KRISTOR writes in this post about Calvinist predestination:

The analogy to which Alan refers, of God setting up the action of the play “behind the scenes,” while we merely recite the lines, meanwhile laboring under the illusion that they are ours, seems to me to fail. If the players can do nothing more than recite the lines they have been given by the director or playwright, then despite their delusions to the contrary, the lines are not theirs at all. If they say, “I hate God,” they do so as tools only, mere robots or puppets, and no more. Only if the players can make a creative contribution to the play have they done any acting at all – whether play acting, or acting in the Aristotelian sense. But if they can, then the analogy of the play works, after all. For the actors all have their lines. They may play their parts well and faithfully, and so succeed as players. Or they may refuse to take direction, stomping off the stage in a rage; or they may play the prima donna; or they may fail to learn their lines, or to meet their marks, messing up the whole production. It boils down to whether we are really free. If so, we may refuse to play our appointed part in the wedding feast, or wear the wrong costume, or stiff the whole proceeding; or, we may turn from our wickedness, and live. But if we are not free, then discussion of the matter is really rather pointless, no? For in that case, there is nothing we can do about anything, one way or another.

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