Does Divine Determinism face the same difficulty as naturalistic determinism?

When we analyze in an exhaustive way divine determinism, we find much greater difficulties than naturalistic determinism, especially because of the characterization of God. Anyway, both encounter philosophical hurdles.

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[juhadexcelsior]

To even use rational conclusions to conclude divine determinism requires free thought...or a prideful declaration that God revealed the truth to you and a select few others while deliberately keeping everyone else ignorant. But even in that case, you are merely forced to 'believe' that as the truth. That doesn't mean that it is the truth. Because ultimately, you don't "know" anything when you are 100% controlled by a superior operative force. Does your smartphone "know" your finger press from someone else's without you forcing it to recognize that distinction? No, it does not.

Also I'd argue that if determinism in any context is true, there is absolutely zero way to perceive if that controlling force is a 'deity' or not. After all, that irresistible force is forcing you to believe that the Jesus narrative is true while convincing others of atheist naturalism. In that context it is only possible to "know" what you are forced to grasp. Therefore anything about God's attributes cannot be known or verified whatsoever. Therefore the driving force of determinism being deceptive or even being a deity is completely unknowable unless the deity makes you believe it as so.

[brentonstanfield]

I’d also add that “maximally great being” is a concept that comes to us from Classical Theism, and posits a being on whom all other things depend, who is utterly perfect such that all positive attributes belong solely to Him with no ability to add or subtract from Him. This kind of God is denied by your argument which holds that the will of man can be “independent” even from God and that there are “good things” that are not the result of God’s presence and activity.

[brentonstanfield]

Totally false. This account completely fails to contend with the God that all reformed confessions appeal to, ie the God or classical theism that is simple and “is His attributes”. On this account, God IS TRUTH (and also goodness, love, just, beauty, etc…). Accordingly, our access to truth, goodness, love, and justice is totally DEPENDENT on God giving Himself to us. God determined all GOOD THINGS by His active presence within us to bring about those good things. All evil things are the result of God’s absence and inactivity (ie passive). If you don’t have God, you are necessarily deceived, since He is the Truth.

You have attempted to argue in the past that those with the Spirit of God still make theological errors. But I have explained to you in the past that this is because we are not yet FILLED with the fullness of His Spirit. That is why Paul prays as follows in Ephesians 3:

Ephesians 3:14-19: *For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory HE MAY GRANT YOU TO BE STRENGTHENED WITH POWER THROUGH HIS SPIRIT in your inner being, SO THAT Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, THAT YOU MAY BE FILLED WITH ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD.*

It is a prayer that will finally be answered in each believer at the resurrection. As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:42-49:

*"So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven."*

It is only when God is “all in all” (see 1 Corinthians 15:28) that all evil will be removed from this world. This process has started now with God entering into the hearts of man first… soon the whole world. Regardless, all of these things depend on God who determines when and where He will act, or not. It has nothing to do with LFW, which as far as I can tell, is indistinguishable from “randomness”.