This is the sixth and final section on Turretin's discussion of Middle Knowledge. This section delves into the philosophical arguments that undermine the concept of middle knowledge, demonstrating that the concept of middle knowledge leads to inevitable self-contradictions.
1. Two categories of knowledge are all that are required, because all true objects of knowledge are things possible or things actual (in Turretin's terms, "future").
2. Untrue things cannot be foreseen as true. In other words, unless it is true that a man will do "X" in situation "Y", God cannot foresee such a thing as true.
3. If divine providence is comprehensive (if it extends to men's acts) then men's will cannot be said to be indeterminate.
4. God's knowledge cannot be said to be uncertain. Therefore, if God foresees "X" as certain, then it cannot be said to be uncertain.
5. Middle Knowledge removes God's sovereignty over the creature, because it suggests that God is in essence depending on man's fortuitous cooperation in obtaining the ends he wishes.
6. Middle Knowledge removes God's freedom to base decisions solely on his own good pleasure, thereby contradicting the view of God presented in Romans 9.
-TurretinFan
Sunday, April 19, 2009
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3 comments:
There is a saying that seems to me to underscore this series of teachings:
Man can count the seeds in an apple and God can count the apples in a seed! In order for a seed to become a tree, someone had to have planted it and someone else, created it.
King David said it this way:
Psa 14:1 To the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.
"Good series" TF, but, most likely that's all it is with some, as I suppose, only those of us who agree accept it as is! :)
Commboxes are unsuited to writing poety, but I thought this apropos concerning the subject matter you were writing:
Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonley, weary, wand'ring traverlers
Is Reason to the soul; and on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
From Religio Laici by John Dryden
I'm not really familiar with the works of Francis Turretin, so this has been an introduction.
I've enjoyed this series, but I'm going to have to review it several times, as the water gets deep in a few places.
~Squirrel
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