versus when he is just describing hypotheticals that he does not actually subscribe to himself,
Let's consider a topic that I hope will prove to be related. One gets tired of reading (or writing) past perfect. So, when your narrative requires a flashback, you signal it with a soupçon of past perfect, and then you plunge into the earlier time. Thus:
Sara shivered in the cold. {past tense, the "now" of the story} She remembered the recent summer. {hinting the shift to come} She
had worn shorts and a t-shirt and still been warm. {past perfect, we're leaving the present of the story to visit an earlier time} Jake whistled at her lewdly, so she spit in his tapioca. {no longer past perfect, we've completed the transition to the "now" of the flashback} Then she went swimming. At the swimming hole, she
had broken a fingernail. {past perfect again; we're either snapping back to the "present," or we're referencing a time even earlier than the "now" of the flashback} She shivered again, and looked at the fingernail, almost completely healed. {Ah, we're back in the "present," the point that we flashed back from}
Michael Cunningham says a single "had" resets the story's clock. Damon knight says you can use one or two.
Now, let's go look at Craig's subjunctives, see if they work similarly.
Your question presupposes that God exists in time, as we do. But if God exists timelessly, He does not have literal foreknowledge. For what is future for us is not future for Him. So He knows what is future for us, but He does not foreknow it. Defenders of divine timelessness, then, have no difficulty with your question, since it presupposes a temporal deity.
But suppose we think, as I do, that God does exist at every time that there is and so does literally foreknow the future. As you rightly point out, foreknowledge of free choices cannot be based upon inference from present causes, for that would imply determinism and annihilate free choice. So God must know future free choices in some other way.
I've bolded the signposts.
presupposes: This suggests that WLC is discussing a proposition he isn't wedded to, a hypothetical, or a contrafactual, or just something he isn't committing himself to the truth of at this time.
if: An even stronger hedge: What follows is definitely hypothetical.
For: Short for "therefore." In other words, what follows results from the "if" that preceded. We're still discussing a hypothetical.
So He knows: Now we're using regular language, as we did when we plunged back to the past of the flashback. We've done plenty of signaling our intent, so we can afford to simplify our language.
presupposes: This is like when Sara shivered the second time. She was leaving the flashback. WLC is leaving his hypothetical
Now we have a blankline, a new paragraph, a change of subject. We'll need to watch for new signals to see whether we're entering a new hypothetical or what.
But suppose: This means a new hypothetical. The "but" means we aren't continuing the old one.
as I do: This is WLC's own position. It may be hypothetical for the sake of this argument, but it is not so hypothetical that WLC doesn't believe it to be actually true.
would: This flags the subjunctive mood. We're dealing in counterfactuals: Even if, as Craig believes, god is timely, god's knowledge of the future does not result from his knowledge of a determinative present. Even in this hypothetical, that source of knowedge is not the case.
God must know: We're still in the hypothetical. If we stipulate to the givens of this hypothetical, then it follows that god must know. We're in an if/then/must structure. If god is timely, then god must know.
and why he is defending those if he does not think they are true anyway.
For the same reason that I don't commit myself to a definition of "objective" when discussing the moral argument. I win that argument
regardless of how it is defined. So long as you are committed to logic, you must yield to my logic, regardless of what you mean by "objective."
Why should I throw away that victory-in-all-circumstances position for one that wins only if you happen to share my definition of "objective"?
And why should WLC throw away his victory-regardless-of-whether-god-is-timely position for one that wins only if you happen to agree that god is timely?
It reads as a lot of word salad to me, without much substance.
It's all misdirection and lies, but not for the reason you suggest.
