Acts 4:27,28 "Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed. They did what Your power and will had DECIDED BEFOREHAND should happen."

I believe this passage is a marvelous affirmation of God's overall control over His plans, not least His salvation project.  It deserves our full attention and we must fully take into account this verse no matter how 'anti-determinist' we are.

The crucifixion of the true King of the Jews by her pagan enemies was the divine plan for the restoration of Israel and subsequently the entire world.  God willed that this should be the way of rescue and through His power steered the course of events.  (Note:  Divine foreknowledge should not be an issue here because God's specific and climatic plan of action in history would naturally produce knowledge [duh] of that plan - see the short discussion of Acts 2:23 regarding this point).

That God is capable of designing and implementing soteriological solutions in advance no one would/should deny.

Nevertheless, we are given absolutely no reason to think that God fixed or determined all of Pilate's and Herod's actions throughout the whole of their lives, let alone conclude that He acts likewise for EVERY event in the lives of EVERY human (and non-human) being.  Given that this event was in God's 'set purpose and foreknowledge', it does not follow that ALL events are of this nature.

I believe that God knew the evil already existent in the hearts of people like Herod and Pilate and manipulated towards His own ends.  Given the hardness of these rulers' hearts, He then 'decided beforehand' that He would judge them by making them - ironically - His intruments of salvation.  That God can use the evil of humanity for His own loving and glorious purposes, although not desiring the evil in the first place, brings us not an inch nearer to an all-controlling sovereignity.  It does, however, show us a very wise, creative and powerful God.

However, many theologians disagree.  They insist that if God unconditionally determined an episode on one occasion, then this can be generalized to be the way He works all the time.

Not uncharacteristically, Calvin suggested that since Elijah was brought food by ravens (something obviously divinely directed) that therefore every action of every bird species is similarly directed.  John Piper, in an attempt to justify God ordaining all evil, points to Joseph's remarkable phrase when describing his episode with his brothers who sold him into slavery, "You meant it for evil but God meant it for good" (Gen 50:20).  He also sees cases like 1Kings 22:21-23, where God decreed disaster on Ahab, as paradigmatic of every occurence of evil.  Somehow there is a strange belief that if the Bible records some instances of God unilaterally bringing about 'evil' (which is itself debatable - see below), that this must be how all evil comes about i.e. by the all-determining power of God.  Since God was behind the disaster brought upon Ahab, we are told, He must also be the one behind every rape, pillage, murder and wicked act committed throughout history.

But we really shouldn't read Scripture this way.  To repeat:  It cannot be legitimate to say that if a person acts in a particular way at a particular time (or even a few times) that this must be how he acts all the time.

A better interpretation of the Joseph paradigm would be that God used the evil He knew Joseph's brothers would commit in order to accomplish His aims, which were to deliver people from famine and preserve lives (Gen 45:6-7).  These goals, strictly speaking, do not REQUIRE that Joseph be sold into slavery let alone that his brothers behave so wickedly!  Let us not be so bold to say that God's designs require evil without which He cannot achieve His goals.

In Joseph's case, therefore, God was certainly grieved that brothers could treat one another like that.  Nevertheless, selling Joseph into slavery didn't prevent God's ultimate aims of using him to be a blessing to the nation(s) in the future.  In fact, it fitted perfectly into God's plan (which, to give full credit to divine wisdom, could CERTAINLY have brought Joseph to Egypt by alternative means!).  Regardless, we have no right to say - based on this passage - that He therefore ordained every evil thought, word and deed in time.

As for Ahab in 1Kings 22, it is very clear that God was bringing about a judgment upon the king and thus He was acting contingently upon the evil initially committed by him.  Remember that in this passage the prophecy was spoken in the midst of the king!  Is it so hard to imagine that God was in fact WARNING Ahab through the prophecy and thus trying to make him STOP his evil (under threat of a death sentence by war)?  God's decree to Ahab was neither desired by Him 'since eternity', nor even 'evil' (it was a judgment upon evil which is TOTALLY DIFFERENT), nor was it at all 'unconditional'!
 

I've got a few more exegetical time-bombs to look at but suffice to say we need to be extremely careful in our generalising from a few texts to what God does ALL the time.  Just because God determined SOME events - it doesn't necessarily follow that He's determined ALL events (not to mention the conditions and contingencies surrounding the determined episode in question).

Our Lord doesn't need to be construed as 'all-controlling' in order to be ascribed 'all-worthy' of praise...
 

Regards,
AL