Does man have a libertarian free will?

[Whispered]

Scripture teaches that man doesn't have an autonomous free will. ...

For that to be true there would not be evidence of a single scripture that pertains or speaks of man's free will.
Remember people, claiming God made you without the capacity to exercise choice, which is a product of free will, is disparaging God in who's image and likeness you are made. Because God has a will, God is compassionate, God is gracious, all qualities that you, made in His likeness, would then possess.

Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

Matthew 22:35-37 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.


John 7:17 If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

Revelation 3:20 - Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Doctrines that insist man has no free will, no capacity to choose, are saying God controls everything at all times.
That is not true. God is sovereign, yes! However, God has said Himself that He does not at all times control every little thing happening here. As we read about God's restraint toward Babylon in Isaiah 42.

13The Lord goes out like a mighty man,
like a man of war he stirs up his zeal;
he cries out, he shouts aloud,
he shows himself mighty against his foes.

14 For a long time I have held my peace;
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor;
I will gasp and pant.
15 I will lay waste mountains and hills,
and dry up all their vegetation;
I will turn the rivers into islands,[c]
and dry up the pools.

God let Babylon behave as they chose. Until He decided to not do that anymore. If God was always in control of all things all the time? Think about that. Think about what that would mean for all humanity just as concerns the construct of Salvation/ Damnation! It's God playing chess. And we're the pawns. Forever.

And this passage in the Book of Isaiah 48 really reinforces the Biblical fact that God does not absolutely control everything.
Thus says the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
“I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you to profit,
who leads you in the way you should go.
18 Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
19 your offspring would have been like the sand,
and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off
or destroyed from before me.”


As I said early on, if God made it so that we have no free will, no capacity to exercise free choice, then in all of God's words to us we would not find a single scripture that describes free will, or our capacity to exercise choice.
There wasn't one!
There are many!

 

[UnderGrace]

Again, that's a strawman. Reformed people don't believe that.

They believe God changes the nature, reclaiming his creation for its intended purpose. Faith and repentance flow from this changed nature.

The heart of flesh replaces the heart of stone.

This is more coherent than the free-willer view, which claims that you must dredge faith and repentance from a stony heart, to receive a heart of flesh.

This is what it all boils down to

Yes I know, said "depraved nature" cannot respond, is unable to be persuaded/convicted on any level to truth.

God must give us a new nature first, of course how else could the system work, ... I just wonder why John the Baptist even put out the call to "repent" ... no worries I already know your answer.

I will give you one thing you have all the bases covered, so it is impossible to break through, however it does not mean it is truth.

 

[azamzimtoti]

(Zeek 18:30 “Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall.

31 Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel?

32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! )

Same conditions back then as after Christ.

Does the above confirm that the stony heart/depraved nature can't repent?

Meet the new gospel, same as the old gospel.

 

[Grandpa]

Of course it is nonsense for anyone to say, most of the world worships its own will.

Though I guess one unaware extremist does need support in their efforts here.
Imagine the god the two of you conjure of your own imaginings. Perhaps you should seek it out elsewhere than in the Bible , where it does not dwell. Or within a Christian community where it is not known. However, it does appear you both are in relationship with it, and it clearly inspires you to act preaching its foul doctrine that is antichrist.
Try as you might and with great effort to bring it forth here so as to affirm its presence undeterred, and in that effort resort to calling Christians all manner of foul names , while trying to insult the intelligence that does not fall for your god's doctrine.

The true God of Heaven and earth and all of creation see's you both, and all others in your cult.
While it may seem benign here, you all shall be judged for all that you've done, all that you've said, and all that you've thought, as you work against the Kingdom of the True Christ.

I would say, may God have mercy upon your souls. However, with the ever deepening commitment to your agendas, and the repeated blasphemies the lot of you thus committed have repeated and presume to push thread after thread, I do not think I have that right. Because you all clearly do not know my God. Which is that God, Heavenly Father, of every Christian here.

Maybe you should repent of your lies.

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

This is basically what Calvinism is saying. If you read the bible and understood it, you would see that it is scriptural.

But instead of reading the bible and trying to understand it, you just know that your will, that you worship, is under attack. So all you can do is try to attack what is destroying your silly philosophy.

Your will isn't going to cut the mustard in any way shape or form. You'll find this out eventually.

 

[UnderGrace]

Obviously such terminology will not be found in the Bible. But man's free will is on display from Genesis to Revelation FOR THOSE WHO WANT THE TRUTH. Those who prefer lies can (and do) make up their own theology.

The difficulty with using the term "free" will, it denotes the ability of a person to make a choice free from any internal and external determinants... I absolutely agree people have a will and they make choices all through scripture.

Belief/Faith is not about exercising our will... no one can "will" themselves to believe unless they are persuaded first.
In all things in life we are persuaded first and then we believe.

 

[azamzimtoti]

(Acts 26:28 Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.)

Bad soil, bad bad soil.

 

[Whispered]

Maybe you should repent of your lies.

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

This is basically what Calvinism is saying. If you read the bible and understood it, you would see that it is scriptural.

But instead of reading the bible and trying to understand it, you just know that your will, that you worship, is under attack. So all you can do is try to attack what is destroying your silly philosophy.

Your will isn't going to cut the mustard in any way shape or form. You'll find this out eventually.

I will never renounce the truth of God in Christ. Perhaps you should repent and find the Christ of the Bible. Not the edifice of Calvin's TULIP.

 

[Whispered]

The difficulty with using the term "free" will, it denotes the ability of a person to make a choice free from any internal and external determinants... I absolutely agree people have a will and they make choices all through scripture.

Belief/Faith is not about exercising our will... no one can "will" themselves to believe unless they are persuaded first.
In all things in life we are persuaded first and then we believe.

To the contrary. People choose not to hold faith. Those are called atheists.
People who do not choose to state unequivocally, as in the case of the "strong atheist", that there is no evidence of a higher power, deity, or "God", choose to be Agnostics.

Faith arrives through knowledge and understanding of the Bible.
What do you imagine persuades?

 

[UnderGrace]

To the contrary. People choose not to hold faith. Those are called atheists.
People who do not choose to state unequivocally, as in the case of the "strong atheist", that there is no evidence of a higher power, deity, or "God", choose to be Agnostics.

Faith arrives through knowledge and understanding of the Bible.
What do you imagine persuades?

As pertaining to saving faith, it is not a work, it is however instrumental, very simply faith is the passive result of being persuaded, convinced, and convicted in the truth of something..... it is not volitional.

Even in general life belief is not volitional, we believe many things against our will.

 

[Melach]

As pertaining to saving faith, it is not a work, it is however instrumental, very simply faith is the passive result of being persuaded, convinced, and convicted in the truth of something..... it is not volitional.

Even in general life belief is not volitional, we believe many things against our will.

you say this i always ask explain more can you do it now?

 

[UnderGrace]

you say this i always ask explain more can you do it now?

Will send a PM and then you will have it on file.

 

[Whispered]

The Book of John chapter 6
I Am the Bread of Life
22 On the next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. 23 Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. 24 So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum, seeking Jesus.


25 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” 26 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” 30 So they said to him, “Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32 Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.”


35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”


The full chapter should be read so as to apply contextual considerations to Jesus's Parable there.
However, I posted these verses to refute the idea that God our Father has predetermined before the world, whom He would save. Whom His grace would apply to, and whom would have faith in Him so as to be Saved.

Consider that which refutes what some call, Unconditional Election. "Unconditional election is the teaching that before God created the world, he chose to save some people according to his own purposes and apart from any conditions related to those persons. The doctrine was first articulated by Church Father Augustine of Hippo...." Source and more reading

UE is united with a doctrine known as Irresistible Grace: Irresistible Grace is a doctrine in Christian theology particularly associated with Calvinism, which teaches that the saving grace of God is effectually applied to those whom he has determined to save and, in God's timing, overcomes their resistance to obeying the call of the gospel, bringing them to faith in Christ.
Source and more reading

Consider the scripture in John 6 as you read the meaning of Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace. If the sinner, in the Reformed church and Calvinism, that sinner is said to be Totally Depraved. Which is to say, incapable of choosing to find Christ by their own initiative, because that sinner is hopelessly entrapped in sin, is incapable of righteousness and is as extensively evil as possible.

If all that were true, then why would Jesus, who was suppose to be that same God that acts by His Sovereign will within that triune doctrine, there are actually two more points not added to my post, of Unconditional Election, Irresistible Grace, and Total Depravity, have told taught people the Gospel message, and in the course of that told us we are able to choose, that He came for the world's sake, when UE is telling you only those He was to die for are saved by His death.

Why would God repeatedly tell us scripture after scripture to choose eternal life if we have no capacity to choose to believe in Jesus and the Gospel?

 

[Whispered]

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God."
Word=◄ 746. arché ►
Strong's Concordance

arché: beginning, origin​

Original Word: ἀρχή, ῆς, ἡ
Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine
Transliteration: arché
Phonetic Spelling: (ar-khay')
Definition: beginning, origin
Usage: (a) rule (kingly or magisterial), (b) plur: in a quasi-personal sense, almost: rulers, magistrates, (c) beginning.
HELPS Word-studies
746 arxḗ – properly, from the beginning (temporal sense), i.e. "the initial (starting) point"; (figuratively) what comes first and therefore is chief (foremost), i.e. has the priority because ahead of the rest ("preeminent").

The Book of John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws(1670) them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’[d] Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.

1670 helkýō – properly, induce (draw in), focusing on the attraction-power involved with the drawing.

Jesus was The Word(God, the beginning, source) made flesh. Everyone who hears The Word's words of Salvation and for whom The Word speaks, attracts the listener to the truth of God in flesh, will come to Christ.

Sin separated us from God. And yet what is often forgotten is that we are of God. All creation is of God. Imagine now what "Totally Depraved", says about God.
We can never go anywhere where we are not of God. When the words of God speak to us, like a drowning woman or man who knows they're drowning yet see's a rope cast across the waters to them, they know they can be saved from drowning if they but grab that rope.

Mark 2:17 17On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

When Jesus died that death reconciled the world unto God. If we have no choice to follow Jesus by our own doing, having heard the Gospel, and understood its meaning, so as to arrive at that decision, why would the Saint Apostle Paul implore those to whom he ministered to become saved. That individual, to choose to reconcile themselves to God?

The Book of 2nd Corinthians 5:18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Jesus is the word. The world is reconciled unto God. All that God requires is that we believe. When God reconciled ourselves to Himself we are able to hear the call of faith in Salvation when we hear The Word's holy word from Jesus the Christ.

Reconcile; Reconciliation

..."(b) Reconciliation, Godward, as Well as Manward:

The apostle proceeds (Romans 5:10):

"For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Now if, as many maintain, it is only the reconciliation on the manward side that is meant, that the manifested love led to the sinner laying aside his enmity, it would entirely reverse the apostle's argument. He is not arguing that if we have begun to love God we may reckon upon His doing so and so for us, but because He has done so much, we may expect Him to do more. The verse is parallel to the preceding, and the being reconciled is on the same plane as being justified; the being justified was God's action, and so is the reconciling. Justification delivers from "the wrath of God"; reconciliation takes effect upon enemies."

Colored to separate the article excerpts so as to show my thoughts that separate the excerpts, and for clarity sake:
It can be argued, without God doing the work we cannot come to faith, but that's not scripture. God did the work that's true, but it was the work wherein He bestowed His grace upon the world through the death of His son. Jesus did all the work on the cross so as to reconcile us to God.

The reconciliation article excerpt continues.
"(a) The Godward Aspect Primary:

In the same way the great passage in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 cannot be understood apart from the conception that there is a reconciliation on the divine side. There is unquestionably reference to the human side of the matter as well, but, as in Romans, the Godward aspect is primary and dominating:
"All things are of God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation." [end excerpt]

 

[UnderGrace]

What do you imagine persuades?

The convicting and convincing ministry of both the Holy Spirit and the Word of God is enough to overcome any doubt.

 

[Whispered]

As pertaining to saving faith, it is not a work, it is however instrumental, very simply faith is the passive result of being persuaded, convinced, and convicted in the truth of something..... it is not volitional.

Even in general life belief is not volitional, we believe many things against our will.

Faith is an act of reason.

 

[UnderGrace]

Faith is an act of reason.

Reason plays a role... but just like you cannot will yourself to believe Calvinism ... try to determine in your heart that Calvinism is true .. you cannot because you are not persuaded.

Faith is not volitional.

 

[Whispered]

Reason plays a role... but just like you cannot will yourself to believe Calvinism ... try to determine in your heart that Calvinism is true .. you cannot because you are not persuaded.

Faith is not volitional.

The act of faith is a volitional response to the Gospel.

For reference to readers, Volitional=
the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; exercise of willing: She left of her own volition.
a choice or decision made by the will.
the power of willing; will.



Volitional Response
Your faith must be a volitional response. A third aspect of saving faith is an expression of volitional faith. A person is saved as a result of an act of his will whereby he relies on Christ as proclaimed in the gospel. Paul told the Roman Christians, “Ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you” (Rom. 6:17). When a person accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior (John 1:12), it is a conscious act whereby he invites him into his heart (Eph. 3:16).

 

[Whispered]

The convicting and convincing ministry of both the Holy Spirit and the Word of God is enough to overcome any doubt.

Agreed. That is why coming to faith is a volitional act.

 

[UnderGrace]

Agreed. That is why coming to faith is a volitional act.

Oh, you are funny. Faith is not a work and is definitely not volitional.


No one can "will" their belief in Christ..... it does not happen that way.

 

[Angela53510]

What it boils down to is that you follow a false teacher. And therefore, your theology shall ever be false. This is where you get your information from. The Error of Libertarian Free Will - Calvinist Corner
What you are actually pushing here is known as, Determinism, which denies free will entirely.

As another matter the term you are actually looking for is not the words, free willer, which are not actually a category in philosophy, but rather the proper term is, compatibilist free will .

I follow Jesus, as revealed in the Bible, and confirmed by my relationship with him.

As we have said over and over and over. WE DO NOT FOLLOW CALVIN! He is a person who took a look at Roman Catholic theology, along with others like Luther and Zwingli, and compared that theology with the Bible, and found it wanting. These were highly educated men. Calvin read Latin, Greek and French. His dissertations were done in Latin. He studied the Bible from every angle, then wrote a systematic theology based on his close readings of the Bible. Luther translated the entire Bible into German. I use an updated version of that!

Both Calvin and Luther were Reformers. Do you understand what that means? You keep posting either misinformation or lies. In fact, the whole TULIP was created by his followers. Arminius spoke to the Council of Dort in 1618-19, and his system was voted down as incorrect. Although it spread elsewhere.

Please stop copying and pasting all this misinformation! NO ONE follows Calvin. We follow a systematic theology, based on the Bible. Not a person. No one reads your copy and pastes, they are boring.

Try and use your own words, support what you say with Scripture, instead of copy and pastes. There are many here from both sides of this theological debate. They discuss the Bible, they are not attacking individuals, but discussing the topic. Perhaps you could use your beliefs to debate the issue, without interjecting personal attacks, and without copying things instead of really thinking them through.