Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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Yes, I am, thanks to Jesus' sinless life, death, burial, resurrection and ascension. But you...not so much, heh?
YES, you do! But you categorically reject the efficacy of God's saving grace, so the grace you need must be from some other god, namely "Freewill".
Not dumb. That explanation exemplifies the point that you could not and CANNOT argue.
Amazing stuff going on in these last days.You are wish-casting again?
Pharisaical gatekeepers of Jesus' day imposed similar barriers in front of those whom they thought unworthy totally depraved sinners BTW......
[Mat 23:13 KJV]
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in [yourselves], neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.
[Mat 23:15 KJV]
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
[Mat 23:23 KJV]
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier [matters] of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
The calvies have placed themselves as the special elect. And the calvies have kicked Israel to the curb.
2 Very bad, yes, very bad theories.
The calvies will spend the millennium in bible class 101. No reign. No rewards......Just a 1000 years of getting off of stuck on stupid.
As you know......Where is the Hope? Where is the good news? Where is the Joy? Where is the WITNESS of the Lord Jesus Christ from the calvies?
The calvies have nothing but doom and gloom for everyone but themselves.
This is a thread on evangelism....What do you think freewill is about?
And You have failed miserably.
Here the discussion revolves around what Scripture says of the natural man being a slave to sin and lover of darkness refusing to come into the light as a God-hater taken captive to do the will of the devil, opposed to the spiritual things of God, which he can neither receive nor comprehend, but yet we have many here contradicting and denying what Scripture says of the natural man. They claim the man of flesh, flesh within which nothing good exists, which serves the law of sin and brings forth fruit unto death, will decide with his incurably wicked heart to believe what he hears as foolishness. They are not above rewriting verses to make them say what they want even if it is Jesus' words they are butchering. In short, they have put a philosophical construct before the Truth explicitly articulated in Scripture. They ascribe to the natural man qualities, characteristics, and abilities that are true only of the spiritual man, and then to prop up this error, pretend the natural man is a carnal Christian and not the man who is not indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God.
Part of the problem is that people think that making choices equates to the will being free. They say such things as, if the will is not free, then people are puppets. This is a logical fallacy. Making mundane choices does not in any way address what the Bible teaches about man's will being enslaved to sin, blinded to the truth, unable to hear, incapable of submitting to God, a lover of darkness, refusing to come into the light, hearing the gospel as foolishness, unable to receive or comprehend the spiritual things of God, to which he is opposed and to Whom he is hostile toward while under the power and influence of the devil, as is the whole world, out of which believers have been called. Thinking your will is free simply because you can choose what colour of socks to wear or what to have for lunch, or whether to do the right or wrong things, or what book to choose out of the mountains of them available, has no bearing on the eternal fate of your soul, and mixing those things in with what the Bible teaches about the estate of fallen man is a distraction from the real issue.
This is the crux of the conversation, such as it is, for it is out of man's nature that he makes choices, and it is with the heart that one believes... the free will proponents essentially assert that the incurably wicked heart of the natural/unregenerated man is free to choose to believe that which he is not only opposed to, but that which he can neither receive/accept nor comprehend while in the flesh as are all before becoming indwelt with the Holy Spirit of God. They have the man with zero wisdom acting wise to do God's will when Scripture says that man cannot, that flesh cannot please God, that flesh serves the law of sin and brings forth fruit unto death, not life, and is unable to submit to or obey God. And their idea of wisdom is that person choosing to believe what they hear as foolishness. They reject what Jesus said about it being impossible for a bad tree to bring forth good fruit... there are none good, no, not one! Even when asked who can be saved, Jesus said that with man it was impossible, and there are other places where we are explicitly told it is not by the will of the flesh or man but by God's will that any are saved. Some philosophers and philosophy books have said man has a will that is free and that is enough for many to parrot what they hear and throw over a slew of Scriptural truths. They ascribe to the natural man qualities, characteristics, and abilities possessed only by the spiritual man.
No it's not. It's about freewill. While how one understands freewill may affect how one evangelizes, many things impact how one evangelizes.
So find out, and start the thread.
Dumb. Scripture did argue it, and very successfully. You just can't accept it because of your desire to have natural man able to save himself, which is impossible. Jesus Christ alone is the Savior, not man. And at this point, I'm tired of trying to explain it to you.
Standardized (and very worn-out) Calvinist fallacies.
At this point you're only fooling yourself.
Hyperbolic unbiblical opinions are a dime a dozen. And men are created more than just flesh.
By the way, your reference to only two passages over and over again is gambit that has failed over and over again. Just to let you know......
