God has foreknowledge and man has free will. This is true because the Bible says so. On the other hand, Calvinists et al. think there is some sort of friction between God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will. Disappointedly, more than a few Christians think the Calvinists are right about this. These have embraced man’s free will by sacrificing God’s foreknowledge on the altar of man-made think-sos. Thus, something which should impress us with God’s infinitude has caused dissension among His people. These intramural debates are well documented and are not the object of this article.
Instead, I want to discuss a different and more mind-blowing type of knowledge that God possesses. The philosophers and theologians call it “middle knowledge.” The terminology is unimportant. What’s important is that this kind of knowledge is so “totally other” that it is mind-boggling times ten.
Among the various places middle knowledge makes its appearance in the Scriptures is Matthew 11:20-24. Here the Lord said that if the “mighty works” performed during His ministry had been manifested in Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom, they would have repented in “sackcloth and ashes,” with Sodom remaining to His day.
So, I would hope those who can’t get their minds wrapped around the idea of God foreknowing the future, contingent, free will choices of His free moral agents, will spend some time trying to get their finite minds wrapped around the idea of an all-knowing God knowing what free moral agents would have done under circumstances which never occurred and never will. If such knowledge doesn’t blow one’s mind and make him want to fall on his face and worship the Mighty El Shaddai, “the only wise God” (Rm. 16:27; 1 Tm. 1:17; Jud. 25), then I’m not sure what could be said that might cause one who believes that God can’t foreknow the future, contingent, free-will choices of His creatures to rethink his position.
To God be the glory, now and forever!