LOL!
To me those questions are somewhat academic exercises. I have a hard time, like you, believing that predestination is what Calvin thought it was. I think God predestines us at the moment of salvation to heaven, but that he doesn't micromanage our lives, - which is different from saying he doesn't KNOW beforehand about each detail of our lives. But if I am predestined, who am I to argue with a being so far beyond me as to have created all this *for* *us*?
As it regards predestination what matters is looking at our perception of time as compared to God's perception of time.
I think CS Lewis said it well in _Mere Christianity_ :
Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty—and every other moment from the beginning of the world—is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.
That is difficult, I know. Let me try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it. Suppose: I am writing a novel. I write "Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!" For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all.
This is not a perfect illustration, of course. But it may give just a glimpse of what I believe to be the truth. God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the imaginary time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us. He does not have to deal with us in the mass. You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. When Christ died, He died for you individually just as much as if you had been the only man in the world.
The way in which my illustration breaks down is this. In it the author gets out of one Time-series (that of the novel) only by going into another Time-series (the real one). But God, I believe, does not live in a Time-series at all. His life is not dribbled out moment by moment like ours: with Him it is, so to speak, still 1920 and already 1960. For His life is Himself.
If you picture Time as a straight line along which we have to travel, then you must picture God as the whole page on which the line is drawn. We come to the parts of the line one by one: we have to leave A behind before we get to B, and cannot reach C until we leave B behind. God, from above or outside or all round, contains the whole line, and sees it all.
....
Another difficulty we get if we believe God to be in time is this. Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow. But if He knows I am going to do so-and-so, how can I be free to do otherwise? Well, here once again, the difficulty comes from thinking that God is progressing along the Time-line like us: the only difference being that He can see ahead and we cannot. Well, if that were true, if God foresaw our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the Time-line. In that case, what we call "tomorrow" is visible to Him in just the same way as what we call "today." All the days are "Now" for Him. He does not remember you doing things yesterday; He simply sees you doing them, because, though you have lost yesterday, He has not. He does not "foresee" you doing things tomorrow; He simply sees you doing them: because, though tomorrow is not yet there for you, it is for Him. You never suppose that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He knows your tomorrow's actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but then the moment at which you have done it is already "Now" for Him.
You are predestined before you were born..Is micro managing knowing how many hairs will be on your hair brush tomorrow? :>)))
Interesting discussion Terri
1. Imagine the most complex physical arrangement: countless multiple universes with individuals and even entire species traveling back and forth between these multiple universes, and back and forth in time on a regular basis.
2. Regardless of how complex this situation is, God is outside of it and can "see" everything that has gone on, that is going on, and that will go on.
3. God sees physical reality like we might "see" a DVD movie. We can skip to the end, pause at a special spot, review something we like, or go back and see the beginning.
4. The major difference in theories about free will among Christians seems to be Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Calvinists basically say that God created the universe (or multiverse) a specific way from all time and that is it. It's like having a library with only one book in it.
The Arminians, on the other hand, seem to be saying that the library is filled with every possible book that could potentially occur because of what individuals might choose to do. However, only one book is the actual description of what will happen in this universe/multiverse and God knows which book that is.
5. Those of us who would like to "prove" that we truly have free will are now left with two choices: one book sitting alone on a shelf, or a myriad of books with only one piece of non-fiction ... all others being descriptions of imaginary worlds.
6. If God had nothing to do with the creation or maintenance of the world, then him merely knowing ahead of time what we will do would have no affect on whether or not we have free will. However, God did create us and maintains us every day. So the question is much more complex: If He created us and He knows how our lives will end up ... down to the nittiest-grittiest detail ... then how can we way we have free will?
7. A woman can't be a "little pregnant". Likewise, I don't think an infinite God can be a "little omnipotent or omniscient". If he knows that Hitler will kill over 6,000,000 Jews, then he knows that you will choose Corn Flakes over oatmeal for breakfast on July 14, 2005.
8. God could have somehow weaved free will into the design of the universe. However, on this point the Calvinists seem adamant: there is no way that whatever free will God might have snuck into the machine would allow us to take any credit for our own salvation. God does not work with us but on us. So the Calvinists' view of free will is a very severe one with free will amounting to little more than us being strapped into the rollercoaster seat of reality and nodding agreement as life whirls on by.
9. Imagine that you are a creator of one of these virtual worlds on the internet such as Everquest. With regard to you, the players do have free will. You only create the environment in which they act out their fantasies. As creator and maintainer of the game you can throw a whole bunch of "deus ex machinas" at them in the form of ogres, dragons, pots of gold, etc. but you can never be absolutely certain how they will react and how the whole thing will play out. God has no such limitation with regards to the Universe he created. He is no simple clockmaker that just started the whole thing running. He knows not only that He will cause Mount St. Helens to erupt, but that certain people will be very close at that time and will die because of it, while others will be miles away safely robbing a 7-11.
So basically I don't believe its that simple. Many of the examples one can use to think about free will vs. determinism end up sounding like dorm room discussion fodder and are quickly dissed and dismissed by the serious Calvinists. So be it. Evidently there are a number of obscure books that have been written over the years that discuss free will in all the gory details. I will try to get a hold of some of them to see if they shed any light on this topic, which I think is a truly worthwhile one for a website called FreeRepublic ...
especially since a disturbingly large percentage of the posters on this forum seem to be limited in their vision and susceptible to towing the party line to an extent that makes the average Calvinist seem like a bomb-throwing Anarchist!