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FK: So, with the Hitler example, would we say that what Hitler did was part of God's plan all along, OR, would we say that God's giving Hitler free will meant that the "rule" was that Hitler could do anything he wanted and God wouldn't interfere, even if it disagreed with God's plan, because the "rule" said Hitler was free? If we say the latter then Warfield and we would say that's elevating man's will above God's and the implication of that would be that our God is no god at all.

And Warfield would be wrong. Hitler was wholly responsible for his actions, God did not direct or predestine Hitler to commit his actions.

Hitler WAS wholly responsible for his actions and God did NOT direct him to commit them. God did, however, ordain everything that has happened, including in war. This is totally consistent since God's ordaining involves both action and inaction. God didn't have to order or force Hitler to do anything. All God had to do was leave him alone to his own nature and everything that nature led him to do, he did. That is why Hitler remains responsible. God could have stopped Hitler to any degree, or no degree at all. What happened is what God allowed, no more and no less.

FK paraphrasing Warfield: A creator cannot be sovereign and moral if he gives up control over his creation

And I repeat that the question postulated is wrong. Free will of man does not impact or negate or in any way diminish the sovereignty or control of God. Just because God is more a loving parent than a tyrannical thought-police dictator, only enhances Him.

I think I missed a couple on the ping list in my last response so let me repeat that the free will advocate's view of free will DOES INDEED supersede God's will and control if God's will is for all to be saved and the free will of many men is to reject Him, and they do reject Him. It cannot be argued that God retains control by GIVING UP control. So saying that it is God's will that man be able to thwart God's will is no argument.

“I think I missed a couple on the ping list in my last response so let me repeat that the free will advocate’s view of free will DOES INDEED supersede God’s will and control if God’s will is for all to be saved and the free will of many men is to reject Him, and they do reject Him.”

ACTUALLY, the free will types, myself included, argue that God’s highest Goal is to create sons who freely obey. That is why he gives us true choices, and why in choosing - regardless of the individual choice - God’s will is done. The desire to see all saved is superseded by his will to create willing sons - what he has predestined.

Thus, everything that happens is IAW his will. His will is accomplished regardless, for the chosen are those who respond to his grace with belief.

The problem is when one discusses total depravity without discussing the grace of God, given to all in some amount. Those who reject it lose it. They are truly totally depraved, for to be cut loose from God’s common or preventing (prevenient) grace is to be utterly depraved.

But God gives most men some moral enlightenment. While Romans 1 says:

So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

But Romans 2 adds:

12For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

So we see that God’s grace normally restrains the depravity of man, and makes moral choices possible - including repentance. Apart from God, no man can repent, and no man will be convicted - but the norm is for God to give man enough revelation and enlightenment that repenting is possible.

But if man rejects God’s gracious enlightening, then God may well cast him off, and there is no hope for that person.

So it is all of God, yet God gives us real choices - the man you meet CAN repent, but many will not, because men remain rejecters of God.