Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

[HeIsHere]

quite often are the most egocentric crowd.

Right on this thread, "I am so blessed" to be one of the selected.

 

[sawdust]

A baby is a sinner?

Do they die? They are not guilty of personal sin but they have inherited a corruption in their flesh from Adam (flesh gives birth to flesh Jn.3:6 ) which God cannot abide with and therefore are imputed with the consequences of Adam's sin, spiritual death. This effectively has the soul born into darkness bound by another law in the body (Rom.7:23) that is against God.

We are born wrong but that does not mean we are born evil. Good and evil are character traits that are acquired. We learn goodness from God's truth and evil by rejecting His truth.

You may have seen how Jeremiah gets quoted when arguing against free will? The heart does not begin that way, it becomes that way by constantly rejecting God's truth and correction. The Lord is here in grace and truth before we have the words to even think with. Will we take heed? I remember hearing once, "the problem isn't that God doesn't speak, the problem is are we listening?" God has given of Himself to ensure, that in spite of our "natural" condition, we can hear and see Him.

Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?

 

[BillyBob]

Well, just share it publicly then, so we all can be edified.

You really need to get a life!

 

[sawdust]

You really need to get a life!

He has the life of Christ. He has all he needs.

 

[Jackson129]

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.

You dont actually die like we think of death. The second death is being in the lake of fire for all eternity where your soul is alive experiencing the torment. So when it comes to death eternal there is no such thing. Only life heaven or the lake of fire.

 

[Genez]

There are verses that specifically deny it being about meeting requirements:

Romans 9:11 For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;

Romans 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Titus 3:5 He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

2 Timothy 1:9
He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began.

"Works minded people" were like the Muslims are today.
If you do so many good deeds?
More good than the bad?
Allah will receive you.

Salvation by works was rampant in both the Jewish and Gentile thinking and religions.
Those passages you gave were showing them to stop doing good deeds to try to win God's approval.

Christianity declares that God receives those who believe in Him-that's all! Forget the works!

 

[Genez]

As we know, this part of Romans is a TULIP go to. There seems to be some tension in what you say.

• "Salvation does not depend upon human desire (will) or effort"
• [God won't save that person] "if God knows they want (desire/will??) no part of Him"
  • You seem to have made man's want/will/desire what salvation depends upon.

Am I misunderstanding or misstating something? Is there more or something else to this?

When God told them to stop desiring for another to be saved.
They had been doing good works on another's behalf.

Also, men themselves desired to be saved, and did not know how to be.

So? Jews came under the Pharisees spell of doing good works to be saved!

Then, the Cross came.
God made it simple.

In effect.
God was telling mankind.

Do not bring your good works to me and beg for mercy when you do. (as so many were doing)

This is what they were told to do!


He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”


Acts 16:30-31

 

[Genez]

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.

The word 'name' back then was interchangeable with the word "title."

"He is trying to make a name for himself," is even used today!

Believers will have their titles blotted out if they fail to mature in Christ as God requires of us.

Only those saved ones who do God's will, and overcome, will He grant them to sit next to Him on His Throne!

To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne,
just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne.

Revelation 3:21
​

.

 

[Genez]

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.

You are stuck in this Calvinistic insanity that makes no sense!
Who got you started on this idea?
And, why?

Here. Let's sort it out.

"God, you owe it to me!"​

(why would someone say that?)​

​

For example...

That could be the demand of a works obsessed Pharisee!

And, because of the teachings and the followers of the legalism prevalent back then, many were doing good works as to make God obligated to save them!

Here is the example Jesus gave of those who thought God was obligated to save them.


Luke 18:9-14

​

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, ​

Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other ​

a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like ​

other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week ​

and give a tenth of all I get.’​

​

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast ​

and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’​

​

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”​

grace and peace!

 

[HeIsHere]

Do they die? They are not guilty of personal sin but they have inherited a corruption in their flesh from Adam (flesh gives birth to flesh Jn.3:6 ) which God cannot abide with and therefore are imputed with the consequences of Adam's sin, spiritual death. This effectively has the soul born into darkness bound by another law in the body (Rom.7:23) that is against God.

We are born wrong but that does not mean we are born evil. Good and evil are character traits that are acquired. We learn goodness from God's truth and evil by rejecting His truth.

You may have seen how Jeremiah gets quoted when arguing against free will? The heart does not begin that way, it becomes that way by constantly rejecting God's truth and correction. The Lord is here in grace and truth before we have the words to even think with. Will we take heed? I remember hearing once, "the problem isn't that God doesn't speak, the problem is are we listening?" God has given of Himself to ensure, that in spite of our "natural" condition, we can hear and see Him.

Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?

Thank you for the further elaboration, we are born separated yes, we are born with the knowledge of good and evil.
And I will leave it there.

 

[Genez]

God will play bass!

And, we will play fiddle.

All the Calvinists will play tambourine and stand in the middle!

HEE HAW!


.

 

[Rufus]

I understand that line of thought. Except a natural disaster i see that as neither good nor evil. Because you have to be alive (if that is the right word) to be good or evil a tornado is not alive. That is a man made definition for sure.

I have a hard time thinking about this rationalizing concept as well. When we are talking about yourself. Your inner perception who are you rationalizing anything with? Yourself? That would require two differt minds. Like a good side and a bad side presenting an argument in your mind and the thing really driving the car picks a side.

Will there be natural disasters in the eternal New Order? The only reason we have natural disasters in this age is due to entrance of sin into this world. Also, since evil is the absence of good, I would certainly classify a natural disaster as "evil", i.e. a calamity, deep distress, major misfortune, catastrophe, etc. -- all of which most of us would not consider to be good. Very recently, there was a flash flood in Texas that killed around 21 young girls from a Christian camp. Unless you consider that catastrophe to be good, then I would say that a great evil befell those kids.

 

[Rufus]

Disease will remain incurable as long as a cure is not produced.

The "Two lips" folks keep failing to recognize what God's power of grace is!

It is the cure!

How can that possibly be since you FWers loathe the idea of the efficacious nature of God's grace? Besides...God would never, never, never, ever "force" his grace upon anyone, would He?

 

[Rufus]

And you assume God withheld redemption just like you think He withheld redemption to certain men of His choosing.

And you assume differently based on an argument from silence?

 

[Rufus]

To the ancients, "evil" could mean a natural disaster.

That is why some get confused when they read Isaiah 45:7 in the King James Version.

I form the light, and create darkness: ​

I make peace, and create evil: ​

I the Lord do all these things."​

You'll find some believers who believe that God created certain men to be evil. That God created Satan evil.
They do not understand how the word translated 'evil' was used at the time of Isaiah!

A modern translation can better render the intended meaning, as with the following....


Isaiah 45:7

I form the light and create darkness,​

I bring prosperity and create disaster;​

I, the Lord, do all these things.​

grace and peace .....

Is a disaster a good thing?

 

[Rufus]

Election isn't selection. Election is simply choosing some for something. It's not about not choosing. For example, God chose Israel to be His people. He didn't choose everyone else not to be His people.

Huh??? Since God "didn't choose everyone else...to be His people", then whose people are they?

 

[GWH]

A baby is a sinner?

The Bible is rather unclear about the answer but God-given reason prompts me to opine that children are innocent until they reach the stage of having a conscience and consciousness of God.

 

[GWH]

One of the oppositions strongest arguments is that God does not love everyone, and

With regard to love, reading your exchange revolving around God's sovereignty generated a thought that I did some ruminating on so that it might emerge more clearly. You wrote, "God is love," and this generated the logical string of thought, "If God is love, and God is sovereign, then love is sovereign." And I suspect that this, love, is the fulcrum upon which our salvation hangs. Yet, that does not necessitate that God does not love the lost. There is a saying, "If you love some(one?thing?), set it free)," and similarly, this is exactly what Jesus had come to do. Yet, there are differences in opinion of what constitutes actual freedom and so, some believe that their slavery is freedom (from hunger in the wilderness per Israel's example) and would rather 'go back to Egypt.' Their example is of a generation that was stuck between slavery and freedom as they could not 'cross over' as Abraham had done and, indeed, that is the core meaning of a "Hebrew." Did God hate those that died in the wilderness, or did God only hate that they refused to do what was essential in successfully crossing over, that they should trust Him?

I may have not successfully expressed my ideas on this very clearly, but I didn't want to forget it altogether either, so I wrote.

I completely agree and clarify by the term “moral” before free will that the issue is regarding salvation rather than mundane matters.

 

[Rufus]

God was obligated to mankind to provide salvation? If so, who obligated Him?

FWers' humanistic philosophy does.

 

[GWH]

Agree, if they preach anything about being unconditionally elect (divinely, uniquely enabled to believe) best to run.

View attachment 278287

Yes, and there are several on CC who imply that although some won’t say it other than honest Rufus.