This simple fact still stands:
If you think you have free will or choice, then you also have to think that there is/are some things God just doesn't know, or never knew, or doesn't know now, ect, ect, and there is just no getting around that "fact"... Are you saying that...? And if so how do you explain it...? God Bless!
God does know everything. That's a fact.
One of the things He has always known is what I just wrote in that sentence for instance.
It was my sentence and I was not coerced in any way to write it the way I did. Nor did I have to "think" that God is not omniscient in order to say that it was my free choice to do so.
Had I chosen to write it a different way (in capital letters for instance) that would have been what God knew I would do from long before the foundation of the world.
While knowing of His omniscience demands that I believe that my choice was predestined to occur - His omniscience in no way made me choose what I chose to do.
Although I don't claim to be a Calvinist - the Calvinistic Westminster Confession of Faith puts this fact in a rather clear way. "God from all eternity did by the most and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin;
nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."
Our choices "establish" what is predestined. E.G., if I choose "A" then "A" was predestined. If I choose "B" instead, it does not change what was predestined. It simply means that "B" was predestined. It's still my choice.
That principal can be applied to things like my choice to receive Jesus in 1958 as opposed to rejecting the gospel call. It was indeed predestined to happen. But it was still my choice and reckoned to me for justification and righteousness because of it. But then - that's discussing things for which we have not completely agreed on a basis of understanding for. (Understand scripture doctrine 101 before trying to tackle doctrine 102 - i.e. "line upon line and precept upon precept".)
This is not to say that my choice was made in a vacuum with God only watching from afar. He is not only transcendent to His creation. He is omnipresent within His creation as well according to the scriptures. He is also free to do any of the innumerable things He does or any of the things He does not do as well.
For instance - He has chosen my brain to have function at this time. He is omnipresent in every portion of my brain - allowing me to write the sentence I spoke about. He could have chosen to change the manner of His presence and I might have had a thought lapse which caused another choice to be made for instance. Likewise He could have chosen to end my life altogether yesterday and I wouldn't have written the sentence at all.
The variables He is involved in are, as I said, innumerable - each having a consequence of some kind. It boggles the mind how He keeps all of the balls in the air. But then that's why He's God and we aren't.
Thus - the scriptures always say that He is the one "predestining things" and no one else. If He does certain things, there will be consequences. If He does other things, there will be other consequences. Numerous scriptures bear this out.
But that is not to say that the necessary predestining of all things by God is in conflict with our free will. It may be in some instances and in others not. But predestination and free will are not exclusive and necessarily in conflict.
Nebuchadnezzar's ability to act normal for a certain period vs. my ability to choose to write the aforementioned sentence comes to mind.
Sometimes a person's ability to make choices at all as well as what those choices will be may indeed be effected by what God predestines and sometimes not.
Big subject - but very important to understand in order to have a good and balanced systematic theology.
Again - these are basic concepts for us to know. Everyone should get them straight in their minds before attempting to answer the thorny questions concerning free will vs. predestination and election in relationship to salvation for instance. Otherwise we will just be blowing in the wind.
As an aside here - when "debating" those who stress free will to the exclusion of God's sovereignty - I often feel that they are speaking of a different God from the omniscient, omnipresent, creator, sustainer, and providentially involved God that the scriptures picture for us.
It seems that in their zeal for uprooting anything they consider "Calvinist" they leave behind doctrines that should have been used as building blocks for the other doctrines they are discussing or formulating.
Time is precious and I'm going to have to limit these posts now.
P.S.
You don't have to quote yourself or anyone else in order to make a statement (or many consecutive statements as you have been doing here for some reason).
Just write something in the box with nothing being "replied" to. Then hit "post reply" to publish your thought.
In any case - some of your comments are merely conjecture and philosophy and not based on scriptures revelation.