Some thoughts I wrote years ago might prove relevant to the discussion. Particularly toward the end but the context from which I drew at the time was libertarian freedom.
More and more people who consider themselves consistently Reformed Christians defend the tenets of libertarian free will (LFW), while not claiming the label “libertarian” for themselves. Nonetheless, they argue for the power of contrary choice, even while claiming it is compatible with divine omniscience. What is even worse is that if one dare defend the necessity of the will (especially in the context of the prelapsarian state), which is the only option aside from pure contingency, it is often alleged that he has denied the Reformed confessions while making God out to be the “the author of sin”, a term that is rarely defined by those who employ it most.
I will not provide here a refutation of LFW, nor will I go into any great detail regarding how it is incompatible with God’s omniscience. I have done that most extensively elsewhere on this Blog. I will, however, provide several quotations from past and present theologians that clearly indicate that this is not a new thought, that LFW is incompatible with divine omniscience. That is to say, LFW logically leads to Open Theism, which is simply a resurrection of sixteenth century Socinianism with respect to God’s knowledge. What this means is that the most distinguishing factor of Arminian theology, if taken to its logical end, leads to a rank heresy, the denial of God’s exhaustive omniscience.
“Ironically, the openness critique at this point strongly resembles the long-standing kind of criticism that many Calvinists have given to the classical Arminian model…Open Theists and these Calvinists agree... that classical Arminianism is seriously flawed in at least two of its major tenets: namely, that… exhaustive divine foreknowledge is compatible with libertarian freedom....” Bruce A. Ware (p. 41 God’s Lesser Glory)
“Hence, the Arminian should be driven by consistency to the conclusion of the Socinian, limiting God’s knowledge.” R.L. Dabney (p. 220 Systematic Theology)
“If [liberty of indifference] be the true theory of the will, God could not execute his decree without violating the liberty of the agent, and certain foreknowledge would be impossible.” A.A. Hodge(p. 210 Outlines of Theology)
“Libertarianism is inconsistent, not only with God’s foreordination of all things, but also with his knowledge of future events.” John Frame (p. 143 The Doctrine of God)
“Moreover, not only are such contingencies not knowable to God, but also such ‘future, free contingencies’ do not and cannot even existbecause they do not exist in God’s mind as an aspect of the universe whose every event he certainly decreed, creatively caused and completely and providentially governs.” Robert L. Reymond (p. 189 A New Systematic Theology Of The Christian Faith)
“Actions that are in no way determined by God, directly or indirectly, but are wholly dependent on the arbitrary will of man, can hardly be the object of divine foreknowledge.” L. Berkhof (p. 68 Systematic Theology)
“But God’s omniscience is limited by what is knowable. If Jones is indeterministically free, then it is not knowable, either to God or to us or to any other observer, what Jones will do when, in a given set of circumstances, he is confronted with a choice.” Paul Helm (p. 61 The Providence of God)
“To suppose the future volitions of moral agents not to be necessary events; or, which is the same thing, events which it is not impossible but that they may not come to pass; and yet to suppose that God certainly knows them, and knows all things, is to suppose God’s knowledge to be inconsistent with itself. For to say, that God certainly, and without all conjecture, knows that a thing will infallibly be, which at the same time he knows to be so contingent that it may possibly not be, is to suppose his knowledge inconsistent with itself; or that one thing that he knows, is utterly inconsistent with another that he knows. It is the same thing as to say, he now knows a proposition to be of certain infallible truth, which he knows to be of contingent uncertain truth." Jonathan Edwards (p. 137 Freedom of the Will)
The libertarian who wants to hold onto the orthodoxy of divine omniscience asserts that Corey will choose x, not necessarily but contingently. Of course a contingent x, by definition, truly might not occur. Accordingly, all Arminians are left with God knowing that x might not occur while knowing it will occur – but these are contradictory truths and, therefore, impossible for God to know; if x will occur, then it is philosophically false that it might occur. Consequently, God would have to know contradictory truths given LFW. He would have to know contingently true, conditional propositions about creaturely free actions couched in the subjunctive mood; such as, if Corey were in state of affairs y, he would freely choose x. Such an alleged truth cannot come from God’s necessary knowledge since the truth would be contingently true, making its truth-maker itself, nothing or some unknown entity residing outside of God and his control.
Why then would so many people who call themselves “Reformed” hold to a theory of the will that if consistently maintained would lead to a denial of God's omniscience? My guess is that they would like to protect God from being the “author of sin”, but in doing so they would have God not be God.
God is often pleased to lead his people into temptation:
The Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” What does such a petition presuppose? It presupposes “that the most wise, righteous, and gracious God, for divers holy and just ends, may so order things, that we may be assaulted, foiled, and for a time led captive by temptations.” (Westminster Larger Catechism: answer 195)
God tempts no man:
Certainly the Catechism does not contradict Scripture where it states: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” James 1:13, 14
The biblical balance:
We must do justice to both truths. Although God is not a tempter, he nonetheless, according to the counsel of his own will, sovereignly upholds, directs and disposes all creatures, actions and things, to the end that even his people may be assaulted, foiled and even led captive by temptations, precisely as God has determined, for his own glory and our profit. Matthew 4:1 couldn't be more explicit: "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil."
Does God merely "permit" sin?
"[Permits] is the preferred term in Arminian theology, in which it amounts to a denial that God causes sin. For the Arminian, God does not cause sin; he only permits it. Reformed theologians have also used the term, but they have insisted that God permission of sin is no less efficacious than his ordination of good." John Frame (p. 177 The Doctrine of God)
"But it is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them." John Calvin (p. 176 Concerning the Eternal Predestination)
“By calling it permissive… we mean that they are such acts as He efficiently brings about by simply leaving the spontaneity of other free agents, as upheld by His providence, to work of itself under incitements, occasions, bounds and limitations, which His wisdom and power throw around.” R.L. Dabney (p. 214 Systematic Theology)
John Frame dissents from the Arminian view, which is that God does not cause sin and that he only permits it. Rather, Frame acknowledges that God’s ordination of sin is as equally efficacious as his ordination of good. As for Dabney, he is pleased to acknowledge that the incitements of sin (which are no less than the provocations or urgings) come from God’s providential wisdom and power, which he is pleased to “throw around.” Many today (those whom I call the “keepers of the Confession”) would hold Calvin in contempt of the Westminster standards, even if he merely meant by “author” the determiner or author of history, within which sin abounds. However, when people have not internalized their doctrine, any theological statement that does not use the precise language of the Confession is considered ipso facto unorthodox theology, regardless of content or intent, which is all too rarely lost on the "keepers of the Confession." Did not the Divines, after all, have to in some measure deviate from biblical language in order to exegete biblical meaning? To merely parrot the same words as what is contained in a passage or doctrinal statement conveys no understanding of the meaning of what is under consideration. If I want someone to explain to me the book of Job, the last thing I want is only to be read the book of Job.
“And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.’” Job 2:6
