If God knows everything, then he must know how everything will turn out before it happens. Does this make us merely puppets performing a play in which every word and action was pre-scripted millions of years ago? Are we responsible for our choices if someone else has written the script, or are we simply doing what the forces of nature are compelling us to do so that we are neither guilty for doing wrong nor praiseworthy for doing right?
In the first chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says: “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and innocent before him in love. He predestined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to his will and favour to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he has freely given to us in his beloved son.” Paul certainly makes it look as though everything was planned well in advance.
However, it is clear from the rest of Paul’s writings that we are responsible for our choices because we do exercise free will, and the choices that we exercise are genuine choices. Because God is outside of time, he can see everything that is happening now, everything that has happened in the past, and everything that will happen in the future. So everything we do is predestined, but at the same time we are completely free to make any choice we like at any time.