But did that, by itself, remove free will...? Seems more like rendering degrees of doubt/conviction, than removing free will. — jorndoe

Yes, I think you are agreeing with me here. The truth has been written down throughout religious texts. What is needed is not rigid dogma that is indisputably from God - that would impinge on free will. What is needed is a receptive reading of texts and God will show people what He wants them to understand. If we have a sincere desire for truth it will be given to us, either by religious texts, or by some other means. Texts are only an invitation to listen to God.

Why doesn't God come down and clear up any misunderstandings and/or misinterpretations of his text? Why doesn't He tell us what he actually meant by these verses, and how to live by them? — chatterbears

Partly to allow free will. God will tell each individual through their conscience what He wants. They will not be forced to listen nor forced by unassailable texts.

The real question is why there is the existence of anything at all. — Justin Truth

Or why existence is. See last post.

The very existence of being is the "answer" but it is not like being was there and created beings. Rather being is an awareness of the facticity, the emerging and enduring in the eternal sense of all contingent beings. — Justin Truth

If we consider existence as the 'thereness' of the eternal void and being as life, creativity, consciousness we can see that existence (which is a substance, the substance) emerged into being.

Time is not changing. Time is the way change happens. That is, it is the geometry according to which change happens.

Here is part of an essay I am writing on this subject-

One of the most intractable questions in philosophy is Why is there something rather than nothing? Very little progress has been made in answering this question. But we know there is something; 'I think therefore I am'. So, at least Descartes exists, or at the very least, 'there is thought' (Bertrand Russell). At any rate, we can begin with the assumption that there is something rather than nothing.
The something that is, is existence. Existence is not a verb, it is a noun. It is the substance that is and always has been. Existence is God and is not contingent upon any previous state. Existence is not a property of anything, rather, existence has properties. To show that existence is not a property assume X has the property 'existence'. In this respect we consider X and existence to be distinct entities (otherwise X is equivalent to existence and there is nothing to prove). We now ask the question; Does X exist (as a distinct entity)? There are two answers;

1. X exists.
If this is the case existence, as a property of X, is superfluous since X exists anyhow. Therefore X is equivalent to existence.

2. X does not exist.

It is incoherent to say a non existent X has properties, let alone the property existence.

This means that if existence is not a property, it is not contingent. That is, not dependent on any previous state. All other realities are properties of existence. The universe is a set of properties of existence. Properties of existence 'inherit' their existence. We can say 'This milk bottle exists'. By this we mean that the milk bottle is a property of existence and the substance of it is existence, because existence is the only substance that is.

In principle we can deconstruct the bottle into glass crystals and we can deconstruct the crystals into molecules, atoms and so on until even the atoms are deconstructed into energy because energy is the substance of matter. It may even be possible to deconstruct energy into a deeper form of energy but this deconstruction cannot go on indefinitely; it cannot be 'turtles all the way down'. We must come to some ultimate substance that supports the properties 'atom', 'molecule', 'crystal' 'bottle'. This substance is that which is from the beginning, existence.
Even though philosophy cannot say why existence is or what it is, there are a number of things we can say about it;

1. Existence is.
2. Existence has vast creative potential because it has emerged into a universe and everything in that universe.
3. It has the potential to become life, because life is found in the universe.