Free knowledge is the exhaustive knowledge that God has about our world as well as the comprehensive knowledge about whatever will occur in that world. Since God is eternal, and our world has moved through time, logically, God’s knowledge includes everything in the past, everything in the present, and everything in the future.
- “Free knowledge is that part of God’s knowledge which He knows by His knowledge of His own will, both His desires and what He will, in fact, do. The content of this knowledge is made up of truths which refer to what actually exists (or has existed, or will exist).” (http://www.iep.utm.edu/middlekn, italics original)
- “In free knowledge, the third logical moment of Molina’s structure, God fully knows the actual world, including his foreknowledge of everything that will happen therein. This includes not only the circumstances God will directly cause and the decisions he will make, but also the free decisions that humans will make, the random actions of stochastic processes, and the contingent circumstances that will result from those decisions and actions.” (MacGregor, Kirk R., Luis de Molina: The Life and Theology of the Founder of Middle Knowledge, Zondervan. Grand Rapids, MI, Kindle Edition, 2015, p. 95).
- “God’s free knowledge; God knows all true propositions of the actual world.” (Andrews, Max. An Introduction to Molinism: Scripture, Reason, and All that God has Ordered (The Spread of Molinism Book 1, Kindle Edition, 2014, Kindle Locations 39-40).
Is free knowledge biblical?
Yes, free knowledge is biblical since it properly represents that God has complete and total knowledge of all things. We call this His omniscience.
- 1 John 3:20, “in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.”
- Psalm 139:1–4, “O LORD, You have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. 3 You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.”
- Jeremiah 23:24, “Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?” declares the LORD. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.”
Return to Molinism Page
