asaris

Well, yes and no. It is logically possible for Eric to go against the plan; there are possible worlds in which Eric does not buy the iguana. But Eric freely chooses to go along with the plan; God's will is never thwarted only because he knows in advance what Eric will freely choose.

I really don't think this is the right way to look at it, though I think I understand the objection. There's a reason I put 'manipulates' in quote marks. First of all, having choosing to create a world, God had to create one of the feasible worlds. The other possible worlds were, if you'll excuse the pun, unfeasible. But since he knows everything that's going to happen, he had to 'manipulate' us one way or another. That's one of the differences between God's manipulation and ours. Secondly, you could just as well look at it the other way; God manipulates us into doing good things, and it's just our stubborn wills that cause evil. If God had his druthers, we would all be doing only good things, but presumably that world was not feasible. So he had to create a world that was pretty good. (And of course this world is pretty good. It has bacon in it.)

You might ask, is this the best of all feasible worlds? Well, that begs the question as to just what is the best of all feasbile worlds? Is it the world with the least evil or the most good? There's no reason to think that those two worlds are the same world, or that one is necessarily better than the other. To pick the starkest example, which is a better world, one in which 98 people go to heaven and 2 people go to hell, or one in which 10 million go to heaven and 1,000 go to hell? Or is the best world one with the 'best' balance between good and evil? What is the best balance between good and evil? I don't know the answers to these questions, and I suspect there isn't one, even for God.

Our evil actions are indeed part of God's plan, insofar as he planned for them. But they're not what he wants. I suspect, though nobody knows this, that there was no feasible world containing rational creatures he could have created without some evil. But that doesn't mean that God wanted to create a world with evil, or that he wants us to do evil.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche