Theists: How can predetermined fate and free will coexist?

[Angrboda]

According to Molinism, there are two ways in which God can make things happen: 1) Strong actualization, God brings about some effect directly by his action (direct cause-effect). 2) Weak actualization, where God places someone in a set of circumstances with the knowledge (middle knowledge from the Wiki article a couple of posts ago) that the person would freely decide to bring about the desired effect. 

If God weakly actualizing the circumstances to have Judas freely betray Jesus, that is not the same as God causing someone to do evil. While the effect was willed by God, the mechanism (Judas) still had free will. If God knew Judas was not greedy and selfish enough, then someone else would have been put in those circumstances.

I don't see how any of this solves the problem. If Judas has/had libertarian free will, there is no counterfactual which would cover the situation as there is no knowledge of an event with more than one possible outcome given the context. Saying that Judas' choice was weakly actualized depends upon his choices being determined by the combination of his character and his circumstance. That's not libertarian free will no matter how you slice it.

[Asmodee]

So, God's actions did in a way (weakly actualizing) 'seal that man's fate as the person to betray God'. That in no way took away Judas' ability to choose otherwise. Jesus' message obviously did not resonate with him and the greed in his heart was obviously there. He went to hell not for his weakly-actualized-by-God actions, but for the same reason anyone else will--rejecting God in his heart.

But God's action put Judas in the position of taking the action that betrayed Jesus.  Absent that, what would Judas' life have been like?  Would he still have earned a ticket to hell?  Was he always going to be wicked regardless of God's actions and it was simply a matter of using someone who was screwed anyway?  Surely we've heard or read of people who made changes in their lives and became completely different because of some experience.  Was Judas immune to this or did God realize that --absent any divine interference-- he was already hell-bound?  This speaks to a God who had a chance to save Judas and instead used him as a convenient prop.

The notion that my life might be laid out along a path that I cannot change but that I cannot see means that my life would still have the appearance of being under my control.  In which case, there's nothing to worry about.  But it's troubling to think that my path was laid out long before I was born and I have no way of avoiding the decisions that would lead me to eternal joy or eternal horror.  That doesn't keep you up at night?  The possibility that your fate is to turn on God someday and be condemned to eternal hell without any recourse because it's how your life's thread was directed?  Or do you feel that you will be granted heaven because... ?

The Last Supper is hands down one of the dumbest, least believable stories in the Bible anyway.  It is so obviously not a literal story that I don't know how ANYONE could believe it is.  Why?  Because here's how the story goes, essentially:

The apostles ask Jesus, "Who will betray you?"

Jesus answers, "It is the one who I give this bread."

Jesus hands the bread to Judas and Satan enters him.

The disciples say, "Put that bread down, Judas!  He's about to tell us which one he's handing the bread to!"

That...is...DUMB!

[Mr Greene]

So the answer is to spout a load of BS and pretend that it solves the paradox.

[henryp]

Let's say someone offers my kid a choice between Cake or Baked beans. I know with as close to 100% certainty as possible, she's going to choose the Cake. My knowledge of her future choice in cake in no way affects her freedom to choose.

So, hypothetically, if I have an omnipotent level of knowledge about her instead, I'd likely know every choice she were about to make. Again, my knowledge of her future choices wouldn't have anything to do with her choosing. Her free will would remain perfectly in tact.

I've got complaints, but I don't see a problem here.

[Angrboda]

Let's say someone offers my kid a choice between Cake or Baked beans.  I know with as close to 100% certainty as possible, she's going to choose the Cake.  My knowledge of her future choice in cake in no way affects her freedom to choose.

So, hypothetically, if I have an omnipotent level of knowledge about her instead,  I'd likely know every choice she were about to make.  Again, my knowledge of her future choices wouldn't have anything to do with her choosing.  Her free will would remain perfectly in tact.

Your ability to predict the future choices of your daughter is unlike God's omniscience in important ways, but let's run with it. In order to have true libertarian free will, the conditions prior to your making a choice cannot 100% determine the choice you will make. If they do, then you don't have libertarian free will. She had no possibility of "having done otherwise" because her response was completely determined. So, no, her free will does not remain intact. If you actually know which choice she will make in more than a probabilistic way, then there is no possibility for her to do otherwise than you predict. She literally has no choice.

[Mr Greene]

That's omniscience, the omnipotent part is where you have the power to determine that "choice" which is thus no longer hers to make.
It's the combination of omniscience and omnipotence that render free-will impossible, paradoxically simultaneously rendering omnipotence impossible.

[henryp]

Let's say someone offers my kid a choice between Cake or Baked beans.  I know with as close to 100% certainty as possible, she's going to choose the Cake.  My knowledge of her future choice in cake in no way affects her freedom to choose.

So, hypothetically, if I have an omnipotent level of knowledge about her instead,  I'd likely know every choice she were about to make.  Again, my knowledge of her future choices wouldn't have anything to do with her choosing.  Her free will would remain perfectly in tact.

Your ability to predict the future choices of your daughter is unlike God's omniscience in important ways, but let's run with it.  In order to have true libertarian free will, the conditions prior to your making a choice cannot 100% determine the choice you will make.  If they do, then you don't have libertarian free will.  She had no possibility of "having done otherwise" because her response was completely determined.  So, no, her free will does not remain intact.  If you actually know which choice she will make in more than a probabilistic way, then there is no possibility for her to do otherwise than you predict.  She literally has no choice.

 I don't think free will exists with or without God, so it's a tough conversation for me to have.  

However, playing devil's advocate, I think most people religious and non, seem to think there is some special sauce that comes from the individual that is being injected into the decision making.  And that that special sauce is what makes the person an individual vs. just a flesh robot.

So it's not the conditions alone that determine your behavior, it's the conditions plus the special free will sauce.  My understanding someone's free will sauce doesn't change that that part of the decision is their's rather than just circumstances.  Because theoretically, the free will sauce is ... I don't know, some mystical something or other that they can control that comes from a magical place in their spirit, or whatever. .  

It's BS, but the BS, I think, is in believing in the free will sauce.  I guess we could argue over the nature of the free will sauce, and whether or not my knowing how someone's free will sauce works affects the free will'ness of the free will sauce, but honestly, it's a make believe idea.  It's like arguing over how fast a unicorn can fly.  

They've already got an omnipotent all powerful God existing in some other reality.  So a precedent for such a thing doesn't seem outlandish.  Not sure what the non-religious have come up with for an explanation.

[Neo-Scholastic]

In Judas' case,...God's actions did in a way (weakly actualizing) 'seal that man's fate as the person to betray God'. That in no way took away Judas' ability to choose otherwise.

I do not see much difference between pushing someone into a pit versus baiting them into a pit trap.

[ApeNotKillApe]

It's not my fault the dominoes fell over; I just lined them all up so they'd all fall over after I nudged the first one and then nudged the first one knowing they'd all fall over.

[John V]

@OP: There's several ways to address this. Today I'll go with...

God apparently knows what he's going to do himself as well. So, if such knowledge precludes free will, God does not have free will. If lack of free will precludes culpability for one's actions, God can't reasonably be judged.