Die Kämpfe Gottes, 2 vol).. Divided into six parts, the work treats exhaustively of the immortality of the soul; dreams, divination, and prophecy; divine knowledge; providence; celestial spheres and separate intellects and their relationship with God; and the creation of the world, miracles, and the criteria by which one recognizes the true prophet.
Luis de Molina, an influential Spanish Jesuit theologian (1535 1600 C.E ., saw clearly the relationship between God's providence and the knowledge of what could happen and would happen in various circumstances.
So what God needs, for the purposes of providence, is not just knowledge about what will happen, but also knowledge about what could happen and what would happen in certain circumstances.
Since we have such limited knowledge of providence and of God's design, we should turn our attention to that which we can have knowledge of: our nature insofar as it bears on our moral governance and conduct.
Things seen as actual are necessary by supposition (i. e., with respect to God's knowledge and providence), but many of them are contingent with respect to their proximate causes (Sent. I.38.1.5, Summa contra gentiles I.67, Summa theologiae I, 14.13, De veritate 2.12).
One influential argument that open theists use against defenders of foreknowledge who do not also accept Molinism is that foreknowledge without middle knowledge is useless for divine providence.
In this way, Molina's theory of middle knowledge generates a theory of providence designed to combine a strong, traditional notion of God's control with a robust account of the contingency involved in human freedom.
Providence Health System in Portland, Oregon provided a database of practices (n = 933) for this study.
If the former, then God could not be said to have knowledge of humans, and so divine providence would not be efficacious.
Assuming it is a legitimate notion, middle knowledge does much to restore God's providence in creating free creatures.
