We have free will but because God is all knowing, he knows before hand what we will do. He has designed each one of our lives to be exactly what we need to have the best chance of returning to him. Judas was given every opportunity to live a righteous life but still failed to do so because he couldn't change the evil desires of his heart. God knew that would be the case, that no matter how many chances Judas was given, he would never choose correctly.
So how does "fate" work? Again, because God knows everything, he can perfectly predict what everyone will do in every situation. Our "fate" is God predicting what will happen based on the choices we freely make. It's like the weatherman saying it will rain, he is not taking away the weather's free will, he is just predicting what will happen. (If only our weathermen could predict perfectly) :)
The weather doesn't have free will. The weather is deterministic.
Of course :) just a poor analogy. I hope it still conveyed my meaning.
The thing is - there is no good analogy. You are trying to describe a paradox.
For example, if you were a movie director - all the characters in your story have no free will. You know their every move. You know how the story begins, what the middle looks like, and you know how the story ends. This is your benefit as a omniscient story teller directing everyone else.
Now, if you wanted your characters to have 'free will', then you would essentially be describing an improv show. The characters are welcome to go off script and riff off one another. They can improvise the beginning, middle, and end, and you, as an the movie director would not be able to know 'the ending' if you respected their free will.
So, as a director - if you have a plan, and you want your story to end a certain way, then free will cannot exist. If your actors can truly improvise (i.e. express free will), you, as the director, cannot know how your actors will improvise and have already worked it into your "plan".
By definition, there cannot be both a plan and improvisation.
Your argument is that on the off chance that you are able to predict an actor's improvisation with 100% accuracy and work their behavior into your story to acquire the ending you want, then it all magically works. But, that is not the case. In reality, you've simply turned the actor into a robot.
So, back to my original question:
Either:
Judas had no free will. He was selected by god from the beginning of time to betray Jesus and fulfill the plan. His evil action served the greater good and was therefore a necessary evil.
Judas had free will. He was capable of improvising. He was actually fully capable of resisting the necessary evil. And yet, had he improvised successfully, the entire plan would have been moot. The ending would've had to be very different.
Please, take some time to really think on that question. Go read up on Calvinism and how others have tried to square the circle.
Me - I recognize the entire thing is a fiction made up by frightened little humans.
No, you are just predicting what they will do with their free will. Perhaps a better analogy would be a parent and a child. Of course, the parent doesn't know their child perfectly, but they can often predict what the child will do in certain situations.
God gave Judah the best chance he could knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to go through with it. Now Judah knows that his punishment is just. This "test" of life is about showing ourselves what our true desires are so that we will know that God's judgements are just.
Oops