There are at least three possible answers:

1. God has determined everything that happens; therefore He knows who will accept and reject Him because He has decreed from the beginning who will be saved and who will be damned. This is called unconditional election or predestination. In varying degrees, this position is found in the Reformed or Calvinist tradition.

2. Rejecting the above view, the early Arminians held that God knows our future choices but does not determine them. Knowledge of an event is never the cause of that event. For example, in our imperfect human knowledge we know, at least with some degree of certainty, that the sun will rise tomorrow. But our knowledge of it does not cause the sun to rise. Similarly, God, who has perfect knowledge, knows who will accept and reject Him, but His knowledge does not determine our choice. Rather, our choice is rooted in our own God-given freedom.

3. Other Arminians hold that God does not know what our future choices will be. Of necessity God limited His own power by creating persons with free will. (Otherwise the world surely would not be in the mess we have made of it.) Likewise, He also limited His knowledge of the choices we will make in our freedom. By deciding to have children, parents place further limits on their knowledge of their family’s future. So does God, our divine Parent. The loving God invites, lures, and beckons us to choose the right path, not knowing our choice until we make it, but He will not violate the freedom with which He has endowed His children.

Unlike the first view, both the second and third views are compatible with Wesleyan theology. Although it is ludicrous to speculate about how much God knows, I tend to lean slightly toward the third view—I think!—rls