Free will and Morality - How can you have one without the other?
Do you ever wonder about fate? Ever wonder if everything that happens on this rock has already been determined and we're just going through the motions?
I have. I do. I think about this kind of stuff all the time. It seems to me that how you think about this is going to affect your life in pretty significant ways. If you think everything has been fated, or predetermined, you may have a tendency to feel okay with some pretty morally questionable actions because, after all, it was predestined. It comes down to this: if it's fate that a person acts in a morally evil way, is the person morally culpable?
If you are an atheist, I suppose the question would be; as a person are your actions the only possible actions you could have taken due to the circumstances you were in or were you acting in response to internal instincts. Are we trapped in a world that is the only way it could be, or are we just programmed meat? An accident of evolution...
Personally I'm a theist. I think there's a creator that made us and everything we see. Further, I'm a Christian so I think the Bible is a good place to look for answers about that question. The problem with that is, there's just so many different things the bible says about free will, God's will, election, etc, that Christians just can't agree about what the Bible teaches.
Personally, I think free will is a thing. I think the bible spends a lot of time making a big deal about what people do, and it seems pretty ridiculous to me to criticize people for only doing what they were made to do. Why tell people they have a choice if they don't?
I've been encountering a lot of reformed Christians lately, and I can't really get a good answer about this issue. How does this work out under Calvanism? How can people be held morally responsible for being evil if they didn't have a choice in the first place? How can it be just for God to create people for the sole purpose of damning them?
Even if you throw Eternal Punishment out the window you still have some very serious problems reconciling the world as we know it with a good God. How can you justify child abuse, genocide, rape, torture, etc? People all over the world live their whole lives in abject poverty and suffer horrible violence then die young never hearing the gospel. Now you tell me it was good for God to do that to them.
It just doesn't make sense. I know some will say it's good because everything God does is good, but that just doesn't work for me. How can God be good for doing things He tells His people are evil?
The idea of human morality just seems logically inconsistent with determinism, or Calvinism.
Any thought?
There has to be a balance, I think. In a deterministic universe, there is no room for reward or punishment because nobody chose their actions in the first place. Yet absolute free will strips God of His omnipotence. We Muslims believe that the choices we make determine our guidance or misguidance, and that while God knows all that we have done, are doing, and will do, we have made those choices of our own accord.
I've heard Christians explain it similarly. I just have trouble with the idea because if God made us how we are, how could we do differently?
I don't think absolute free will means you have to throw out God's omnipotence either. I think God is omnipotent in that He has the Power to do whatever He wants, but He doesn't choose to do some things. I think human free will is like that. God can limit human free will but He doesn't.
Omniscience is a little harder, though. I personally think that God knows everything that's going to happen, but not because He made everything happen that way but rather, God is so smart and knows His creation so well that He can "see the end from the beginning."
Ooops, I confused the words! Meant to say omniscience, not omnipotence. I'd generally agree with what you had to say in your post, but I've always thought that for God to be all-powerful, he must exist outside of time, and indeed be the creator and sustainer of time. Thus, to Him, his creation simply is, and time is only a matter of human perspective. Thus, He has full knowledge of all things past, present, and future.
I've thought about it that way for a while myself. Like, God is an artist and all creation is the painting. He can see the whole thing because He's outside the painting looking at it from beyond. The main reasons I have issues with that are based on what I see in the Bible. It's probably a case of "we'll find out later."
What part of the Bible makes you disagree with that idea?
Stuff where God changes His mind. Like in the book of Jonah, God intends to destroy Nineveh but changes His mind. Jesus says that He longed to draw Jerusalem to Himself but they wouldn't let Him.
Plus, you have this recurring theme where God tells His people what's good for them and tells them to choose to do the right thing. He goes on to admonish them for not doing so.
If we're still using our painting metaphor, now we have two paintings and the characters in the painting get to chose which one becomes reality.
Let's carry the metaphor a little further. If you made a painting of a city, and you painted a man making a rude gesture, would you chastise the painted man? Would it be appropriate for you to punish him? It doesn't work for me, I guess.
I'm not sure if that metaphor holds true if the painter did not paint the gesture, but only the man. Paint generally doesn't do much moving other than dripping, but you get the point. God created us (something I think any theist can agree on), but we choose our own actions. He has full knowledge of what we will choose, and allows us to make that choice even if it is something displeasing to Him, but he is not responsible for it, no more than a father is responsible for their child growing up to become a gangster when he did everything he could to raise him/her on the straight and narrow. God sends his guidance to all of humanity, and we choose to accept it and walk the path of righteousness or reject it and follow false gods.
Well, you are getting right at the heart of the matter, now. I agree the metaphor doesn't hold, it is just a thought experiment. However, I do think the idea that God is outside of time implies that the creation as a whole is actually complete. That is, if we could for a moment borrow God's perspective, like looking at the painting, we would also see the end from the beginning. In that way, what we are going to do has already been decided by the creator.
It's the very fact that man and the painting of a man are not the same, that causes me to reject the idea.
The way I see it, if the whole world/time/space is actually already finished, then our actions have been made for us by the creator and we are no different than the painted man. We would be no more responsible for our actions than he.
In a way I feel like that limits God. By creating in such a manner God would not create an actual free will agent like man, rather, he creates complicated robots.
I think your thinking on it is pretty close to mine, actually. As an aside, there is a similar concept to the idea that God sends guidance to all humanity; it's called prevenient grace. It's a Wesleyan idea that says God is at work influencing everyone toward Himself, and it is our choice to accept that grace or not. I rather like the idea but some Christians reject it.
I'm really surprised that you aren't more deterministic. I was under the impression that Islam was totally determanistic. Thanks so much for dialoging with me, I'm richer for it!
I was predestined not to be a Calvinist. ;)
Me too! Well, not at first but found out later I was. Then again, it's possible I'll find out later I always have been...
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I love it.
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Followed!
You can not have one without the other as day and night :)
I really appreciate this post @garthfreeman, so first of all, thank you for sharing. You have a new follower for sure. Looking forward to your future posts :) Before I begin, I hope to discuss this further with grace that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did.
In terms of what you wrote about, basically talking about the incoherence of human morality and the problem of evil. I will not talk about Calvinism this early on. I claim myself to be a Calvinist, and for good reason.
As fellow Christians/theists, we believe in one God (being) and three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins and resurrected to give us all eternal life. This is a fact both biblically and historically.
Free will and evil are in fact coherent. Humanity and the Supreme God are two separate entities, on total opposites of the spectrum.
I believe that through free will, we are able to walk on a journey that will glorify Christ all the more; however, I say this with extreme caution because free will is not merely having our own wisdom to make our own decisions. First of all, God gave us a natural inclination to choose sin; so, no matter how many good deeds we did, our hearts are naturally still impure and rebellious towards our God. Most of the times, we end up being our own God - doing our own thing, sinning to our hearts "content" and enjoying the pleasures of this world.
We all deserve death, we deserve punishment. No one here is perfect. Why? Two reasons. The sin of Adam and Eve, and the ability to glorify Christ in our imperfection.
Thanks so much for your comment. I'm always up for discussions.
It's not that I think free will and evil are incoherent, but that if there is no free will then how can there be human morality.
This is basically my understanding of Calvinism: God made humanity with the predetermined outcome that some humans would receive salvation but most wouldn't. Further, the ones that don't receive salvation were made in such a was that they were incapable of behaving any different than they did but they were going to be eternally punished for it anyway.
So I don't see how free will fits with the T, U, L, I, or the P.
You say we all deserve death and punishment, but I see that as logically inconsistent. If some people were predetermined to go to hell it means they were created incapable of moral goodness yet still they are punished. That is unjust, and God cannot be unjust.
You have a different picture of God's character than I as well. You say that:
Does that sound good and just? Why would God make us so that we would be sure to sin and then punish us for doing what He made us to do? I can't see how that's moral. You have God CREATING evil.
Yes, I believe these hard topics are great discussions between believers and non-believers alike. May it continue to be a stepping stone in advancing our faith and loving our God all the more.
First of all, thank you for addressing that. I see where you are coming from. If free will is really just a myth, how can there me moral standards?
I believe John Calvin explains free will as us - humans - voluntarily choosing to sin, until we are transformed by the grace of God. I think this aligns with the T of TULIP - Total Depravity. Of course, there is an asterisk there. Free will can have so many different definitions in different contexts.
What free will here means is to make our own decisions. This is human nature. No one likes to be the same - hair, face, status, etc., and so, this is how we were built by God. Furthermore, when you say that we His people "were created incapable of moral goodness yet still they are punished. That is unjust, and God cannot be unjust." I take that in you saying that by the moral standards ordained from the Supreme God, people are incapable of knowing His goodness simply because they were predestined not to be saved in the first place. I believe this goes back to the matter of free will and God's justice.
God is outside of the Universe because He is the creator of it. Us as humans cannot comprehend His predestination, and thus should be fearful of His sovereignty. That's why as believers, fearing the LORD is biblical and natural.
Furthermore, I believe that God made us different apart from other creatures in the world. He gave us the rationale to communicate in different languages, have moral choices, and ultimately, to give Him glory. Life's purpose outside of glorification is limited and futile in my view. Sin cannot fill our hearts with full satisfaction.
Finally, I don't think God created evil; rather, He made it permissible back in Genesis 3 - the fall of Adam and Eve. If you really want to talk about having an unjust God, we should discuss the fall. I think the question "Why did God allow Adam and Eve to sin?" is the wrong question. God is perfect, just, and holy. He is outside of sin. We as HUMANS are the fallen nation. Humanity and the one true God are completely different entities.
Rather, I would challenge you with the following question, "Why did Adam and Eve fall to the Serpent?" Tempted to be just like God? To replace God in their lives? You see, in this instance, God created the Serpent; but, the Serpent's heart was inclined to leading them into sin. Why? Choice. Just because the serpent's heart was wrong, doesn't the Creator of the Serpent is wrong either. I don't think you would blame your friend for breaking a window if his son was the culprit.
Did God predestine Adam and Eve to sin? I would think so. Without the fall, there would be no need for us to be saved through Jesus Christ. It's all in His divine plan, something bigger than we can all comprehend.
I don't think you're quite getting my point about human nature. To be clear, I do not believe in predestination and my explanation was an attempt to illustrate why. What I'm saying is that if God made men and predetermined what they were going to be and do, then God really can't punish men for sin because they were unable to not sin. Under predestination man only does what God programmed him to do so how can that be morally wrong? If I made a chair, but wanted a ladder, I would now punish the chair for not being a ladder. That may be a bad analogy but to me, it only makes sense if man had actually possessed the potential to not sin and of their own free will decided to anyway.
I don't really have an issue with why God permitted Adam and Eve to fall because I believe in free will. I can't understand how you can hold that Adam and Eve had an actual choice, but God predestined what choice they would make. That seems incoherent to me. Rather, in my view, God did actually give Adam and Eve free will to chose, and they could have chosen to refuse the serpent. However, God, having created the serpent, Adam, and Eve, knew what was going to happen by virtue of His intimate knowledge of His creation coupled with infinite intelligence and wisdom.
It's the tension between Free Will (Choice) and predestination that I'm questioning.
Moreover, suffering is caused by our emotional state. We feel suffering because we feel like we are worse off than our previous condition/circumstances; however, suffering does not always come after sinful acts. It is all relative, based off primarily emotional distress. This is why Jesus Christ's life, death, and resurrection are simply amazing. Although he seemed as if he was suffering, he did not sin. He was the innocent lamb from which He was slain for our iniquities. Sin and suffering are usually paired together, but do not have to be.
Now, the problem of evil in our lives is quite tragic. We live in a broken world. God intended it to be broken, and He is the supreme God. However, the problem of evil is extremely small in the glimpse of eternity. Our Lord did not promise good to all mankind because it will not happen in this lifetime. Our purpose in this present world is not to enjoy it and then hope for the best. Our purpose is to find the truth, our reason for living, and that is to submit our lives in Jesus Name, and to live for Him until He comes again.
You see, my friend, even though people's circumstances are hard - financial struggles, poor, homeless, abused, addicted - the common ground that they can live on is life. Why didn't they die from their addiction? Why didn't they die from their suicide attempt? You see, God has spared their life because there is a bigger purpose for them in this lifetime. They are still alive, breathing.
This is the same with the other spectrum of people, who are rich and famous. Deep down, they are just as broken and needy as the ones who are poor and broken. In our human state, we all need a Savior, and that is Jesus. No one is exempt, no matter what situation they are in.
I'd like to conclude with this. Sin is an ugly thing. We have all sinned, and we have all fallen short from God's glory. This is our natural inclination - to rebel against God and not put Him first in our lives. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to seek God because we are naturally like this.
When Jesus left Earth, He gave us - His true followers - the Holy Spirit. Sin is real, but God is bigger than sin. He paid the penalty for our sin on the Cross. As ambassadors and professing Christians, may we shine the light on God's sovereignty and grace, and show the world that there is Hope, and that Hope is Jesus.
Thank you for reading! Please excuse my long replies - I am just really passionate about the Gospel. Thank you for sharing once again. God bless :)
Thanks for the comments, I think these kinds of discussions are fascinating.
You know, I don't have a problem with the idea of God having a plan for our lives. I have a problem with the idea that it's immutable. I think the bible shows that God's plan doesn't always work out.
Here, what God intended was prevented by the will of the people of Jerusalem.
-Jonah 3:10 - When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.
Here, God changed His mind because the people of Nineveh repented.
I see it more like a parent, who has great plans for their child, and works hard to provide opportunities for the child. In the end, though, the child isn't going to be a Dr., or a Lawyer, or President based on what the parent wants.
I have a question about your views, though. If God created us as sinners, which is what I think you mean by saying sinning is our natural inclination, in what sense do we deserve punishment? I mean, if we were made to sin, why should we be punished for doing what we were made to do? Also, if you have God making us sinners, then how is His punishment of us just?
One last from the Bible:
If God made man with the inclination to sin, doesn't that mean that sin actually came through God, and not man?
Thanks for the interesting discussion!
Agreed, I am definitely loving this discussion so far! Thanks for conversing once again :)
When you say God's plan is fixated, you mean it can never be changed? I would have to say yes, that is indeed His nature. Perfect and divine, does not make mistakes!
In discussing Matthew 23:37, I think you bring up a good point, but a limited one. Yes, God laments over Zion for being rebellious and unwilling. However, I don't think God is disappointed in His plan not coming into fruition; rather, I think it is a disappointment in their rebellious hearts. Yes, Jesus Christ had emotions on Earth, but, do you really think the Creator's sovereignty and wisdom is undermined by His unwilling creation? If God has to stoop low and do it from the will of man, God's sovereignty should be questioned immediately.
Furthermore, that passage in Jonah 3:10 is amazing, where He displayed His mercy and love toward the people of Nineveh. However, do you think without the will of the Lord imputed in their hearts, that the people of Nineveh done the same thing? I think the will of God far surpasses moral reasoning. We can all be moral/immoral by our own will; ONLY by the grace of God, we can experience a true transformation, one that is beyond morals.
I would say that your comparison with God and humanity, and parent and child are OK, but not completely accurate in what I think it is. God made us in His image, yes? As God's image bearers, we should strive to be like God? Where does the standard of God come from? Ourselves? If so, is truth relative or absolute? I think truth is absolute and we have come to know God. However, the power of sin has disconnected us from knowing God from birth, and made us sinful people. Now, the origin of our sinful nature started way back in Genesis 3, and it is the same way up until now.
God made sin permissible in this world because he made human's in that manner. He gave us the cognitive abilities to make decisions on our jobs, friends, etc. Did we as babies have a choice to be born with the parents who made us? There is room for God to do His will according to His great purpose and plan.
God and sin do no co-exist because God is perfect and sinless. God did not per say create us to be sinful; rather, God made humans to be image bearers of Christ and to glorify His name, but not under compulsion. He gave human's the ability to make decisions; or else, we would be robots just proclaiming God's glory. I believe God wants humanity to glorify Him willingly, by the grace of our Savior. Through the decision made by Adam and Eve, we have all fallen with them unfortunately into sinfulness. This is why we are imperfect in this lifetime. Sin is outside of God. He made it permissible for His ultimate glory. This is my take on it. I think we were all born imperfect for His sovereign and bigger plan.
Without a sense of Hell, moral reasoning is pointless. We can rape, murder, steal all we want without being criminally and eternally punished.
And finally, no, I don't think sin came through God. God gave Adam and Eve only one condition, yet with their hearts (deceiving as it was) they drew away from Him. This is the nature of man, imperfect, broken, and needing of a Savior. This is why God came into flesh and resurrected and defeated death. For our sake.
When you say "If God made man with the inclination to sin, doesn't that mean that sin actually came through God, and not man?", you are mixing up the Creator and His creation. The Creator gets credit for His creation, not what His creation is responsible for."
Let me give you this last scenario. Mark Zuckerberg, most prominently known Facebook co-founder. There was a suicide in the past few months shown on one of the platforms of Facebook Live, which was probably something Mark and the team made up for the GOOD of Facebook and its users. News flash globally to show the news of the suicide that happened on Facebook Live. I leave you with this: Is it under Mark's responsibility that the person attempted suicide? He is the creator of Facebook, so why don't you blame Him for this because He provided the platform and He allowed people to do as they wished. It would be irrational. Let me know what you think!
Thanks for the discussion! God bless :)
When I talk about God's plan being fixed under predestination, what I mean is that God, from His point of view, has already created everything. The end has been written just as surely as the beginning. This really strains the idea of free will, IMO, because if God has already determined that it would happen then man really doesn't choose. God chose for us when He made everything. He chose by making us the way we are. He chose by making the circumstances of our lives what they are. He chose by giving us the parents we have, country we live in, tragedies we suffer.
In the scenario where man has actual free will, then the change in plan wouldn't mean a mistake, rather, a changed attitude towards man based on man's decision. Like in Jonah, God changed His mind about destroying Nineveh. It wasn't because the plan was faulty, it was because God is Just and Merciful and He responds when people repent.
I think you unnecessarily tie sovereignty to foreknowledge, too. God being sovereign doesn't mean He's moving everything around like some grand chess master playing a game with Himself. Rather, it just means that God is the owner of everything, and He is the ultimate authority. God can intervene here on earth if He wants, but He chooses not to do so in a way that intervenes with free will.
It seems to me you want to have it both ways. On the one hand you say the people of Nineveh repented because it was God's will that drove them to it, yet Jesus says it was His will that Jerusalem repented, yet they did not. Is there conflict between the will of the Father and the will of the Son? I think not.
I'd like to hear what you think being made in the image of God means. From my perspective, I can't see how you can reconcile an inborn propensity to sin with the image of a totally good God. If God was totally good, and we were made in His image, where did the propensity to sin come from?
Where do our standard come from? I'd say the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, working through the reading of Scripture is a good start. The problem with that is that we all take different meaning from what we see there. This dialog is a good example. So, how does absolute truth fit in? Well, I believe there is absolute truth, I challenge the idea that man is somehow entitled to it, or that it is even something we are capable of attaining. In fact, I think this is at least partially what was behind the fall. The tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents the ability to tell right from wrong. Man was never supposed to try to figure everything out on his own. Man was supposed to walk in the Garden with God and let Him be our guide. This is why the New Covenant is written on our hearts. I think this is one of the promises that has been partially fulfilled and when Jesus comes back the relationship will be perfectly repaired and we will have direct access to the Truth. Until then, I think it's best to be open about things that we can't know for sure.
You say you believe God wants humanity to glorify Him willingly, but how can this be true if God made the world knowing before hand that most people would never even hear about Him? It doesn't seem like He really wanted the Chinese, Indian, African, or Muslims to glorify Him if He just made them to live their entire lives in ignorance of Him only to suffer Eternal conscious torment for it.
Free will means that when we are presented with a choice, we really have a choice. It doesn't mean we are presented with every choice available. Some people are never presented Jesus as a choice so they can't choose. Did God want them to chose Jesus?
I totally disagree that you need Hell for moral reasoning. In fact, I find it counterproductive. If we go back to Jesus' favorite analogy of God as a Father, we are the children. Would a parent want their children only to obey because they are threatened with violence? Don't parents want their children to eventually learn what is right and wise and then choose to do those things on their own? Further, you complicate the issue of justice with the idea that people who God made predestined to never hear the gospel or accept Jesus, with the express purpose of torturing them forever.
I don't think I'm mixing up God and man with my understanding of inborn inclination to sin, either. If God made man with the inclination to sin, and He knew beforehand that man would sin, then God is the one who invents sin by creating an agent for sin where none existed before.
In your Zuckerberg example, the simple answer is that I don't blame Mark because he didn't know this was going to happen. He's not God. If your scenario said that Mark somehow was able to see the future and he still did everything the same, despite knowing the outcome, then I would say he is morally responsible.
I'm not part of the Reformed church, and I'm not sure if I entirely agree with Calvin's teachings, but I do believe quite a lot of it is supported by the Bible. I've come to this point over time. As you say, different verses in the Bible seem to say somewhat different things. Putting it in terms of there being an elect, that's Biblically supported. The word is used quite a bit. Then there are passages that say Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, and the Lord knows those who are His. We also know prophets foretold many things, and we see different instances where God seemed to intervene so people would or wouldn't do certain things. In Romans 9:19-24, Paul wrote:
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
I think what Paul is actually getting at here is that from our personal human perspective, we can't and don't see all that God knows and understands. We can be sure that all His ways and His judgment are just. It's just not going to all add up for us here, because we're severely limited in knowledge and understanding.
If I recall correctly, there are at least one or two passages that say something like that the elect knew God or were foreknown by Him. All in all, the Bible indeed appears to teach that who will be saved and who will be damned was known to God before He even created the world. So in this world, God has responded to people before they've acted, and even existed, and everything has been determined from first to last. The Bible records Him as saying, "Before they call I will answer." And we can be sure that somewhere in there there is some free will on our part, but we can't quite know where. The two really aren't mutually exclusive, in a somewhat similar way to parents being able to anticipate some of their children's needs and even actions years in advance. God's foreknowledge and ability to act long before events is just infinitely better.
You know, I think the analogy of a parent knowing what the child is going to do is a good one. Sure, parents can't know everything like God can, but it gives a framework of understanding.
Incidentally, I think that's why God likes to use stories. In stories, you don't have to understand all the minute details or remember them word for word, the story paints a picture in our minds, giving us something to think about.
There sure is a lot going on in the bible, in regard to free will. I do think there are verses that seem to say everything has been determined, yet some seem to teach they aren't. I think the point is to get us to think about it, and I even think that God put stuff like that in the Bible so we could practice getting along with each other despite our disagreements. (I don't think we're doing well with that)
I think it's best to hold some of these ideas with an open hand. What I mean is, it's okay to have an opinion, but we shouldn't hold too tight to those opinions, and we should be ready to drop them if shown they're wrong. My big issue with determinism is that for many people, it is their defining belief. It becomes the lens they use to view the Bible and understand God, when it should work the other way around.
I think the big roadblocks for me, in terms of believing in total predestination are that: I think people misinterpret "elect" and "kingdom," and the Bible spends a lot of time telling people to make good choices. It doesn't make sense to me for God to create the world with the end already determined, then to intervene with that world to warn people against what He already determined that they would do.
Also, I have a different take on Romans 9. I think the whole chapter, Paul is using a rhetorical device to make his main argument, which is summed up in vs 30-33
He uses the potter and clay imagery from Jeremiah 18, where God tells Jeremiah that He is able to reshape His people in the same way a potter reshapes a vessel that wasn't working out right. The vessel is marred, and the potter forms it into something else. If you read through Jerimiah 18, it's another passage where God is telling His people if they repent, He will change His mind regarding how they are dealt with.
Thanks for commenting!
I understand. But I think by accepting those passages that say He's determined everything, we can get a better sense of what that leaves us in terms of our free will. I also think doing that corresponds to what we know about God's nature and what He's revealed about Himself and the world. All in all, I believe it's in line with God's Word to believe that for Him, everything that's happened and will happen in this world has been written from first to last before He even created this world. Knowing us perfectly individually, he created the world and already fully responded to each of us and all of us as a whole too.
As I mentioned, the Bible says that Jesus was the Lamb slain from the world. So God knew that Adam and Eve would sin as they did before He created them and the world. Then after they sinned, when they hid from Him, He called out asking where they were. I have to believe He knew exactly where they were. Jesus made the same sort of statements and asked similar questions. He knew the answers even when He asked questions, and openly said a couple of times that He spoke things just for the benefit of those listening.
Since we just have very limited knowledge, much of the equation, if you put it in those terms, is missing. But we can know the answer that God is just, whatever things seem like. Somewhere in some way we have free will, or else God wouldn't judge us.
I can understand that perspective. We all need to figure out a way that it all makes sense for us.
My main issue with that line of thinking, is that it seems to me you make God responsible for sin, suffering, and death.
Imagine a young mother living in Pakistan who never heard the gospel, is killed along with her children by a drone strike. Now, if God knew everything that was going to happen, and it was all according to His plan, then that means God created that women and her children just to live life as unbelievers and die young, never hearing the gospel. The children never getting a chance to grow.
To me, it seems that if you say God planned everything that happened, that means God is the originator of evil, or at the very least un-Holiness. He created it when He created man because He knew man would sin, yet made him anyway.
I also think the most logical reading of scripture indicates free will. God is constantly telling people to change. He's warning, cajoling, threatening, sending prophets and droughts... You don't warn someone if you already know what they are going to do because you planned it. You only warn them if they are capable of changing their minds.
Plus, there are times where God seems unsure of what's going to happen. (EX 33:5, Ex 4:8-9, Jer 26:3) Sometimes He seems surprised. (Ish 63:8-10, Jer 3:6-7 & 19-20) Not to mention the times God changes His mind.
That all implies that to some degree God lets man decide what's going to happen. If it truly is man's decision then it can't be already decided by God. That reduces man to mechanical toys that God made to amuse Himself.
Anyway, I know I'm of a minority opinion on this one. I understand I'm not likely to change anyone's mind about this, but I'd like to put some pebbles in some people's shoes. There's just too many Christians walking around saying you have to be a Calvinist to follow Jesus, or KJV only, or sacred name, or Hebrew roots, or Catholic, etc... I think a lot of people have never heard thinking from another perspective, so I'm here to help!