Middle Knowledge & Free Will: What Does God Know And When Does He Know It

As you probably already know that one of my favorite blogs is Pros Apologian which part of Alpha and Omega Ministries. One of it's regular contributors TurretinFan
has put together a series of very interesting blog articles about Middle Knowledge. It's a multipart series of posts. I will link to them below and following that will be a playlist of videos. This is really important. It's about exploring the question: What does God know and when does he know it?!

Middle Knowledge - Part 1
Middle Knowledge - Part 2
Middle Knowledge - Part 3
Middle Knowledge - Part 4
Middle Knowledge - Part 5
Middle Knowledge - Part 6

I thoroughly enjoyed the series. The information presented is invaluable. I admit the talking cartoon was a tad...creepy...but if this is the voice of the author he has a great voice for communicating verbally. This information is important because it is about the nature of God and what He does.

It is unavoidable that "Middle Knowledge" was developed so that people who believe that humans have free will can still argue that God is in sovereign control of everything. For that reason alone, agree that we should throw out the thought. However, I think that the idea that God puts people into circumstances and situations so that they will voluntarily choose to do things that they would not have done otherwise. Here is an example from scripture (2 Chronicles 7:11-14):

When Solomon had finished the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the LORD and in his own palace, the LORD appeared to him at night and said:
"I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.

"When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

Recall that in this passage God uses chastening to "inspire" repentence. What I like is that these verses totally knock down Middle Knowledge because it shows that the main driving force is God and his purposes first. It's God's world, we just live in it.

This not saying the same thing that Middle Knowledge says because God know what He has to do to cause a person to move the way He wants them too. However, God can just make a person choose what He wants them to choose apart from their own will. For example we know for a fact that God restrains evil. Proverbs 21:1 says

The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD;
he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.

One last point. The Bible reveals two different "wills" of God. One is identified by the Greek word "Thelos" which refers to the purposes which God will put his power into fulfilling. This corresponds to God's free will as defined in this series. The other is "boulomai" which refers to God's desire but not to what He will put his power into accomplish. This corresponds to the "natural" knowledge has because of his omniscience - knowing all possible paths He could take.