On W. L. Craig on whether God can learn

A friend of mine has pressed me to respond to William Lane Craig’s defense of Molinism, so here is a small contribution. Recently, I found an occasion to do so. Craig’s X.com team posted this video, a snippet of a longer interview; click and watch it, it’s only 94 seconds. Craig is being provocative, and in fact, the title added to the snippet (“If God knows everything—can he still learn?”) is somewhat misleading about his views. Still, I am taking the bait, as this strikes me as a good jumping-off point for the debate about divine foreknowledge, free will, and future contingents. (I did take up this topic last May, but with almost no attention to Molinism.) Let’s review how the debate typically proceeds when Craig’s Molinism is deployed to reconcile divine foreknowledge with human freedom, concluding by evaluating Craig’s Molinist proposal. I am saving my response to Craig until the end.