Some things are mysteries that we may not fully understand or know.
The Arminianism vs Calvinism thing.
God can at the same time give us free will, along with knowing in the end what we are going to do with it and where we will end up. I don't think God can be surprised or takes in knowledge passively. Since he is eternal, he also exists outside of time.
Could we be predestined? Maybe, who knows. What's the benefit of trying to understand God's decree anyways?
Although its interesting to see both theological views, does it produce any fruit is it worth going into?
A quote I found "I sometimes think it would be more profitable to just read the Bible and thank the Lord Jesus for saving us than try to figure it all out."
"Such a faith is preferable. People who try to be overly intellectual about the Bible sacrifice the mystery of the union with God to the reaches of their intellect."
So, the thing is, there is a lot more to Calvinism, and also to Arminianism, than pre-destination or the lack thereof. Actually, a lot of people declare themselves to be Arminian without a real understanding of the beliefs of Arminius and the Remonstrants, which are different from the beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Lutherans, the Methodists, most Anglicans, and most other non-Calvinist churches.
Now, I think your post raises a valid point that all non-Calvinists would agree on, that being that God gives us free will, but since He knows all things, He knows how we will use that free will.
Now, why does all of this matter? As a former Calvinist, who has since embraced the Patristic soteriological framework of the Eastern churches, and gained an extreme respect for John Wesley, I think a debate on Calvinism can be important, because John Calvin introduced some innovations into the Christian faith concerning predestination, which were not shared by the Early Church. He also revived and popularized the error of iconoclasm, and this inspired Puritans and other fanatics in England and elsewhere to destroy many priceless cultural treasures of Christian artwork, and additionally, led to the desecration of tombs wherein persons regarded as saints were kept. As a particularly terrible example, the remains of Thomas Becket, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, were removed from his tomb and destroyed, and his tomb was also destroyed. Calvin was complex however; he was not all bad - for example, he believed Christians should partake of the Eucharist every Sunday. Many, indeed I would say most, unpleasant aspects of the Church of Geneva and the government of that city were the responsibility of the city council: they prevented Calvin from having weekly Communion, they ordered Servetus burned at the stake, over Calvin’s objections (Calvin felt he should be executed, but not burned at the stake, and so on).
Furthermore, some of Calvin’s scholarship, when he refrained from hyperbole, in the Institutes, is interesting, and more importantly, more recent Calvinist theologians like Karl Barth have done some truly exceptional work. Some churches which started from a Calvinist premise developed into particularly impressive evangelical churches, for example, the traditional churches in the US descended from the Dutch Reformed Church. Two of the four* greatest televangelists were Calvinist - Rev. Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral, who was from the Dutch Reformed tradition and Dr. James Kennedy of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian church in Fort Lauderdale Florida, both of whom I had the pleasure of seeing in person.
So rather than a polemical, adversarial relationship between Calvinists and non Calvinists, I believe what we need is an ecumenical and friendly relationship. Calvinists do not regard John Calvin as a saint or a model moral figure, so to the extent he erred, and to the extent his Scottish protege John Knox erred, it does not inherently reflect on the Reformed or Presbyterian churches or their members.
* The other two great televangelists were Archbishop Fulton Sheen of the Roman Catholic Church, and the evangelical preacher Rev. Billy Graham, who interestingly enough received a blessing from the Patriarch of Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church to preach during the Soviet era, as he was the only person who could get into the USSR to preach, before Gorbachev, and Russian Orthodox priests were basically unable to preach, catechize or do anything other than administer the sacraments.
