the promised land.

His view is that modern Israel as a nation living in the land

of Canaan is in fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham (Gen. 17:7-8) and God's
promise in Jeremiah 31:36. The problem here is that Kaiser does not recognize
the typical nature of the B.C. Israel and the B.C. promised land. Yes, God will
have His Israel who will inherit His Promised Land, just as He has His David and
His Temple, but the antitypical fulfillment is greater than the B.C. types. God's
Israel is the one people of God, the assembly of believers that includes both Jews
and Gentiles but which in the age of the fulfillment no longer has a nation-state
character, and God's Promised Land is the new and greater Promised Land
whose B.C. borders have been expanded into "the new heavens and new earth."
St. Paul indicates as much when he says that the divine promise to Abraham was
that "he would be heir of the world" (Rom. 4:13; compare Matt. 5:5—a quote of Ps.
37:11, and Heb. 11:8-16). Kaiser should apply his observation of "the New
Testament's continuation and enlargement of the ancient promise of God" (p. 102)
also to the question of Israel and the promised land. In the age of the antitype
one does not reinstitute the type.
Part of the problem, it seems, is due to the fact that Kaiser is an historic (not
dispensational) premillennialist. He takes "all Israel will be saved" in Romans
11:26 to mean that the Jewish people as a whole will be saved after "the fullness
of the Gentiles comes in," an interpretation that contradicts Romans 9:27,
overlooks the qualification in 11:23, and denies the necessity of the means of grace
in 10:14. He also argues that 1 Corinthians 15:22-26 teaches three separate
resurrections—of Christ, of believers at Christ's parousia, and of unbelievers at
"the end"—in spite of the fact that the text indicates what will happen at "the
end," not another resurrection but Christ's deliverance of the kingdom to, and His
subordination to, the Father (vv. 24, 28). The context indicates that the only
resurrection in view of 1 Corinthians 15 is the resurrection of believers (vv. 42-57).
The book is clearly written and includes a short bibliography at the end of
each chapter. For the reader who can sift, Kaiser provides some useful "hints" for
handling the difficult but important topic of Biblical prophecy.
Paul R. Raabe

THE ONLY WISE GOD: The Compatability of Divine Foreknowledge and Human
Freedom. By William Lane Craig. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987. 157 pages.
Paper. $7.95.

If God knows in advance what a person will do in the future, how can that
person's action be regarded as a free one? Or if a person freely chooses to do an
action, how can God know this choice before it is made?
Thinking Christians have puzzled over questions such as these for centuries.
In response to such questions Craig, associate professor of religious studies at
Westmont College, has written this interesting book.

104
 In the first part Craig sets forth the Biblical doctrine of divine foreknowledge.
He shows from both Testaments that God foreknows not only what He will do
to accomplish His purposes but also what humans will freely choose to do in the
future. For example, God foreknew what Pharaoh would do to the chief butler
and the chief baker (Gen. 40). Craig also refutes from the Bible the position that
denies divine foreknowledge of future, freely chosen human actions and the
position of determinism, namely, that God determines all human actions so that
we are all merely puppets on a string.
In the second part the author refutes on the basis of logic and human reason
the arguments of theological fatalists, since some contemporary theologians deny
divine foreknowledge because of the supposed strength of these arguments.
Fatalism—not to be confused with determinism—posits that if X will happen, then
X must happen. If God foreknows, for example, that on April 1 of next year I will
eat pizza, then when April 1 arrives I must eat pizza, I am not free to avoid pizza,
even if my action is not at this point causally determined.
Craig argues that the fatalistic argument is incoherent and commits a logical
fallacy. It falsely infers from God's foreknowledge of some future event that that
event must happen, when all one has the right to conclude is that the event will
happen. To use the above example, if God foreknows that on April 1 I will eat
pizza, then on April 1 I will freely choose to eat pizza. If I were to avoid pizza,
which I am free to do (and probably will do), then God would foreknow that. In
other words, it is not: "Because God foreknows X, therefore X must happen."
Rather, it is: "Because X will happen and God knows everything, therefore God
foreknows X." Although God's foreknowledge is chronologically prior to X,
logically X is prior to God's foreknowledge. In this section Craig also shows how
fatalistic reasoning has been rejected in fields other than theology, the fields of
backward causation, time travel, precognition, and Newcomb's paradox.
Part three addresses the question: Is it even possible for one to foreknow
future free decisions? Craig's answer is yes, and he offers several possible ways
for this to be so. He does not claim to explain the actual way that God foreknows
future free events, since the Scriptures do not explain the how of divine
foreknowledge but only affirm the that. Rather, his intent is only to suggest
possibilities against the critics who claim it is a logical impossibility.
If one assumes the "B-theory" of time—basically that the future exists in some
sense—then one could maintain that God transcends the space-time continuum
and sees the year 2000 A.D. as easily as the year 1989 A.D., or that God's
consciousness travels forward in time to view future events, or that future events
retroactively cause cognitions of themselves in God's mind.
If one assumes, as Craig does, the "Α-theory" of time—basically that the
future does not objectively exist—then one could base divine foreknowledge on
God's "innate knowledge" or God's "middle knowledge." The former holds that
God innately knows—as opposed to knowledge based on sense perception or
causal inference—all true future-tense statements. If the statement "it is raining

CONCORDIA JOURNAL/JANUARY 1991 105

today" is now true, then the statement "it will rain tomorrow" was true yesterday.
God knew the true second statement as well as He knows the true first statement.
The latter possibility holds that God's foreknowledge is based on His logically
prior "middle knowledge," an idea first proposed by Jesuits of the sixteenth
century. God's middle knowledge is His knowledge of what every free creature
would do in any possible set of circumstances within any possible world which
God could create. God's foreknowledge is His knowledge of what a given free
creature will do in a given circumstance within the specific world which God
decided to create. Consider the following analogy, albeit a weak and limping
one. In the movie "The Sting," Gondorf and Hooker knew what the mark Doyle
Lonegan would do in various possible situations (middle knowledge). When they
chose to create one of those possible situations (a horse-race-betting casino), they
knew what Lonegan would in fact do (foreknowledge). This analogy is weak,
however, because it sounds as though God manipulates people by leading them
into situations where they are induced to act in a certain way. To this analogy
one must add that God is good and gracious and that in each circumstance
people are genuinely free.
The author's argument gets pretty complex at times. (Much of it went over
my head at least—"soared" might be a more accurate verb.) Newcomb's paradox,
for example, is incredible; if s amazing that anyone could even come up with such
a "paradox." Nevertheless, the book does illustrate the positive value of
apologetics. When critics on the basis of human reason assert that divine
foreknowledge of free human acts is logically impossible, one can respond by
showing also on the basis of human reason that their arguments are not air-tight
and that it is logically possible. Craig also does a fine job of presenting the
Biblical teaching of divine foreknowledge.
There are, however, two areas where Confessional Lutherans would disagree
with Craig. When it comes to human free will, one should distinguish between
divine, eternal matters and human, temporal affairs. With respect to the former,
natural man's will is not free (John 15:16; 1 Cor. 2:14), whereas with respect to the
latter it is. Also, Craig comes close to attempting to answer the question of "why
some are saved and others not" on the basis of the theory of middle knowledge.
The Scriptures simply do not give one answer to the question. Even if one
pushes it back to the moment before creation, one cannot rationally explain why
God created this world in which some reject the Gospel rather than immediately
creating heaven in which all are confirmed in faith and bliss. But with that being
said, the book should be read, especially by those who are tempted to deny
divine foreknowledge. This article of faith is an important one because with it the
Gospel is at stake. Not only does divine foreknowledge give Christians the
comfort of knowing that no future evil designs will catch God by surprise (Solid
Declaration XI, 6), but also it is the case that God foreordained His plan of
salvation in Christ because He foreknew the Fall into sin (Acts 2:23; 1 Pet. 1:20).
Paul R. Raabe

106
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