God's knowledge of future contingencies

Taken from Turretin in rough outline form:

A thing may be contingent in two ways:

• by depending on God as first cause (as all of creation is thus contingent, since God didn't have to create)
• by depending on prior second causes (which produce or not produce their effects).  Turretin is speaking these contingents.

A future contingent implies both certainty of event and mode of production.  As future it is certain, but as contingent in its mode of production.   It has the former from the decree of the First Cause, the latter from the constitution of the second cause.

The mode of production is clarified by the Westminster Confession of Faith V.2:  It identifies God as the First Cause, corresponding with the first point made by Turretin, but notes that the First Cause orders the events to happen in three modes:  freely, necessarily, or contingently. 

See also:  necessity of the consequence (contingent) and necessity of the consequent thing (absolute)

An event can be both infallibly certain yet contingent.  Thus, all things take place by the necessity of consequence, not the necessity of the consequent.  Turretin notes that man's actions can be free because they are spontaneous and follow rational judgment, but necessary because of God's decree (I: 211). 


 

Turretin on different types of freedom

The more I read of Richard Muller and other exponents of Reformed Scholasticism, the more I realize that the Reformation tradition had a rich and full understanding of freedom of choice.  The following is taken from Willem J. van Asselt's Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism.

Contrary to Arminian and Catholic charges, the Reformed view of a "necessary" will is not incompatible with "freedom," provided both terms are understood correctly. Francis Turretin provides six different types of "necessity," four of which the Arminian/Romanist must affirm are compatible with freedom: 1) necessity of dependence of the creature on God; 2) [Asselt intended to list the second type of necessity, but I don't think he did], 3) every creature is dependent on God in terms of the future per God's foreknowledge and decree. 3a) Asselt writes, "However great the creature's freedom may be, these acts are still necessary from this perspective, otherwise God's foreknowledge could be false and his decree changeable." 4) free will must go with rational necessity, for must not a free action be a rational one? 5) Free will relates to moral necessity, or that of habit. If you do an action enough, whether good or bad, it becomes a habit, making it easier to do this action. Few will deny this observation. 6) The necessity of an event or the existence of a thing. If a thing is, it is necessarily.  This is an example of a necessity of the consequence.   It is not an absolute necessity.

In short, freedom can be determined because freedom is not absolute (Asselt, 162-163).

Necessity of the Consequent, Consequence

The necessity of the consequent is the necessity of a proposition behind the "then" in an if...then statement. The necessity of the consequence is the consequence itself. Ie, the implicative necessity. In the implicative necessity, neither the antecedent nor the consequent needs to be necessary. Only the necessity of the implicative relation counts. Take the two propositions:

(1) If I marry Marian, then Marian is my wife.
(2) It is necessary that Marian is my wife (if I marry her).

In proposition (1) it is contingent that I marry Marian. I did not have to do so. Only the implication between the antecedent and consequent is necessary. In proposition 2 it is the result of the conditional proposition that is necessary.

Proposition 1 does not imply proposition 2. Therefore, in an argument of implicative relation of necessity, both the antecedent and consequent can be contingent and not necessary. According to the Reformed scholastics, the necessity of the consequence corresponds with absolute necessity and the necessity of the consequent with hypothetical necessity. In this distinction, the Reformed scholastics combat the charge that the divine decree destroys the contingency and freedom of the world. Therefore, necessity and contingency are compatible and not contradictory.

Most important in this distinction is that it depends on God's will ad extra. If the decision of the divine will is directed to contingent objects ad extra, then God's will is contingent, too. In other words, God contingently wills all that is contingent. Created reality, therefore, is the contingent manifestation of divine freedom and does not necessarily emanate from God's essence. For if this were the case, all things would coincide fundamentally with God's essence, and the actual world would be eternal (198-199).

Reasons on not holding to Apocryphal books

I had a long email discussion on the apocrypha with an Anchorite, most of it against my better choosing. Once you get past their "trap questions" on "how do you know which books are in the Bible," the discussion ends soon after.   The best thing is to start asking specific questions about Apocryphal books.   My normal line of approach was to start pointing out the errors in Tobit.    An anchorite will respond that the Bible also has "apparent errors."  Back-and-forth, back-and-forth.

Another line of approach is the historical-canonical one.  Turretin explains by way of syllogism:

Premise:  The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God (which most would acknowledge as Old Testament).
Premise 2:   The apocrypha is absent from the Palestinian canon:
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Conclusion:  the apocrypha is not "the oracles of God."