There are many theodicies that I have personally encountered while thinking about the Christian faith. One is the Irenaean “greater-good theodicy” or “greater-good defense”. The Irenaean theodicy maintains that the world represents the best of all possible environments because it provides the conditions necessary for human moral and spiritual maturation. In most formulations of this theodicy, creation is viewed as unfinished insofar as human beings have not yet reached their full potential. The experience of evil and suffering is thus understood as needed for the process of human development, serving as the context in which individuals grow toward moral and spiritual completeness. Assuming this explanation, what was the purpose of the Holocaust? What greater good comes out from the Christian deity letting over 13 million people – among these about six million ethnic Jews – be tortured, raped and gassed to death by national socialists? Potentially making a few former national socialists feeling regret and coming to Jesus? The believer would then be forced to square that logic with the internal framework of a just deity. Some Christian scholars reject the Irenaean theodicy (e.g., D. Z. Phillips, who I believe was the first scholar to offer this exact argument against appeals to any greater good), because of these difficulties. A few explanations have been offered to me, apart from the “saving souls” defense. Another is the “soul-making” theodicy, that the Christian deity wants us to discover and embrace virtues like courage, charity, and a willingness to sacrifice out of free will. Scholars like C. Robert Mesle accurately point out that these seem valuable *only* because evil and suffering exist. If persecution, starvation and suffering were abolished, those particular actions would no longer be needed and so would lose their value. Therefore if soul-making explains suffering only as a means to produce such virtues, it is unclear what would be lost in a world without suffering. Therefore it seems that we are left with a deity that values virtue development, as a principle, higher than preventing or relieving the effects of a genocide, or a deity that values instrumentally valuable virtues higher than intrinsically valuable virtues. It also seems to reduce human lives to mere pawns in a grandiose cosmic plan, in which the individual and the value of the individual are completely set aside in order to for the Christian deity to achieve a collective plan for humanity. In a way, Irenaeus made God the ultimate utilitarian. A third defense I have encountered is the appeal to mystery or magic, which is an utterly defeating and non-meaningful response that does not explain anything and shuts down the conversation by moving the problem into the unknowable. I am curious to what different Christian sects and denominations view this issue, and if there are other ways to rescue the Irenaean defense without ending up in any of the three aforementioned categories.

When I ask this question I usually end up getting the response of: > “Well, that was just him giving us free will!” And then I ask why he would give us free will if he knew we would sin and would send us to Hell. Which gets the response of: > “Well, he didn’t want us to be robots! That would just be awful.” Then this goes on and on. What I’m trying to ask is: why did God give us the ability to sin if he would get so mad at us that he would send us to Hell? Why did God make Satan if he knew he would tempt Adam and Eve? Honestly why even make Satan in the first place?

### Background of the question **Bible and Philosophy together** The Bible is not a strictly philosophical text (although the Wisdom books in the Bible can arguably be called ancient Hebrew philosophy), yet there are many assertions about the nature of God that *invite* humankind to reflect *further* on humanity's (or a single human being's) **relationship with God**, that makes Christian philosophy a legitimate enterprise while remaining **truthfully** grounded in Biblical ***narrative* and *concrete*** revelation, since the philosophical mode is necessarily ***atemporal* and *abstract***. In this view, 1. proper Biblical exegesis (as [*salvation history*](https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/what-is-salvation-history.html)) focusing on our *relationship with God* and on *redemption + sanctification + glorification* of humanity as **God relates with humankind *in time* and *in the flesh*** can work hand in hand with 2. *atemporal* reflections by our **God-given Intellect** to probe the depth of our existence & psychology, using all the faculties of our human psyche (which is ***our saved flesh***): passion, reason, will, happiness, purpose, emotions, memory, etc. One such Biblical assertion about the nature of God is the famous passage Isa 55:8-11 that has been used and abused in the service of *both* orthodoxy *and* heresies (such as Word of Faith), so it's not surprising that the *Catholic Culture* article cited below also cites that passage plus how Boethius works out Isa 40:22 philosophically. **Boethius and his definition of divine eternity** Humankind is created "tuned" for *both* narrative *and* atemporal reflection of God and Nature, which explains why Boethius's [*On the Consolation of Philosophy*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Consolation_of_Philosophy) remains popular maybe because Boethius was one of the most successful Christian thinkers who applied *both* Biblical truths and Philosophy to the human psyche. One sign of his continued relevance: in Nov 2024 Baptist historical theologian Gavin Ortlund reminded the faithful how Boethius is [The Most Neglected Theologian in All Church History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYcIfZeXbe0) For those new to Boethian divine eternity concept, it's important get his definition right (from [Book V prose 6](https://www.exclassics.com/consol/consol.pdf)) . One translation: > “Eternity is the complete, simultaneously-whole, and perfect possession of interminable life.” (*aeternitas est interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio*) Modern proponents use the Flatland analogy to help explain the relationship between the two horizons (eternal and temporal), before using it for many applications. For example, a major 21st century proponent of the Boethian solution, Eleonore Stump, also uses the analogy to explain Boethian relation of the 2 horizons before applying it of to flesh out *in psychological terms* how God is present to us and how God loves us **from His eternity to our time** (see her 2013 paper [*Omnipresence, Indwelling, and the Second-Personal*](https://philarchive.org/archive/STUOIA)) . Notice how the topic is *also* the #1 *narrative* theme in the Bible (namely, our personal relationship with God) and the paper illustrates how we can do proper **INTEGRATION** between what the Bible says (in its own mode of discourse) and the *atemporal* philosophical and psychological reflections **within our psyche** during our earthly life-span of about "70 years" (Ps 90:10), taking cues from how the Biblical Wisdom books *themselves* (Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, etc.) did these reflection in the ancient (Near Eastern) philosophical mode. **Boethian solution for "foreknowledge" and free will** Boethian concept of eternity is also often used to solve the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will, an enduring solution popularly called the "Boethian solution" outlined in [Book V prose 3-5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Consolation_of_Philosophy) (see https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/111145/what-is-boethiuss-solution) that spells out *precisely* how God "might" from his *Eternal Horizon* interacts with us in the *Historical Horizon* in a way that preserves *both* Providence *and* free will. (I said "might" to acknowledge that philosophical thinking is *necessarily* speculative, although *grounded in the reality God created*, but also *necessary* to provide ourselves a good rational defense of the faith.) I still need to find a good, more rigorous paper on this, preferably one that compares this solution with a more common solution in terms of [compatibilism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism) , but a brief description can be found in [this *Catholic Culture* article](https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/never-failing-present-boethius-on-gods-eternity/) and [Gavin Ortlund's *Truth Unites* video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYcIfZeXbe0&t=467s) starting at minute 7:47. --------------- ### The question Sorry for the long (but necessary introduction) but my question is this: **how would proponents of the ["Boethian Solution"](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/111145/what-is-boethiuss-solution) (to solve the foreknowledge problem for human free will) give a *better* Biblical exegesis** than those who use the Bible to object, such as in [this answer](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/a/111146/10672) : > This theory contradicts the scriptural concepts which Paul expresses, namely foreknowledge, predestination and election. Of course **the answer needs to compare 2 Biblical exegeses** of the verses used to show how the one for the proponents is *the better and more responsible* exegesis. Example: the answer should avoid relying on the ambiguity of meaning by *mere citing* of open-ended phrasing of verses such as Isa 55:8-11, either by the **pro camp** (such as the *Catholic Culture* article above) or (on the other extreme) by the **opposing camp** (such as many Christians who use the same verses for *dismissing* the possibility of philosophical thinking on Biblical themes).

What is "Boethius's solution"? I saw it referenced in a comment, but when I tried to Google it, I didn't get a good answer. It has to do with the relationship between God's omniscience and man's free will.

Thomas Cranmer's 42 Articles has Article 10: "those that have no will to good things, he makes them to will, and those that would evil things he makes them not to will the same." Does the C. of E. have an official definition of free will, or what might be the nearest it gets to having one?

The [free-will defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free-will_defense) is an argument commonly attributed to Alvin Plantinga, who developed it as a response to the [logical problem of evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil#Logical_problem_of_evil) . However, in developing this argument Plantinga unwittingly ended up reinventing/rediscovering the [Molinist doctrine of middle knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free-will_defense#Molinism) , so the key ideas of the argument are not entirely novel, and people have certainly come up with similar defenses independently more than once. The Wikipedia article includes a summary of the argument: > A world containing creatures who are significantly free (and freely perform more good than evil actions) is more valuable, all else being equal, than a world containing no free creatures at all. Now God can create free creatures, but He can't cause or determine them to do only what is right. For if He does so, then they aren't significantly free after all; they do not do what is right freely. To create creatures capable of moral good, therefore, He must create creatures capable of moral evil; and He can't give these creatures the freedom to perform evil and at the same time prevent them from doing so. As it turned out, sadly enough, some of the free creatures God created went wrong in the exercise of their freedom; this is the source of moral evil. The fact that free creatures sometimes go wrong, however, counts neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness; for He could have forestalled the occurrence of moral evil only by removing the possibility of moral good. I have the following objection to this argument: - If human beings were created in the image of God and have free will, then it follows that **God also has free will**. - Likewise, if human beings, in virtue of having free will, are capable of moral evil, **then God, in virtue of having free will, must also be capable of moral evil**. - However, **if God is omnibenevolent, He is not capable of moral evil**. - So it looks like we have a contradiction between the last two points. Said in another way, if God can have free will and be incapable of moral evil at the same time, then why would God create human beings that have free will and yet are ***not*** incapable of moral evil at the same time? In other words, God is a counterexample to the claim that free will necessarily entails being vulnerable to moral evil, since God has free will and yet is not vulnerable to it, and so one wonders why God would create free creatures that are not immune to moral evil, just like He is. How do proponents of the free will defense against the problem of evil resolve this conundrum? --- --- Based on some of the comments received, I will try to write a more formal and rigorous version of the objection: **Premises** - P1: God is omnibenevolent - P2: God is omnibenevolent => God is *not* capable of moral evil - P3: God has free will - P4: God has free will => God is capable of moral evil **Deductions** - D1: God is *not* capable of moral evil (from P1 & P2) - D2: God is capable of moral evil (from P3 & P4) - Contradiction between D1 & D2 (=> God is not capable of moral evil*) should be uncontroversial as well. God cannot do evil. It's impossible/unfeasible for Him. It just won't happen. - P3 (*God has free will*) is based on the intuition that if humans (and angels) have free will, it would be very strange for God not to have free will as well. One could reject this premise and claim that, perhaps, God is a deterministic being who created free creatures. Sure, one could hold such a view, but it would be a very novel (and strange) one, wouldn't it? - P4 (*God has free will => God is capable of moral evil*) is based on the same intuition used by the *free-will defense against the problem of evil*. If evil is explained as an undesired price of having creatures with free will (which God was willing to pay because of how valuable free will is), then what the defense is basically saying is that *free will => capable of moral evil*. So P4 is just a particular application of that rule to God, if we concede that God has free will. --- If anyone is interested in further objections to the *free-will defense against the problem of evil*, feel free (no pun intended) to pay a visit to [this question](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/99881/66156) on Philosophy Stack Exchange.

As stated above. I know the out-of-pocket answer is "pride", but I'm curious. The angels all had full knowledge of the choice and the resultant consequences, yet a third rebelled. Was it exclusively pride that led them to this decision, or something else? It seems a remarkably unwise decision for a being that knows unequivocally that it will result in eternal torment and separation from God. We can make the obvious argument that this is an awful lot like us, but the angels all had far more information than us. Angels don't need faith, they've all personally met God and know who He is without any doubt. They're timeless and never experienced moments of weakness. They made the decision in utterly ideal circumstances. Was it truly pride and pride alone that led to this?

According to dispensationalist theology, sin is not directly caused by Satan - though he plays a significant role in temptation and deception - but rather originates from humanity's free will. However, if Adam and Eve were created with free will and declared "very good" by God (Genesis 1:31), does this imply an inherent flaw in their design that free will itself be a vessel for sin? If so, how does Dispensationalism reconcile God's perfect creation with the capacity for rebellion embedded in it?

Me and a friend have been debating this topic and I'm a little stumped I must say. My friend believes in Hard Determinism where desires control us and our desires come from what he calls "life path". I tried refuting this by saying free will and desires are distinct but he simply brought up that our strongest desires determine our free will. So if you use your free will to go against your strongest desire, then you are still using a stronger desire to over come another stronger desire if that makes sense. So after doing some research I stumbled upon libertarianism and it seems like that is the view point I gave to him about free will and desires being distinct. But I'm not sure if libertarianism is the Biblical explanation. So how does God explain free will and desires being distinct? Can we really choose to not follow our stronger desire without a stronger desire causing us to do so? If so, then why would we choose to do something we do not want to do unless the desire to do that thing is stronger than the desire to not do it?

In the Reformed view of predestination and human will, could we say that human will consists of two inseparable parts — a detached will, as the capacity to deliberate or step back from objects, and an oriented will, as the capacity to unite with or choose an object apparently good? If so, would it be accurate to say that any exercise of the will that *chooses* something other than God represents a false or incomplete use of that will, since only God constitutes the true end that fulfills and rightly orients it as true freedom? In this view, God would be not merely one object of choice, but the very source and end of a properly ordered will. All other created goods—wealth, pleasure, ideologies—represent only *apparent* fulfillments. That would mean that, apart from union with God, human willing collapses into a kind of existential fragmentation: always active, but never truly free. This would imply that: 1. Human beings retain a capacity to will and choice (and thus remain morally responsible) *even in their fallen state*, but this will is fundamentally misoriented since *any* object is going to be a sinful one. 2. Only God's grace restores the true orientation of the will, reordering it toward its proper end in Him (= freedom). 3. Thus, God is not the author of our sin (since our willing as a capacity of abstraction from any object, though corrupted, remains our own), but He alone is the author of our salvation (since only He can rightly reorient the will). Would this framework be consistent with Calvinist theology? Or does it risk introducing assumptions that conflict with doctrines such as total depravity or monergistic regeneration?

Have you ever thought why you live? And the Bible says you have the free will to choose life or death (that can mean being with God or separated from Him) But have you ever thought of “did I ever choose to live?” Of course before you are made, you have no “yes, I want to live” or “no, I don’t want to live”. But let’s say that this world is a “testing ground” for the true life to come as it is held in traditional belief (that is having eternal life in heaven or hell). My question is, why can’t I choose death? And by that, I mean non-existence. Like not in heaven, nor hell. Just nothing. If I have free will, why do I not have that option?

The problem of **theodicy** is the answer to the question of God's justice posed by the evil plainly observable in the world: If God is all-powerful, he has the power to prevent evil. If God is all-knowing, he knows that evil is happening and how to prevent. How, then, can God be just if he does not prevent evil when he could? It's very popular to answer this with the idea of of **free will**. God could prevent evil, but he allows people to do evil because our free choice to do or not do evil is necessary in order for us to genuinely do good. In particular for us to have genuine love for God we must have a free choice with the possibility of not loving him. I'm surprised by how commonly people find this an emotionally satisfying answer to the theodicy problem; to me it doesn't help at all. When I first heard it, it seemed strikingly hollow to me. And it still does today. (Please note I'm only talking here about the emotional appeal, not the intellectual appeal.) First of all, it doesn't seem relevant to the theodicy problem. "People have free will, therefore God is justified in not stopping evil" seems like an obvious non sequitur. Free will doesn't generally justify non-intervention in our day-to-day lives. For instance, a police officer who failed to stop an active shooter could not make the excuse that doing so would have interfered with the shooter's free will, nor could the officer defend his own justice by saying that the only way for people to freely obey the law is if they also have the free uncoerced option not too. While it's certainly desirable for people to freely choose to follow the law, I don't see why one would infer from that that it's better not to enforce the law. In the same vein, I note that loving parents regularly interfere with their children's free choice in order to protect them from harm. A father who allowed his child to walk off a cliff when he could have prevented it would be arrested, and couldn't defend himself by saying that he was respecting his child's free choice. Secondly, the claim that genuine love requires the real possibility of not loving seems artificial to me. I don't think I've heard love defined that way outside of this specific context, and it does not seem to apply anywhere else in Christian theology. For instance, we believe that the persons of the Holy Trinity are all mutually loving one another. We would surely never say that the Father's love for the Son is not genuine, nor would we say that the Father might possibly not love the Son. But if neither of those is true, then it cannot be the case that genuine love requires the genuine possibility of not loving. Similarly, isn't the future we look forward to in the Resurrection a future wherein we no longer have the possibility of sinning? But surely we cannot say that in the New Heavens and New Earth we will no longer have free will. And even in popular usage, we often talk about "love" without thinking about whether there is the possibility of not loving. E.g. when I tell my mom I love her, neither of us are thinking that it necessarily entails the possibility it could have been otherwise. I'm sure free will theodicists would say that that is implicit, but it certainly isn't close to the top of mind in most situations. It's not how I *normally* think about love. I am certainly aware that it's possible to philosophize your way out of those problems. This is not intended to be a refutation of free will theodicy, I am simply explaining why it's counterintuitive to me. The solutions to these problems require complex, sophisticated arguments which sacrifice the simple satisfaction that so many people find in free will theodicy. **My question is primarily psychological:** I want to understand why the free will theodicy is appealing. Is it that people generally don't consider these objections, which appear to me to be both obvious and catastrophic? I'm skeptical of that because I don't believe I'm that much smarter than average. Or are the philosophical answers to them actually obvious and straightforward? I'm skeptical of that too because I don't think I'm that much stupider than average. I'd like to believe there is some other explanation which I'm not thinking of. For instance, perhaps there is a better framing of free will theodicy which shifts the intuition such that my objections don't seem so severe. I could imagine that might be possible without requiring too much complexity to be easily understood. **I'm not asking for an explanation that is both airtight and simple**. That's too much to ask from any theological idea. Rather, I'd like to see a simple explanation that doesn't have *obvious* holes. Or if that's not possible, then I'd like to understand the psychology a little better of those who are satisfied by free will theodicy. Perhaps the objections that seem natural to me appear forced? Or perhaps they really do find the sophisticated philosophical defenses of free will theodicy emotionally compelling even though the simple explanation isn't (except as a summary of something more complex)? ---- I apologize if this sounds like a "gotcha" question, but it is a genuine concern for me. Many people I meet put a lot of stake in free will theodicy and I'd like to understand why a little better. Also, to be perfectly clear, I don't believe free will theodicy is a useless or anti-Biblical idea. But I see it as a minor plank or supplementary to a broader theodicy, not as the primary defense of God's justice.

I am not so sharp on Theology, but I want to present to you something that I have been thinking about. God clearly says when something is bad and we shouldn’t do it. But God also said He hates divorce, meaning its some kind of evil, because God hates evil. Now, if God hates evil, why would He approve of doing it? Not just “allow” it in the sense that He gave us free will, because in that, it makes sense. In that point, God doesn’t allow x but because of free will, He lets it happen. But in the case of divorce or polygamy, God hated these because they are evil in His sight. The thing is, He didn’t say “its wrong and you shouldn’t do it, but since you have a free will, you can choose to or not to do it. But regardless, its still wrong” He didn't say that in polygamy or divorce. He allowed a form of it (regulated) even if He hates it and sees it as evil. So when we do it, its like “it's okay, as long as you are following the regulations”. So that goes against Him that He can’t view evil, yet He allows it (meaning He doesn’t count it as a sin). However, I’ve seen some answers like: “God doesn’t approve of divorce nor of polygamy, but because it still persists, its better to regulate it to minimize harm” By that logic, why can’t we just allow sins altogether because we continually sin, yet God bans it outright? And if God doesn’t approve of it morally, yet continues to do it anyway (by actually stating that we can do it and there is no sin in us if we do), then is He immoral because He goes against what He deems evil?

I've often heard of the concept of Omniscience which is based on scripture that states God **knows all things.** > Isaiah 46:10 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ > 1 John 3:20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. > Psalm 139:4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. Does this quality of God include knowledge of everything that does not yet exist nor has yet occurred on the earth? More specifically: ***Does God already know every action and decision every human will choose to make in the future? How does this correlate with the objective truth that He has included free-will in the design of His creation?*** Please provide scriptural support.

This was originally part of [this question](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/1478/do-we-have-free-will-or-is-it-an-illusion) However, it's really a separate line of logic (and therefore a different question, imo). If others prefer, I can remerge this into the original. ----- God is omniscient. He truly, literally knows everything. God knows whether or not I will sin. God can (and does) direct certain people to prevent them from choosing one way or another. [Exodus 4:21 (NIV)](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%204:21&version=NIV) >The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Clearly, this is an instance where God stepped in and prevent Pharaoh from making the decision. Since he controls decisions and knows what decisions I will make, do I truly have free will? Or do I only have free will in the inconsequential things (which isn't really free will, after all)?

> In short, open theism posits that since God and humans are free, > God's knowledge is dynamic and God's providence flexible. Whereas > several versions of traditional theism picture God's knowledge of the > future as a singular, fixed trajectory, open theism sees it as a > plurality of branching possibilities, with some possibilities becoming > settled as time moves forward. Thus, the future, as well as God's > knowledge of it, is open. Open Theism states that, while God knows everything that can be known, the future free-will choices made by individual persons do not fall in the knowable category. In Isaiah 46 we find the following: > Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: (vs. 9-10) There are no explicit or implicit limitations on God's foreknowledge contained in this passage: He declares (and therefore must know in advance) the end from the beginning. Open Theism declares that human, free-will choices are unknowable in advance by God. However it appears that, since the inception of any future circumstance is laden with, and even produced by, a myriad of human choices, declaring from ancient times the things that are not yet done would necessitate intimate knowledge of future human choices. On what basis does Open Theism limit God's possible foreknowledge? Of interest is this peer-reviewed article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (entitled Foreknowledge and Free Will) arguing against the assumption that perfect foreknowledge eradicates free will.

Open theism posits that God possesses comprehensive knowledge of every possible future but is unaware of which particular future will be actualized due to human free will. Wouldn't this result in the same thing as Molinism? If God has exhaustive knowledge of every potential future, He knows precisely how each individual would act in any given situation. Thus, God would be aware of whether a person will ultimately be good or bad from the moment of their birth. Isn't this analogous to Molinism's concept of "middle knowledge"? One could argue that God's awareness of possibilities is so vast that He comprehends every conceivable outcome for an individual, not just every choice they might make. For instance, there exists a potential world where I become a terrorist, and another where I become a priest. God understands all these possibilities in perfect detail but is unaware of which one will unfold because it depends on my exercise of free will. However, wouldn't this contradict the Christian concept of the soul? This perspective seems to suggest that there is no inherent soul, and that a person's character is entirely contingent on circumstances. For example, if I had been born to strict Muslim parents, I might have become an extremist Muslim. If I'm not misunderstanding open theism, it appears to imply that a person's characteristics are solely determined by the random chance of their upbringing.

The relationship between God's foreknowledge (or omniscience) and the free will of humans seems to be a complicated topic where multiple positions exist. Regardless of my position (which you can read about here: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/101932/how-do-non-open-theists-reason-a-basis-for-free-will and https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/101985/how-would-an-open-theist-explain-that-gods-exhaustive-foreknowledge-would-lead) I think it would be helpful to have an overview of all the various positions that arose (including Open Theism). The main questions I have for each position would be: - How do they imagine God's foreknowledge works? - Is God's foreknowledge exhaustive or limited? - What are the biggest biblical arguments they put forward? - Do humans have "free will" and if so, how does it work? - Do they avoid Fatalism/Predeterminism? If so how?

I believe God did not coerce the thief to the right to confess that Jesus is the Messiah, he did it because he loved the truth and out of his free will, the thief to the left also did not mock Jesus because the devil incited him but most probably because he wanted to appease the crowd. The actions of these two thieves , one in repentance and the other in rebellion caused them to go to different places in the afterlife. How do Calvinists who say God has already chosen the elect and our free will doesn't matter defend this? Also if God interferes with your free will to achieve a result where you go to heaven, then the race of salvation is not fair, or if He interferes with your free will to make you go to hell, makes him a crucial factor in your condemnation, which is not the case .

The Bible does state very many times that God already knows our earthly and eternal destinies. Jesus chose Judas Iscariot because he knew his destiny was to betray him. Jesus knew Paul would try to persecute the church in Damascus and intercepted him on the way. Jesus also knew the thief to his right will confess and they will be re united paradise the same day. My question is, if God already knows who gets to be saved and who doesn't, why should anyone make an effort to be saved when an individual's destiny is already known to God?