Well for me, being a Lutheran, I do have a somewhat good understanding of this matter as I have and probably will go to a Lutheran school for all of my school years and this is always a question people ask. The way I see it as God is omniscient and as such does not only know what has happened or will happen but He also knows every other possible outcome to everything. I don't know if you ever saw that episode of Malcolm in the middle where Hal is asked to decide whether or not to pull the plug on that guy who was in a coma, and he tried to make a list of every possible outcome that could happen if he did or didn't pull the plug. The list went covering his entire kitchen and I am sure that he didn't get every variable but that is just a nice example of what I am trying to say. God knows every single possible outcome to everything that we could do and everything that could happen if we do something or not. It's like if you could go back in time you shouldn't disturb anything or everything in the future could potentially be completely different in anyway. As such He can use his superior wisdom to decide whether or not one of the actions chosen by our free will is good or bad and He does have the ability to intervene and change anything. Perhaps you decide that you want to go to the Bahamas for a week or so and have some fun in the sun and then you get a layover in like Detroit or something and your entire plan is ruined. Then you end up meeting some nice friends in Detroit who you end up becoming best friends with for the rest of your life, and then you later find out that there was a killer wilder beast in the Bahamas or something that could've killed you and you thought hmm I'm glad I wasn't there. Well perhaps that was just your luck or more likely it was God saying I know that he's going to die there, or get injured, and I need him to meet someone and perhaps share his belief in Me with these new friends of his in Detroit.
That was just an example of course of something that could happen but I think it proves my point, see God knew what was going to happen and decided it would be better not to have that happen and instead created a new scenario for you to go through so that you can avoid something potentially harmful or useless. Usually, I believe at least, it is for a better good that could come out of a situation.
And yes not only do I but I know my religion well and the pastors and teachers of my religion teach that God does in fact know everything and He knows what we are planning on doing. It's not like He himself directly affects our free will, but sometimes our free will and subconscious will intertwine and our subconscious will try to think about what will be best and if we believe in God I believe that it may try to think about what He would want us to do, and then even though we are using are free will to make a decision He is helping us make the right decision. That's like I believe that right now while I am trying to explain this as best as possible, I think that God is helping me explain it the way He would want you to hear it. I'm not going to say for sure but that's just what I think.
Also I am not saying that God intervenes every single time we are doing something wrong. There's quite a few times that I've done something wrong that I know God could've changed for the better, yet decided to leave it as is so that I could learn from my experiences.
Now, what would be the point in creating such a universe, where God is but the marionette, directing all that happens?
Well see that's the main problem is you have to try and figure out if God created sin. I believe that He did not create sin itself or any of the "evil" things that take refuge in this world. You cannot argue that God created evil when He created Hell. Hell itself is not bad, it is where bad things go so that they can endure the everlasting punishment, which is of course to be totally and completely separated from God. See it is not bad it is just the worst thing anyone can endure. Now again what I believe is that God created the entire universe and Heaven in six days. The seventh day was His day to observe all that He had created and rest as He had just made the universe. Please note that as far as I am concerned Heaven is its own universe just as Hell is. Everything God had made was perfect and when He observed it was very good. The only problem that was, was in the Heavens, with an angel named Lucifer.
Lucifer was an angel who as far as I understand believed that he could do a slightly better job. Despite what many people say, I believe that angels do have free will. The only differences that are between humans and angels are that humans live only in the earthly universe until they die and angels can commute between the two universes. So as I believe it Lucifer had used his free will to rebel against God to show that he could do a better job. Of course this rebellion failed miserably as he is not omnipotent. This is where the evil started. It was not something that God created, but more something that a good being created by God managed to create that was evil. It is like when your child comes up with this farfetched idea about monsters that are under their bed. Did you create this idea about monsters and place it in their mind, or was it the child’s mind creating something? Of course you didn't tell your child that there’s a monster there you said there is no such thing as monsters where did you get and idea like that? And they say something like I don't know I heard something and assumed the worst. Usually that’s a pretty generic case I hear, or at least something to that affect.
As you might have understood what I was giving an example of is how God did not create evil, but what He created in turn was able to create and thus created evil themselves, in an act of trying to be like God. The reason I tried to explain how God did not create evil itself is because your statement sounds like if God created something evil and now has no control over it, what was the point in the first place, and so in my opinion He did it so that there could be something other than nothingness and even if it is full of evil at least He gave everyone the free will to not follow the evil ones. It might have been different and I'm sorry if I explained this for nothing but to me that is what it sounded like and I hope I may be clearing this up for someone out there. Sorry if this got a little long and if you have any more questions please just let me know I am more than happy to try and explain more about my belief to you.
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