You have made many good arguments, but if your "hard deterministic" view is correct, what's the point?
Why does God go to all the trouble to create a Universe and populate it with little predetermined puppets?
Let me ask you this, was Jesus a man? Didn't he have a choice to go to the cross or was he just going through the predetermined motions?
I am a firm believer in "Compatibilism" as defined below. See the link at
The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free
"The basic philosophical positions on the problem of free will can be divided in accordance with the answers they provide to two questions:
Is determinism true?
Does free will exist?
Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature. Neither determinism nor its opposite, indeterminism, are positions in the debate about free will.[1]
Compatibilism (also called soft determinism) is the view that the assumption of free will and the existence of a concept of determinism are compatible with each other; this is opposed to incompatibilism which is the view that there is no way to reconcile a belief in a deterministic universe with a belief in a concept of free will beyond that of a perceived existence.[2]
Hard determinism is the version of incompatibilism that accepts the assumption of determinism and rejects the idea that humans have any free will.[3]
Libertarianism agrees with hard determinism only in rejecting compatibilism. Libertarians accept the existence of a concept of free will along with an assumption of indeterminism to some extent. Some of its proponents reject physical determinism and argue for some version of physical indeterminism that is compatible with freedom.[4] Others are Metaphysical libertarians who appeal to mind-body dualism to argue a special case for sentient beings.
The theory of determinism has been challenged from the earliest philosophers, notably Epicurus[5] and Lucretius,[6] to the latest theory of quantum mechanics, which postulates irreducible physical indeterminacy.
The standard argument against the existence of free will[7] is very simple. Either determinism is true or indeterminism is true. These exhaust the logical possibilities.[8] If determinism is true, we are not free. If indeterminism is true, our actions are random and our will lacks the control to be morally responsible."
I know Jesus was theological first and foremost a Jew, so when I have these kinds of questions I like to see what the Old Rabbis had to say on the subject, see the comment from the
"Pirkei Avoth" below.
Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia at this
Link Predestination"
Jewish views
See also: Free will In Jewish thought
Generally speaking Reform Judaism has no strong doctrine of predestination. Some critics[who?] claim that the idea that God is omnipotent and omniscient didn't formally exist in Judaism during the Biblical era, but rather was a later development due to the influence of neo-Platonic and neo-Aristotelian philosophy. Some modern Jewish thinkers in the 20th century (for example, Martin Buber) have resolved the dialectical tension by holding that God is simply not omnipotent, in the commonly used sense of that word. These thinkers are primarily not Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jewish rabbis generally affirm that God must be viewed as omnipotent, but they have varying definitions of what the word omnipotent means. Thus one finds that some Modern Orthodox theologians[who?] have views that are essentially the same as non-Orthodox theologians, but they use different terminology.
One noted Jewish philosopher, Hasdai Crescas, resolved this dialectical tension by taking the position that free-will doesn't exist. Hence all of a person's actions are pre-determined by the moment of their birth, and thus their judgment in the eyes of God (so to speak) is effectively pre-ordained. However in this scheme this is not a result of God's predetermining one's fate, but rather from the view that the universe is deterministic. Crescas's views on this topic were rejected by Judaism at large. In later centuries this idea independently developed among some in the Chabad (Lubavitch) sect of Hasidic Judaism. Many individuals within Chabad take this view seriously, and hence effectively deny the existence of free will.
However, many Chabad (Lubavitch) Jews attempt to hold both views. They affirm as infallible their rebbe's teachings that God knows and controls the fate of all, yet at the same time affirm the classical Jewish belief in free-will (i.e. no such thing as determinism). The inherent contradiction between the two results in their belief that such contradictions are only "apparent", due to man's inherent lack of ability to understand greater truths and due to the fact that Creator and Created exist in different realities.
One does not have to be a Chabad Hassid to believe in this, however. It is enough to read the statement in Pirkei Avot: "Everything is predetermined but freedom of will is given." The same idea is strongly repeated by Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance, Chapter 5).
Many other Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and secular) affirm that since free-will exists, then by definition one's fate is not preordained. It is held as a tenet of faith that whether God is omniscient or not, nothing interferes with mankind's free will. Some Jewish theologians, both during the medieval era and today, have attempted to formulate a philosophy in which free will is preserved, while also affirming that God has knowledge of what decisions people will make in the future. Whether or not these two ideas are mutually compatible, or whether there is a contradiction between the two, is still a matter of great study and interest in philosophy today.
In Rabbinic literature, there is much discussion as to the apparent contradiction between God's omniscience and free will. The representative view is that "Everything is foreseen; yet free will is given" (Rabbi Akiva, Pirkei Avoth 3:15). Based on this understanding, the problem is formally described as a paradox, beyond our understanding."