Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

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Who told you what to do because generally whenever we feel the Holy Ghost urging us to do something we typically do it.
Are we told to not covet, boast, lust, envy, etc …..............?
Are these commands not difficult or impossible to keep?
I was replying to a post which insinuated that God would not ask us to do somethin that we are unable to do!
 
Hmmm, not if you ask him.

He holds not the answer to know.
Only thinks he does.

Ever learning, and never able to come to the epignosis/full knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 3:7​


It becomes likened to everyday knowledge about things.
Good for passing written tests, asking to fill in the blanks.
But never knowing it personally on a spiritually organic level.
 
If true, then why should we be using an undefinable phrase and arguing about something no one agrees on the meaning of?

From one side it's obviously being used pejoratively and as nothing more than a cuss word. But that seems to be the enjoyable part - using words and phrases open to whatever definition one chooses at any given time.

The problem is that it may be one of the most important concepts in the Bible and one of the main things that God designed into us to make us in His likeness.

In this light it makes sense that it is attacked as it is.
What do you mean, if true? You said a very similar thing just yesterday or the
day before. Your hypocrisy is blatant. As is your dishonesty. Typical for you.
 
Exactly, why does God give us commands if we do not have the ability to execute it.
There is much to say about this, as many suggestions have been made aware already on as to why and how people can respond.

And how there able to respond, I've heard many view points, some that at first require a good old study.

But for the unsaved person its no doubt a bigger battle to overcome sin, but scripture does make reference that even cain had it within him to rule over sin.

What is it that can cause the natural man to do the right thing is very much widely debated. But it's clear all tho Adam and eve fell in the garden, God did not abandon them completely, and continued to communicate with them and then there children and there children,

However there could me many reasons that could work together also, one being mankind is born with the knowledge of Good and evil, or that God in time of nurturing all new children when there born, are given some kind of enabling to respond.

Some beliefs I've read that the commandments being written on stone tablet also represents the foundations of the earth including the earthly heart of stone, I'm not so sure about that belief myself, and I'm more inclined to believe a unique relationship takes place between newborns and God through out there upbringing with some kind of enabling.

But by the looks of this belief, has been around the block here many times, and it won't even be acknowledged by some people here.

Which when you think about it, when it's not even acknowledged, all it's really doing is leaving God out, .as I see the reasons it's not accepted including ideas like it's all about me and what I can do.

A foolish thought and really a prideful one from some people, but not all people.
 
Why are we told to do what is right with God, yet we continue to sin?

To show you that you are not yet walking in grace and truth as God would have you to.

Grace is for our spiritual development, like lifting heavy weights is for someone wanting to be made stronger.



But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may
rest on me. " 2 Corinthians 12:9​

We will continue to sin painfully because of ignorance of doctrine, which would tell us what we need to do when we sin
to walk free of guilt and shame.

That takes the learning of teachings of sound doctrine to do.

Good pastor teachers are like rare diamonds.
 
Exactly, why does God give us commands if we do not have the ability to execute it.
Ah. Did you circumcise your own heart then, and your ears as well? Tell me how you did that.

Again may I suggest you read the Bible. Acts 15:10 comes to mind.

Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles
a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?


To what was Peter referring? Oh, yes, to things God commanded of them.

What was it he said? "Neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear."

I take it you have no idea what that means. That, or you have not read it. Perhaps both apply.
 
Why are we told to do what is right with God, yet we continue to sin?
Well....to answer your questions, you could start with using the search function on your online Bible for starters....

[Mat 26:41 KJV]
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed [is] willing, but the flesh [is] weak.

[Mar 14:38 KJV]
Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly [is] ready, but the flesh [is] weak.

[Rom 8:3 KJV]
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

************************************************************************************

All of this lends credence to what @Genez is postulating BTW.
But I have yet to unpack everything to agree or disagree in part or in whole.
 
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Are we told to not covet, boast, lust, envy, etc …..............?
Are these commands not difficult or impossible to keep?
I was replying to a post which insinuated that God would not ask us to do somethin that we are unable to do!
Choosing Life wasn't part of the Law or Commandments that were designed to show why we need God. Choosing Life is choosing Life over Death and that is within everyone's ability to do.
 
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You are approaching this from an entirely different perspective than others talking and I have to agree with you. God created us for His good pleasure and our lives are not our own. But we do have the ability to say no if one could be that dumb!
I agree with that for many reasons, of course where all born with some intelligence 😊. But you know, children can have an issue with saying no and are so easily tempted. So it's not as clear cut as people make it.

Yep i favour some kind of enabling
 
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If true, then why should we be using an undefinable phrase and arguing about something no one agrees on the meaning of?

From one side it's obviously being used pejoratively and as nothing more than a cuss word. But that seems to be the enjoyable part - using words and phrases open to whatever definition one chooses at any given time.

The problem is that it may be one of the most important concepts in the Bible and one of the main things that God designed into us to make us in His likeness.

In this light it makes sense that it is attacked as it is.
Because what's being defined is an Oxford dictionary meaning.

And being put above What God says
 
Well....to answer your questions, you could start with using the search function on your online Bible for starters....

[Mat 26:41 KJV]
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed [is] willing, but the flesh [is] weak.

[Mar 14:38 KJV]
Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly [is] ready, but the flesh [is] weak.

[Rom 8:3 KJV]
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

************************************************************************************

All of this lends credence to what @Genez is postulating BTW.
But I have yet to unpack everything to agree or disagree in part or in whole.
And....

HEB 4:12
For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
 
Part of the issue here is defining what "free will" is. If someone has had any schooling or done much of any reading in philosophy let alone theology based back in the early church fathers and such, then they are likely dealing with and thinking of free will in terms of philosophy. It's thus a typical confused and opinionated mess. IMO it's not worth dealing with the terminology when we can just as easily drop "free" and speak of human will, volition, choice, etc., and do our best to keep the philosophy out of the discussion.

If you can show what you say you can in and from the Bible, why not just do so?

Yes agree, it is not about free will (philosophy and neuroscience) per se, but about being born with the "ability" to respond positively to the Gospel message, this is really the crux of the matter.
The ability to exercise faith in Christ Jesus because of the inherent power and truth of the Gospel message.
Saving faith is not a gift

Monergists argue if faith is not a gift then it is meritorious (a work) and they are wrong. They make faith to be something that earns, or merits to us the grace of God and herein lies their error. As well, faith is not the object which is where they err.
They say that saving faith is something good therefore it must come from God, again they are adding an attribute to saving faith that scripture does not.
It is quite clear that Faith in and of itself has no value, no merit.
The value of faith is in the object of the saving faith.

Christ Jesus is the object of faith.

Faith exercised in Christ Jesus actually cancels out boasting because it acknowledges there is nothing we can add to the "Paid in Full."

Monergists cannot see this because their brains are wired to the false interpretations of scripture they have accepted.

16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, - Romans 4:16

They read in the "gifted" faith even though it is not there.
 
Ah. Did you circumcise your own heart then, and your ears as well? Tell me how you did that.
Oooooppppssss....
Yes, the subtleties of such things evade the super-determinists. All too often.

[Deu 10:16 KJV]
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

[Jer 4:4 KJV]
Circumcise ***yourselves*** to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench [it], because of the evil of your doings.
 
For starters ...
God saved your soul.
Not your body.

What is intrinsically depraved can not be redeemed.
The body is doomed to perish.
Our resurrection body may look like how we are now (but perfect),
but that body essence will have everlasting life and will not be the same structure.


If man were TOTALLY depraved?
Not simply functioning in total depravity?
Then God could not redeem the soul.

The soul born enslaved in the prison of depraved flesh.
Like a person who had too much to drink,
the soul can not do what is righteous and good,
because the fallen flesh is like being drunk, which influences the soul in a bad way.

Grace sobers up the person to have the soul made able to think clearly enough to understand the Gospel.

Then the solul chooses freely.

Now?

If that soul takes the way that the fallen angels did?
Then that soul is accountable and condemnable.

That is why we can not be saved without grace.
Grace does not save automatically!
Grace makes what was impossible to become possible!

That is why those sent to the Lake of Fire will be without excuse.
For they, like Satan and his angels, make their choice, not fof sin.
But for Evil!

There is a difference.
Jesus died for the sins of the world.
He did not die for Evil.
He would have had to reject himself to bear evil on the Cross.

This is only a foundational understanding.
Can't answer it all on one page.

grace and peace .....
I don't think it's wise to argue about something being taken so personal.

Being depraved makes no difference, to this discussion,

Arguing about whether or not an unsaved person is depraved has it's good points I guess, and whilst we can have sympathy for the depraved you must understand where all born depraved and in a fallen state.

When you understand there totally depraved you realise they need a saviour,