“What is, is. What ain’t, ain’t.” That’s what Dr. Arthur Holmes once told me.
And God KNEW it all beforehand.
With respect to everything He created EXCEPT man, He ORDAINED it to be that way: physical processes, biological processes, weather patterns, etc.
With respect to man alone, God granted awareness and free will. Some would say that diminishes God’s sovereignty (as though He needed them to safeguard His sovereignty). Not so. God’s sovereignty is infinite; hence, for Him to donate a little bit of sovereignty to man (i.e., the privilege of choosing) CANNOT DIMINISH His sovereignty one iota, especially considering that He is the One who decided to grant this privilege to man. God thus has the sovereignty issue well contained.
This issue comes to the fore in the matter of eternal salvation. God established new birth regeneration as the one and only mode of salvation. He chose to make it a matter of man’s choosing it (or not), i.e., exercising the prerogative God granted to him (whether yea or nay).
God foreordained (predestinated) that there would be a body of people who would take Him up on His offer of eternal life, by choosing it.
God foreknew the individuals who would be saved, because, from His vantage point that is outside of time, it already happened.
The only need for molinism seems to be if God were somehow subject to time, as though He had to wait in line like the rest of us (for time to unfold). But that’s not true. So, I would submit, molinism is unnecessary.
The big mystery to me is how God is still able to intervene “in time”, such as by answering prayer, or the Incarnation itself! If I understood that, I’d be God; but I don’t and I’m not. But the “middle knowledge” of molinism is surely not the answer to the mystery.
One might ask with respect to sovereignty, how the Lord chooses to use it. A right doesn’t equal an obligation.
It’s actually much simpler than most make it out to be.
First, we are consciousness, so is God. In the beginning was the word..... a word is merely a metaphor for a thought, a pattern of consciousness.
Read John 14. We exist in Jesus and Jesus exists in us. And if Jesus is in us God that is in Him is also in us.
Think of Russian nesting dolls and we are the little doll in the middle, while God is the big outermost doll. Jesus is between us and God.
I meditated on the concept of free will a few years ago. God explained that there are many levels of free will, depending upon the level of consciousness that we are at. A baby has free will within the limits of a playpen. But if they are smart enough and physically developed, they can climb out and expand their domain.
So it is with man growing spiritually.
Thus when your free will is totally aligned with Jesus, you will do the things that He did and even more.