““God can of course look in someone’s mind to discover what he is thinking, or look into the future to discover what she will do, but here and elsewhere the Old Testament implies that God does not always do that. God waits to see what will happen. Perhaps it implies a kind of respect for human beings, a desire to let them make their decisions and not mess with their minds, and a desire for a realtime relationship. If God always worked out ahead of time whatwe would do, and knew it before we did, it would introduce an element of phoniness into the relationship. But that’s just my guess; the Bible makes clear only the fact of God’s not knowing things ahead of time, not the rationale.””
