Badecker claims that everything has a cause and that cause also has a cause, till god. If everything has a set cause then how can I actually have free will? If everything has a set cause, nothing is random, therefore everything is already set, everything that I will do today, tomorrow and for the rest of my life is already set to happen. If that's the case then it is impossible for me to have free will, my decisions aren't really mine and because everything was created by god, as you claim, god is responsible for our actions, therefore he shouldn't punish or reward us.
Punishing or rewarding doesn't have anything to do with "He shouldn't." Actually, it's just the opposite. Since God designed the evil for a day of punishment, and the good for a day of righteousness, He absolutely should reward and punish.
The free will that God gives lies only in the direction of the faith of people. And God reinforces that faith in the direction it is going.
If your faith is such that it is against God, He will help you maintain it in that direction, even though He offers you the opportunity to change. This means that it is your own choice, and that God, being the dynamic and positive God that He is, is giving you the things that you choose out of love for you, but is also warning you about you faulty choices out of that same love.
Read Romans chapter 22 so that you can see that God is making an offer to people, and they are choosing what they choose, and He is maintaining their choice for them - http://biblehub.com/niv/romans/9.htm.
The place that cause and effect fits in is this. We are too weak spiritually to make anything happen. God makes our choices happen for us, via C&E, so that they match His design for the universe, and our position in it.
How does your faith in god change then?