I like what Sommerset Maugham said about this topic in Human Bondage. I will misquote because I don't care to try looking it up, but the idea was that life can be viewed as deterministic in retrospect, but must be LIVED as though we have free will. When I look back over the long chain of events that brought me here, I can see a pattern woven together like an oriental carpet - Maugham's metaphor - and perhaps see the working out of God's plan for me, but here in the now, on the very precipice of the future, the next step, I must allow myself to believe, is fully mine to take, and mine alone - otherwise, fatalism might hobble me from doing anything at all; after all, why bother if everything's been worked out in advance anyway? Nevertheless, accepting that our lives are mostly or entirely shaped by determinism could be useful to a Christian. It reminds me not to judge. I do not know what forces have been brought to bear on the bigot, the misanthrope, or the fraud to make him the way he is. Perhaps, within whatever scope of action is allowed him by heredity and environment, he is a better, truer Christian than I. Nor can I take credit for my own virtues, whatever these are: I had no say in choosing my parents, my teachers, and my surroundings. The best I can hope for, is always to choose in each forward step into the future to act as if I have a choice, and to choose God.