I thought this was nasty little kicker:
The Arminian side, in its more extreme form, says that, in order to give human beings a true choice, God cannot see the future.
There are far more extremists among the Calvinists than among the Arminian side, the typical logical explanation I most commonly hear from the Arminian side, is that even if God (theoretically) cannot see the future, he knows us so well that for all practical purposes, he can.
That makes a far more reasonable thesis than the Calvinist thesis on predestination.
Jacobus Arminius was also a genuinely nice man who worked to persuade people to his point of view through gentleness and reason, unlike John Calvin who had his theological opponents beheaded or burned at the stake when he had the power to do so.
Both ism’s seem to be lacking a perspective. What we view as future here might not be the same as what an observer outside our known universe would view as future. In other words, God is not being hurried along in time; but in this universe, we are being hurried along in time.
God has all eternity in which to be ready to greet us at whatever the exit to this universe is. Planning affairs so as to offer a real choice but also to keep every promise He has uttered is possible since He isn’t subject to our time line; He has the power to craft our time line.
Calvinism and Armenism are both extra biblical interpretations of what God means and sometimes that is a mystery to our finite minds. I do lean towards the interpertaion that God knows all His Works from the beginning and therefore knows all who would choose to believe on Christ Jesus before they were even created and they are created with free will. It is a great mystery and God knows His own indeed.
As an engineer, at the cost of vastly trivializing the picture, I could view it as equivalent to solving a set of equations. All the equations need to be true individually and they need to be true taken as a system. What we see as our experience in our time line is the solution to all those equations.
The one that always got me was: If God gives man free will, then God is no longer sovereign.
Really? When I delegate decision-making authority to my employees, I do not cease to be sovereign (just ask them!). The Calvinist god must be weak indeed if he can’t give his creatures free will without losing his sovereignty.