IMO This is not an ‘either/or’ situation IMO.
Despite assumptions I believe both propositions can be true at the same time… 🙂
Let me explain.
I say 1. We have free will and 2. God controls the universe.
Just as my young son was not my slave I could guarantee that if I held out an ice cream… he would grab it.
He was not *compelled* to grab it… yet I knew that I only had to put the cone in front of his face… and he would behave exactly as I planned/ foresaw.
We read in Exodus that God ‘hardened pharaoh’s heart’ so that he would not let the people go.
All God had to do is via some inconsequential way provoke Pharaoh’s pride/ego… to know Pharaoh would of his own volition *harden his own heart*!
There is no *deterministic mechanism* involved in what God did that absolves Pharaoh of his personal volition and culpability for what he did!
He was tested… and failed because of his own evil… and God is fully just in holding him accountable for what he did.
Does this make sense?
So God’s Authority does not negate Freewill.
He simply knows the heart of every one of us.
Pharaoh could have acted differently… yet chose the wicked path.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Christian Libertarian.
More from Tim…
Monism: Evolutionary Psychology and the Death of Morality, Reason and Freewill.
Sam Harris fails miserably to vindicate his claim that Science can answer moral questions.
The Absurd claims that Reason is the personal property of Atheism.