial of false gods in Isaiah 40 through 48 and not come up with the necessity of almost every single one of the attributes you just mentioned in light of God's demanding that the false gods do things they cannot do. If you want true, rich sources of theology, it's not the Jesuits from the end of the 16th century. It would be Isaiah 40 through 48 or the sections in Jeremiah where he's dealing with the Babylonian gods and in places like that. I do believe, Bill, honestly I'm one of those guys over here that really, really believes that what I believe about the attributes of God does come forth from the text of Scripture. It's not something that's out here someplace. So at least you can understand why I find it so deeply troubling that there would be a claim being made that when I press upon that claim and say you're saying God cannot do certain things in light of this – where does that come from? It doesn't come from anywhere. It just is, and it's a great theological insight. That's why even I think eventually Roman Catholics ended up rejecting Molina's formulations. It is because it's fatally flawed.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: A quick response, Bill, and then we'll have some final thoughts from you both.

DR. CRAIG: Well, I have here Richard Muller's massive four-volume history of Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, and anyone who thinks that Reformed Dogmatics is simply read out of Scripture doesn't know the history of Reformed theology. These volumes are permeated with theological constructs, philosophical models, philosophical principles that shape and guide Reformed Dogmatics. I've given examples of these already. God's necessity. There's nothing in Scripture that says that God exists in every possible world rather than just in this world. God's timelessness – there's nothing in Scripture that proves that God transcends time rather than endures throughout all time. God's spacelessness – again, there's nothing in Scripture that says that God transcends space rather than exists at every point in space. Or the simplicity of God. Certainly God doesn't have physical parts, but you can't prove scripturally that God's essence is existence, that God doesn't have distinct properties. And yet all of these are affirmed by Reformed theologians who took over from the medieval scholastics the Roman Catholic doctrine of God lock, stock, and barrel, including those attributes that I just mentioned.

JAMES WHITE: No one said that they are simply read out of Scripture as if you just simply have the chapter on simplicity or the chapter on anything else. The point is that when you derive your theology from the consistent exegesis of Scripture as a whole (and, by the way, Sola scriptura is not just it's your ultimate authority, it's the sole infallible rule of faith). But when you use Scripture as the whole of the source from which you're driving these things, can you go and talk about these? Can you do what Francis Turretin did and make application and interact with the world? Of course. But that doesn't change what the source of your theology is. And my point here is that we have seen that the central claim of middle knowledge is not grounded. It is not sourced. And yet it is used to delimit what God's decree can do. That is why I believe it must be rejected and cannot therefore be a good answer for the problem of evil unless we're just looking for answers that are not fundamentally biblical in their nature because that's not how Paul would have answered the question.

DR. CRAIG: It is biblical in the sense that it's consistent with Scripture. Again, there's nothing in Scripture that teaches unilateral divine determinism either. These are competing models of God, and we're expected to say which one best handles the data of Scripture without bruising the data. And I think that Calvinism bruises the data in that it makes God the author of evil.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: We will have to draw it to a close there. I feel like you both have very well summarized your different positions in those closing statements there, gentlemen. Although obviously there's a gulf between you on this matter, I think it's been really helpful for the audience to see some of the key differences and distinctives and why, Bill, you feel Calvinism just doesn't deal with the issue of human freedom and makes God the author evil and why, James, you feel that it obviously causes God not to have the kind of control that Scripture says that God has. But it's been very helpful for me to certainly witness this discussion and debate this evening. Thank you very much both for being present and being willing to put it out there. Perhaps just as a final point, if you could point people somewhere to go and read more and perhaps in favor of each of your different perspectives. James, what would be sort of one place you would tend people (apart from your own website obviously), but what book would you say specifically might help people to read and understand your perspective on Molinism?

JAMES WHITE: Let me go old school. I think Francis Turretin did a fine job in dealing with this issue way back when. It's not easy reading. But let's be honest, what we're talking about right now, if you pick something up that is easy reading on this is probably not going to be sufficiently deep to actually get into what the real issues are. I'm afraid a lot of the conversation, that's where it is. So I am thankful for this opportunity that brought some of these things out. There's still more to be discussed. I think that would be very useful.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: There’s always more. Bill, anywhere people can go to see more on your perspective?

DR. CRAIG: I want to thank James White, as well. I thank my brother for this conversation. I think that we both are serving Christ and appreciate the efforts of each other despite the fact that we have some differences of opinion theologically. For a simple introduction, I would say my little book The Only Wise God is a good intro. For a deeper book, Thomas Flint's book Divine Providence I would recommend.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: There you go. James is even holding up The Only Wise God for us. I know you've been doing a series on it on your own program recently, James. Well, there's links to both of my guests from today's show as well so that you can go and find out more. Read up and listen and see what you make of the arguments. But for now, James and Bill, thank you very much for being with me on the show today.

JAMES WHITE: Thanks Justin. It's been great to be with you again. Miss ya. I'd love to see you again someday.

DR. CRAIG: Certainly.

JUSTIN BRIERLEY: For more conversations between Christians and skeptics, subscribe to the Unbelievable podcast, and for more updates and bonus content sign up to the Unbelievable newsletter.^[1]