I'm not sure I can buy God letting us run our own destinies, at least in the sense that it would interfere with His plan. I would distinguish it by saying that according to my beliefs, before we are saved we can do no good in God's eyes. After we are saved, God's power causes us to do good, and we have some freedom to sin. God always has the authority to prevent us from sinning for His purposes.
Take, for instance, Genesis 6:3 [:] "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man..."
God always allows man to sin for His purposes.
[On Gen. 6:5-7] "Doesn't sound like He was much in control there, does it? Nor does it sound like that was His plan. Obviously, there is more to this then to conclude that God was surprised, but it is clear that He had a change of heart and wanted to destroy that which He originally created."
You have said so many times that our side humanizes God and yet that is what you are doing here. How can an all knowing God change His mind? Humans who do not know what the result is going to be can change their minds. God already knows, so why would He need to change His mind? Wasn't the Bible written for us, not God? Wouldn't God's words be in terms we can at least attempt to understand? God was grieved at the sin of man, but not surprised at it. You appear to be asserting that God was admitting a MISTAKE, and I just can't accept that.
And then He made a Second Covenant, that made the first obsolete as we learn in (Heb 8:7), which quotes the Old Testament:
"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second." as St. Paul concludes (Heb 8:13)
"In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."
So, obviously what we do on earth does affect our salvation. That certainly does not mean that we are passive riders on His conveyor belt, where he placed some on one and others on the other belt, and now some destined to salvation and other to perdition.
I don't understand your connection between doing good deeds and the new Covenant. Doesn't it seem from your verses that the first Covenant referred to was the Mosaic Law? As I learned on this thread from Jo, wasn't this the only Covenant that required action on both sides? In contrast, the new Covenant is a one-way deal. God promises, we don't. So from these verses, how do our actions affect salvation?
What happens to us in this world, in this time-space bubble outside of the eternal continuum, is our dominion and God helps and even sacrifices Himself for us when we are in dire straits, but He gave us life to live and to come to the Truth on our own with His unceasing help and blessings.
You do give God much credit, but when you speak of our "dominion" on earth (I thought satan was the prince of this world.), and of our "come[ing] to the Truth on our own" yes with help, but, it just seems to me that God isn't getting all He is due. :)
...although He [God] would prefer that all be saved, He does not force all to be saved; thus, no doubt some will end up there and some won't, and some are there already.
Wouldn't this go back to "does God get what He wants"?
God is not competing with us. We can run our own destinies without affecting His plan. Take, for instance, our earth. We do pretty much what we want on it, and none of it changes the direction in which the earth moves, or the direction of its rotation. The earth acts as if we are not even on it – it's taking us through space where it is going whether we want to cooperate or not, and is going to take us to its destination whether we will it or not. The only thing our will affects is ourselves and those around us. We have until the last breath to come to God and be saved spiritually.
God did all the work for us, and the Protestants would have Him make up everyone's mind as well!