Did Jesus Know Peter Would Deny Him? Molinism, Foreknowledge, and the Problem with Open Theism

One of the most compelling episodes in the Gospels is Jesus’ famous prediction of Peter’s denial:

“I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me.” (Luke 22:34)

It’s the kind of moment that punches you in the gut—Jesus, calmly foretelling the failure of His closest friend. The scene is striking—not only because of the personal betrayal, but because of the startling precision and quiet confidence with which Jesus delivers the prophecy: three denials, within a narrow window of time, punctuated by a specific auditory signal. And all of it hinges on the morally significant choices of a genuinely free human being.

This passage has recently been a battleground between advocates of divine foreknowledge and proponents of Open Theism. Recently, a thoughtful conversation partner, Ryan, raised a common concern from the Open Theist side. His view, respectfully paraphrased, goes like this:

"Sure, Jesus made a very confident prediction. But does that mean He

knew

it with 100% certainty? Isn’t it possible that He simply had extraordinary insight—perhaps a 99.999999999% probability that Peter would deny Him three times? Must we require

absolute certainty

in order for Jesus to be truthful?"

Ryan presses this further:

"If there was even a remote, absurdly unlikely scenario where Peter stumbled, broke his foot, and didn’t make it to the place where the denials occurred, would we really say Jesus was wrong for not qualifying His statement with 'might'?"

This is an excellent challenge, and it deserves a robust response.

Probability vs. Prophecy

Let’s start with the obvious: Yes, we humans speak with varying levels of certainty all the time. When I say, "I bet my dog will bark at the UPS man when he delivers my order," I’m expressing a strong probability based on past experience. It would be absurd to expect me to say, "Unless, of course, my dog loses his voice, or the UPS man is a FedEx guy, or we're unexpectedly out of town." But here’s the key difference:

I’m not God.

Jesus, on the other hand, claimed to speak the very words of the Father (John 12:49). He was (and is) the incarnate Logos. When He makes declarative claims about the future—especially detailed predictions involving morally significant free choices—He’s not just offering highly informed human guesses. He’s revealing divine knowledge. This matters because the question isn’t whether Jesus used colloquial speech. The question is whether Jesus had

access to truth

about what Peter

would freely

do. And that brings us to the central tension.

The Improbability Objection

Let’s take Ryan’s charitable example seriously. What if there was only a 0.000000001% chance that Peter would

not

deny Jesus three times? Wouldn’t that be close enough for Jesus to speak with confident language? At a purely rhetorical level, perhaps. But philosophically and theologically, this creates a major problem:

If there was any chance—however small—that Jesus’ statement could have turned out false, then it wasn’t knowledge.

It was a prediction, a probabilistic guess—and however impressive it may seem, it still falls short of divine

fore

knowledge. The biblical text doesn’t allow us to relegate this to mere educated estimation. Jesus didn’t just say, "Peter, you’re trending toward denial," or "You might deny me." He said it

will

happen,

three

times, before a very

specific marker

in time. And then it did. That’s not a lucky hit on a cosmic roulette wheel. That’s detailed fulfilled prophecy about a libertarian agent and the other agents Peter was interacting with on each of those three occasions. And it invites us to ask:

How could Jesus know that

?

The Molinist Answer

This is where Molinism shines. On the Molinist view, God possesses what is called

middle knowledge

: perfect knowledge of all true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom. That includes knowing what

any

free creature

would

do in

any

circumstance. So in this case, God knew:

• What Peter would freely do if confronted in that courtyard,

• What each person interacting with Peter would freely say,

• How Peter would freely respond to fear, shame, and social pressure,

• That all of this would unfold before the rooster crowed.

And so, Jesus—as the divine Son—could declare the future with confidence,

not because He caused Peter to deny Him

, and not because He was making an impressive guess, but because He

knew

. That’s the difference between foreknowledge and foresight. It’s not about odds. It’s about truth-tracking.

The Weight of Prophecy

Now zoom out. Peter’s denial is just one small but vital data point. The New Testament is filled with fulfilled prophecies--future tensed truths regarding libertarian agents being fulfilled (which is a huge reason we can trust the truth of The Bible and Christianity in particular:

• The betrayal by a close friend (Ps. 41:9; John 13:18)

• The amount of silver paid to Judas (Zech. 11:12-13; Matt. 26:15)

• Gambling for Jesus’ garments (Ps. 22:18; John 19:24)

• Piercing without broken bones (Ps. 34:20; Zech. 12:10; John 19:34-37)

Each involves free human agents (in a libertarian sense) acting in complex social environments. The odds of

just a handful

of these aligning by chance are astronomically low. And yet they happened. If we reduce them to statistical guesses, we gut them of their prophetic weight. They become impressive coincidences—not divine pronouncements.

Trust, Theology, and Truth

This matters not just for theology geeks. It matters for every Christian who trusts Jesus. If Jesus didn’t

really know

what Peter would do, how can we trust what He says about:

• The coming of the Holy Spirit?

• The future resurrection?

• His return in glory?

If His predictions are probabilistic, then our confidence in His promises becomes probabilistic too. But if Jesus is God—and if God knows all truths, including truths about what free creatures would do—then we can rest not in probabilities, but in promises grounded in perfect knowledge.

Final Thought

Open Theism forces a tradeoff: It tries to preserve libertarian freedom by denying that truths about future free actions

exist

to be known. But in doing so, it undermines divine omniscience, prophecy, and ultimately the trustworthiness of Christ. I've spilled gallons of ink showing why Calvinists cannot trust God. The Open Theist, rightly recognizing the horrible problems with Calvinist, unwittingly joins them and renders their subjective view of God as untrustworthy as well.

Mere Molinism, by contrast, affirms both freedom and foreknowledge. It gives us a God who is maximally great—perfect in knowledge, power, and love—and who knows what every free creature would do in any circumstance. Jesus didn’t guess about Peter’s denial. He knew. Because God knows all truths—including those about our freely chosen futures. And that makes all the difference.

Stay reasonable (Isaiah 1:18), Dr. Tim Stratton