"That is like saying, why tell a disobedient child what to do if you know they aren't going to obey. You know that they aren't going to do what you say but you say it anyway. We are not puppets, God hasn't planed out every single movement of our lives," If a parent tells a disobedient child what to do... it is only because the parent knows and understands that the child has the free will to either follow or not follow the instructions and they want the child to follow them. If they don't have the free will to follow the instructions because they are "a disobedient child" which by definition means they will *not* obey what you tell them, then any repetition of instructions is useless (perhaps you could use reverse psychology but that's beside the point).... unless they have the free will to find correction and later be obedient (instead of disobedient which you have labeled them as, almost like predetermining their fate in your own judgment of them). If God hasn't planned out every single moment then you could be destined to find faith at some future date, but currently be completely lacking in it... choose to go down this road that you wind up getting killed on (because some person on that road didn't care about God's future plans for you)... and then what happened to your predestination? If God doesn't control you on the micro level then what makes you think he controls you on the macro level? The way I see it, either God gave us free will or he didn't.... predestination is contrary to free will.... what if I'm destined for hell but I *choose* heaven.... which supercedes which, the free will God gave me to choose, or God's predetermined fate for me? And if one supercedes the other then doesn't it make the other meaningless? ie if I choose heaven and work for heaven, but God already made up his mind I'm going to hell.... then what use is my free will to choose heaven? or if I can choose heaven though God made up his mind I'm going to hell, then it seems God made a mistake in predestining me for hell.... "A coin has two sides, I don't have a choice to have a coin with two sides and even though it will always have 2 sides we can say it has two sides." coin    /kɔɪn/ Show Spelled[koin] Show IPA –noun 1. a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as money. 2. a number of such pieces. 3. Informal . money; cash: He's got plenty of coin in the bank. By definition then I think I could make a 3 sided coin or a 4 sided coin... it doesn't have to have 2 sides, unless you don't have free will to be creative..... and if you want to be technical every coin has 3 sides, but in the context of flipping, it is rare for it to land on it's 3rd side :P When one flips a coin, they put forth whatever amount of energy they choose in flipping the coin, but it is up to gravity and friction in collaboration with the energy you put into flipping it that will determine whether the coin falls on heads or tails. However if as you claim, God actually chooses heads or tails before flipping the coin, then it's neither the coin's, nor gravity's, nor friction, nor even the amount of energy God put into the coin that determines which side it will fall on, it will fall on whichever side he chose before hand, even if all the forces working on it say it should fall on the opposite side. However using a coin to discuss free will is practically irrelevant as a coin exerts no effort, no one is questioning whether or not a coin has free will..... it has none... people have free will is my argument, not that inanimate objects have free will... "A sinner commits a sin, they are still a sinner though even though everyone sins. saying that someone isn't something if they don't choose it makes no sense." So then take for instance if *I* vote democrat, but by no choice of my own my vote gets cast for the republican (because God predetermined that my vote would go republican perhaps).... am I none the less considered a republican? I didn't choose it.... but my vote was cast for them against my will..... by your response then yes I am, even though my vote was clearly marked for democrat (just an example)... ok so let's see some definitions here.... sin 1    /sɪn/ Show Spelled [sin] Show IPA noun, verb, sinned, sin·ning. –noun 1. transgression of divine law: the sin of Adam. 2. any act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle. 3. any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.; great fault or offense: It's a sin to waste time. the sin of Adam, that's interesting... so Adam was made to live in the Garden of Eden right? God put everything together in such a way that Adam could live in Eden for eternity.... Adam *chose* to sin.... made a "willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle" or in this case commandment... not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So by your view Adam didn't make the willful choice to fall from Eden, but rather God chose Adam for that fate from the moment he created Adam.... even though that's contrary to what the bible says. So if that were the case then you couldn't blame Adam for falling from Eden, but could only blame God, because God's the one who made Adam to fall right? Had God made Adam without free will, or if God had predestined Adam to live in the Garden forever then there would've never been a fall.... oh wait... but what if God predestined Adam to live in the Garden forever, but didn't control his every move..... and one day Adam ate from the tree he wasn't supposed to.... it would seem that Adam overruled God's predestination....... that would seem even more careless than just giving him free will.... with free will man's responsible for his own fate.... but if God gave free will and also predestined him, then God would be giving man the means to overrule his predestination... doesn't seem likely that God would do that. Back to my point about instructions.... God gave Adam the instruction not to eat from the tree..... now why would God give Adam instructions not to eat from the tree if God could simply predestine that Adam either would or wouldn't eat from the tree.... if he would eat from the tree anyway (because God predestined him to) then there's no sense in telling him not to as God is the one deciding that he will eat from the tree. This is unlike the parent child comparison because a parent CANNOT predestine their child to one thing or another.... they can ENCOURAGE them... give them instructions... give them advice.... give them assistance.... give them any combination of reward and punishment to achieve the desired results.... but they can't predestine their child in the same sense that you claim God predestines humans. It makes sense that humans would give instructions because they can't make another human do something through predestination.... however if God can, then it does certainly seem irrelevant to give instructions to those whom you know won't follow them.... or even to those you know who will follow them.... because you are predestining them to either do it or not do it.... there's no need to give them more information (because they have no say over what they will do, they must do as they were predestined). Let's say I'm God and I've created a group of people for the sake of playing kickball.... their moves have been predestined, each one of them. Their moves are already set out even before they do it.... for what reason would God then need to explain to those people the rules of the game? Their moves are already set.... whether they follow the rules or not is irrelevant because God made their path, any of them who break the rules were forced to break those rules by God when he set their path before them. It would really be God's fault if any of them didn't follow the rules that he later gave them.... because God predestined them to that fate. It'd be like watching wrestling :) this guy gets all pissed and hollering in front of the camera after the fight (which was rigged from the start) not only did the creator of the wrestling show know what would happen, but also the actor pretending to be pissed at the results of the fight (which he knew before hand)..... I think God's a little more creative than that.... One more point... "A sinner commits a sin, they are still a sinner though even though everyone sins. saying that someone isn't something if they don't choose it makes no sense." Ok but a computer virus take for instance.... it has no free will of it's own. It does as it was programmed to do from the start. If your computer catches this computer virus is it the fault of the virus or the fault of the person who *created* the virus with the programming set to mess up your computer? You may well call the virus a virus because of the results of it's actions, but in reality a virus is a program just like any other program is a program.... the difference between a good program and a bad one is not an inherent value of the program itself, but of the will of the person who created it. Take for instance Stuxnet virus... it's a horrible despicable virus.... designed to mess up industrial infrastructure.... then injected into Iran's nuclear facility in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It was made for a good reason though it's a virus.... and even if it doesn't fit your standard of what a good program should be... in the eyes of the programmer who created it it did exactly as it was intended to do. But none the less, you can't be mad at Stuxnet for doing as it was programmed... only at the programmer of Stuxnet for programming it in such a way..... the same could be said of God and sinners if God predestines people to sin. It's not the sinner's fault that they sin if God made them to sin.... it's only their fault if God made them to FOLLOW and they *chose* to sin.... Free will is necessary, unless you intend to blame God for all of man's mistakes.... I know it's (oddly enough) the athiest thing to do to try to blame God for everything man does wrong... but as a believer it would seem giving him the benefit of the doubt would be advantageous when we're also counting on God giving us the benefit of the doubt... "Jos 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, [u][b]choose[/b][/u] you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."