According to Catholic doctrine and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the answer is unequivocally: Yes, man remains completely free. To resolve this apparent contradiction, one must understand that God does not exist in time as we do, but lives in eternity. For God, there is no “tomorrow” or “yesterday,” but only a single, eternal “now.” When we say that God “foreknows” what will happen, we mistakenly project our temporal limitations onto Him; in reality, He sees our future actions in His eternity as present, exactly at the moment we perform them.
His knowledge is not the cause of our actions, but rather their reflection in truth. Just as a spectator looking down from a high tower onto a street can see which path a traveler below takes, without forcing him to choose that path by merely observing, so God knows our free decisions without determining them. As Creator, God acts so powerfully within us that He not only permits our freedom but actually makes it possible and sustains it in existence. His providence is therefore not a rigid script that we must mechanically play out, but an all-encompassing gaze that eternally embraces, respects, and accepts our free decisions as part of His plan.