Biff the unclean

Okay, here's exactly how "free will" works.

It's just the same as the slight of hand gag where you pluck a quarter from a child's ear. You hold the quarter in your open right palm and pretend to pick it up in your left hand. You make you left hand into a fist and shake it a little. As you are doing this you "palm" the quarter by moving your pinky and ring finger over it and turning your hand so that the back of it is towards the child. You point to the empty fist with the hand that is holding the quarter and with a flourish show the fist to be empty. In the second of confusion this causes you reach behind the child's ear with the hand that has the quarter in it and pretend to pull it out.

Small children love this. Technically it is called "the art of misdirection."

Free Will is exactly the same thing.

You point to the closed fist…but in this case the empty closed fist is the persons life where absolutely nothing supernatural is happening. Of course there's nothing supernatural happening, there is no supernatural…just as there was never a quarter in the fist. You misdirect with the hand that has palmed the quarter… in this case religious fairytales which are the only place a fictional God can take any action. Then with a flourish you show that the fist is empty…or that the life is empty of divine intervention. And you say isn't it wonderful the quarter disappeared, or isn't it wonderful God isn't butting into your life.
BUT the quarter didn't disappear; it was always in the other hand and never in the fist. And God didn't disappear because he was never in your life in the real world to begin with. But was always just a character in a book that the slight of hand artist was pointing at your life and waving around.

You trick your audience into expecting that they are going to see something that they are not. When they don't see what isn't there they become surprised. They believed something was there only because you as the magician lied to them, you mislead them. You see nothing, not because of magic, but because there is nothing. The only surprise is because you were mislead to believe there was something. You don't see the quarter because there was no quarter, not because it disappeared. You have free will because there is no God, not because God disappeared.

Next I'll tell you how to turn water into wine…

mike_decock

If God has foreknowledge, that means He knew what choices I would make before He chose to create me. Out of all the possible "me"s He had to choose from, He chose the one that I am today, along with all the choices I make.

Where does it say this, Magus?

-Mike...

mike_decock

I can turn water into beer. It just takes a few weeks.

-Mike...

Biff the unclean

I can turn beer into "water" it only takes an hour or so

JerryM

But, on the other hand, could I make a choice that violates God's will? If one believes God is ultimately sovereign, then nothing can happen which is contrary to his wishes. The logical conclusion is that everything which has already occurred, or will occur must be in accordance with God's will for the universe. We might think that we ourselves are making a free choice, but the circumstances which have led to whatever choice we make have only occurred because God has allowed it. And if God allows something to occur, then it must be part of his overall scheme. Taken to the logical end point, God is ultimately responsible for everything. The concept of God's sovereignty, I think, contradicts the idea of human free will.

Philosoft

I'm not sure. God doesn't necessarily have to micromanage to ensure his sovereignty. He could will a state-of-affairs that allows individuals to make free decisions. Of course, that implies that God values a state-of-affairs more than he values an individual, something rather anathema to Christian doctrine. It also misses entirely the problem of God's foreknowledge and free will. I guess I'll file this one under 'N' for "nitpick."