For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord,
And He ponders all his paths.
His own iniquities entrap the wicked man,
And he is caught in the cords of his sin.
He shall die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Proverbs 5:21-23 (NKJV).
It feels obvious saying this, but God is not "tricked" or "fooled" by anything we do, especially not in the way that the people around us can be, because their perceptions are limited. There is no hiding anything from God, or surprising God, or anything like that.
In the nature of creation we see that God designed the systems of our existence knowing full well that Adam and Eve would fall. While God desired that humanity remain in relationship, God knew that wouldn't last. Why I say it in that manner is reflected in the stance I take on the balance between God's sovereignty and human agency, or free will.
The label is "Molinist", and essentially it sits between the much better known "Calvinism" and "Arminianism". Despite Luis being a contemporary of John and Jacobus, the doctrines that he put forth to explain the balance of sovereignty and free will were dismissed despite providing the most coherent interpretation of scripture be actually balancing sovereignty and free will instead of enslaving the one to the other as the two more prominent stances often do.
For those who are entirely unfamiliar with the terms, Calvinists emphasize the sovereignty of God at the cost of free will, and Arminians emphasize the free will of humans at the cost of the sovereignty of God, and while there are more details that are worth understanding, this is the most important one to understand right now. The next most important thing to understand is that each is supported by scripture, and as you might now guess, passages that support one undermine the other, and vice versa.
Yet instead of seeking to find a way to harmonize interpretation coherently, scholars from both schools of thought tend to create "new rules" to interpret scripture such that when the Bible says something, you now have to reference a "decoder ring" of sorts to understand what scripture is really trying to say, even if the new interpretation appears to contradict the explicit words used in scripture.
You might be wondering what this has to to with Proverbs, so I'll digress for a moment. If what a man (or woman) chooses to do is not really their choice, then they do not own the moral significance of the choice, nor the consequences that come from the result of a choice they did not make. Is a puppet capable of defying the puppeteer? This passage in Proverbs is discussing the consequences of wickedness, so understanding who is really responsible, given that God knows what will be done and "ponders all his paths", helps explain the how in this piece of wisdom given to us by Solomon. Now, back to the task at hand.
Some examples of scripture that must be twisted one direction are Revlation 22:17, 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 5:15, and 2 Peter 3:9.
Verses that must be twisted the opposite direction are like Ephesians 1:4 and 1:5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13, and 2 Timothy 1:9
In each set, who is responsible when it comes to salvation is painted differently, who responds and why isn't quite the same, and you can see how, emphasizing either God's sovereignty or human free will, you end up with an inconsistent interpretation of scripture. Instead the two must be balanced, and that's where Molinism comes back into play, and thus how it ties directly to this passage in Proverbs.
Molinism posits that in addition to the two types of knowledge most theologians recognize, that there is a third "in the middle" of those two. The first recognized set of knowledge is of all that could be, all the possibilities that God could manifest. The second recognized set of knowledge is all that will be, given that what will occur is a subset of the creation of God, so God being outside creation there is no reason God won't know this. The third, the posited set of knowledge, is that God knows what would happen under different circumstances.
"Middle knowledge" is that God knows accurately what choices you would freely make with your own judgment under a given set of circumstances, even if those circumstances are entirely hypothetical and never actually manifest.
Anecdotally, we express this type of knowledge when we are familiar with someone and accurately predict how they will react in a circumstance. Finishing each other's sentences, or even phrases like "I knew you'd say that" are evidences of this in our lives, but is there ever a scriptural support for this phenomenon?
Yes, and out of Jesus' own mouth as well. Is there ever an explicit reference to the knowledge that Jesus is tapping into when making such a claim? No, but the word "trinity" does not appear in scripture either, and yet few have issues with the use of the term to describe a philosophical concept that is relevant to doctrine.
So, why the huge detour down this path in order to support this verse?
If God knows what you would do, then God could put you in the appropriate place and time in history such that your choices, whether in obedience or rebellion, would still be yours, but the outcome of your choices could still be known and accounted for in God's overall plan for out material existence.
In essence, what it means is that before the creation of our reality, God could compare all the possibilities, determine which of them brought God the most glory, and then seek to manifest exactly that specific series of events, all without needing to coerce people to make any decisions, because God, knowing us better than we even know ourselves, knew what choices we would make and how the flow of the narrative of our existence would continue on because of those.
In this fashion, God could also design the mechanisms of existence to always have an appropriate response, such that both materially and eternally, the choices we made would have been ours, and so God's punishment of sin and justice is no longer a mockery, a game of puppets, actors, being punished for just playing the part God gave them.
This is how the wicked can be caught up in their sin, not because God is constantly scrambling to find some way to give evildoers their comeuppance, but because God already knew of the choices that would be made, and so can orchestrate the natural flow of humanity to achieve God's ends even if through means which God could not, at any level, be responsible for (sin).
Sin does not have a tangible existence, but is like a shadow, a relative concept like "cold" which exists to explain the absence of something else. A shadow cannot exist without light, and "cold" does not make sense unless there is "warm" to compare it to, "cold" just being a smaller quantity of "heat".
Likewise, creation was ordered by God to function in such a way that reflect God's nature, but gave the capacity for existence of "less holy", "less perfect", "less God". Sin is Godlessness, running contrary to both God's nature, and the nature of the creation of God. While Satan does rule, and seeks to promote evil, a lack of holiness, a lack of moral perfection, this is but an attempt to pervert and corrupt an existing creation, not a new creation, an opposing force to God.
In the same fashion that, while appearing to have material success, Satan's defeat has already been declared, been understood, and likewise the sins of man may grant a temporary appearance of success, of "winning the battle" against God, but it always comes at a cost which entirely destroys all that was gained through wickedness.
For one example and then I'll wrap this up, the greedy are never satisfied, their lust growing ever stronger, there is no "enough" for them, despite everything that they gain, they cannot see it, and their lives do not really change, they continue to behave as if they'd really gained nothing at all. Eventually even the power they have gathered unto themselves runs out and all they had gained is lost, and to the dust they were made from do they return. Their avarice, their attempts to gain freedom from God is successful, but only in damning them to an eternal bondage without hope of reconciliation.
Solomon is telling us that there is no sin for which there are no consequences, and that for the measure of our investment in foolishness, so will we find ourselves distanced from God, whether now or in eternity.
Pursue God, pursue wisdom, retreat from temptation, and you will not die alone, lost in darkness, isolated from God. It's our choice to make, and God will respect it, judge us for it, whether we chose obedience or rebellion.
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