Was my choice determined?
If I have answered the previous questions correctly and with biblical accuracy, then:
1. God does know my future choices; God knows all the future perfectly.
2. I do choose freely.
3. I cannot be forced to choose something that I do not want.
4. I make the choices I make based on my affections and my strongest desires.
5. My affections and God's decree are causes of the choices I make.
As we consider the choices I have already made:
6. I could never have chosen differently.
7. I cannot choose against the eternal decree of God.
Then the answer to question #8, was my choice determined is, yes. And it must be if God knows what He knows perfectly and those things He knows includes my choices, then my choice is necessarily predetermined. God has determined my future choice by His infallible decrees which are their primary cause, but He has also determined that I will make the choices I make based on my affections/desires/inclinations, which are the secondary causes of my choices. They are the means by which God will accomplish His ends through my free choices; and He has ordained both the means and the ends. Take once again the instance where I chose to turn left instead of right: if God knew I was going to turn left, even though there were various causes (secondary to His knowledge of my future choice and His decree of it) for my decision, and I ended up turning right--contrary to His knowledge--then we must either change our definition of the word know or God didn't actually know that I was going to decide to turn left.
After ruminating over these questions, I think it is clear how one ends up with an "open" view of God if one has rejected the orthodox view of providence, compatibilism and God's decrees and replaced it with an unorthodox view of libertarian free will (the view that claims that in order for the creature to make really free choices, in hindsight it must have had the ability to have chosen otherwise and cannot have been constrained by any determining cause...even its own desires and affections) the next "logical" step in such a system, in order to maintain one's consistency, is to say that God does not actually know my future choices, and if He did and if I couldn't have chosen otherwise, then my choices are never really free because they are constrained by God's knowledge of them and my affection toward, them based on my strongest desire.
What is further is that God's knowledge of future events, creatures and their choices is not subject to His observation of a future that exists outside of His decree. The set of events which we (bound in time) look forward to as future, and which we look back at and call history does not exist as an arbitrary object which God had to discover and about which He now submits His knowledge. NO, the reality is that time and history are subject to Him because He has ordained all their means and ends.
There are two sets of implications that can be drawn from this information:
Those conclusions which are subject to biblical evidence lead to the Reformed view of God's providence:
1. God knows my future choice perfectly, therefore my choice is predestined.
2. Because God has perfect knowledge of future events and choices, He necessarily must have decreed their occurrence.
3. God knows my future choice perfectly, therefore I can’t choose against His decree.
4. God knows my future choice perfectly, therefore I can’t choose differently; I cannot make a choice which is contrary to His decree.
Those conclusions about God's providence which are based solely in human sophistry lead to a non-Christian view of God.
1. If my choice is not predetermined then God cannot know my future choice perfectly.
2. If I can choose against the decree of God then He doesn’t actually know my future choice and thus has not decreed it.
3. If I can choose differently then God doesn’t know my future choice perfectly.
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