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Don’t you hate it when you think you’ve had an original thought – and it it may well be original in the sense that you came up with it yourself – and you plan to share it as your own idea, but then you discover that someone well-known has beaten you to it?

I’ve been friendly towards a Calvinist (or Augustinian) view on providence and salvation for a number of years now. In more recent years, I’ve become more sympathetic to Molinism, the view grounded in divine middle knowledge, although I don’t hold this view, and I think it is unlikely that I will. I became frustrated with a couple of things.

Firstly, although what warmed me up to Calvinism is my view of the biblical teaching on sin, grace and salvation, when somebody finds out that I’m kindly disposed to that Calvinism, one of the first things they want to grill me about is their understanding of a Calvinist take on God’s relationship to time, or fatalism, or something along those lines.

Secondly, it became clear to me that some Molinists that I know, and certainly some opponents of Molinism, seem to think that this is a significant alternative to a Calvinist view. And certainly, it is not Calvinism. But something that is an essential part of Molinism can certainly be maintained by a Calvinist, even though some people seem to talk about it as incompatible with Calvinism.