Can you define free will? I'm a theist but find the notion ill defined. The word free will seems to come from the actions of people in a relation to each other in a community while things being determined relates to different scientific explanations. The whole debate then is lingustic confusion were you have different layers of abstraction.

This doesn't preclude human agency.
You still make choices, he just knew beforehand what choice you'll make.

That doesn't mean you never actually chose anything. Or that you never had a choice.
It means all the choices you ever made were made all at once before you were born, and life in this world is a repercussion of these decisions played out in a way that is intelligible to your limited mind. Kind of like a learning experience.

Time is just an aspect of your perception.
In truth, everything has already happened simultaneously. The past and future are a single event that you are experiencing as if they were a sequence.
You might think causality must happen "in time" but really that's not necessary at all. It just appears that way to you, from a certain point of view.

You were created with the power to choose.
And regardless of what you choose, God was okay with it (relatively speaking, obviously he permits things that he doesn't actually will actively) and created the world where that choice was possible to make in the first place.

That thing being possible by virtue of providence doesn't mean there must be other possible worlds where you didn't choose that.
There are not many "worlds", because if there were they would have to be related through a common belonging to a singular multiverse. Which can be effectively treated as just "the world", so you haven't gotten anywhere conceptually.

Creation took human agency into account before it was ever made.
A world where it is possible for you to will things, exactly like God does, even if your ability to actually manifest this will to power is infinitely less than God's potential.

Free will is a supernatural gift from God of a piece of himself, the breath he gave to Adam.
Without it, obedience would be absolutely meaningless. It would be impossible by definition. Same goes regarding forgiveness, sacrifice, perseverance, etc.
If these things are compelled, they become void.

>>18436175
John Calvin already explained this 500 years ago OP

>>18436215
I agree completely. People often give the Reformed tradition as a denial of free will, like right here >>18436380 but historically Reformed theologians have been clear that men have “free will” in the ontological, philosophical sense (of possessing a real agency to make decisions in general) and that what impedes their “free will” in the theological sense (i.e. the ability to do what is pleasing to God apart from His grace) is sin and not God. If what is meant by “no free will” is only that God is sovereign, that was never in question.