I am a Christian and I used to believe in full blown free will. But you're right about something--the Bible, while teaching at times from the perspective of free will, does have a lot to say about that predestined (and therefore unchangeable) way of viewing reality. Here's how I see it now:
Before God created anything, he had a "theoretical" knowledge of all future events that would result from his creation. This is called a "theoretical" knowledge, not to imply anything less than perfection of vision as far as
accuracy of foreknowledge is concerned, but only because the "physics" of the knowledge was not yet carried out, i.e., the events that would spring forth from his creation-to-come were not actually "real" yet, not yet
tangible. With this flawlessly accurate "theoretical" knowledge of how all events of the creation-to-come would unfold (which had, incorporated within it, a genuine capacity for what we call "free will," "chance," "the laws of physics," etc., to manifest), God made
a mechanism called "creation" that would inexorably align with that established, primordial, intangible, "theory" of his. Thus, responding like the lockstep mechanism of a precision clock--and ranging universally from every particle of dust that seems to follow its own whimsy of movement as it blows through the air, to every movement and saying of all people (etc.)--the events of God's absolutely unalterable creative mechanism proceed, events that might be referred to as "ticks" of his clock. It should be reemphasized, though, that this truly unalterable plane of creation that we live in is a perfect reflection of God's theoretical knowledge of how things-to-come would be (based on the theoretical incorporation of genuine free will, chance, the laws of physics, etc., into the system).
Do you the reader, then, have a choice, for example, about whether or not you shall continue to read this information? If the answer to that question proceeds
strictly from the theoretical perspective (upon which the mechanism of creation was built), then the answer would be "Yes," you do have a choice, i.e., the fact is based on
God's perfectly accurate pre-creation foreknowledge about how that "free will incident" (whether or not to continue reading) would unfold, a mode that is presented in the Bible at times. But if the answer to the question proceeded
strictly from the tangible perspective (acknowledging the brute fact of God's unalterable mechanism of creation that he built based upon said forenowledge), then there is no "free will" whatsoever, i.e., we are experiencing an illusion of free will that harkens back to God's primordial,
theoretical foreknowledge with which he pre-engineered all creation "ticks." To continue with the example about reading, we were known either to have proceeded reading or to have stopped reading, and the "decision" is not ours in this plane of existence--it has already been decreed, fixed, incorporated into the pre-programmed mechanism of God's creation--
this creation, the one we are living in now, the only
tangible creation that ever existed.
It is being proposed, then, that when God declares his hatred for some people (as for Esau, the false prophet/Deuteronomy 21:15, Romans 9:13, etc./Revelation 20:10 for example) in the scriptures, God is speaking from the tangible perspective, within which, it is revealed by God that the individual in question will not and indeed cannot ever come into agreement,
consummated acceptance, with God's plan of redemption, and in fact is destined for eternal torment in hell as a rebel against God. In the primordial
theoretical realm, though, God (in his foreknowledge of the world's need of a Savior) made a
theoretical provision for all people, as in "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son . . ." (John 3:16a). In this tangible realm, though, this provision can be ultimately,
rightly spoken of as being reserved only for the elect, for those whom God knew would come to him in light of the nature of his universal design. Acts 13:48 addresses "those ordained to eternal life." By definition, ordained things will come to pass no matter what--ordained things transcend all other criteria such as "free will," "chance," "the laws of physics," etc. And as indicated, all other aspects of the universe that envelop the ordained, exist as an interconnected framework through time that preserves the integrity of all things (i.e., from the tangible perspective--the "here and now" reality--literally everything is unchangeable in the preprogrammed nature of God's design, and so deserving emphasis). From the point of view of only this tangible perspective of God, then, the destiny for those to be doomed and those to be saved is unalterable and completely alien to this present world's concept of "free will": a phenomenon that literally never existed independently in this tangible realm. Thus, there is a
set number of individuals who are ordained to eternal life, and there is a set, unalterable number of those who will be lost. To revert to the theoretical perspective, though, God did not preordain such eternal judgment upon individuals apart from his infallible foreknowledge (that made allowance for his creation's "free will") of what they would do within God's plane of creation-to-come.
The "free will" element of the theoretical realm is where inspiration for this
tangible world's incidences of sadistic and atrocious behaviors, for example, come from (i.e., God did not, apart from his foreknowledge of how certain evil individuals would behave,
ordain future atrocities). Conversely, it is within the tangible perspective that God can rightly inform us that we did not determine for ourselves that we would submit to God's plan. There was no human free will
operating in this plane that determined our destiny to be saved. God created an unalterable mechanism that favored us to the point of salvation, and he can also be understood to have "passed over" those who are literally incapable of coming to God in genuine, submissive reverence regarding the rebirth requirement specifically, i.e., the specific moment of repentance and acceptation of Christ which results from the individual's direct request of God for salvation in Jesus' name. Of course, from our human perspective, we never know who will be "the next one" to experience the Holy Spirit's influence that will cause the individual to consummate an actual Christian rebirth. What might seem to be "a most hopeless case" (for whatever reasons: overt evil behavior, a piously sincere misdirection in hope regarding the only thing that actually saves the soul, i.e., religiosity, for instance, etc.),
could become the next convert.
Is this information about God's totally preprogrammed creation to be taken as though Christians need not spread the gospel or engage in other good and required works? Of course not; quite the contrary, there's nothing capable of stopping those who are ordained to eternal life and to the no-less-destined post-salvation service of God in this life and in the life to come.
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