Free will is defined as doing what is desired. They do what they desire which is ALWAYS sinful.
God never reacts because God wrote the script. Your typing your paragraph was part of the script, but it is also exactly what you desired to do.
But then you have to back away one more level and say that God caused the desire or the choice or whatever you want to call it. It's no more free than the motion of a puppet to which I hold the strings.
I am familiar with the argument.
That's pretty good, x. You've been paying attention...just as God wills. 8~)
No one believes in Predestination at the start. Everyone wants to think they are autonomous and free of constraint. (Much like those 40 climbers believed themselves to be free to pass by the dying man along the roadside.)
But God reveals Himself to be exactly who He says He is -- one who knows the end from the beginning because He created the end from the beginning.
Man lives in two dimensions - the physical and the spiritual. The spiritual is more real, even though it seldom feels that way. Because we are of the physical world, we are most comfortable there. And in that comfort we act according to our natures, which since Adam's fall have been indelibly marked by sin and error. That's just the way it is.
Part of our human nature is to believe we are independent creatures who can act independently of God's will. In reality, we are always a beat behind God's will, enacting rather than reacting. God is not a petulant Simon Cowell, sometimes getting what he wants and other times peevish and thwarted. God is Creator of all things and gets exactly what He wants.
But that belief is ridiculed for two reasons -- 1) we've all been mesmerized into believing "free will" is a "gift from God," as some have goofily maintained around here. Some gift. Give me God's will anytime.
And 2) the powers of this world encourage us to believe in "free will" so that we can compliantly hand over our "free will" to them and continue to serve men and not God.
As we said once before, life is like riding a bicycle on board a train. We think we're in charge when it's really the conductor who's leading us.
Christians should be bolstered by the merciful fact that God is confidently leading them. No king but Christ. But this is surely a seditious stand which the powers of this world want to obliterate.
I like what Calvin said about the inevitability of reforming the church. It speaks to the heart of Predestination -- we believe in God's will and we believe we must act boldly in accordance with that will. The same people who call that an arrogant and contradictory statement are the same people who tell you God creates and then steps back.
"...the restoration of the church is the work of God, and no more depends on the hopes and opinions of men, than the resurrection of the dead, or any other miracle of that description. Here, therefore, we are not to wait for facility of action, either from the will of men, or the temper of the times, but must rush forward through the midst of despair. It is the will of our Master that his gospel be preached. Let us obey his command, and follow whithersoever he calls. What the success will be it is not ours to inquire. Our only duty is to wish for what is best, and beseech it of the Lord in prayer; to strive with all zeal, solicitude, and diligence, to bring about the desired result, and, at the same time, to submit with patience to whatever that result may be." -- John Calvin
Strive with all zeal and submit with all confidence.
Sadly, the 40 climbers showed what they were striving for.