Ok, so I guess you are going to force me to get into the philosophy.
quote:
Thing is, if you accept the premise that God is omniscient, I don't know how you can avoid predestination.
I don't think we can presume to know the "mind of god", even if you accept that god is omniscient.
What about the idea that god simply created nature, including evolution and all it's tactics of "survival of the fittest", so that earth [etc] could operate as a 'self-improving' system where the "thinking" life-forms were responsible - as in live-or-die, by their choices? [I use the term "thinking" as opposed to simply "conscious" because many animals are now shown to be "conscious" of themselves]
And, if "thinking humans" make bad choices, they too can be wiped out [no predestiny there]. Animals not responsible for global warming will become extinct due to the changes, and humans may or may not all be wiped out due to global warming.
There is, therefore, no "predestination", by definition, for believers. An all-knowing god might just be running an experiement here, to let us find out if we are worthy of continued survival.
PS - I am concerned that some religious people believe that global warming is not a responsibility of humans because it was predestined to happen because we were certain to use fossil fuels in our ascension to a technological world, then why bother to try to reduce emissions. Whatever happens is what is supposed to happen, global warming will be a good thing; "don't mess it up with that environmentalism stuff". Is that the kind of "pre-destiny" you are talking about?