Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

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Bible_Highlighter said:
Again, a choice only exists when you have two or more options to choose from, like choosing between option A and option B. On the strange planet of Calvinism, when believing the gospel becomes the inevitable conclusion after being made spiritually alive with no real alternative available, it is no longer a choice but a forced outcome. Let me help illustrate this in a real world example so you can see what I mean.

Take a robot that has been programmed to walk into a store and buy a particular item. It carries out its code step by step. It never pauses to weigh other options because it has never been given any programming to do anything different. There is zero possibility of choosing not to buy the product. When the task is finished, no one would honestly claim the robot made a real choice. It only performed the one action it was built to perform. A real choice requires the genuine ability to go in another direction.

Now imagine a robot programmed to kill a specific human being. It has no alternative instructions that would allow it to refuse, hesitate, or spare that person. It simply carries out the command it was built to fulfill. To then put that robot on trial for murder after it killed a human being while executing its programming would make no sense. The robot never had the ability to do anything other than what it was programmed to do. That is why the Calvinistic idea of God condemning people for actions they were incapable of resisting makes the entire system feel unreasonable. If there is no real capacity to choose otherwise, then holding someone morally responsible becomes as nonsensical as blaming a robot for its programming.

Sure, you can say we all sinned in Adam. I accept that to a degree myself. We enter this world in a fallen condition where every single one of us needs a Savior, Jesus Christ. Even so, Scripture also speaks very plainly that each person will answer for their own sins in this life unless they believe the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1 to 4, call upon the name of the Lord, and forsake their evil ways. The Bible does not treat us like puppets or programmed machines. God calls, He opens the heart so we can understand the truth, and then He rightly holds us responsible for whether we embrace or reject the grace He offers through His Son.

Scripture is very clear about this. God calls all people everywhere to repent and believe. Yet Calvinists tend to view God as deterministic, as if He is the only true actor and everyone else is simply carrying out what was unavoidable from the beginning. The Bible presents a God who genuinely invites, warns, and pleads with sinners. He desires all to come to repentance and live. He does not treat us like robots locked into a preset line of code. The repeated emphasis on believing, repenting, and turning to the Lord actually means something. It assumes a real response is possible.
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So, you cannot believe that God's will is free, can you, since he can never choose option "B" since by nature he's strictly option "A" (good, righteous and holy) and cannot sin?
 
God predestined ALL to be saved, and then many allowed satan to blind their eyes to prevent them from seeing the Gospel
See - Romans 8:29-30, Romans 1:19-21, Titus 2:11-12, 1 John 2:2, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:1-4, Acts 17:30, John 12:32, Hebrews 2:9, John 3:16, Matthew 5:6

The Lord tells us in His Word why not all are saved:

2 Corinthians 4:4
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Jesus tells us each person is responsible for finding the pathway that leads to life because they are without excuse (Romans 1:19-21)

Matthew 7:14
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.

Sadly the calvinists claim Jesus is a liar since Jesus never taught calvinism and they specialize in twisting scripture as they are speaking in behalf of their father the devil
 
StanDupp said:
Sin passed UPON all men

God's Word never tells us that man was born a sinner.

That's something the reformers got from the devil.





They pick and choose which scriptures to twist and which ones to ignore.

Calvinism is in fact doctrines of demons

Nobody can get in to Heaven following calvinism or reformed theology
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You are obviously ignorant of both the reformed faith and what allows for someone to make heaven their home.
 
Freewill.png

"Free will" in the Bible? ~ Freedom is something believers are called to (Galatians 5 verse 13). We need Jesus to “set us free” (Galatians 5 verse 1). If Jesus has not freed us from the bondage of sin, then we are still slaves to sin (Romans 6 verses 6-7). Freedom is found in the presence of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3 verse 17). Only Jesus can give us true freedom (John 8 verse 36). Only through His lovingkindness can we truly make choices unfettered by a nature that is inherently hostile toward God.
 
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John14-17a-Romans8-6-9.png

John 14 v 17a, Romans 8 v 6-9 ~ “Inability” in Bible. The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth. The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Praise be to God for calling me out of the world.
 
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StanDupp said:
That's not what the Lord said in His Word:

2 Corinthians 5:19
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
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There's nothing in the passage that even remotely hints that God made a covenant with the entire world! If you think He has, then you should be able to provide what God's terms to His covenant were to the world.

Moreover, the above passage is easily understood in the larger context of the bible, e.g. in that pesky, annoying, inconvenient covenant, that so many FWers seem to hate, called the Abrahamic Covenant. Since Abraham's [spiritual] descendants are scattered throughout the world, and those descendants were chosen in eternity Paul could say that their sins are not imputed to them.
 
StanDupp said:
Sin passed UPON all men

God's Word never tells us that man was born a sinner.

That's something the reformers got from the devil.





They pick and choose which scriptures to twist and which ones to ignore.

Calvinism is in fact doctrines of demons

Nobody can get in to Heaven following calvinism or reformed theology
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I see that you have bought into the devil's lie, haven't you? See Ps 51:5; 58:3; Job 5:7; 14:4; 15:14-16; Isa 48:8, etc.

Sin passed upon all men because all men are IN ADAM and inherit his sin nature.
 
Cameron143 said:
You are obviously ignorant of both the reformed faith and what allows for someone to make heaven their home.
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It's quite odd how often it is claimed that what is taught in the Bible came from Calvin... they are terribly confused. PS>>> are we still praying for heishere to get swallowed by a big fish?
 
sawdust said:
No-one is inherently good except God. This is why God cannot create people good (He cannot create Himself) but nor can He create them evil.

No, it is not true they must automatically be the opposite. To say such has God creating man inherently evil and worse still, blaming them for their evil. You accuse God of evil with such statements.

Darkness is all we know and ever would know if it were not for the grace of God, but you don't want God's grace going out to all men just a select few. The scripture says we live in darkness (ie. spiritual death), which way we turn, depends on our desires when the light is shone into that darkness.

You don't have to say directly that God creates man evil, it is insinuated in your comment that man is born inherently evil. It is not a straw man, it is only logical Captain Kirk. Good and evil is the domain of the soul and it is God alone who creates the soul. Our flesh has a sin nature making it wrong but it is not evil. You would be a Gnostic if you declare the flesh evil. We become evil in the darkness of our soul if we refuse the light, if we fail to learn from the Father who draws us by means of His light. Jn.6:45

He did not create Adam very good (inherently), He declared what He created good because at that stage it was all within His will. Obedience to God's will is what makes something good. As we walk in accordance with His will, by faith in the power of the Spirit, the goodness that is God flows though and out from us. In this way we can be declared good by God. It is His goodness we are reflecting for that is how we were made to be.

Yes man is driven by his desires and sometimes, when the light is shone and he sees there is something other than the darkness, he desires that light more than the dark. Romans 7 makes it quite clear a man can be torn apart between his desire to do good and his inability to do good. Salvation gives us the power to do the good we desire.
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You obviously cannot believe in God's New Creation, can you? And since you don't believe in His new creation, then you must believe that sin will plague the children of God for all eternity in the New Eternal Order.

And you obviously cannot believe in God's omnipotence, can you? Once you say God "cannot do" something with respect to any of his creatures, then this amounts to a tacit denial of this attribute.

You have more than a few very serious doctrinal errors in your quiver, don't you?
 
Bible_Highlighter said:
On the strange planet of Calvinism, when believing the gospel becomes the inevitable conclusion after being made spiritually alive with no real alternative available.
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I'm not sure why you're arguing with John Calvin. I'm not him. And once again, I know why it's important to you for this to be true, but that doesn't make it true. Grace and Peace.
 
Jordon said:
Your free to talk about what ever you like, that's because you have freedom of thought,

No one can take away your freedom of thought if that's what your concerned about m,

But the the free will of man is the will of the flesh. Your soul is what gets saved.

It's your soul that gets saved m not your will of the flesh or your choice.

Just guiding you here, God doesn't save the will of the flesh or choice, he saves your soul. Your soul needs the light of the lord where as the will of the flesh need discipline daily denial and the active will of God to keep it under control m.

Your soul is precious to the lord, but God holds no value to the will of the flesh.
Your soul longs for the lord where as your brain imagines all sorts m

the best things are said when you say nothing at all, because people who love you can see the real you, and no doubt sometimes when you make a choice, you know that's not real to you Either
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What is your point?
 
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