We are looking at the doctrine of God, and we have been looking in particular at the attributes of God. Tonight we have the three “omnis”: omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient (all present/everywhere present and all-powerful and all-knowing). I have cited [in the handout] a very definitive text in Romans 11. Paul, after he has spoken of God’s electing and predestinating purposes (an aspect of God’s omnipotence and omniscience, for sure), then explodes at the end of chapter 11 with a doxology:

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways…. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.Romans 11:33, 36

And that provides me with an opportunity to pause for a minute in our studies and remind ourselves that the purpose of all study and the purpose of all theology and the purpose of all intellectual knowledge is to enable us to glorify God. We glorify him with our bodies, but we also glorify him with our minds by thinking his thoughts after him and by searching the Scriptures.

We are going to be thinking tonight about the immensity of God. One of the things we are going to talk about is the omnipresence of God (that God is present everywhere). I cite this prayer of Rosemary Jensen:

Lord, you know the way that I take. Forgive me for not resting in that. You know my future and will lead me where I need to go. Forgive me for not resting in that. You also know my sins and have covered me with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Forgive me for not thanking you every day for that. Praying the Attributes of God, 2002

Omnipresence⤒🔗

(Transcription of audio file from 02:55 to 03:18 omitted.)

Let’s begin with omnipresence. We said last time that God is eternal, and that we think of the eternity of God in two ways. Firstly, with regard to time (which we covered last week). In regard to time we said that God is everlasting in the sense that he is timeless (a notion that is sometimes called eternalism) rather than God existing in unending time (a notion that is sometimes referred to as temporalism). So the everlasting nature of God in a timeless existence.

We made the point last week that space and time are intimately related to each other (we speak of the space-time continuum). Space and time are aspects of God’s creation, and God is outside of creation. There is a distinction between God and creation. Tonight we are thinking again of God as eternal, but this time in relationship to space rather than time. So God is everywhere present.

The Westminster Confession addresses this using one word in its second chapter, as it expounds on the doctrine of God. And it is not saying anything new. This is not a particularly Reformed doctrine or a Puritan doctrine; this is a part of the tradition of doctrine from the Church patriarchs and fathers, from Augustine through Thomas Aquinas and the Roman Catholic Church right through to the Reformation. There is no change here on certain aspects, and this is true here. [The Westminster Confession says] God is “immense.” This is an attempt to grasp something of the expansive nature of God—that God is everywhere.

Scripture←↰⤒🔗

Let’s pick up some Scriptures. One is very familiar:

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. Psalm 139:7-10, ESV

There is nowhere in the vastness of this cosmos that God is not present. I think of Yuri Gagarin in Sputnik, who went up into space in the 1960s under the old Soviet communist regime, and looked out of his little window and said he could not see God. God was in Sputnik, not just outside of the little window of his spacecraft. God is everywhere.

Or the statement at the consecration of Solomon’s temple:

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!1 Kings 8:27, ESV

Now, there is something of attention that we need to think about, because we do think and speak sometimes of God being specifically present. Sometimes we speak of it in terms of our experience—we “feel” his presence and sometimes we “feel” his absence. We need to talk about that in a minute. But in actual fact, God is present whether we feel him to be present or not. God is everywhere present. He cannot be contained within something like a temple or a church building.

Or Jeremiah 23:

Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.Jeremiah 23:23-24, ESV

You cannot in that sense run away from God, as Jonah found out, much to his consternation. Or Paul in Athens in Acts 17:

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything… ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’Acts 17:24-25, 28, ESV

We need to explore that. The testimony of Scripture is clear enough: God is everywhere present. There is not a place that you could run and hide and be absent from God; God will find you, wherever you are.

Theological Interpretation←↰⤒🔗

But we need to think about that theologically. I have a number of things I want us to think about and cogitate a little.

We should not think of this as though God “fills” all spaces in the same sense that we spoke last week about God being “inside” and “outside” of time—that may not be the best way to speak about it. God does not have a physical body so we should not think of his omnipresence (His presence everywhere) in spatial terms. Sometimes we do say he exists outside of space and time, and in saying that we are almost automatically saying that there is a space in which God is not present. He is not “contained” or “restrained” by space. So I am not convinced that the language of “inside” and “outside” is the best way of describing it.

Let me put it in a different way to try and explore this. And what we are talking about, at the end of the day, is incomprehensible. You have no more grasp of eternity than the man in the moon. It is very difficult for us to imagine what it is we are talking about here. Let me put it this way: There are no “dead zones.” There are no “dropped calls” anywhere in space that God cannot be reached or that God cannot reach us or where God cannot come to us. He is present everywhere.

(Transcription of audio file from 10:19 to 10:56 omitted.)

God is present “in Spirit” everywhere in the totality of who he is and what he is. His presence is his presence as God—God in all of his attributes, God in the way that he is, God in the totality of his being. It is not a part of him or an aspect of him (one attribute is present and not another attribute). He is present in all of his totality. All of his attributes are present everywhere. God has no “parts” (we spoke about that two or three weeks ago under the rubric of what is sometimes called the “simplicity” of God).

God’s presence and the Holy Spirit. We speak of this in terms of the role and function of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is present. So Paul, for example, in 1 Corinthians 3 and again in 1 Corinthians 6, speaks of the Spirit dwelling in us in such a way that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, in just the same way that God manifested his presence in some kind of localized form in the Shekinah glory in the temple (so that you could say under the old covenant that God was “present” in the temple, although in terms of his transcendence he is present everywhere).

Don’t you know that you are the temples of the Holy Spirit? Remember how Paul employs that in 1 Corinthians 6 when he is addressing the issue of prostitution and of visiting a place of ill repute (of all things!). Paul addresses it very, very starkly. If you have not read 1 Corinthians 6 of late, it is shocking what Paul says. “Don’t you realize that when you go to these places,” Paul is saying, “in effect you take the Holy Spirit with you?” You take God with you. You cannot leave him outside the door, commit your sin, and then pick up God on the way out. God is everywhere. And if you are a Christian, he indwells you. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The incarnation. And then we need to think of the presence of God in terms of the incarnation. We are thinking of the incarnation of Jesus. This is something that is anticipated in the Old Testament in various forms, like the pillar of cloud and the fire and the Shekinah glory and the concept of the temple in the Old Testament. All these are local manifestations, in some form, of God. But when we come to the incarnation, we have an altogether unique feature: God is present everywhere, and yet the second Person of the Trinity is also present in one place, in a very specific place.

When we think of what happens in the incarnation, you have two natures: the divine nature of Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, and then you have the human nature of Jesus. And the human nature of Jesus can only be in one place at one time. It only has one zip-code. It cannot be in Bethlehem and Colombia at the same time. It cannot be in Colombia and Nazareth at the same time. So the human body of Jesus—whether it is the incarnate body or whether it is the glorified human body of Jesus that is now at the right hand of God—only has one zip-code. It is somewhere. It has a localized presence.

That became a bit of an issue in the Reformation, particularly with Luther and perhaps more so with followers of Luther and Lutheranism, in what is sometimes called the ubiquity issue in the Lord’s Supper. That is that in the Supper the body of Jesus is in some way or other in/with/by/under the bread. The idea that something happens [when the priest says], “hoc est corpus meum,” and the bread becomes the body of Jesus in some form (not quite in the form of Roman Catholic teaching of transubstantiation, but in Lutheranism there was a localized presence of the body of Jesus in some form or capacity). That is a problem not so much with the Lord’s Supper ([though] it is certainly a problem with the Lord’s Supper), but it is a problem in Christology, because the body of Jesus, for it to be a human body, can only be present in one place.

Now, that body of Jesus is in union with a divine nature, but there is only one He. There is only one him—the second Person of the Trinity, who has two natures. So there is a sense in which in the divine nature of Jesus he is everywhere present, and in his human nature he is only present in one place at one time! So in the incarnation you have a specific representation of how God is present everywhere and yet present only in one specific location. Jesus becomes present in another form by the Holy Spirit: “I will go away, but I will come to you again” he says in the Upper Room. So God is locally present in Jesus. He was everywhere, and yet at the same time he was specifically in Bethlehem, or Jerusalem, or Nazareth, or by a well in Samaria.

Pastoral Considerations←↰⤒🔗

Let’s go down to pastoral considerations of the omnipresence of Jesus, because there are experiential dimensions to the presence of God. God is present everywhere, but we do speak of God being near to us, and sometimes we speak of God being very near to us, and sometimes we speak of God being far away.

Experiential nearness of God. James 4:8: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” Now, in a sense, God is always present, whether you feel him near or not. Even when you are sinning against him, God is near. But there is an experiential dimension of the covenantal fellowship, which involves the promises of God that he has made in covenant in Christ and in the gospel, as part and parcel of this statement of James, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” We experience that in everyday life. Sometimes you can be sitting right next to somebody and you think, “They are far away.” You are talking to them and they appear to be far away. There is something in their eyes. They have just drifted off. They are right next to you, but they are not with you. They are far away. And you have to say something to get their attention: “Are you listening? Focus! Look at my eyes.”

[Or in] revival. There are some wonderful prayers. Psalm 144:5 is just one example: “Bow your heavens, O LORD, and come down.” God is present everywhere; God is omnipresent. And yet we pray that God would come down. That he would rend the heavens and come down. That he would come down and show himself near, by doing certain things: by reviving us; quickening us; bringing us to repentance; making Jesus more wonderful to us; giving us zeal; giving us a sense of corporate fellowship in the body of Christ; converting hundreds or thousands all at once. The presence of God! When you read historical accounts of revival in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, very often the language that is used of those revivals is “God was present.” There was a felt presence. Now, he is present everywhere; there is not a zip-code in which you can say God is not present. And yet there is a felt presence; there is a powerful presence; there is a presence with intent; there is a presence with a specific purpose. And the prayer for revival is a prayer for God to make himself present in a very specific way.

Or in corporate worship [as] in 1 Corinthians 14. This is Paul addressing the issue of tongues and prophesy, and he lays down very specific instruction. For example, with tongues, if there is no interpreter present, basically you have to shut up. He puts it much more delicately than that, but that is basically what Paul is saying. Even if you feel the urge—“I feel the urge! I have to speak in tongues!”—Paul says that if there is no interpreter you cannot do it. You have got to sit down. Be quiet. [In regard to] prophesy, he says two, and at most three. And what if you are number four [that has a prophecy]? Paul says, “You sit down and be quiet.”

Because otherwise, he says, with respect to tongues, if people start speaking in foreign languages (and my understanding of “tongues” in Corinth is the same kind of tongues as Pentecost and they are foreign languages rather than some ecstatic angelic prayer language or something like that), whatever comes out of your mouth, it does not make any sense. And if there is an unbeliever present, how will they know that God is among you?

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.1 Corinthians 14:24-25, ESV

Some of you have said that on Sunday mornings you have been listening to Dr. Ferguson as he has been preaching on the emotional life of our Lord, and you have come away and you have said, “God was present this morning.” You could be clever and you could say, “God is always present! Don’t you believe in the omnipresence of God?” It is a fundamental Christian doctrine. And yet there is a sense in which you feel the presence of God. When everything seems to come together and you are transported almost to another place, and you sense almost, in a way that goes beyond explanation, that you are with the Church triumphant above, and you are praising God, and the things of this world have grown strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

This doctrine produces fearlessness.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.Psalm 23:4-5, ESV

The presence of God. When you are surrounded by enemies, trials and tribulations, then it produces fearlessness, because God is with you. I was bullied in school. If your young people are bullied, bring them to me; I can relate to it. I remember being bullied in school. I liked classical music, so I was up for it. I had a target written all over me. I was into Beethoven and Schubert, and so that was it. My older brother was definitely not into Beethoven or Schubert, but he was my older brother. He was four years older than me. And when you are thirteen and he was almost eighteen, that is a big difference. And when he was around, I had no fear. For a couple of months he would make himself present in certain contexts that I was having difficulty in. He would just show up, and fear went away. And that is what David is saying in Psalm 23.

Or sin. We have already spoken about this. Just read [1 Corinthians 6:15, 19-20]. It should make you shudder. Or contextualize it into 2012: when you look at pornography on the screen of your laptop or computer, do not think for one minute that God is not there. He is looking straight back at you. That is what 1 Corinthians 6:15 is saying.

God’s absence. Or God’s absence. Those plaintive cries from the Psalms: “Why, O LORD, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1). Or Job 13:24: “Why do you hide your face and count me as your enemy?” God is present everywhere, and yet you can feel him to be absent. He can withhold (using the language of the Westminster Confession) the light of his countenance from you for a season. He can be right aside you, and yet he can make you think he is far away for a season, to make you want him more. Absence makes the heart grow founder.

Future nearness. And then future nearness. There is an eschatological dimension to the omnipresence of God. We have this wonderful description at the end of Revelation: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). This beautiful picture at the end of Revelation, and the new heavens and the new earth. The covenantal felt presence of God in a way that escalates and goes beyond anything that we have yet experienced. It is something to look forward to.

Omnipotence←⤒🔗

Omnipotence, the second “omni.” God has the power to do everything that is in accord with his rational and moral perfection. We sometimes think of the omnipotence of God in specific areas: in creation, providence, redemption, judgment, and so on (and we will come back to some of those later). I am thinking here of the question in the Children’s Catechism: “Can God do all things? Yes; God can do all his holy will.” That is a brilliant answer, instead of answering the question with “Yes, God can do all things” (which possibly would not be true). There are some things that God cannot do. God cannot lie. God cannot deny himself.

Scripture←↰⤒🔗

Let’s look at some Scripture.

I love you, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.Psalm 18:1-2, ESV

How many words do you want here? The psalmist has swallowed the thesaurus here. He is just completely bowled over by the idea of God’s omnipotence.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.Psalm 46:1-3, ESV

Or the King James Version rendition of Revelations 19:6: “The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” I love that introduction of the word “omnipotent” into the King James Bible (“pantokratōr” in Greek).

Theological Explanation←↰⤒🔗

Now, let’s reflect on this theologically. As I began to say, the doctrine of God’s omnipotence is not that God can do anything. There was a concept in Medieval times (Calvin skates around it; there are some scary sentences in Calvin, in his sermons on Job, for example, that seem to suggest this) that God has what is known as absolute power. That God can do anything that he wills. In other words, it is putting the will of God as the primary aspect of God. The primary thing in God is his will, so that if he wills it he can do it. But I think a safer place is to back away from that and to say that God cannot act contrary to his nature. He cannot act contrary to his moral nature.

So he cannot lie. He cannot deny himself. He cannot give up on his promises (what a blessed thought!) When God makes a promise, he cannot break it. So God cannot lie or change his mind. “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind” (Numbers 23:19).

Let me be a little more edgy: God cannot make a circular triangle. You may want to debate that, and I wish you well, because the notion is self-contradictory! The laws of arithmetic and the laws of logic actually reflect, I think, something of God’s being. You won’t get to heaven and find that two plus two actually equals five.

Pastoral Significance←↰⤒🔗

The pastoral significance of omnipotence.

When God wills to do something, no one can stop him.

For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he has also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?Romans 8:29-31, ESV

Spurgeon has a sermon on Romans 8 that I think is called There is No Stopping this God. When he begins something, when he wills to do it, nothing and no one (remember the questions in Romans 8—Who can separate us? Who can bring any charge against God’s elect?), and not even Satan and not even the powers of hell, can stop God. That is how powerful he is. That is how resolute he is.

Sarah laughed at the thought of bearing a child of her own, to which the question was put: “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14). Remember how old Sarah was? You can sympathize with Sarah, because you would be in exactly the same place. You would laugh too. Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Even Satan is subject to God’s sovereignty. The staggering prologue in Job, the first two chapters, when there is a meeting between God and Satan. And Satan has to give an account of himself! “Where have you been?” And Satan says he has been wandering to and fro on the earth, because he is a tramp. He is a vagabond; he is a tramp. He has nowhere to call home. He is wandering about all over the earth. And when God gives him permission to try Job, God sets boundaries. “You may touch all that he has, but you cannot touch him.” And then in the second trial: “You may touch him, but you may not kill him.” Who is in control here? It is not Satan! It is not equal powers of good and evil. God is in control. God is omnipotent. He is even omnipotent over evil. Now, that raises a billion questions, and some of the most difficult questions in all the philosophy and theology. But Scripture just merely states the fact: God is absolutely and totally sovereign.

God’s redemptive purpose will be fully accomplished. The Great Commission in Matthew 28:18: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…” So what is left? What is there apart from heaven and earth? Nothing! “All authority is given to me”—this is King Jesus; this is the sovereign, omnipotent God speaking in Matthew 28 giving the Great Commission.

Or the statement at Caesarea Philippi in Matthew16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” You can only make that statement from a position of omnipotence. God is omnipotent. God is all-powerful. Don’t you love the doctrine of the omnipotence of God? Those of you who are in trial, those of you who said this week how difficult the week has been, and you are tried and tested, and there are things that happen and things that will happen tomorrow and next week, and not one of them is outside of the total sovereignty and control of King Jesus! The doctrine of the omnipotence of God.

Omniscience←⤒🔗

Omniscience: God knows everything. He knows all that is knowable, whether actual or hypothetical, past, present and future.

Scripture←↰⤒🔗

Some Scriptures here:

The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. Psalm 33:13-15, ESVGreat is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite. Psalm 147:5, KJVAnd no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:13, ESVHe knows everything. 1 John 3:20, ESV

He knows everything. He knows everything that is actual, and he knows everything that is possible and hypothetical. All knowledge that is possible is known to him.

Theological Reflection←↰⤒🔗

(Transcription of audio file from 36:46 to 37:07 and 38:06 to 38:21 omitted.)

Let’s reflect on that for a minute.

Wherefore, if the infinity of numbers cannot be infinite to the knowledge of God, by which it is comprehended, what are we poor creatures that we should presume to fix limits to his knowledge, and say that unless the same temporal thing be repeated by the same periodic revolutions, God cannot either foreknow his creatures that he may make them, or know them when he has made them? God, whose knowledge is simply manifold, and uniform in its variety, comprehends all incomprehensibles with so incomprehensible a comprehension, that though he willed always to make his later works novel and unlike what went before them, he could not produce them without order and foresight, nor conceive them suddenly, but by his eternal foreknowledge.Augustine, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2004

That is just an extraordinary statement that you need to read over and over and over!

Try and dwell on what Augustine is saying here. He is trying to describe something about the incomprehensible knowledge that is God’s knowledge.

God knows himself perfectly. Let’s reflect on it this way: God knows himself perfectly. He is not a mystery to himself. Your spouse, even though you may be married to her for forty years, is still a mystery to you. There are things that go on in that little mind and you sit and wonder, “Where did that come from?” They can still surprise you. God does not need counseling. There are no hidden depths to the mind of God to God himself. God does not have moments like: “I never thought about that” or “Well, who would have thought it?!” God does not have those moments.

Though here is a little thought to think about: The divine nature of Jesus is a mystery to his human nature. In that sense, Jesus is in awe of himself. That is something to think about.

God’s knowledge is “all at once.” Here is another thought: God’s knowledge is all at once. Our knowledge is discursive; we know things because we learn them. Actually, that is the way Jesus knew things in his human mind, I think. He learned them. He studied the Scriptures. I think he spent hours with his parents, with Mary and with Joseph, learning the Old Testament Scriptures, pouring over the prophesies with regard to the Messiah, meditating perhaps as he went to sleep at night on the servant songs of Isaiah and plumbing their depths. He learned them in his human mind discursively. God knows everything all at once!

Does God know the future? Does God know the future? Calvinists and Arminians both answer this question with, “Yes, God knows the future,” but they answer it from different points of view. And again, this is something we will come back to in another place. Calvinists believe that God knows the future because he has determined the future. He has foreordained the future, whatsoever comes to pass. And nothing happens without God willing it to happen, without God willing it to happen in the way that it happens, and without God willing it to happen before it happens. Arminians also believe that God knows the future, but because he can foresee. He can see down the corridors of time the free decisions that human beings make. So it is his foresight that enables him to know the future.

Now, omniscience is a logical requirement of predictive prophesy. You cannot have predictive prophesy (prophesy about the coming of the Messiah in the seventh or eighth century B.C.) without knowing the future. The certainty of the future is a necessary requirement for predictive prophesy to actually take place. If God is going to give a predictive prophesy about something that is going to take place 700-800 years into the future, that future has to be certain and that future has to be known. “It shall come to pass”—the statement that precedes many predictive prophesies in the Old Testament.

God knows future contingent (that is, freely chosen) events. Events that are seemingly part of our free choice within our natures. You wore a green shirt tonight, and you wore an orange shirt tonight. You chose that. That was a decision you made. There were probably all kinds of shirts in the closet this morning, and you made a choice. In that sense, it was a contingent event. It was a free choice. And God knows in advance, because he has ordered all things. It is part of his decree what are to us free contingent events.

Now, modern open theists (free will theists) claim to be Arminian, but actually they are more Socinian: that God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future. He may have knowledge of the broad strokes, because he can predict events because of patterns of behavior in certain circumstances in the past, but he cannot be absolutely sure about the future. Open theists are wanting to do several things, but one of the things that they want to do is to maintain absolute human freedom and absolute human free choice. And if God knows the future exactly, there cannot be free choice. If God knows the future because he has determined the future, there cannot be such a thing as free choice.

Excursus: open (or “free will”) theism. This view is popular today. In the 1990s and up to today this view has come back into vogue again. It is actually a view that goes back to the sixteenth century and Louis de Molina, a Spanish Jesuit priest and defender of human libertarianism, or free will. His views were adopted more or less by the Arminians of the seventeenth century. He proposed a view known as “middle knowledge.”

(Transcription of audio file from 45:15 to 45:23 omitted.)

This view has been resurrected of late by Christian philosophers and others. Alvin Plantinga (the Jellema Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College), for example, has resurrected this view and given it some energy at Calvin College. There are various advocates, and I have given some names [in the handout]: John Sanders, Gregory Boyd, William Lane Craig, and Clark Pinnock are very well-known names and advocates of middle knowledge. Let’s see if we can define what they mean by middle knowledge.

First of all, there is something called necessary knowledge. There is a classical distinction made between natural, or necessary, knowledge. Necessary knowledge is God’s knowledge of himself and what is possible for him. It is sometimes called “simple knowledge” or “scientia necessaria.” This knowledge is essential to his being. It includes such things as the laws of arithmetic and logic.

And then there is God’s free knowledge: Things that happen outside of himself. God’s knowledge of things outside of himself (and therefore not essential to his being). It include things like: Austin is the state capital of Texas; Sinclair Ferguson knows real estate in Scotland; Derek Thomas has a dog named Jake and a cat named Chloe. All of those things are true, but if they were not true, it would not in any way impair the being of God. They are outside of him. The knowledge of things outside of himself. They are only true because God has willed them to be true, but God would not cease to be God if these things were not true.

Now, Louis de Molina proposes a third thing called middle knowledge. I am not convinced that there is such a thing as middle knowledge, but let me see if I can explain to you what middle knowledge is.

It is an attempt to maintain a “risk free” view of providence, where at least the broad strokes of the future are known, but where there is absolute free will. God knows all possible futures. In Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus chastises Bethsaida and Chorazin: “Woe to you Bethsaida and Chorazin, because if the gospel had been preached in Tyre and Sidon” (where it was not preached, but if it had been—it is a hypothetical possibility) “they would have repented long ago.” That is Jesus introducing a hypothetical future. It is not a world that is actualized in anyway; it is hypothetical. If the gospel had been preached in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.

Molina suggests that there are an infinite possibilities and an infinite possible futures, in which in one of those futures you, in certain conditions, would make a free, undetermined choice. That choice is not determined by God in any way; it is just one possible future in which you made a choice. And God has actualized that future. Of all the possible futures out there, God actualizes that one where you made a free human choice.

There was an episode of Star Trek called Parallels where Worf returns from a bat’leth tournament. He walks on to the deck of the spaceship, and things are different. There is a picture that is hanging differently, and there is something different about it. And what he has done is he has crossed some kind of time space fissure in which he is in a parallel universe. He is in another possible hypothetical future. That was Molinism. This episode was all about trying to portray Molinism in science fiction. Data then goes on to explain:

For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities.Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 7, Episode 11

The 800lb gorilla in the room of Molinism is: Why did God actualize that future in which you made a free undetermined choice? Because if I made the “wrong” choice in that future, I want another future. Let’s do this all over again, because I want another future! Molinism to me does not remove an aspect of sovereignty, because God actualizes that future. I do not actually believe that Molinism is logically correct in the first place, but even if it were correct, it does not solve the problem of human freedom, because God actualizes something. This future in which you make a decision is actualized by God, so you cannot rule out an aspect of total sovereignty. God knows all things. Let’s ditch Molinism, because it is a theory going nowhere.

Pastoral Implications←↰⤒🔗

(Transcription of audio file from 52:06 to 52:22 and 52:30 to 52:47 omitted.)

What are the pastoral implications here? They are stunning! They are actually quite moving.

God knows the trivial things—how much more the consequential things! God knows trivial things. Even the hairs of your head are numbered! How trivial is that?! Do you count them? That kind of trivial, and God knows it. Or a sparrow that falls in the street.

Awe. It produces awe. “Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom…” (Romans 11:33). God’s knowledge of himself and of the world and the universe and of all possibilities—how many gigabytes of knowledge is that? You get all excited about a new phone because it has twice the amount of memory on it. What is the size of God’s mind? How many gigabytes worth is it? Do not try and answer it; you just fall down and you say, “Oh the depths…”

Actually, that is in part what Job had to learn. He was asking all kinds of questions, but God never answered any of them. Job brings himself at one point in Job 40 to put his hand on his mouth. He stops talking. Has God brought you to the place where you put your hand over your mouth and you stop talking? You stop answering back? Don’t you hate that about children? When they answer back? And actually that is what Job had to learn—to stop answering back and to be in awe of the omniscience of God.

We are not “forgotten” but cared for. We are not forgotten.

Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?…Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.Isaiah 40:13-14, 28, ESV

God knows our sins better than we do, and still declares us “just” through his Son. One of the most moving sermons on the whole series on 1 John that Dr. Ferguson preached last year was the sermon on 1 John 3:20: “Whenever our heart condemns us…” Do you know what that means? Do you get days when your heart condemns you? You are a Christian, you believe in Jesus, you believe the gospel, but your heart condemns you. And what does John say? “God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.” He knows that you are a greater sinner than even you admit to be, and he still justifies you in Jesus Christ. That is the beauty. That is a beautiful thing. God knows everything. He knows sins that we do not even know. We have never even confessed them because we have never even seen them! We think we know how sinful we are, but God knows exactly how sinful we are, and still he justifies us.