Indeed, … as I wrote in the OP:
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It reminds me of music… I don’t “speak the language” of academic music theory, but I appreciate my friends that do. But as far as real life goes, all the jargon doesn’t really impact me and I’m not missing out on anything by not knowing it. I sometimes feel that way about aspects of theological study. 
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They mean that Protestantism doesn’t get it. Even worse than Roman Catholicism.
Pierre Delbet’s work La science et la réalité, published in 1913: “Chance appears today as a law, the most general of all laws. It has become for me a soft pillow.
It is logically impossible to ascribe any power to ‘chance or luck’ whatsoever. If chance exists in its frailest possible form, God is finished. If chance existed, it would destroy God’s sovereignty. If God is not sovereign, he is not God. If he is not God, he simply is not. If chance is, God is not. If God is, ‘chance’ is not. The two cannot coexist by reason of the impossibility of the contrary.
Chance or luck can do nothing as it is not an entity. Non-entities have no power.
As to free will, we do possess it within limits, set by God.
I sympathize with your comments, and find them in line with the Proverb that states we cast the dice but God controls the outcome, To me, it still leaves room for God using random chance as we define it to determine the outcome. Perhaps you are saying random chance is not random, but would you allow God to use randomness to achieve his purpose? Or would you limit him in that way?
I would appeal to the wonderful mystery of God’s providence (you may have seen this before* 
), that the Bible teaches that God is absolutely sovereign and the rules of probability hold – it’s both/and and not either/or. We have free will and God inscrutably elects, we are responsible for our choices and God chooses them. There is an instantaneous dynamic between the living omnitemporal God and the linear (most of the time ) sequential time of the cosmos that we cannot possibly get our heads around.
*That was of course facetious – of course you’ve seen it before.
How would that work? Would God Himself engage in random acts, in which case, I’d think, it’d be hard to trust Him? Or would He tolerate and endure random human acts, weakening and/or blocking those that lead to any end that He doesn’t want?
Who or where is the “random act” generator? In God’s hands or humanity’s?
I’m not sure why it is so hard to see that something apparently random to us, is not necessarily random to God. In fact I can demonstrate it to you right here: tails, tails, heads, tails
There. I’m here to tell you that as far as you are concerned: that string of heads/tails results is entirely random. But to me … well … you have no way of knowing whether I carefully selected and wrote out that sequence (in other words, not random at all to me) or whether I actually flipped a coin four times just now to generate that (which would effectively make it random even to me). But you’ll never know unless I tell you, because that sequence isn’t long enough for statistical analysis to generate reliable probabiities on the question.
All we know is that, statistically speaking, a lot of stuff in nature happens in a way that we can see meets the criteria for being a stochastic process (what we call ‘randomness’). Us observing that fact in no way rules one way or the other about how God sees it.
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I would think God allows random acts, rather than acting randomly himself. You can look at the parable of the sower to see how that might work, with the sowing of seeds being random but a harvest growing out of the uncertainty and chaos of scattered seeds landing here and there. God works purposefully using a random process.
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- It’s not hard at all, to me, to see that nothing is random to God. I was just being charitable and giving Phil a choice, … and adding that I’m adverse to choice #1 in which God is a “random act generator”. That said, I remain a hard-boiled Determinist: i.e. from where I sit, humanity loves to imagine, vanity of vanities, that it’s filled with two-legged random act generators, which I am currently of the opinion aren’t except in their imagination. And God appears to tolerate and endure the nonsense when, in fact, He’s merciful.
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I think “chance” may be standing in here for any event not ordained by God. In some common views of sovereignty, anything that occurs randomly or by a will acting independently undermines God’s sovereignty. For God to be sovereign, God must control everything.
Modern theologians tend to view God as sovereign like a programmer rather than sovereign like a king. Monarchs don’t create subjects programmed to rebel so they can defeat them. They don’t determine everything that happens. They don’t single-handedly fight every battle so all that’s left for their subjects is to believe in them.
Good monarchs govern, dealing with real threats and rebellion and confusion in ways that reflect their character, solidify their reign and benefit the whole kingdom. They are the first into battle against threats to their kingdom; the first to the cross. They lead the army rather than being the extent of the army.
If we reclaimed a view of sovereignty that reflects what a good sovereign does, neither chance nor free beings would seem to defeat God. God’s final victory isn’t due to writing each word of the script that leads to victory and creating beings compelled to play each part. The opposition is real, but God’s goodness, clout and wisdom exceed any other force and render victory certain.
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And free men don’t rebel.
Unless you (or someone here)are a deist this doesnt fit at all .
Either God doesnt care anymore and dont interact with his creation or he does .Both cannot happen.
The grace of God is not earned or deserved. It is open and available to all, but it must be accepted. It teaches us humility.
Luck such as who are parents are is not available to all, only some, which makes it tempting to think that somehow they deserve it.
If this is right and I firmly think it is. God does not determine who receives grace, God just makes it possible, so grace is free will written LARGE, since free will makes it possible to accept (or reject) grace and grace makes it possible to exercise free will.
I don’t follow your reasoning. Perhaps you can expound. Otherwise, it seemsyou would have to say that things have happened exactly as God planned them and even sin starting with Adam is his creation and part of his plan.
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God cannot work trough randomness.Either he kets things happen and doesnt care if the outcome (randomness) or he inderectly guides these things and knows the outcome.Both cannot happen
Randomness does not undermine God being active in our life. If not, then all sin would be by God making us sin, yet we see that we are responsible for our own sins.
In scripture there seems to be two main concepts uses to undermine free will. Free will means randomness.
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One is the concept of predestination. Yet scripturally predestination seems to be focused on the whole, not the individual. As a whole we are the bride of Christ. All things works out for the better of the saints. God tests man’s kind allowing them to harden and soften their hearts.
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The other argument misused is prophecies. They say well Judas must have been forced to do it because it was foretold. But the reality is that God who is alpha and omega and beyond time knows all things. He’s all knowing. He knew what choices we would make before we did it.
The Holy Spirit influences mankind. The story of Ahab shows that spirits can trick people as well. God speaks to us through prayer, the prophets and the word. But we make out our choices.
What’s intriguing are the two stones in the Jewish High Priest’s breastplate: Urim and Thummim, for "divining God’s will and later, the apostles casting lots to fill up their ranks.
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‘Before’ is a tensed word, a time-bound word, and God is not bound by time, wouldn’t you agree?
…before Abraham was born, I am!
John 8:58
As you said. Or maybe around and all through time, permeating it, omnitemporal.