Have you figured out how free will can be free if determinism is true? (Determinism is causing everything because each thing produces another thing which then could be infinitely foreseen, including God's own planned interventions.) Determinism is needed because God would have to be able to account for all things.

Obviously free will can't exist without God because how could an unconscious universe without a will and without a conscience, produce a consciousness and conscience with a free will in a man! Can a bird house produce a bird? Of course not.

So the question is, is free will real or illusory? If it is illusory, it is explained by determinism and therefore, Calvinism would be true. And furthermore, it really wouldn't matter what you or I do (whether Atheism Naturalism or Calvinism Charades), because it is all precaused anyway. Whether you jump out of a plane tomorrow or feed millions of starving children in the next year, it wouldn't matter. It's all forced to happen anyway. There was nothing you could do about it anyway. You would not be any more guilty for being a mass murderer than you would be if you were the most spiritual Christian that ever lived.

All the pleadings in the Bible would be a charade, because you couldn't respond to them any more than you could choose to do something other than what you were going to do anyway.

God would be evil to have created us since He lied about our free will and pleads to it, for it would just be illusory. But God can't be a liar, for if He exists, He would be holy, righteous and true (truthful).

A Calvinist will respond by saying free will is not real and even say that God does not plead with sinners (to avoid the contradictory two wills of having a secret will and a revealed will since God can't contradict Himself). A contradictory will to reveal (say, in the Bible, by misreading it) that God wants to save all, but has a secret will not wanting to save all, He would be contradicting Himself and lying. So if you believe such a God, you are just making God in your own image, the image of a liar. You are a liar if that is what you worship. The Bible says, be "not doubletongued" (1 Tim. 3.8). If such behavior is immoral for man, then it would be immoral for God, for why would His morality be less than ours?

That's why some cults and religions like Gnostics have two creators. One Good Creator who created the creator of us. This creator who became evil by his own volition, created us. But would a Good God allow an evil creator? That would make God Himself evil. But God can't be evil.

Is it reasonable for an evil creator to get his way to not provide sufficient grace to save (by passing over), irresistibly saving others, and damning billions to Hell without recourse or opportunity for salvation, all while God the ultimate Creator does want to save all? No! A loving God would never allow that. But that is what Calvinism is. Praise be to God, only God can create life! Neither the Devil, fallen angels, or demons can create sentient life (power of perception and consciousness) out of the material of the universe.

Others try to make Jesus to have two wills like the Coptics or versions of. His godly will is to want to save all, but his human will does not. The Coptics give Jesus two wills. But not wanting to save all by providing sufficient grace to all to give us the choice under any circumstance is evil. Besides Jesus is not schizo. He has one will and one will only. He always does the will of the Father. His human nature and divine nature are always willing the same thing in perfect accord and obedience to the Father.

Finally, there is the problem with, how can there be a secret other will if you believe it is revealed God doesn't want to save all? It's not a secret then. So such attempts of Calvinists are completely absurd and evil to say the least. Who know how corrupted man's heart really is! But we do know it is not Totally depraved. Otherwise, nobody sufficiently could receive what Jesus did for us by the grace of God.

The Calvinist shuts his mind down to the verses of Scripture that show God is pleading with man. So that is how a Calvinist deals with the contradiction between pleading with men and no alleged free will, by denying Scripture; that is, by denying free will to exist or is real, and by denying God is pleading with men. Of course, their very choice to assume this is itself a fact of their free will which some choose and others choose not to believe. Test this out. You can change your mind if you like. The truly sad part in such a view is that to assume you cant repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated, then you will never repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. You have put up a wall between yourself and God.

One caveat. Once you are truly regenerated, you can never choose to assume you couldn't repent, because obviously, you really had repented and believed in Christ to be regenerated and would not deny what you know was true for you. It would be more reasonable to conclude you simply were never born-again to begin with if you had made the claim at some future date that you couldn't repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated.

If God pleads with men, free will must be true. If free will is true then God must plead with men. But if God pleads not with men, free will must not be true. If free will is not true, then God is not allowed to plead with men, otherwise it would be a pretentious charade.

If free will is true, which seems more reasonable in light of the above evidenced facts, because God does plead with us, thus giving us the choice, then would determinism have to be false?

But if determinism is false, then how can God foresee all things like all the hairs on our head (and the hairs you choose to pluck out or graft back in at any given moment)? Moreover, how can God truly create a person with free will for doesn't the person's choices have to be created, provisioned for, and caused for any given situation?

Therefore, we must accept, no matter how much it hurts our brain to think about it (and is best not to think about that which you don't have enough information yet to resolve), that both free will (somehow, someway) is true and determinism is true: that is, there is a cause and effect to everything at the same time, free will is true. Nothing, though, is truly random. So accept free will is real and determinism is real even though you don't know how God reconciles them. God is proven by nature and Jesus is proven to be God, so these are not the issues. Moreover, the issue wondering if you are saved by assuming regeneration before repentance and faith, for God will never save you that way. God only saves one way. You would have to repent and believe in Christ to be regenerated. The issue is trying to understand how God reconciles His infinite foreknowledge with free will and accepting true salvation.

Perhaps God has not given you the capacity to understand since no human being has ever been able to reconcile free will with His infinite foreknowledge, but since we know they both exist, we hold the course. But at least you are being genuine and honest to God in accepting both logically (reasonably) and Scripturally this proper basic knowledge that is not far away from any of our hearts.

The best you can say is this: God works outside of time so He can see all things. He created the world we live in, all its provisions: all its laws, functions, and cause and effects. He knows all our options in any given scenario or situation and environment. Yet free will is true. You can go choose to do something in the next 30 seconds you have never done before in your life. That option is afforded to you. So free will is really true.

The best explanation I have ever seen to attempt to reconcile free will with God's infinite all-knowing foreknowledge is called Molinism. Though its author in the 16th century was a non-OSASer, I believe you can apply it to OSAS Arminians.

The way to apply it is simply to say God has all His programs (like in the movie Matrix), so He knows what any person will do in any given situation based on antecedent causes, and free-will is really free, because God saves to the uttermost; that is, He saves the most and damns the least. This point is what establishes free will: when God saves the most and damns the least. He does everything He can to save a person. He is never unrighteous. He is always righteous and holy in all His dealings. Whereas in Calvinism, God does not save the most and damn the least, but passes over many or even double predestines them to Hell, and irresistibly imposes salvation on others without giving them the free will choice either. Very sad.

Calvinism is the evil that the body of Christ, the Church faces. It is what Satan will get the Antichrist to use against us.

Praise the Lord for this discernment, understanding and spiritual knowledge of protection in the inner spirit.

Troy