It is.
Speaking as one who believes in God, I have no difficulty in saying that the universe has a "direction." And speaking as a Christian, I have no difficulty in saying what that direction might be.
I do have a problem with what is usually called "Calvinism," which is perhaps just a particular type of the more general idea of predestination. The case for free will is not only simple, it's quite a bit stronger than the rather contrived explanations for why free will does not exist .... and, of course, the need to create those explanations, and the ability to do so, makes it that much harder to sell the case against free will.
Religious or scientific debates about free will tend to focus on the big stuff -- it's so much more tractable and, as such, so much more easily used to construct strawmen. But really, free will is nothing more or less than the freedom to recognize options and make choices ... chocolate vs. vanilla; turn right or left; take the harder trail, or the easier one ... even fashions, whether clothing or the way we decorate a kitchen, are examples of free will. It's pretty difficult to create a scientific or theological explanation for Avacado or Harvest Gold, that doesn't include free will....
But your mention of Newton brings to mind another line of thought, that's evident in this thread. There seems to be a tendency among all of us, to posit math and science as the only real means available to understand reality. Certainly they're very good ways .... but are they really the only standard by which we can properly address the questions of truth and reality?
Absolutely NOT, dear r9etb! Certainly science and math are not the only, let alone the ultimate tests of Reality. But it seems to me they are among its firstborn, especially mathematics and logic.
The point being that they are tests of Reality that human beings can directly, reliably apply to their own experience. And they are "truthful" tests in that they take their own order from One divine source. There is nothing else that they can stand on, and continue to be what they are, over time.
That is, they are universals. Which means they transcend space and time. That is, they do not at all depend on location in any space- or time-frame; they are not dependent on any human observer for the authentication of their Truth.
Nowadays much of what passes for elite science presumes its own future depends on explaining the universe without reference to God or Truth.
Good luck to "elite science!" It cannot even explain its own logical basis, if it denies God and Truth.
You wrote:
...free will is nothing more or less than the freedom to recognize options and make choices ... chocolate vs. vanilla; turn right or left; take the harder trail, or the easier one ... even fashions, whether clothing or the way we decorate a kitchen, are examples of free will. It's pretty difficult to create a scientific or theological explanation for Avacado or Harvest Gold, that doesn't include free will....This seems to plant us "deep into the weeds" of human experience. In the bigger picture, however, it seems to me that free will essentially boils down to one single question: Do I choose, or reject, God?
I speak as one who identifies God with Life, Love, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Justice. And so it's difficult for me to understand why a free human person would freely choose not to be identified with Him.
You wrote
...there seems to be a tendency among all of us, to posit math and science as the only real means available to understand reality....I was actually shocked and surprised to read the other day (in Guthrie's The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library) that Pythagoras himself (~600 B.C., major founder of number and geometrical theory) can be "blamed" for the inception of one of the greatest errors in all of science: That that which is "quantifiable" is somehow more "real" than other things.
And yet most of the problems of the human condition really cannot be "quantified" at all. The problems of the human condition mainly involve problems of quality.... And of choice. That is, free will.
Thank you ever so very much, dear r9etb, for your splendid essay/post!