Methinks the point they were making was that god can see into the future and folks have been blessed to know what the future was entailing at least that's a tidbit I learned from watching the valle verde arg on youtube where I was told the 9/11 attack was predicted.
If god knows the future and his word is absolute, then every event from your birth all the way to your death is deterministic. Think of it like Final Destination, except if you manage to survive your immediate cause of death, you just get a heart attack or your brain shuts down tomorrow.
Even from an atheist standpoint life seems deterministic, you can control your own behavior, but not others. Let's say someone robs the bank and you are in there, do you think you could avoid it?
It's based on 2 aspects that are out of your control:
- You can't know the bank will be robbed that day, you're not fortune teller.
- You agin can't control the robber's choices and actions.
So in every timeline this event will play out the same way.
If you take the robber out of the equation and it's just about you. The problem is you only know how you feel at the moment and humans are emotional creatures, so it's highly likely you repeat the same actions in every timelines. If free will was real, there's wouldn't be "npcs".
Holy that was way mlre than I wanted to write moly.