He also held that a foreknowledge of the way a thing worked robbed it of most of its illusion and glamour for the beholder.
To the naive they hold out hope that foreknowledge will enable the hearer to escape a dire fate or make a fortune.
He maintained that the human will is free, and therefore that humans are morally responsible for their choices, but he also held that God has foreknowledge of the choices that humans freely make.
It's standard theism to hold that God has full foreknowledge of what is to befall us: he sees our pain before we feel it, not just while we feel it, and so grieves it beforehand if He ever grieves it at all.
Option 1: Holding very firmly to both zealous incompatibilism (freedom is incompatible with foreknowledge) and fervent exclusivism (in order to be saved, one must freely accept Christ), one can hold that, while it may not be absolutely certain, it is OVERWHELMINGLY probable that all will eventually accept Christ and be saved, and the probability that any will resist forever is VANISHINGLY small.
William seems to hold both that the future is indeterminate and that God's foreknowledge is determinately true or false.
"Middle Knowledge, Foreknowledge, and Open Theism," 6th Annual Baylor Philosophy of Religion Texas, held at the University of Texas, Austin; Nov. 5, 2010.
One who holds the position being described denies what's known as "comprehensive foreknowledge," but not omniscience). On this view, universalism is not now either true or false.
As we have noted, however, from Boethius onward there have been those who have held that eternalism solves the problem of human libertarian freedom and divine foreknowledge, and in any case such an argument has no appeal to non-libertarians.
In particular, Macpherson argues for a connection to legal principles of strict liability that hold persons accountable for harms inffflicted upon others in the absence of intention, consent, direct action, or foreknowledge.
