This is the same thing Hilston used to say and I firmly believe it does injustice to the meanings of the words and phrases we use (i.e., can we make choices?).
While it may be true that we only choose what we choose, that doesn't really address the idea if we have the actually ability to choose otherwise when considering our choices.
I don't know this person Hilston. But the way I have defined free will is the way it is defined among all orthodox classical theists. For example, I have Methodist and a Lutheran authored textbooks on my desk and both say much the same. It is only the open theist who seeks to define freedom that would make them autonomous--that they could do otherwise. You are choosing every day. So am I. Neither of us "feels" we are being cosmically constrained by our choices. Yet only one of us has the right understanding of the mechanisms of these choices. We both cannot be correct. So we both know that our choices made that are real, and impactful.
Now I claim that these choices are made by our strongest inclinations. I think when you ponder how you are choosing the next time you choose, you will see the same thing. Or, why else would you choose? "I just flipped a coin!" OK, then you were most strongly inclined to make your choice by leaving it to probability.
Asserting "No, I could do differently from what I just did", is meaningless, for you have already done something and must move to the next thing to choose and do, and we start all over again moved by our strongest inclinations. Pushing at the concept of choice ultimately ends everyone deep within the philosopher's realm trying to figure out what 'reality' means, etc. Very unproductive stuff. So we turn to the Scriptures. Nowhere in them do we find any support that God's creatures are autonomously free--to be so would put us outside of God's control of His universe. After all, He is holding it all together by His will. As such, we are subject to that same controlling influence just as the moon is in its orbit.
That may be true, however if that is what you believe then I don't think you should use that as a reason as to why we are wrong and why you are right (which is what it seemed like you were doing).
I don't know where you have concluded from what I have previously written that because we cannot fully understand God that I am right and others are wrong. Some context would greatly help here.
I am ready... give me your best shot.
Thank you. Two items come immediately to mind.
1. How do you explain God's lack of knowledge of the actions of free agents until they so act in light of the incarnation? Did God decide the the incarnation after Adam sinned? If not, when did God decide?
2. Open theism attempts to resolve the problem of evil issue by claiming that since free agents commit sins, that God is out of the loop, as it were. God in fact is sometimes surprised (caught unawares) by this evil done by His free agents. Further, open theism holds that some evil is simply gratuitous (no reasons), the result of the causal chain of two or more agents acting independently. Boyd describes this evil as "chance by-product of other decisions that were made." So how does this absolve God from the moral responsibility for creating a world that would contain sin? Even if, as open theism declares, God did not know, surely God would have surmised that morally free agents would sometimes choose badly. I don't see the improvement in the PoE situation that open theism would lay claim to.
