Sorry - to be clearer the
movie reel analogy implies a deterministic universe. However many times I watch the Twilight films they will always end the same way - there is no way for one of the characters to make a different decision (such as dumping the whiny glittery vampire for the werewolf with actual life skills and better abs). It is therefore deterministic. And so so wrong.
The idea that God has in some way already decided how to react to anything I may do
can be seen as implying determinism (e.g. if he knows what he is going to reply to me in a conversation, does that mean that I have no choice about what I am going to ask him?), but doesn’t
have to do so. i.e. If God knows all the
possible decisions I may make, he could have a response ready for each possibility - like those books where you guide the protagonist’s story by turning to paragraph X if you choose one option or paragraph Y if you choose the other. The book you buy is written and immutable, but you choose the story you actually read from it.
As a creature within time, it seems likely to me you would appear to a being not limited by it to all exist at once. Our consideration of this to be deterministic may be due to our ability to only experience one slice of it at a time.
Bear with me, as I am terribly tired and well aware of the holes in this notion, but:
Imagine an intelligent worm-like creature that lacks the ability to perceive life in 3 dimensions plus moving along in a fourth (time) as we do.
Instead it perceives life in only two dimensions, and its universe appears to move along in the third (it calls this movement “time”). Throughout its life it thinks it is a two dimensional disc (a cross-section of its actual 3 dimensional body) living in a two dimensional universe (a plane), and as its “life” moves along the thing-that-thinks-it-is-a-disc appears to change shape and size and move around on that plane.
You watching it with a greater level of perception can see that it looks like a worm, but it will never be aware of this through its own perception.
Now if it
did find out, the worm might see the revelation that it has a beginning, a middle and an end (that you as a higher being can see all at once) - as disappointing evidence of its life being predetermined and you being able to see what it does with its life at all points.
In reality however, you looking at this creature can see not only that it has a body with a beginning, middle and end (you can see “all of time at once”), but you can also see how that body wriggles around in all three dimensions, over time - you can see that worm’s movement in a still further “dimension” which it moves in through its own efforts, but is totally unaware of, which it could not perceive and probably could not understand if you explained it.
In a sense, you can see this worm’s “decisions happening”.
Now if we look at our own perception of time and what we think the universe is, and surmise the possible differences between our level of perception and God’s given what we have been told about Him (and frankly the I think the difference between our intellect/perceptions and God’s would have to be immeasurable) it is fair to say that in all likelihood our concept of what is “deterministic”, and what “possibilities” look like is probably nonsense to a being that can truly comprehend everything that is happening at once and hold it all in mental context.
On a more frivolous note, this kind of view of the universe might actually mean that while we perceive ourselves walking around in life in this shape, that might just be a limitation of our ability to perceive what we actually are - even if we were to take time seriously as a dimension and no others we might quite possibly extrude along it and look like a kind of mess of flesh-coloured spaghetti to a higher being who perceived it all at once - and if there were more dimensions we extruded in, perhaps our true nature is more like a kooshball or stickle-brick than an upright monkey, and we just don’t know it. Anyway, this is what staying til 4 am does for you. Adieu.
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