"We cannot frustrate God's will with our foolishness and ignorance but we can grieve Him with our disobedience."
"God respects human choice as far as possible and up to the point when He thought that will not deviate with His other rules or ultimate plan too much."
Before the summer of 1999, I believed in a more loosen form of predestination in the sense that God does not determine everything down to "the atomic level". The reason for this is obvious:
(i) the more rigid form seems to contradict with our experience and belief in human freedom;
(ii) it seemingly means that God is responsible for sins and evils.
I used to imagine this using two illustrations / metaphors. The first one is that God gave us freedom in the sense that whenever we make a choice, God simply "close His eyes on this". With his infinite wisdom and knowledge, He is able to know all the possible outcomes and will have a plan in each case. The second metaphors is a shepherd leading a flock. He doesn't need to fix the exact position of each of his sheep but he can lead the whole flock to the destination that he decided. In order words, God will control the overall outcome without needing to fill in every details. He just allows human to have a sort of "guided freedom". One problem with this view is that it is difficult to tell up to what level were under God's direct control. Moreover, it seems to lack the certainty and security that some Christian (like me) need to have for their daily life and walk with God.
I changed my view point during the summer of 1999 after talking with a friend and reading a book that he gave me. When I look back, there are at least three reasons for my change:
(i) I find that it is possible to hold the view of the complete determination of God yet keeping human freedom (or choices);
(ii) this view seems to fit more with the Biblical description;
(iii) it seems to offer more security and certainty for Christians -- it is important for our relation with God (indeed, I was in great uncertainty, anxiety and self-condemnation in that period and need more assurance myself).
The second point of view is basically the old traditional. The basic difference with the former view is that God know every one of our decisions beforehand and that He is in direct control of every single event that happened or will happen. In other words, He is the ultimate "acter" of the great drama of the universe. I understand it in the following metaphor:
In the beginning there was a book written by God which contain the every details of what will be happened in the universe ("up to the atomic scale"). However, when God entered an entry, He knew exactly what would be (even the choices of individual human being) and He carefully took into account every single consequences and compared it with "the rules" that He set out earlier and trying to make everything fit with His preferences. There are several things amongst His rules: logic, natural laws (something that He is continuously upholding), free will of human being, His love to His creation,...
Some of you may object that this understanding seems to be a bit mechanical and God's emotion and reactions toward human seems to be a bit artificial (even fake). However, if we imagine that God does not act under time and the book wasn't really written before time but is written alone with time. Then this seems to be okay. Of course, this imagination makes this book seems meaningless but anyway it is only a metaphor.
I agree that this theory still suffer the same problem as the old complete predestination theory, i.e. the problem of evil and sin. Yet, one should note that even if we take God out of the drama of the universe or at least the moment when evil happened, it doesn't make Him more righteous than this predestination theory. Moreover, I believe that everything that "was" (no matter "existence" or "happening") "was" because of God. There is nothing outside Him. So, in any case, there is no way that we can make Him escape from the reality of evil. Evil is His "active allowance" in respective to our decisions (possible those of the Devil as well).
Nevertheless, He (actively) allow these to happen because of His hidden will (which is not yet transparent to us -- He need not tell us anyway). We should remember that when people aimed at evil, God seemingly "acted" according to that decision but indeed He aimed at good (remember the story of Joesph). In this sense, He is righteous even if He is seemingly allowing the evil to happen. His ultimate plans haven't revealed yet and it is not for us who are mortal and with limit knowledge to judge God.
There is another thing that I want to say but I am not sure if it is correct. We human being need not be the only or most important concern of God. If our well being "contradict" (in some sense) some other preference or essence of God that God regarded as more important, then He may upheld His other preference. When I am thinking about this point, I assume first of all that God respects logic and will never break it (I cannot imagine how I can logically understand how logic can be broken -- if there is a situation when logic is broken, then this situation become an inconceivable one -- as we can only conceive through logic). Secondly, I assume that there is a possibility that the well being of human will logically against some other preference of God. When I am thinking of this, I have in my mind some people whom according to the Bible, will not be saved.
Okay, so much so about the problematic part of predestination, I would like to turn to some interesting consequences of this theory. The first one is that Christians have absolutely certainty about their future because everything is in God (and He already knew and has already taken into consideration our choices and preferences). Satan has no right to alter even a single item in this "book of God". Another implication is a bit funny. I used to ask a question. If I know that something has already taken place but I didn't know the result, can I still pray for it? Now, my answer is yes because when God made His decision about this thing, He already know my prayer at this later time and will take that into account of it.
This is my view point about this for the moment. Feel free to disagree with me.