There are different layers to reality. One, the higher one, is determined. But experientially, we live. We breathe, we make choices. Completely unaware of the higher layer. It is rather like a river. The river-bed is fixed, it determines the flow of the water. But the water does not know that. It flows. It is alive and free. Every bend and turn is new and exciting to the water. But the river-bed knows the flow, even before the water experiences it.

That is a quite descriptive metaphor for the relationship between determinism and free-will in this world. I think can be intuitively understood. If one attempts to understand it.

I find I am echoing Baruch Spinoza, who said this:

"Men are deceived because they think themselves free… and the sole reason for their thinking so is that they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those actions are determined."