Theists: How can predetermined fate and free will coexist?

[Pat Mustard]

It's pretty clear that a lot of theists need us to have free will, because it excuses their deity from the bad things people do. Now, I don't buy that anyway, as I've mentioned above. The deity still created the framework, and decided that suffering was something it wanted to include.

What I don't get is why they need the deity to know the future. In fact, it seems at odds with everything. According to many, God is screwing with our affairs. Often on a daily basis. Why on earth would it do this, if it already had a perfect plan and knew what would happen? Did it deliberately make it so that things kept going wrong so it could dive in and help? Hero complex? This is another contradiction. How do some people so easily live with these?

And the idea that God has a "plan" is at odds with knowing the future. The word "plan" indicates a strategy, usually. A way of going about things, to try and achieve a goal. But how can God have goals? It has nothing stopping it instantly achieving anything it wants. It needs no strategy. It needs no "means to an end". It needs no sacrifice in order to deal with some problem that has arisen.

This points to other contradictions many people seem happy to live with. God is all powerful; yet it must do things in a certain way to cope with what is happening. It created everything: what is possible and what is not, the rules regarding how things work, our capabilities and intentions; yet somehow it has no responsibility whatsoever for what happens.

It's a feature of monotheisms. In monotheistic faiths the god pretty much as to be all powerful, as he's supposed to be the sole reason for everything. But few monotheisms are happy (or even recognise) with the fact that in order to be all powerful god has to be the source of all evil, because goodness is equated with perfection in the human mind.

Religions with colleges of gods don't have this proble as there is a group of beings with similar levels of power, so not one of them is all powerful. Polytheistic gods can therefore be evil or do evil things because they are fallible and the logic of their mythology alliws them to make mistakes.