To be clear, the "choosing" you refer to is God's choosing who to give to Christ. In order to retain your definition of "foreknew" you have to have read/ or not read the grammatical structure of the Greek in that passage and ignored it in order to stick to your claim. You also had to ignore the fact that the word translated "foreknew" is never used as God foreseeing things in the Bible, except, according to Arminianists, just that one place. The very thing you accused Calvinists of doing.
Only in the minds of those who reject God's electing of those it pleases him to give to Christ. Here is why that happens. And it speaks directly to our fallen nature that we still have, even as those who have been regenerated and placed in Christ. Also to the tendency to accept some passages that speak of God's sovereignty over his creation as comforting and beautiful . These they accept and trust, but when confronted with that same sovereignty in election, not so much.
I did a search on meticulous determinism since I had never heard that term. What I found was an article where the author John Frye, who is promoting Greg Boyds books on spiritual warfare, Boyd attributing to Sproul "everything, down to a single molecule's activity is decreed by God and is so decreed for God;s glory" then when Zosia, an alive young Jewish girl in the Warsaw ghetto, has her eyes gouged out by Nazi soldiers to make two rings---the loving God of the universe decreed this for his matchless glory". The quote is Boyd's.
Quick note here: this is what is usually done as a defense against election and the sovereignty of God over his creation. Pathos driven language is used to evoke moral outrage. Rhetorical tension, emotional imagery, and irony to challenge a view of divine determinism.
What Sproul actually said was, "If there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God's sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled."
When a person reads something like what Boyd said, they automatically agree with it---I mean who wouldn't?--- and no investigation of what was actually said and within its context, and no study or examination or logic applied to the words thrown around: determinism, meticulous determinism, or even what was in the mind of the person when they said whatever was said about "foreknowledge" in relation to election, or in any of the Doctrines of Grace, or any "ism" or "ology". Those opposed do not even use legitimate logic but "logic" not actually followed through to its conclusion and based solely on emotional reactions. There conclusion iow is based on an emotional reaction, not an examination of anything. Basically they jump from "That makes God decree evil" to "He would never!, so election by his choice, (or determinism or meticulous determinism, or anything else) is not true." The presume the conclusion that what is in their mind, is th sesame thing that is the others mind. And concerning evil and its source ,to God decrees evil actions, as thought that were actually what was being said, instead of he governs/controls/uses them for his purposes since they do take place in a world that is fallen and full of evil and evil people, a world under just judgement.
So where do we bump up against our fallen nature in all of this? It boils down to our desire to be autonomous. Eve was deceived by the same deceptive offer of the serpent. Not to mention that all their Christian life these opponents of God's electing who to give to Christ, have counted on what they were taught (and nothing else was ever taught to them) that they are saved because they made that choice. They have been fed the lie and swallowed it whole. And so they come screaming that God ordained that man would have a free will to choose his own destiny, even though that is nowhere presented as God's will in Scripture and defies his self revealed character. And the cry of the fallen human, regenerated though he may be, is no different than the cry of the atheist. With the exception that it adds to that "My will must be totally free or I have no will at all." A blatant false equivalency.
Let's follow through to a logical conclusion of this sovereignty of God over all his creation, his decrees, and what not, and see if the "free will, free choice" argument has a better conclusion than the one they attach to Reformed theology.
We have a God who these opponents agree is omnipotent; one who is omniscient and omnipresent and sovereign. But one who also has of his own free will, determined that man's will is just as free, and does not wish to violate it, and won't. He sees the above mentioned Jewish girl and what is happening to her. He has the power to keep it from happening. But he values the free will of the perpetrators more than he values the free will of the Jewish girl who certainly does not will that her eyes be gouged out, and stands back and lets it happen. Is that better than the view you have of God if there is not a single molecule that is outside of his control? The difference is, that the above is a real and valid conclusion, while the one attached to Reformed theology is nothing more than a reactive conclusion that bears no resemblance to the actual, fully explored, teachings in it, so the conclusion the opposition reaches is empty of any substance.
How about we Christians just believe God, what he says clearly and plainly in his word, without inserting terms to be endlessly debated, and trust him, like we are meant to. Instead of asking all the "why"s and "hows" that have no answer to be found in our minds because they are beyond us, not opened by God to be peered into, even if our minds were capable of doing such a thing. Just believe what he says instead of trying to change what he says to better suit our idea of him, as though he were a man like us.
