Is morality objective or subjective?

[Immanuel Can]

When God first created everything and set it all in motion, did he incorporate into his creation the potential for chance and randomness?

Not "randomness," per se. Volition. That is, he created beings that could choose freely to do His will, or to do that which is actually contrary to what He would will for them. That's established very clearly from Genesis on forward...mankind is an entity that can choose "good" or "evil," and "knows" them both.

Why do you only refer to the choice between "good" and "evil"; do we not also have the freedom to choose between things like having a hot dog or a hamburger?

Moral choices, obviously. Aesthetic and gustatory choices don't ordinarily implicate any moral status...well, unless you like rap music or greasy, unhealthy food.

If he didn't, then he must be responsible for everything that happens, and for everything every individual ever does, because nothing could have ever been other than what it is. If he did, then how could he possibly know what is going to happen?

Again, you can check: it's impossible to make sense of that argument, actually. Unless you're more skilled than I am at creating syllogisms, you can't suddenly convert the verb "to know" into the verb "to make [happen]." They're totally separate actions.

And you know they are. In your own life experience, knowing never makes things happen. It simply is a matter of awareness, not of the movement of mechanics. Knowing how to bake a cake never baked one.

So to get the kind of argument you want, you'd need to assume some untrue things. You'd need, first of all, the belief that the only way things operate in the universe is deterministically. Then you could deduce that God set the wheels in motion, and since after that there was nothing but the wheels turning, the universe is fatalistically predetermined.

But of course, the problem with that is that you've started by assuming the conclusion you needed in order to make the argument, not by demonstrating it in any way. And that first premise is (shall we say) very likely to be totally false -- for the very good reason that you do not experience reality as deterministic, nor do you live and act as if it's deterministic. So if we are to believe that Determinism is true, the full burden of proving it surely rests on the person who says, "I know you feel and act as if Determinism is totally false, as has every other person in human history, but I assure you it's true." We have every justification to ask for his reasons and his demonstration that we should start believing something so counterintuitive and experientially falsified.

However, if you and I can "change our minds" and believe him -- rather than, say, being merely mechanically-predetermined to do so, like dutiful little robots -- then we have just proved him wrong, not right. According to his theory, we have responded to our own biomechanics, not to the persuasive value of his argument itself; and so his argument hasn't achieved the force of truth, but merely accidentally ended up on the winning side of our biomechanics.

The upshot is that the argument for Determinism is one that there appears to be no way to win: for to win it, genuinely, by making a true argument rather than a false one, is essentially to lose the argument by showing, instead, two free individuals making their own rational choices. And according to Determinism, that ought to be impossible. Any such phenomenon as two people making a "free choice" ought to be nothing more than an odd delusion produced by the action of the biomechanics, not the product of a good argument on the minds of free individuals.

I can't unpick all that; it's beyond me, I fear.

Sorry. It's a challenging question, and the answer requires some challenging thinking. I congratulate you on the depth of the question: but if it's a deep question, how can a superficial answer suffice?

But let me make it as simple as I can. "Know" is not "make." Those are two different actions. To say that God "knows" what will happen does not even remotely imply He also has to "make" it happen.

God knows all factuals and counterfactuals of every case: that's what ominiscience implies. God knows what every choice you make will lead to. Even though you have many choices, there is no choice that you can make, among the many that you have, that God does not know the outcome of.

But He isn't making you choose, and he can deal with any of the ten or twenty things you may choose to do in a given situation. And He is not losing control of the situation if you choose option X, or Y, or Z. He even knows which you will choose (it's Z). But if you chose X or Y, He'd know that, and he'd be well aware of the outcome of those possible choices too.

That's how the Bible depicts the landscape. It may be more complex than you find easy to think about, but if you found it easy to unpack the mechanics of the universe, maybe you should run for the office of "Supreme Being" -- although I'm not hearing it's open right now, and there are apparently no term limits.

[Peter Holmes]

You'd better include more data, I would say.

First, you'd have to know that the right solution for God to adopt would be to prevent all evil/wickedness/immorality from happening, before it could happen. That is, you'd have to know that a world with no evil in it was, in every way, preferable to one in which people had the option to act wickedly. So I must ask...on what basis do you assume that?

Secondly, you'd have to have an objective moral standpoint from which to judge God's actions. That is, there'd have to be a morality higher than God Himself, so as to be capable of passing an objective judgment upon Him, and you'd have to be the one having access to it. Do you now believe that there IS an objective moral standard, one higher than God Himself, and that Peter Holmes has access to it?

Absent those two conditions, not only is your "moral conclusion" not conclusive; it's not actually "moral" either, since there's no objective morality.

You can take them one at a time, if you like...

1 As usual, you peddle a false dichotomy: morality - judgement about moral rightness and wrongness - is either objective or foundationless, irrational, incoherent, self-regarding, and so on. And that's not so, how ever often you repeat it. These are two sides of the same counterfeit coin.

Hey, sometimes the truth hurts. But it's absolutely right.

"Subjective" means "only Peter has to think it." Nobody else ever has to agree. But in point of fact, it doesn't even mean that Peter HAS to agree with it...he could choose otherwise in the next five seconds, and subjective morality would have nothing to say about it, if he did.

So yeah, that's how it is.

2 I notice you don't try to defend the wickedness of a god...

Wait..."wickedness"? How does a subjectivist get to insist that somebody else's behaviour, far less God's, is "wicked?"

You see? You don't even believe what you say.

3 I believe 'that a world with no evil in it [would be], in every way, preferable to one in which people had the option to act wickedly'. But I don't claim to know that,

Right! But if so, what are you complaining about? You don't know that God hasn't done what amounts to the best possible thing...

4 I'd like to know if you believe it too - if, in your moral opinion, 'a world with no evil in it [would be], in every way, preferable to one in which people had the option to act wickedly'.

It would depend on a correct cost-benefit analysis, wouldn't it? And who is positioned to give the right cost-benefit analysis? Only God.

However, I can certainly see some huge benefits to a universe in which some evil is allowed to exist temporarily...free will, personhood, choice, individuality, autonomy, relationship, love, mercy, charity...of course, these things would only be possible in such a world that was devoid of any alternatives. That might well be a price worth paying. You'd certainly have to make the case that it wasn't.

Do you think the undeserved suffering of some, for example, is a price worth paying for the blessing of free will for the wicked?

Reverse the question: do you think the blessing of everyone having free will is a price worth paying for some temporary suffering being allowed, especially if such suffering is eventually compensated and removed? That's how the right question should be framed.

It seems to me that's quite plausible. Depending on the right cost-benefit analysis by an ominiscient Observer, it might be, as Leibniz said, "the best of all possible worlds."

No, I don't think there is any higher moral authority, such as me, whose moral opinion trumps anyone else's.

That wasn't my question: it was whether there was an objective moral standard one might employ to judge God. But obviously, if Peter Holmes is the one proposing to do that, as he is, then he would also have to think that he had access to that higher and objective moral standard.

I think you don't, too. So now we do agree on something.

Peddling the same false dichotomy, the same counterfeit coin. Boring.

[Harbal]

Not "randomness," per se. Volition. That is, he created beings that could choose freely to do His will, or to do that which is actually contrary to what He would will for them. That's established very clearly from Genesis on forward...mankind is an entity that can choose "good" or "evil," and "knows" them both.

Why do you only refer to the choice between "good" and "evil"; do we not also have the freedom to choose between things like having a hot dog or a hamburger?

Moral choices, obviously. Aesthetic and gustatory choices don't ordinarily implicate any moral status...well, unless you like rap music or greasy, unhealthy food.

So God only has foreknowledge of our moral decisions and actions?

I can't unpick all that; it's beyond me, I fear.

Sorry. It's a challenging question, and the answer requires some challenging thinking. I congratulate you on the depth of the question: but if it's a deep question, how can a superficial answer suffice?

But let me make it as simple as I can. "Know" is not "make." Those are two different actions. To say that God "knows" what will happen does not even remotely imply He also has to "make" it happen.

Yes, I know that to know and to make are different actions, but they can still occur simultaneously, but that is getting ahead of ourselves. To truly know something will happen means that no alternative is possible, and that situation could only occur under conditions of predetermination, or so it seems to me. Maybe you could explain the logic of how it could be otherwise.

God knows all factuals and counterfactuals of every case: that's what ominiscience implies. God knows what every choice you make will lead to.

So he knows what the outcome of my choice will be once I have made the choice, but does he know what choice I will make before I make it?

Even though you have many choices, there is no choice that you can make, among the many that you have, that God does not know the outcome of.

As I said before, that can only be the case if alternative outcomes are impossible, which would make the actual outcome inevitable, and it is hard to see how that is not predetermination.

He even knows which you will choose (it's Z). But if you chose X or Y, He'd know that, and he'd be well aware of the outcome of those possible choices too.

If he knows I will choose Z, then there are no other possible choices, but only the illusion of their possibility in my mind.

That's how the Bible depicts the landscape.

But I can't conduct a religious or theological argument, because I don't know the rules of the game. The best I can do is try to make a logical argument, based on real world logic as I know it.

[Immanuel Can]

Peddling the same false dichotomy, the same counterfeit coin. Boring.

If it's a false dichotomy, you should have no problem at all showing that it is.

Explain, then, why a subjectivist has any justification to condemn or advocate somebody else's actions, with no appeal to moral objectivity.

[Immanuel Can]

Why do you only refer to the choice between "good" and "evil"; do we not also have the freedom to choose between things like having a hot dog or a hamburger?

Moral choices, obviously. Aesthetic and gustatory choices don't ordinarily implicate any moral status...well, unless you like rap music or greasy, unhealthy food.

So God only has foreknowledge of our moral decisions and actions?

Only God has perfect foreknowledge. I foreknew you'd respond.

Yes, I know that to know and to make are different actions, but they can still occur simultaneously...

"Can," if the person referred to does two actions. Not if only "knowing" is implicated.

To truly know something will happen means that no alternative is possible, and that situation could only occur under conditions of predetermination, or so it seems to me. Maybe you could explain the logic of how it could be otherwise.

I attempted to explain that, below.

God knows all factuals and counterfactuals of every case: that's what ominiscience implies. God knows what every choice you make will lead to.

So he knows what the outcome of my choice will be once I have made the choice, but does he know what choice I will make before I make it?

Again, "know" and "make" are two different verbs. That God knows what you will do does not even remotely imply He has to have made you do it. You can do it yourself.

He even knows which you will choose (it's Z). But if you chose X or Y, He'd know that, and he'd be well aware of the outcome of those possible choices too.

If he knows I will choose Z, then there are no other possible choices, but only the illusion of their possibility in my mind.

What you're struggling with is the Deterministic view of the universe. If you assume Determinism from the start, then free will makes no sense. They are not compatible. But that's all at the assumptive level, not at the demonstrated level -- and as I pointed out, Determinism really has a huge burden of proof to meet -- one I haven't seen anybody even try to meet yet. It's as if they realize the problem, but then just run away from it, screaming.

By contrast, I don't assume, and the Bible doesn't assume, that the universe runs on some sort of simplistic, one-track system, where there are no such things as alternatives and choices. Rather, I see things as a meshwork of alternatives, with God having the overview of the entire landscape of possibilities. I think the idea that God can only handle one choice, one option at a time, imposes a very human limitation on the Supreme Being. I don't think God is that small.

[Peter Holmes]

Peddling the same false dichotomy, the same counterfeit coin. Boring.

If it's a false dichotomy, you should have no problem at all showing that it is.

Explain, then, why a subjectivist has any justification to condemn or advocate somebody else's actions, with no appeal to moral objectivity.

You have a go. What might be a reason for holding a moral opinion - absent moral facts or obedience to an authority? How about: it's wrong to allow undeserved suffering if you have the power to prevent it?

[Immanuel Can]

Peddling the same false dichotomy, the same counterfeit coin. Boring.

If it's a false dichotomy, you should have no problem at all showing that it is.

Explain, then, why a subjectivist has any justification to condemn or advocate somebody else's actions, with no appeal to moral objectivity.

You have a go.

I cannot make your argument for you. I see its falsity. If it can be done at all, it's you who has to justify your condemnation of others, while staying a subjectivist in so doing.

[Harbal]

So he knows what the outcome of my choice will be once I have made the choice, but does he know what choice I will make before I make it?

Again, "know" and "make" are two different verbs. That God knows what you will do does not even remotely imply He has to have made you do it. You can do it yourself.

I didn't suggest he made me do anything, as you will see if you carefully read my question again. After which you could simply answer it, if you like.

If he knows I will choose Z, then there are no other possible choices, but only the illusion of their possibility in my mind.

What you're struggling with is the Deterministic view of the universe. If you assume Determinism from the start,

What I'm struggling with is the logic of what you are telling me. I have no fixed views on how deterministic the universe is; I've already told you that.

But that's all at the assumptive level, not at the demonstrated level -- and as I pointed out, Determinism really has a huge burden of proof to meet -- one I haven't seen anybody even try to meet yet. It's as if they realize the problem, but then just run away from it, screaming.

I'm not promoting the idea of determinism; I'm just pointing out the logical conclusion of what you said to me. Tell me what is logically faulty about my comment above in red.

By contrast, I don't assume, and the Bible doesn't assume, that the universe runs on some sort of simplistic, one-track system, where there are no such things as alternatives and choices. Rather, I see things as a meshwork of alternatives, with God having the overview of the entire landscape of possibilities. I think the idea that God can only handle one choice, one option at a time, imposes a very human limitation on the Supreme Being. I don't think God is that small.

If God knows with certainty everything I will think and do before I think it and do it, how did I ever have any alternative choices? Alternatives are impossible if outcomes are inevitable. Either God knows what will happen because he makes it happen, or he knows what will happen because everything is predetermined; those are the only possible options.

[Immanuel Can]

So he knows what the outcome of my choice will be once I have made the choice, but does he know what choice I will make before I make it?

Again, "know" and "make" are two different verbs. That God knows what you will do does not even remotely imply He has to have made you do it. You can do it yourself.

I didn't suggest he made me do anything, as you will see if you carefully read my question again. After which you could simply answer it, if you like.

Well, your question was already answered: yes, God knows both all the alternatives among which you choose, and which choice you will make, but does not make you do anything.

I have no fixed views on how deterministic the universe is; I've already told you that.

Well, without the one-track view of the universe, that implies that there are no actual choices and never any alternatives, you really don't have a problem to point out.

But that's all at the assumptive level, not at the demonstrated level -- and as I pointed out, Determinism really has a huge burden of proof to meet -- one I haven't seen anybody even try to meet yet. It's as if they realize the problem, but then just run away from it, screaming.

I'm not promoting the idea of determinism;

No, I didn't say you were. But it seems to me that if one doesn't assume it, then the problem simply goes away anyway. So it is buried in the assumption of the problem.

If God knows with certainty everything I will think and do before I think it and do it, how did I ever have any alternative choices?

There it is.

Again, God can "know" what you're going to choose without having, in any sense, forced, compelled, coerced, or made your choice for you. There's no inconsistency there, unless one is assuming a Deterministic universe.

If I take you to the ice cream shop, and you have 31 flavours to choose from, and I happen know you only like French Vanilla, have I made you choose French Vanilla? No. I've let you choose: and had you chosen any of the other 30 flavours, I'd have accepted and paid for that one, too. If I were God, I've had known that this one time you were going to opt for chocolate chip. But it still would have been your choice to switch up for chocolate chip. All options remain real, and you make your choice freely, and the outcome is still within the proper bounds of ice cream consumption and commerce...what difference does it make to you that I can know beforehand what you will choose? You still chose it.

[Peter Holmes]

If it's a false dichotomy, you should have no problem at all showing that it is.

Explain, then, why a subjectivist has any justification to condemn or advocate somebody else's actions, with no appeal to moral objectivity.

You have a go.

I cannot make your argument for you. I see its falsity. If it can be done at all, it's you who has to justify your condemnation of others, while staying a subjectivist in so doing.

As I assumed. You can see no reason to think it's morally wrong to allow undeserved suffering you could prevent - if there's no authority to say it's a fact that it's wrong. And that's your moral bankruptcy.

Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions. For example:

My team's god says X is morally wrong. Therefore, (it's a fact that) X is morally wrong.

That's a non sequitur fallacy.

Thanks for the chat.

[Immanuel Can]

You have a go.

I cannot make your argument for you. I see its falsity. If it can be done at all, it's you who has to justify your condemnation of others, while staying a subjectivist in so doing.

As I assumed. You can see no reason to think it's morally wrong to allow undeserved suffering you could prevent - if there's no authority to say it's a fact that it's wrong. And that's your moral bankruptcy.

On the contrary...what I can't make sense of is your question. You really have no justification for supposing you can pose it at all. You don't believe in any objective "morally wrong," but still think everybody should agree that X is "morally wrong." So the morally bankrupt view (not person) is subjectivism...it won't even provide a basis for your question.

Unless you can show it can...

Non-moral premises can't entail moral conclusions.

That's what Hume said. And from a secular, subjectivist perspective, that's exactly right: your premises, like "God allows suffering," can't "entail" any "moral conclusion" about that fact (to use your own terms) -- even if you believed in God, which, of course, you do not.

You've got nobody to accuse, and nothing to accuse him of, then.

In other words, even if we fully accept subjectivism, it only denies you any justification for your question. That problem is not in my worldview, but in subjectivism itself.

[Harbal]

Again, "know" and "make" are two different verbs. That God knows what you will do does not even remotely imply He has to have made you do it. You can do it yourself.

I didn't suggest he made me do anything, as you will see if you carefully read my question again. After which you could simply answer it, if you like.

Well, your question was already answered: yes, God knows both all the alternatives among which you choose, and which choice you will make, but does not make you do anything.

Well something must make me do whatever I end up doing. What do you suppose that something is?

I have no fixed views on how deterministic the universe is; I've already told you that.

Well, without the one-track view of the universe, that implies that there are no actual choices and never any alternatives, you really don't have a problem to point out.

I have a problem because I am trying to avoid having to be committed to the idea of a deterministic universe, but if what you say about God's knowing everything that will happen before it happens is true, then you are making that impossible for me. It is often possible to predict the future based on probability with a high rate of accuracy, but to actually know the future requires the future to be subject to a deterministic process.

I'm not promoting the idea of determinism;

No, I didn't say you were. But it seems to me that if one doesn't assume it, then the problem simply goes away anyway. So it is buried in the assumption of the problem.

I don't actually like the idea of a deterministic universe, or of my not genuinely having free will, so the idea of it is a problem in that respect, but you are the one preventing it from going away.

If God knows with certainty everything I will think and do before I think it and do it, how did I ever have any alternative choices?

There it is.

Again, God can "know" what you're going to choose without having, in any sense, forced, compelled, coerced, or made your choice for you.

I'm not saying God forced me to do anything, but in the scenario I described, something obviously must have. God cannot possibly know a future that is not already set; just as God can't create a square circle, because it would be logically contradictory.

There's no inconsistency there, unless one is assuming a Deterministic universe.

Again, you are the one forcing the idea of a deterministic universe.

If I take you to the ice cream shop, and you have 31 flavours to choose from, and I happen know you only like French Vanilla, have I made you choose French Vanilla? No. I've let you choose: and had you chosen any of the other 30 flavours, I'd have accepted and paid for that one, too. If I were God, I've had known that this one time you were going to opt for chocolate chip. But it still would have been your choice to switch up for chocolate chip. All options remain real, and you make your choice freely, and the outcome is still within the proper bounds of ice cream consumption and commerce...what difference does it make to you that I can know beforehand what you will choose? You still chose it.

But there is no way round it: The only way it can be known for sure which one I will pick, is if my choice is already predetermined. Is my future action the cause of God's present knowledge, or is God's present knowledge something to do with the cause of my future action? Well what usually comes fist in chains of events, causes or effects?

[Immanuel Can]

I didn't suggest he made me do anything, as you will see if you carefully read my question again. After which you could simply answer it, if you like.

Well, your question was already answered: yes, God knows both all the alternatives among which you choose, and which choice you will make, but does not make you do anything.

Well something must make me do whatever I end up doing. What do you suppose that something is?

Ultimately, it's you. You have alternatives, and you choose between them.

It is often possible to predict the future based on probability with a high rate of accuracy, but to actually know the future requires the future to be subject to a deterministic process.

It doesn't, actually. All it requires is that the "knower" have perfect foresight. It doesn't entail any predetermination of you at all.

I'm not saying God forced me to do anything, but in the scenario I described, something obviously must have.

Why? There seems nothing "obvious" about that claim. If we go with what's "obvious," then you deliberated as if you had a choice, you felt as if you made the choice, you thought you made the choice, you acted as if you made the choice, you got the choice you made...what's obvious is that you made a choice.

What's the evidence for it being otherwise than you felt it to be? The burden's on Determinists to show you that the intuition and experience you had were illusory...if they were.

God cannot possibly know a future that is not already set...

This is the one-track, Deterministic view. I'm proposing a shift in your view of the universe, to consider the possibility that the word "set," as you're using it, is the problem. The future is not "set" in a linear way at all; rather, you have a range or network of possibilities you consider, and you make your own choices among them. What God knows about what you will choose in no way constrains you. You choose what you choose, and God is greater than any choice you might make.

His knowing what you will do does not imply you will not be the one choosing and doing it. You will.

But there is no way round it: The only way it can be known for sure which one I will pick, is if my choice is already predetermined.

That's true in only if the universe is a predetermined, linear thing. I'm suggesting it's not.

Is my future action the cause of God's present knowledge, or is God's present knowledge something to do with the cause of my future action?

Knowledge does not "cause" action. To "know" something is simply to be aware of what will be decided; it's not to constrain that in any way.

[Harbal]

Well, your question was already answered: yes, God knows both all the alternatives among which you choose, and which choice you will make, but does not make you do anything.

Well something must make me do whatever I end up doing. What do you suppose that something is?

Ultimately, it's you. You have alternatives, and you choose between them.

So is it possible for me to do something other than what God already knows I will do?

It is often possible to predict the future based on probability with a high rate of accuracy, but to actually know the future requires the future to be subject to a deterministic process.

It doesn't, actually. All it requires is that the "knower" have perfect foresight. It doesn't entail any predetermination of you at all.

If perfect insight isn't the ability to know what is inevitable, you will need to explain to me what it actually is. Bear in mind that what is inevitable, could not have been otherwise.

I'm not saying God forced me to do anything, but in the scenario I described, something obviously must have.

Why? There seems nothing "obvious" about that claim. If we go with what's "obvious," then you deliberated as if you had a choice, you felt as if you made the choice, you thought you made the choice, you acted as if you made the choice, you got the choice you made...what's obvious is that you made a choice.

Well yes, it would feel like the choice was mine, and I would certainly prefer to think that it was.

What's the evidence for it being otherwise than you felt it to be? The burden's on Determinists to show you that the intuition and experience you had were illusory...if they were.

The evidence for its not really being my choice is that the choice was already known before I made it.

God cannot possibly know a future that is not already set...

This is the one-track, Deterministic view. I'm proposing a shift in your view of the universe, to consider the possibility that the word "set," as you're using it, is the problem. The future is not "set" in a linear way at all;

I agree that time could well not be linear in the way we perceive it to be, but that just seems to make matters worse. If time isn't linear, then there isn't really a past or a future, so what I perceive as my future must already exist, or at least isn't preceded by my present or past. Does that mean that everything that was the case, is the case, and will be the case was all created simultaneously, and what I think of as my future along with it? So God didn't cause my future, he just created it. Well, no wonder he knows all about it, then.

His knowing what you will do does not imply you will not be the one choosing and doing it. You will.

Then, again, I must ask the question, is it possible for me to do something other than what God already knows I will do?

But there is no way round it: The only way it can be known for sure which one I will pick, is if my choice is already predetermined.

That's true in only if the universe is a predetermined, linear thing. I'm suggesting it's not.

Okay, would you like to explain how it works, then?

Is my future action the cause of God's present knowledge, or is God's present knowledge something to do with the cause of my future action?

Knowledge does not "cause" action. To "know" something is simply to be aware of what will be decided; it's not to constrain that in any way.

But something must be constraining future decisions in order for them to be known before they are made. It looks like you've brought us back round to determinism again. I wouldn't mind that so much if you didn't keep blaming me for it.

[Immanuel Can]

Well something must make me do whatever I end up doing. What do you suppose that something is?

Ultimately, it's you. You have alternatives, and you choose between them.

So is it possible for me to do something other than what God already knows I will do?

No. It's possible for you to do various things God would prefer you didn't, and some He'd rather you do. But he knows what you're going to do, even when you don't yet know that.

If perfect insight isn't the ability to know what is inevitable, you will need to explain to me what it actually is. Bear in mind that what is inevitable, could not have been otherwise.

That's why I haven't used your wording. I don't think it's apt. "Inevitable" implies fatalism. It's like your other word, "set." It implies a sort of locked-in fate. But we're not locked in. We truly do make choices, and the choices we want to make, and take the actions we choose. That God knows beforehand what we're going to decide doesn't imply any coercion, constriction or limitation on that.

Well yes, it would feel like the choice was mine, and I would certainly prefer to think that it was.
The evidence for its not really being my choice is that the choice was already known before I made it.

Whether it was known or not will not change that. God doesn't need to limit you to one choice, even when He knows what that choice will turn out to be.

I agree that time could well not be linear in the way we perceive it to be, but that just seems to make matters worse.

That's not quite what I meant. Time itself moves in a linear way, but within that line are many "nodes" of choice, each with multiple possibilities.

Let's try to illustrate that. Let's try to say Harbal's a young man. He wants to know whether or not he should get married. Well, there are three possibilities: Myrna, Bertha and Jane...and a fourth...singlehood. Harbal can only choose one. Obviously, if he chooses singlehood, he loses all the other alternatives; but also, once he chooses one, he can't have any of the other, either. And then, beyond that, there are questions like, will he have children? Where will he live? What will he eat for dinner? What time should bedtime be? At all those points, Harbal has to make a decision. And he does. At no point does he feel pressured, constrained or constricted by anything else but his own particular inclinations, or by the limitations of natural circumstance.

Now, let us add the fact that God knows that Harbal will choose Bertha, two children, Yorkshire, cuttlefish stew, 10 PM...In knowing this, God has not had to, so to speak, "raise a finger" to influence what Harbal has chosen. And yet, He knows, because He knows every molecule in Harbal's body and in all the universe, and every possibility there is, and simultaneously, exactly how things will, in fact, fall out.

Where is the Determinism? With what do we charge God, for all of Harbal's choices?

But something must be constraining future decisions in order for them to be known before they are made.

Sure. Your choice constrains them. But God knows your choice. That's one distinct advantage to being transcendent, and above chronological time: one can see the end from the beginning.

“Remember this, and be assured;
Recall it to mind, you wrongdoers.
Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done..." (Isaiah 46:8-10)