What Is Middle Knowledge?
Dr. Craig explains middle knowledge, a key concept in Molinist theology!
INTERVIEWER: So middle knowledge is between two different kinds of knowledge, right? Could you explain a little bit about the two kinds of knowledge on either end, and what middle knowledge is supposed to do in between those two?
DR. CRAIG: Molina distinguished between God's natural knowledge and God's free knowledge. God's natural knowledge is comprised of all necessary truths, and these are independent of God's will. They are explanatorily prior to God's decree to create a certain world. So God, prior to his decree to create a world, knew the whole range of possible worlds that he could create. This was known to him by his natural knowledge. This kind of knowledge is essential to God. his free knowledge, on the other hand, is God's knowledge of the actual world. After God makes a decree to actualize a certain possible world, then he knows the contents of that world that he has decreed: its past, its present, and also its future. And this kind of knowledge is not essential to God because it is dependent upon his free decree or choice of a world to actualize. So that would be his natural knowledge and his free knowledge.
INTERVIEWER: Great. Could you say a little bit about what sets middle knowledge apart from the natural and the free knowledge that God has?
DR. CRAIG: Yes. Middle knowledge is so-named because it comes in between other two; it's called “scientia media” or “middle knowledge,” because it's in the middle. And this is God's knowledge of what free creatures would freely do in any circumstances in which God might create them. So, for example, he knew what you would have done if you had been the Roman procurator of Judea in the first century in the place of Pontius Pilate. He knows what you would have done if you had been one of the 12 disciples; would you have deserted and denied Jesus, or remain faithful? God knows what you would have freely done. And this kind of knowledge is also thought to be explanatorily prior to his creative decree of a world. Prior to his choosing a world, God knew the maximal orders of things that he could create involving what creatures would freely do if they were in these various circumstances. Now this kind of knowledge is contingent. It's not like natural knowledge, because creatures could freely choose to do differently. So the truths that he knows by his middle knowledge are not essential to God in the way that the truths known by natural knowledge are. It's essential that God have this kind of knowledge, but its content could have been entirely different depending on how creatures would freely choose. Nevertheless, this knowledge is explanatorily prior to God's creative decree. God does not decree what creatures would freely do in various circumstances. Rather, this knowledge is had by God logically prior to his creative decree, and it serves to delimit the whole range of possible worlds down to a proper subset of those worlds that would be feasible for God given the conditional statements about what creatures would freely do that are true in these various worlds. So by his natural knowledge, he knows the full range of possible worlds. By his middle knowledge he knows what worlds would be feasible for him to actualize given the subjunctive conditional statements that are true about how creatures would freely choose under various circumstances. And then on the basis of that, he issues a creative decree, chooses one of these feasible worlds, and then he has free knowledge of that world that he has chosen to create.