From OUR PERSPECTIVE we have NO EXCUSE.
I’m a human being. I can have a mind and a body. If I’m on a business trip and a whore throws herself at me, in the reality of what it means to be a human being - I HAVE A CHOICE TO MAKE IN MY MIND.
But think a minute. What brought me to be sitting in that restaurant having dinner ? What brought that woman to that restaurant that evening ? She didn’t know I was going to be there. I didn’t know she was going to be there.
We were both living our lives, and our lives intersected.
From our human perspective, we have free will. And we do not know what our own future holds.
Will we walk out our front door tomorrow and a piano falls on our head ? Will our flight crash ? When we blow through that stopsign, will we just breeze right through the intersection ? Or will we be crushed from the side by a fully-loaded 18-wheeler ?
Now let’s consider God’s viewpoint.
There are Bible verses which say God predestinated the elect. You certainly can look them up and study them.
What of everyone else ? (human sniffle, sniffle, whine)
But it’s not fawewww ! What about the other people that God did not predestinate ?
Woops, we’re thinking like humans again.
Let’s be logical instead. If those who are saved, S, are predestinated to be saved, what about NOT S ? NOT S (not saved) are not part of that group S (saved). NOT S were not predestinated to be saved. By inference can we conclude that NOT S were predestinated to not be saved ? Where NOT S predestinated to be NOT S, if S were predestinated to be S ?
The only flimisical argument available to us puny humans is that God predestinated S to be saved, and the rest.... he leaves that entirely up to them. They’re not predestinated to be saved, they’re not predestinated to damnation. God leaves it entirely up to them, whatever they want to do. Maybe God influences them along the way, but God does not really know what their choice will be. Well, the Bible tells that God is ominscient, he knows the future. Hmmm... I’ve got to get my flimsical tale really flexible now. Well, he knows what they will do in the future, those who are not predestinated to be saved. He knows what their ultimate choice will be. God set the whole heavens and earth in motion, mind you - and he set them in motion such that he could predestinate S being saved. But he actually did not force the NOT S to not be saved. All God’s plans could have worked out in countless different ways, depending on the choice that every member (millions of people) in NOT S wound up making for themselves.
Will Pieter commit adultery with that woman he meets in the restaurant while on a business trip ? God didn’t know what Pieter’s choice would be. God had two entirely different versions of God’s plan for the world, one if Pieter had sex with the woman, and a different one if Pieter didn’t. Because if Pieter commits adultery with that woman, his life and the woman’s life will take an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PATH than if Pieter does not commit adultery with that woman.
And so on, for millions of people.
Do you see how nonsensically impossible it is to have a plan for the entire universe which determines what will happen far into the future, but in that plan leave an enormous space of possibilities which are indeterminate at the time the plan is made ?
Do you see how from Pieter’s perspective - he had no idea how events in his life would unfold up until now and how they will unfold in the future ? So from Pieter’s point of view he has the full capability to make choices as his life happens ?