Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

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Bible_Highlighter said:
If God said one path leads to life and the other leads to death, then choosing the forbidden path is choosing death.

That isn’t “reading into the text.” That is literally what God Himself said in Genesis 2:17.
You keep trying to split hairs because the implications contradict Calvinism.
Let me answer you point by point.


1. “God created free-willed beings” – you said “nowhere stated in the Bible.”

Adam is explicitly presented as a moral agent who can obey or disobey. God commands him (Genesis 2:16) and warns him (Genesis 2:17). Commands and warnings make no sense if the person cannot choose.

Also, Eve is accountable for being deceived (1 Timothy 2:14) and Adam is accountable for knowingly sinning (Romans 5:12). Accountability presupposes the ability to make a genuine choice.

God even says to Cain:

"If thou doest well… if thou doest not well…" (Genesis 4:7).
That is a conditional statement to a moral agent capable of either path.


2. You said: “You might say, God forced you.”

And that proves my concern with your position.

If your system teaches God “forced” salvation on you, then your system also makes Him the reason others are lost. Because if God does not “force” the same grace on the non-elect, then they never had a chance.

That is not how Scripture speaks.
God draws, convicts, enlightens, reproves, calls, reasons, stretches out His hands, and pleads.
But Scripture never says God “forces” anyone.

Even Stephen says to the Jews:

“Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost” (Acts 7:51).
Resistance presupposes the ability not to resist.


3. You said: “Who said they were forced? Jeepers…”

You literally just said a few lines earlier:

“God forced you.”

So if the elect are forced, you must logically explain why Adam and Eve were not “forced” into sin by the same divine determination. Otherwise, you have two different doctrines of God working against each other.

You cannot have it both ways.


4. On Adam and Eve “not wanting death.”

Of course they didn’t emotionally desire dying. Nobody said they liked death.

What they did desire was the thing God said would bring death.

God Himself tied the forbidden act to death:

“in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:17)

If you knowingly choose the thing God says leads to death, you have chosen death in the moral sense.
Adam was not deceived (1 Timothy 2:14).
He knew the consequence and freely chose disobedience anyway.

That is simply Scripture.


5. On “Eve was deceived.”

Correct. Eve was deceived. Nobody denies this.
But that doesn’t negate free moral choice; it simply explains her motive.

Adam, however, was not deceived. He sinned with full knowledge.

So your response is incomplete and doesn’t address the actual point I made.


6. The real issue

Your system refuses to allow man to make real moral choices, because if you admit Adam and Eve had one, the whole Calvinistic system collapses. So you must reduce everything to “bondage,” “fear,” “natural man,” etc., even though none of that applies before the Fall.

You said Adam and Eve were “natural” and therefore acted in bondage.
But Genesis 1:31 says everything God made was “very good.”

There is no bondage to sin before sin.
There is no “fear of death” before death exists.
And there is no “natural man cannot receive the Spirit” before the fall of mankind ever occurred.

You are reading post-Fall verses backwards into a pre-Fall world.


My conclusion

Adam and Eve sinned because they chose the path God warned would bring death, not because God “forced” them or predetermined their fall. Your replies simply prove my point: Calvinism has to rewrite the Genesis account to make its system work.

I’ll stick with the plain reading of Scripture.




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Beekeeper, what's your denomination?
 
Me_Clay said:
I forgot what's a protestant? I know you guys protest against the Catholic.
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In Christianity, this is common knowledge. But if you truly do not know, a Protestant is simply a Christian who follows the core doctrines of the Bible and does not accept the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The name comes from believers who ‘protested’ against unbiblical teachings during the Reformation and chose to stand on Scripture alone as their final authority.

You said:
So you're similar to reformer like Calvinist and Lutheran?
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Well, if you have been paying attention in this thread, you would already know that I am strongly against Calvinism. I do not agree with their doctrines at all. As for Lutheranism, no, I am not Lutheran. I am simply a Bible believing Christian who follows Scripture alone. So churches that follow traditions like the Orthodox church, etc. or the Pentecostal Church are churches that are far out their in Left field somewhere and doing their own thing when it comes to many things.



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Bible_Highlighter said:
I’ll stick with the plain reading of Scripture...
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Problem is, you don't. You read your presups in and then lie and claim I believe things I don't for reasons that are not true. You are dishonest. Eve's motive was not to die no matter how hard you try to spin it that way. Them NOT dying was the deception as told by the serpent. If you cannot gather that from the text there is seriously something wrong with you. In Genesis 2:17 God did not say they would be choosing death. He told them they would die. There is a difference no matter how hard you try to force your version. You pretend to want to discuss Scripture but what you really want to do is force people to accept your version of Scripture and not what Scripture actually says. Then you cannot even see or acknowledge that is what you are doing. Blind. I did honestly think you would make a good teacher but not if you cannot strip your presups away and just look at what the text actually says, and stop twisting it to make it say something it does not.
 
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Magenta said:
Problem is, you don't. You read your presups in and then lie and claim I believe things I don't for reasons that are not true. You are dishonest. Eve's motive was not to die no matter how hard you try to spin it that way. Them NOT dying was the deception as told by the serpent. If you cannot gather that from the text there is seriously something wrong with you. In Genesis 2:17 God did not say they would be choosing death. He told them they would die. There is a difference no matter how hard you try to force your version. You pretend to want to discuss Scripture but what you really want to do is force people to accept your version of Scripture and not what Scripture actually says.
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Repeating the word dishonest over and over does not prove anything. It only shows that you want to attack me instead of dealing with what the Scriptures actually say. I am staying with the Bible. If you want a real discussion, then let us remain in Scripture rather than resorting to accusations.

Regarding Genesis, God very clearly placed a real choice in front of Adam and Eve. Genesis 2:16 to 17 says, ‘Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’

The words ‘thou mayest freely eat’ show freedom. The words ‘thou shalt not’ give the command. The words ‘thou shalt surely die’ give the consequence. When God gives permission, gives a command, and gives the consequence beforehand, that is the very definition of a real choice. Nothing in the passage says God prevented them from choosing or forced them into anything.

Eve was deceived, yes, but the warning was still clear. If a person acts on something God has warned them about, they are choosing the outcome tied to that action. No one is saying they wanted death. The point is that they knowingly acted on the one thing God said would bring death. Scripture consistently shows that God lays choices before mankind. Joshua 24:15 says, ‘Choose you this day whom ye will serve.’ Deuteronomy 30:19 says, ‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life.’ God does not give pretend choices. When God tells someone the result of an action before they take it, that is responsibility.

Romans 5:12 also confirms that death entered because of one man’s disobedience. Disobedience requires the ability to obey or disobey. That is a choice. Sin always involves going against what God commanded.

And to further show that God responds to human choices, look at Jonah 3. Jonah entered Nineveh proclaiming God’s wrath: ‘Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’ The people heard the warning and turned from their evil ways. Jonah 3:10 says, ‘And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not.’

Scripture plainly says that God turned back from the judgment He was going to bring because they repented. It was based on their response, not on some hidden decree or Unconditional Election. God’s mercy here was conditional on their repentance, exactly as the text states.



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Bible_Highlighter said:
In Christianity, this is common knowledge. But if you truly do not know, a Protestant is simply a Christian who follows the core doctrines of the Bible and does not accept the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. The name comes from believers who ‘protested’ against unbiblical teachings during the Reformation and chose to stand on Scripture alone as their final authority.



Well, if you have been paying attention in this thread, you would already know that I am strongly against Calvinism. I do not agree with their doctrines at all. As for Lutheranism, no, I am not Lutheran. I am simply a Bible believing Christian who follows Scripture alone. So churches that follow traditions like the Orthodox church, etc. or the Pentecostal Church are churches that are far out their in Left field somewhere and doing their own thing when it comes to many things.



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Are you a kjv1611 believer?
 
Magenta said:
Hypocrite.

When are you going to accept that natural men are not indwelt with the Holy Spirit???
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If so, please feel free to point out any post number where you feel I have been hypocritical.
Remember, as I stated before, I have admitted when I was wrong with others before.
If I said something that was not correct, I am happy to reconcile.

May the Lord Jesus bless you.


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Bible_Highlighter said:
If so, please feel free to point out any post number where you feel I have been hypocritical.
Remember, as I stated before, I have admitted when I was wrong with others before.
If I said something that was not correct, I am happy to reconcile.

May the Lord Jesus bless you.
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Oh, please. You go on and on about my art and then pretend you only want to stick to Scripture and make no personal remarks. You are dishonest and it means something even if you deny it. You want me to adhere to your pretend standard while you act the hypocrite.

Your posts are full of personal remarks. Even that stupid image you posted is dishonest. Then you want us to believe you don't do that.
 
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Bible_Highlighter said:
Again, you are not making any sense.
Please learn to communicate better.



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this verse is on your home page of your webpage

Does setting your affections on the things above qualify, for having the spirits affection put in you first

Your a Trinitarian and you cant answer that question, the Trinitarians I know would have no problem answering this.

My goodness
 
Me_Clay said:
Are you a kjv1611 believer?
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I am Core KJB, and not KJV-only. This is the belief that the King James Bible is my core foundational text for all matters of faith and practice. Meaning, I see the KJV as the perfect Word of God in 17th century English. However, I am not against looking to the underlying original languages. In fact, I believe they are essential and they can offer a deeper meaning at times (But it does not contradict the English in the KJV). I also believe in using Modern English Bibles on rare occasion (Biblehub) to help flesh out the uncommon words in the KJV. But because Modern Bibles teach many false doctrines, I also caution the new believer to not trust them blindly without triple checking the KJV & the Beza 1598 Greek (NT) / Ben Chayyim Masoretic Hebrew (OT).

While there are a few 1611 KJV believers, I believe the Pure Cambridge Edition KJV is the final and settled form of the King James Bible. There are many good reasons for this position.



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Bible_Highlighter said:
I am Core KJB, and not KJV-only. This is the belief that the King James Bible is my core foundational text for all matters of faith and practice. Meaning, I see the KJV as the perfect Word of God in 17th century English. However, I am not against looking to the underlying original languages. In fact, I believe they are essential and they can offer a deeper meaning at times (But it does not contradict the English in the KJV). I also believe in using Modern English Bibles on rare occasion (Biblehub) to help flesh out the uncommon words in the KJV. But because Modern Bibles teach many false doctrines, I also caution the new believer to not trust them blindly without triple checking the KJV & the Beza 1598 Greek (NT) / Ben Chayyim Masoretic Hebrew (OT).

While there are a few 1611 KJV believers, I believe the Pure Cambridge Edition KJV is the final and settled form of the King James Bible. There are many good reasons for this position.



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What's your kjv version?
 
Magenta said:
Oh, please. You go on and on about my art and then pretend you only want to stick to Scripture and make no personal remarks. You are dishonest and it means something even if you deny it. You want me to adhere to your pretend standard while you act the hypocrite.

Your posts are full of personal remarks. Even that stupid image you posted is dishonest. Then you want us to believe you don't do that.
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If you paid close attention to my words, you would see that I stated, basically, that my primary focus is to discuss my understanding of free will in light of the Bible, which naturally leads into discussing Calvinism and related issues. I also mentioned that I may occasionally correct wrong behavior, meaning things that are not Christian.



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Bible_Highlighter said:
If you paid close attention to my words, you would see that I stated, basically, that my primary focus is to discuss my understanding of free will in light of the Bible, which naturally leads into discussing Calvinism and related issues. I also mentioned that I may occasionally correct wrong behavior, meaning things that are not Christian..
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How very odd. Because when I posted about people being taken captive to do the will of the devil, you posted
some dishonest image. You showed zero desire to discuss Scripture and 100 percent desire to misrepresent.

But in your mind, you don't do that.
 
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Bible_Highlighter said:
If you paid close attention to my words, you would see that I stated, basically, that my primary focus is to discuss my understanding of free will in light of the Bible, which naturally leads into discussing Calvinism and related issues. I also mentioned that I may occasionally correct wrong behavior, meaning things that are not Christian.



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yeah she gets Calvinism rammed down her throat every day along with how evil the devil is and how scary he is.

She's a mature person with more knowledge than you and the others who ram what your ramming
 
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