Why "mysterious ways" don't matter.

[SteveII]

@Esquilax
@Pickup_shonuff

You are correct that if you believe God is deducing the future free choices from the present conditions--which then causally determines how one would choose--it is less than free will. However, the Molinist view is that God not only has knowledge of necessary truths and contingent truths but that God's middle knowledge contains, but is not limited to, His knowledge of counterfactuals. The Molinist believes that God, using his middle knowledge and foreknowledge, surveyed all possible worlds and then actualized a particular one.

Molinists say the logical ordering of events for creation would be as follows:
1. God's natural knowledge of necessary truths.
2. God's middle knowledge, (including counterfactuals).
---Creation of the World---
3. God's free knowledge (the actual ontology of the world).

It is necessary to place God's middle knowledge before creation, otherwise the creation act would have started a causal chain and free will goes out the window.

Borrowed heavily from Wikipedia to save typing.