Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Genez said:
Well then you should know what you were asking can not be answered in a single post.

If you are only seeking my conclusion?
And, it conflicted with yours?
What good is it?
The reasoning for my conclusion remains unknown to you.
Learning nothing that way.

The reasoning for my conclusion is what would require a considerable amount of study.

So the only thing you learn is that my conclusion does not agree with yours.

Nothing gained from that.
Click to expand...
You overcomplicate things, and think lowly of people. It's not that hard to give a short answer. To suggest that a subject can't be understood without years of study is simply false. One needs only to have their understanding opened. Not that the Christian doesn't already have years of study.
 
Genez said:
I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. ​
That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.​
​
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings ​
salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile." Romans 1:14-16​
​

That was God the Spirit working through Paul making Paul obligated to preach salvation
Click to expand...
Sure, but that wasn't concerning salvation, but His calling, and I didn't say God doesn't obligate people. I said people don't obligate God.
 
sawdust said:
The promise is to God Himself. He made it before time began. Reread the scripture. The only One existing before time was God.

Titus 1:2
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
Click to expand...
The promise wasn't made concerning people?
 
cv5 said:
Consequently the bride earnestly waits in hope (prosdokaō) for the soon coming of the Lord, while remaining chaste.
Click to expand...
2 Peter 3:11-14 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
.
 
Jackson129 said:
In the very last verses of the Bible it says if you take away from the sayings and the prophecy of this book I will take you out of the book of life and take away the promises of this book. You cannot be taken out of a book you were never in and you could not have been in that book unless you were of the elect. I know that no man goverment angel demon power or dominion can take you out of that book. However all mighty God who put you in there can take you out. He even gives you a reason why. So there would have to be conditions to your election. Similar to when we have an election and the person we pick does something outrageous and we recall them.
Click to expand...
The verses speaking of having one's name blotted out are a euphemism. One cannot possess eternal life and then lose it. It wouldn't have been eternal.
 
GWH said:
IMO this game of ping-pong keeps missing this:

The concerns of those who accept TULIP—to affirm the sovereignty of God and the inability of souls to earn salvation—are valid, but the solutions are problematic, because they deny or ignore Scripture teaching the love of God for all sinners and the moral accountability of sinners for rejecting the love of God, thereby effectively perverting the Gospel (Gal. 5:6) and impugning God’s justness/righteousness (Psa. 33:5, Isa. 9:7).

The apparent reasons for these errors are threefold: 1. Ignorance of Scripture that contradicts their dogma, such as those teaching the possibility of apostasy, 2. Viewing faith as a meritorious work rather than as the non-meritorious condition of cooperating with God’s grace, and 3. Unconcern about portraying God as unjust by showing favoritism toward the elect. Once these errors are cured by including Scripture supporting MFW, doctrinal harmony is enhanced.

I had never encountered TULIPists before joining CC, but I am shocked at their blatant disregard for God's omnilove and justness,
which IMO borders on blasphemy--especially because they seem so brain-washed that one wonders if they will ever understand
how TULIP perverts the true Gospel.
Click to expand...

It seems to me, as it has since my beginning in the Faith, that we all have these overall axioms of who and what God is, including those who teach us, but the details in Scriptures can be very ambiguous.

This is why I went the route I did. I concluded that apart from His Word including His Spirit, all we have is our self-perceived autonomous notions which were all over the map when I first began visiting churches. So, I pursued some level of proficiency in analyzing His Text and sat with His Spirit for years in His Word after years under the mostly in quiet solitary teaching of RBThieme and then in Seminary he pointed us to.

In regard to your axioms, which I trend towards as you do, we really just do not know God as well as we'd like to think we do. It's difficult to grasp how perfect essence works perfectly in unison without fail. We tend to favor this or that about Him and lean into that. But He functions perfectly in all things in all ways simultaneously as time and externalities are in a major sense irrelevant to Him. One minute we're here & the next minute we're there in the multitude of combinations of personalities and conditions of flesh and spirits working to influence us.

I understand a lot of the views of Scripture around here and I understand the varying levels of learnedness. There's nothing I can do about it, but my preference would be to just work through Scriptures and ask as many questions of it and of one another as we can come up with. It's ver obviously not about us against one another but collectively being against lack of understanding Him. But for true enemies of the Faith, you'd think the rest of us would just be seeking the Truth together (to close with a favored phrase of yours).
 
studier said:
It seems to me, as it has since my beginning in the Faith, that we all have these overall axioms of who and what God is, including those who teach us, but the details in Scriptures can be very ambiguous.

This is why I went the route I did. I concluded that apart from His Word including His Spirit, all we have is our self-perceived autonomous notions which were all over the map when I first began visiting churches. So, I pursued some level of proficiency in analyzing His Text and sat with His Spirit for years in His Word after years under the mostly in quiet solitary teaching of RBThieme and then in Seminary he pointed us to.

In regard to your axioms, which I trend towards as you do, we really just do not know God as well as we'd like to think we do. It's difficult to grasp how perfect essence works perfectly in unison without fail. We tend to favor this or that about Him and lean into that. But He functions perfectly in all things in all ways simultaneously as time and externalities are in a major sense irrelevant to Him. One minute we're here & the next minute we're there in the multitude of combinations of personalities and conditions of flesh and spirits working to influence us.

I understand a lot of the views of Scripture around here and I understand the varying levels of learnedness. There's nothing I can do about it, but my preference would be to just work through Scriptures and ask as many questions of it and of one another as we can come up with. It's ver obviously not about us against one another but collectively being against lack of understanding Him. But for true enemies of the Faith, you'd think the rest of us would just be seeking the Truth together (to close with a favored phrase of yours).
Click to expand...

I whole-heartedly agree with your last paragraph and just find it so frustrating (as Jesus and Paul did per Matt. 13:14-15 & Acts 28:26-27) that tulipists find it impossible to affirm the Christian creed I have posted many times and do so again now:

The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in 2Cor. 4:5 & Col. 2:6).
The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:
  1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6), who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
  2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (Rom. 3:23, 2Tim. 3:2-4, Col. 3:5), miserable (Gal. 5:19-21), and hopeless (Eph. 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (Matt. 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (John 3:18, Rom. 2:5-11).
  3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (John 3:16, Acts 16:30-31, Phil. 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (Rom. 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1Cor. 15:14-28).
  4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (Matt. 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2).
  5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept/love Him (Rev. 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word/sanctification everyone cooperates fully with His will (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).
 
GWH said:
I whole-heartedly agree with your last paragraph and just find it so frustrating (as Jesus and Paul did per Matt. 13:14-15 & Acts 28:26-27) that tulipists find it impossible to affirm the Christian creed I have posted many times and do so again now:

The normative way of stating the kerygma/GRFS in the NT is “Accept Christ Jesus as Lord” (as in 2Cor. 4:5 & Col. 2:6).
The main points of Christian orthodoxy implicit in this statement can be explained or elaborated as follows:
  1. There is a/one all-loving and just Lord or God (Deut. 6:4, John 3:16, 2Thes. 1:6), who is both able (2Tim. 1:12) and willing (1Tim. 2:3-4, Ezek. 33:11) to provide all morally accountable human beings salvation or heaven—a wonderful life full of love, joy and peace forever.
  2. Human beings are selfish or sinful (Rom. 3:23, 2Tim. 3:2-4, Col. 3:5), miserable (Gal. 5:19-21), and hopeless (Eph. 2:12) or hell-bound at the judgment (Matt. 23:33 & 25:46) when they reject God’s salvation (John 3:18, Rom. 2:5-11).
  3. Jesus is God’s Messiah/Christ and incarnate Son, the way that God has chosen (John 3:16, Acts 16:30-31, Phil. 2:9-11) of providing salvation by means of his atoning death on the cross for the payment of the penalty for the sins of humanity (Rom. 3:22-25 & 5:9-11), followed by his resurrection to reign in heaven (1Cor. 15:14-28).
  4. Thus, every person who hears the NT Gospel needs to repent and accept God’s justification in Jesus as Christ/Messiah the Lord or Supreme Commander (Luke 2:11, John 14:6, Acts 16:31), which means trying to obey His commandment to love one another (Matt. 22:37-40, John 13:35, Rom. 13:9)—forever (Matt. 10:22, Psa. 113:2).
  5. Then God’s Holy Spirit will establish a saving relationship with those who freely accept/love Him (Rev. 3:20) that will eventually achieve heaven when by means of persevering in learning Truth/God’s Word/sanctification everyone cooperates fully with His will (John 14:6, 17&26, Rom. 8:6-17, Gal. 6:7-9, Eph. 1:13-14, Heb. 10:36, 12:1, Jam. 1:2-4).
Click to expand...

Has anyone ever taken you up on reviewing your statements and posted verses?
 
fredoheaven said:
John 6:65

Of course, the ones given or enabled are those who come and believe in Christ


King James Bible John 6:40
And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
Click to expand...

This continual conflation is why this thread rages...

The truth is >>>>>> our complete inability to contribute to our eternal life is wholly separate from our inability to receive the free gift of eternal life by exercising personal faith.

Completely wrong and dishonest to mashup these two distinct ideas.
 
HeIsHere said:
Proceed with much caution. :unsure:
Click to expand...

I'm firm and stable in my Faith in Christ in Spirit. I can't tell you how many I've listened to and read by this point and the interactions I've had with some pastors and teachers and with others who have approached and tried to influence me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: HeIsHere
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back