Tanrı’nın Ön Bilgisi Meselesinde Orta Bilgi Teorisinin Yeri ve İncelenmesi
Authors: Dündar İbrahim Halil 
Published: September 2023

In this paper, with God's foreknowledge, the question of whether man is free or not is discussed based on what the middle information theory offers as a solution. Is God's foreknowledge an obstacle to man's freedom of action? What is the relationship between God's foreknowledge and human freedom? These questions have been answered in various ways. According to the theistic perspective, God knows everything perfectly well, and at the same time, his knowledge is infallible. Furthermore, theism accepts that man is responsible for his actions as he has the choice of the good and evil, and it sees him as a free being. This perspective implies that God has foreknowledge and human beings are free in their actions. However, if God has foreknowledge and this foreknowledge is infallible, how can man be free in his actions? Ultimately, since God’s knowledge is infallible, it is impossible for that knowledge not to come true. Therefore, if all our actions are based on divine foreknowledge, we cannot talk about human freedom then. Various ways of solving this problem have been proposed. The first is the Boethian solution. God is a timeless being and is free from temporal quality. Therefore, God, as a timeless being, is eternal, and eternity is having a full, simultaneous and perfect life without limits. For God, everything is at the moment. This includes what is in the future for us. This is because He is not within the flow of time. As there is no future for God, there is no foreknowledge for Him. Therefore, there is hardly a clash between God's foreknowledge and human freedom. The second is the Ockhamist solution. God is eternal, but contrary to the Boethian understanding, God is not considered outside of time according to the Ockhamist perspective but rather as a temporal eternity with no beginning or end. God's knowledge of someone is not knowledge outside of time. The idea here is that God has different pieces of knowledge in different times. The basic idea in this theory is that propositions about the future are not essential; they simply contain the possibility of being wrong until the moment they occur. Here, the divine regulation or determination of the created will are not obligatory but it exists freely and optionally. The third is the middle knowledge theory, which is the focus of this study. According to this theory, God has two kinds of knowledge: natural knowledge and free knowledge. Middle knowledge is the knowledge of God prior to what actually occurs. In this respect, middle knowledge resembles natural knowledge in terms of being pre-willed. In addition to knowing essential propositions including logical and mathematical ones thanks to his natural knowledge, God knows all not only the probabilities of particular beings but also the complex probabilities resulting from the actions of such beings. This knowledge is the knowledge that God knows by his own nature. This knowledge includes all the possibilities that God can create, all possible particulars and all possible situations in which He can put them, all possible behaviors, along with all possible worlds and arrangements He can create. While the object of God's natural knowledge is possible future probabilities, the object of free knowledge is actual and absolute future probabilities. Middle knowledge, on the other hand, has conditional future possibilities that are between the possible and the actual as an object. With His middle knowledge, God knows how to propose what is not metaphysically necessary but possible. God knows the range of possible worlds thanks to his Natural knowledge. He knows the appropriate range of worlds with His middle knowledge. With His free knowledge, he knows the real world. The most striking aspect of the middle knowledge doctrine concerns how God knows the possible future. Middle knowledge theory not only provides room for human freedom but also offers God the choice to create free creatures. By knowing how humans make free choices under possible circumstances, God can achieve His ultimate purpose of creation. Thus, using his counterfactual knowledge, He can construct a whole world without destroying the freedom of creation because what people will do freely under different conditions has already been put into the equation by God. According to this theory, divine foreknowledge does not prevent man from performing free actions.