I don't think so ,or why did Jesus come if it was all decided already .But more than that ,I think God is always acting in His creation or it would be stagnant .I think that like many bible quotes it has been misunderstood according to the predisposition of the person reading it .
It is more than that . God Himself need not choose to know all in advance ,but He has created a situation which controls how far we can go before destroying ourselves ,and leaves us free will to change ,or not ,to surprise Him or not .
It depends on how you are basing our faith. Just because a person believes they are a Christian doesn't mean that they are saved. Anyone can put on a Christian "badge" and base their faith on their church attendance, pastor's sermons, moral life, religious and Bible knowledge, but these things don't save them.
A person can decide to believe the Gospel, but will remain under the conviction of sin and will fall short of salvation until Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, gives that person saving faith. Saving faith comes along with genuine conversion and is not automatic on "getting religion". God sees the heart of a person, and will give saving faith only to a person who seeks God with all their heart. He will not give saving faith to any old person who wanders up to the front of a church, pray a sinner's prayer and then walk around saying, "I am a Christian now" while still having one foot in the world and retaining their most enjoyable and favourite sins.
Jesus was chosen after Lucifers attack on Heaven to save those who would choose Him . If you Believe the 'creation of the world was 6,000 years ago ,more or less , then we already have a problem .The next one is, that I don't believe that God predestined souls to be 'saved ' as you say ,but left it to our free wills and the timing of the end of all the Ages ,before knowing who would be alive in Him at the end .
The direct promises of God to us take priority over any mystery decree that God may make in Heaven. This is why we take hold of the promises to us first before considering whether we are elected or not. But we must remember that every promise of God comes with a condition. God promises to blot our sins out, but the condition is that we repent and be converted. But we cannot be converted until we find God on a personal basis, but there is a promise to cover that: If we seek God with all our heart then we will find Him. The promise is that we will find rest for our souls, but the condition is that we come to Jesus. In James, the condition for having genuine religion, or Christian faith is that we be unspotted from the world and that we assist widows and orphans. This tells us that a truly converted Christian will turn away from a Christless world-view, and will do what they can to practically help those in need.
Rather than digress, is faith prescriptive or descriptive?
Did God choose people to be saved from before the creation as stated in Ephesians 1: 4 or humans chose God?
So you think you produced your faith to believe in Jesus as Savior?
Did the many Christians who had fallen sick and died hadn't asked with faith for healing?
I just had the thought that the Scripture: "Repent and be converted, that your sins be blotted out" covers both free will and the work of the Holy Spirit to cover all the bases concerning our salvation.
We use free will to believe the Gospel and repent. In that we accept Jesus as our Saviour. Jesus responds by converting us through the Holy Spirit and the transformation takes place. That is Jesus accepting us after we accept Him. In a sense, that Scripture covers the principles of Arminianism (free choice) and Calvinism (The Holy Spirit giving us saving faith) in the one Scripture. This means that whether a person is Arminian or Calvinist, they can use that Scripture to get themselves saved and maintain their respective theological positions!
