Brohamus, I just spent 6 years on Facebook messanger trying to show scripture to a dyed-in- the wool Calvinist the errors of his theology. My experience is you can quote scripture till your'e blue in the face but the Calvinist cannot see the Bible except through the filter of T.U.L.I.P. Their mind is made up. They were chosen and that's it . They were hardly ever lost. Heck they didn't need freewill because they couldn't respond to God if they tried. So God has do everything for them . Who are they to reply against God choosing them . Those unchosen ? Don't waste your time trying to convince them He is the propitiation for our sins and not ours only but for the sins of the whole world. They'll just give you something they read somewhere or interpreted for them . God is not longer impartial so instead of God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all . He is transformed into a respecter of persons. Namely the elect Those He chose , not whosover believes due to the influence of the gospel which is the power of God unto salvation and The ministry of the Holy Spirit . Those unchosen . well they are S.O.L. God only works with the elect.. After 6 years of listening to this nonsense if offence is taken oops. I concluded that my friend had "another Jesus".. Because my Jesus doen't do robots. I would say don't waste your time.
Hard determinism (especially from the perspective of epiphenomenalism) is like watching a video or reading a finished book that has a definite duration, content, and every time you watch it the content never changes.
Soft determinism is the concept that there are certain events that necessarily will happen but the means by which those things are reached is subject to freewill. There are varying degrees of soft determinism. The Bible through its prophesies of the end of times is seemingly somewhere on the spectrum of at least being softly deterministic.
Can scripture be interpreted through hard determinism? Yes.
"But what about all the passages that speak about losing salvation?"
The answer would be that in as much as "God repented" in the OT is figurative for the purpose of helping our human understanding (God never sins and never changes therefore can't literally repent), so too would lines about individuals "losing salvation" or having their names "blotted from the book of life" would also be figurative. The argument for this focuses around passages that say apostates or infidels that don't end up staying in Christ were "never really one of us to begin with."
"But if we're all just automatons, scripted robots, or other deterministic clockwork, how can we possibly have souls?"
Epiphenomenalism is the concept that there is an "observer" of life exeriences / qualia that basically does not interact with the happenings of life. In the same way that a film watcher or book reader doesn't change the happenings of the film or book. This observer would be the real "you" in this model.
// (end of the interpretation summary)
All of that said, I'm just stating that there is an internally consistent model for hard determinism and scripture. I personally don't find it compelling, but I have my own hairbrained theories for why someone would find scriptural hard determinism appealing. If we look at people that have experienced acute shock and trauma (a loss of control), one of the symptoms that can come from that is "floating" above one's self or having other detachments from truly being in the moment. The sense of control and autonomy of actions may not seem as tangible as they should be. This state goes well with a perception of epiphenomenalism where there too there is a detachment between state of being and existential experience. My conclusion or running assumption is that people with a pathos based attachment to hard determinism are suffering from a psychological injury that they are trying to heal from, and that this manifests as an expression of ranges of philosophical preferences that speaks to the nature of their injury. It's like a call for help. It's a call for recognition that "my pain and detachment are real". I don't think people like that are a lost cause, I think there is just a very particular way that they need healing.
"Jesus doesn't do robots"
I like that phrase! No offense to any singularity AI reading this (Jesus loves you too). But I think the trick at that point is to convince people that they aren't actually robots. And when that fails, at least hold their beliefs accountable to scripture and let God do the rest of the work to let their thinking line up the way it is intended.
If their belief system includes the interpretation that being part of a denomination is a signal that someone is saved, that's a bit of a different topic ("the saved were predestined to currently be members of my denominational faith, and anyone outside will never be saved"). That type of interpretation is worthy of hard criticism and rebuke. Scripture speaks against relying solely on outward labels in many cases and that what seems one way might be another when it comes to people's appraisal of one another as good or evil.
Great topics.