Determined to have free will, or free will to be determined?

I've been talking about determinism and free will with a friend, and it's sort of bending my Monday Mind *sigh*

Why would history be so concerned with pre-determining all that happens? I mean, I don't see why the powers that be would decide, years in advance, that I'd be drinking peppermint tea right now. If determinism is true, then everything we do would ultimately be programmed by other things not under our control. Choice would be an illusion, chance would be negated.

Okay, humans don't control the world, but we do control a lot of our decisions. We've been given minds for a reason. And the fact that we can disagree with others, explore things from different perspectives and so on does kind of indicate some level of free will.

With some things in determinism, it makes sense - it's based on the premise that the way things are in one moment are a direct result of the way things were in the moment that preceeded it. That's more of a flow that can be altered by different choices in moments that lead to the new moments... perhaps... And it doesn't mean that the future is already fixed. And indeterminism doesn't equal free will...

I think we can have expectations of things, both in terms of actions/behaviours of people and in regards to the future, but I don't think that we can say that it's planned out and will necessarily take this direction or the other. There is cause and effect(s), but that also requires choices.

Approaching it from a Christian perspective, I guess there are just too many things that are wrong with predetermined stuff for it to be compatible with the nature of God. Calvinists will say that there were a certain, pre-determined number of people who were "saved," and all the rest would go to hell regardless of what they believed. Totally not biblical for a start, but I guess if if they wanted to think that... hmm... they'd want to be really sure that they were personally the ones who were in the "saved" pile *lol*

I mean, I think that God directs history so that His will is done, but I don't think he micro-manages it to the point where we don't get to choose what we're doing or where we're going. For God, our choice is important, or else He wouldn't have given us independent wills. And if everything was laid out from one end to the other, wouldn't it mean that God was unjust?? I mean, that would imply that some are saved automatically and others aren't, regardless of what they do in their lives. It would make so many things redundant and God so unjust.

Then He is omniscient and omnipotent and everything, but there's a paradox *lol* But God is beyond the understanding of we humans... Personally, I think that God knows all of the choices that we can make, even if we never make them.

The thoughts just popped into my mind about God knowing how the future can be, but maybe not having it set in concrete 100% - more cause and effect. I'm just thinking of things that Ellen White wrote about God having planned for Jesus to come back earlier, except that we hadn't gotten our butts into gear to help out on our side of that bargain.

With our free will comes responsibility, in all aspects of life. I don't think that free will denies cause and effect, but sees it more as being something that provides us with a whole lot of possibilities that we can choose from, which open up other possibilities, which open up other possibilities... The two things of determinism and free will aren't mutually exclusive, really, but then where do they start to feed off of each other and where do they stop?

But then what you believe about it all is up to your own free will, isn't it? ;)

*I just had an interesting thought about how determinism would work with things like feelings and emotions. I'm not sure... I mean, don't they require more free will? After all, cause and effect doesn't always work with feelings. If it did, it wouldn't matter who we went out with on a date, we'd develop feelings for them as an effect... But then that's just an extreme and my brain has stopped thinking about this and is thinking that it's almost the end of the day. Anyone got any explanations for how feelings/emotions/desires would work with determinism?