Hi Tuppence
What a wonderfully refreshing essay I will try breifly to explain how I see fatalism being disproven. Firstly that the notion of the fall had something to do with free will means that Gd knew the fall was happening and allowed it. Read the Gospels and we find the idea of the "Righteous" being wrong because they claimed they were the chosen the pre-destined wonders. How can this be so? if Gd accidentally on purpose removed fatalism by allowing the fall in the first place?
The problem is that fatalism involved no act of free will, meaning you are born good or bad in the fatalistic scheme of things. So if Gd allowed the fall and thus free will, that is where the fatalism stopped. You see if the absolutist idea of omnipresence was correct there would have been no fall unless Gd allowed it. Somewhere the fall involved free will the will to good or evil. The will to know the difference. (That is the key, knowing the difference).
Gd's eventual responce was pretty drastic, sacrificing his own son. So if as the calvinists claim Gd is the all seeing and knowing that he is, (Which is correct) they make a mockery of him by claiming he deliberately made the fall happen rather than allow it, and deliberately decide who was in and who was out. Well if Gd had done that why bother with the big sacrifice?
It is really to do with the logic of absolutism and dare I say elitism on the part of some. I just sense that fatalists have this fatalistic concept built into them. In effect until they wise up they get hung by thier own petard.
The question is, will they get wise?
the truth is fatalists are looking at thier own failings, and constructing doctrine by sophistry to suite them. And Jshua actually came down hard on such thinking. Frequently, if not more often than anything else.
We have free will because it was part and parcel of the fall. And to come to Gd freely is more rewarding than blind obedience.
It is wierd I know, but those essays you linked to are excellent when covering the fine detail
Shalom
Sophie.