If God knows everything, then we do not have free will. Why does he create people

[Act_of_Reparation]

61. The Argument from Free Will is as insipid as it is stupid.

So the argument goes: there is evil in the world because God gave man free will, and to enter the kingdom of heaven, man must choose to do so of his own volition. Sure, the universe is capricious as a result, but it shows God's not a dictator and that's just peachy.

It's bullshit.

As you note, God's omniscience and omnipotence are incompatible with free will. God created each of us with complete knowledge of the course of our lives; meaning he created each of us to a particular specification. Whether he exists within the timeline of the universe or beyond it, he knows events will play out to spec unless he intervenes. By refusing intervention, God ensures there is no course of action save that which he himself has created.

But the problems go much deeper than that.

Apologists claim God doesn't reveal himself irrefutably because people, endowed with free will, must choose to acknowledge his existence through faith. If we take that a step further and ask whether or not there is free will in heaven, the argument breaks down completely. If there is free will in heaven, God clearly can reveal himself to people without their choose and that people on Earth must choose is an arbitrary -- even cruel -- rule. On the other hand, if there is no free will in heaven, then free will isn't all that important to the happiness of mankind, and again, the rule is arbitrary.

As to evil that supposedly arises from man's freedom to choose: is free will so important to us that we should sacrifice the lives of innocents for it? Frankly, I think no.

Of course, there isn't any evidence (despite what a certain physicist might allege) that free will is actually a thing. A kind of limited free will affected by social and genetic determinism is much more likely given the evidence.