Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

[Cameron143]

"If you torture the text enough, it will confess to anything".

Regards
The Calvinists

You read freewill into every passage. Just like you did with the parable of the prodigal son. I asked you a question you never answered. You said the young man made a choice. What was the choice he made?

 

[BillyBob]

"If you torture the text enough, it will confess to anything".

Regards
The Calvinists

Oh, my gosh! There for a split second, I thought you had switched sides!

 

[Cameron143]

Just read back a few posts.

Which post?

 

[Rufus]

He calls the purpose of God according to election to stand not by works (but by faith that Jacob exhibited in his willingness to obtain it for himself as opposed to Esau's disregard for...)?

How about that?

How 'bout this:

Rom 9:10-11a,
10 Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad...14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

16 It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy
NIV

Hint: The "therefore" means Paul drew a conclusion from what he just got finished saying in the prior verses.

 

[studier]

Which post?

15048

 

[Rufus]

[QUOTE="cv5, post: 5579329, member: 277646"]God "called", Jacob responded, believing Him. And Jacob never "stopped believing".

Done deal. [/QUOTE]

But Jacob's response is explicitly omitted in Rom 9!

 

[Rufus]

What does Calvinism have to do with God "keeping covenant" with those who believe Him and "enter in"?

Absolutely nothing.

Really? So...the New Covenant is bilateral, conditional in nature!? God keeps His covenant conditioned on the faith of the participants?
Prove it from scripture!

 

[cv5]

Oh....
I tried... Bobby holds no interest for me.

I wish he did. But his dad was so great, I feel it would be wrong to see him as a replacement.

God always knew that RBT Jr's words would be captured on audio.
When RBT taught years ago, the Lord knew the message would be also for those hearing it reproduced today.

After all.

I am ordering...... everything they've got. Maybe this month been delaying cuz swamped with work.

RBT jr. must be heard....

 

[Rufus]

He has mercy on those who believe Him.
That's the "some".

Where does it say that in Rom 9? Plus if what you stated above were true, why didn't Paul frame vv. 14-16 to express your theory? Why didn't Paul say, that God will have mercy and compassion on all believers who chose Him first. And, of course, v. 16 would have to disappear from the chapter, as well.

 

[Rufus]

Eternity does not have a past.

Another paragon of wisdom! When Christians speak of "eternity past", the phrase is used strictly in a comparative sense relative to temporal reality! The eternal always existed -- THEN God created temporal reality. This is why the term "foreknowledge" is used in scripture, i.e. God [fore] knew in eternity "past" BEFORE time began.

 

[Magenta]

Thanks!

Not too much unlike my experience. I was in transition from ending seminary and ordination just as RBT was
leaving the pulpit. I began as he ended and flowing with and following the change was not my direction.

Perhaps you two could take your off-topic love affair to a separate thread.

 

[Cameron143]

15048

Hearing there was only employed as a means of being informed, and not to mean understanding. Are you suggesting people can be drawn to the cross apart from being informed of the cross?

 

[Rufus]

Since when is the provision of a covenant FREELY GIVEN redeeming whosoever WILL enter in not of grace?

And what would that "provision" be precisely?

 

[Rufus]

That says a lot about you!

His arrogant, belligerent, prideful tone kinda suggests to me that God deprived him of Grace.

 

[cv5]

No, I am basing my faith on truth and experience and I owe God everything and worshipping God should be something that when people witness they should walk away thinking that person truly LOVES their God. They shouldn't walk away thinking those people have no clue who God is. That is a FACT and I don't care if you like it or not.

Amen. Our witness should blaze forth with the love (begotten by newfound life) we have for/in Him Who first loved us.

Who here thinks that the dessicated decrepit moldering doomer message of the determinists reeks of death and hate? Anybody?

 

[Rufus]

I understand the theory and why @Cameron143 said we needed to define "all". Whether you or he or anyone steps in to redefine the masculine plural "all [men]" doesn't really matter. It's still redefining the word to suit a system. It says, "all [men]" and anything else is redefinition. There are different parsing and wording that could have been used to state what you desire this to state.

Re: "libertinists" - are you sure you don't mean "libertarians"? And even then, I'd reject either one in favor of something that simply says I see in God's Word that unbelievers choose to believe or to reject God's offer of grace. That doesn't make me a libertarian, and it certainly doesn't make me a libertine. And FWer doesn't make me an advocate of that label with all its philosophical baggage. In discussions with you and a few others here, a non-determinist works just fine. A Biblical Christian would be more accurate but not expected from you.

A distinction with no difference. In either case, the belief is that man's will is FREE FROM all moral/spiritual restrictions. Your own duplicity prevents you from stating what your ARE positively...instead you want to hide your true identity and tell us what you are NOT! So..whether you like it or not, you are a libertarian/libertinist because you do believe in the efficacy of man's "freewill" -- a will that can definitely do what God cannot, i.e. make choices that are contrary to your moral/spiritual nature. Are you going to deny this? Are you going to deny that unregenerate sinners don't have the will power to make good and evil spiritual choices?

 

[Magenta]

redefining the word to suit a system

Your specialty!

 

[NightTwister]

Obviously, if our WILL is to fly like a bird, it won't happen for purely physical reasons which our WILL can't control.

Obviously if our WILL is to choose God, it won't happen for purely spiritual reasons if we are spiritually dead, which our WILL can't control.

If our WILL is to deny the existence of GOD, and denigrate His influence and character, we're totally free to do that, and live in denial

Without spiritual life our WILL is to deny the existence of God, and we're totally free do to that and live in denial.

If it's our will to subjugate ourselves to God's WILL, we're totally free to do just that also.

If we're made spiritually alive, it will BE our will to subjugate ourselves to Gods WILL, and we will be totally free to do just that also.

 

[Magenta]

A distinction with no difference. In either case, the belief is that man's will is FREE FROM all moral/spiritual restrictions. Your own duplicity prevents you from stating what your ARE positively...instead you want to hide your true identity and tell us what you are NOT! So..whether you like it or not, you are a libertarian/libertinist because you do believe in the efficacy of man's "freewill" -- a will that can definitely do what God cannot, i.e. make choices that are contrary to your moral/spiritual nature. Are you going to deny this? Are you going to deny that unregenerate sinners don't have the will power to make good and evil spiritual choices?

They would have to recant in order to agree with Scripture... which is precisely why they (and other FWers) rewrite verses they don"t like.

 

[Magenta]

If it's our will to subjugate ourselves to God's WILL, we're totally free to do just that also.

Before God makes it possible for us to do so? See Romans 8:7

And in case you are wondering -or try like so many other of the Pelagian heretics who frequent this thread to twist what is said- the man of flesh/natural man means one not indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, who is described by contrast as the spiritual man. Our heretics seem incapable of making that distinction, and show this inability by continually ascribing to the former what is possible only of the latter.