This is what you said:
God already saw this and already planned a miraculous intervention for those that 'consider' God
The belief that God planned a miraculous intervention based on the fact that some "considered" God is saying that God intervenes constantly in the world order. This goes against the theological concept accepted by theologians that are NOT Calvinistic who state that because God KNOWS the future, does not mean that He intervenes in it.
You're saying He does intervene in it.
Anyway, the only part of this I'm interested in is free will.
Let's make it easy:
Do we have free will? Yes or no, or a very short answer.
Do we choose God? Yes or no, or a very short answer.
(it's really the same question)
GodsGrace: First, I do not do labels of Calvinism or others. If something I favor seems falls into a camp then so be it.
Nearly there....,,Yes, God sees, saw and intervenes, intervened already, in the past, oblivious to us in our lives, moment to moment. It is pre-planned. So in our eyes we do not see God intervening at all. We see things occurring as separate from God's doing. We see us as making all the decisions and we even take credit for most of it. And we know we do not control even those forces and things in our lives, right?
I really want to given a simple yes or no answer to the way you pose your questions. I would be treating you unfairly if I did though.
Here's by best way....I need to qualify these things, and answer both question together.
Our default state from birth, as an unbeliever is being a slave to sin and biased to own desires only. This means we are born already without a will or decision for or TO GOD. We do however have a will to work off our own desires...we cannot help it. I believe you call this 'free' will, I do not because we are a slave to self and evil. We use this will everyday to make it through life. WE cannot divorce ourselves from using this non-spiritual will. Animals have a similar 'free' will at their own level of intellect. When we must do things that become sin, they always means death, under the carnal will, without Christ and thus God. We have free will to not reach out to God, that is our default setting without Christ.
Even though we are born in a corrupt state, God has given us the capability to desire to know him or consider him if WE want to. We must choose to consider God, although this does not mean we choose God. Choosing God is the faith and commitment to Christ that God provides us to use (faith) to believe in our heart, the Christ. God made this all possible to choose him, at his desire and time. WE chose to trigger it (desire to know spiritual things of God) sometime in our lives, and God saw it. And God chose us and then we became a believer in his son. ....see the difference? God ultimately chose us because of our reaching out to him. When we reached out, it does not mean we chose him. We never really knew him until we believed in Christ so how can we choose him. Anyone can go around and say I believe in God, and say they chose God, although they are deceiving themselves. They never knew him until God already intervenes in the past fro sometime in their lives.
Now can you see why your first question is hard to say yes or no to because of your definition of it, and you are not considering the one will and two natures of a believer, and the one will and one nature of an unbeliever.
1st Q: we have NO TRUE FREE WILL, independent of an imperfect and corrupt heart as we are slaves to sin and/or slaves to God.,, to good and evil spirits of the world, self or in the heavens.
2nd Q: God chooses us to Christ. No, we do not CHOOSE God, ever.
I can do a scripture sourced version of all this if you want. I will need more time though.
Bless you,
APAK