Well, I’m not going to touch the issue of prophecy or ESP in this instance. It’s not really necessary, since what I’m willing to say easily covers what you’ve presented with regard to free will. There are many, many biblical passages where people are enjoined, urged, admonished to do this and refrain from doing that, and there is ample biblical evidence that some take heed and others don’t. But Jesus spoke the parable of the sower, wherein his seeds fall on all sorts of ground, growing up poorly or well accordingly, or not at all. And He said that many are called but few are chosen. Paul wrote that faith comes by hearing. If God has so constituted you, dust of the ground that your are, such that you hear His word and respond, where is the activity of your free will except that you postulate, via imagination and hindsight, that you might have responded differently? The observable fact is that you responded, rendering that you might not have as purely hypothetical. So I don’t think these injunctions and prescriptions provide any biblical evidence for free will.
On the other hand, the biblical evidence for the absolute sovereignty of God is more than ample, as is the evidence provided by the universe and natural world. But human beings like to believe their wills are free, however impossible it is to demonstrate this. And I think this is the original issue going back to the garden, believing we posses the power of choice. I think God is proving us wrong, and I think that ultimately we’ll be extremely grateful for the lesson. Not everyone responds to God’s word at the same time, according to the same circumstances or with the same intensity. We are variously different types of soil. In the story, the prodigal son only responded after having suffered much, and even then it wasn’t initially with much repentance. He just wanted an end to his suffering, but that got him moving in the right direction. Was that the activity of his free will or the result of his being destitute and hungry? Where did that thought come from, that even his father’s servants were treated better? I know that we like to take credit for our thoughts, especially for the better ones, but in fact they simply appear in our minds. Sometimes we can see how one thought leads to another, but eventually, following the trail backwards, we can find nothing for which we can claim credit. His leaving home in the first place, was that a freely willed decision, or was the young man simply a naive airhead in need of a maturing experience?
