Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

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BillyBob said:
I would hazard to guess, that each and every verse that you have presented, simply reflects that God's people are enabled to work for Him once they have been saved.
He does not enable them in order to save themselves. That is Christ's work!

What Paul is saying in [1Cor 15:10] is not I, but the grace of God has enabled me.
God does not want anyone to take the high-ground. The high-ground belongs to Him, who saves us by grace alone.
And yes, we resent anyone who tries to take any credit for that work!
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"simply reflects that God's people are enabled to work for Him once they have been saved."

Quit veiling the determinists' dogma with syrupy rhetoric.

What you ACTUALLY mean is:

"simply reflects that God's people are enabled to work for Him once they have been KIDNAPPED and their volition overwhelmed and overwritten without consent or permission."
 
studier said:


Romans 1 doesn’t say everyone fails—it says some suppress truth while others retain God in knowledge. John 1:11-12 says some receive Christ, others reject Him. Mercy isn’t deterministic - it’s God’s provision that provides for response.
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Another master at eisegesis! You and CV5 should corroborate and come up with your own bible translation: You could call it the Golden Eisegesis Translation (or GET for short). :rolleyes:

Here's how the text really reads:

Rom 1:18-23
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against ALL the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
NIV

Virtually the entire world consists of fools, which explains all the idolatry that existed before Paul penned what he did, during his time and still long after his departure.

So...mercy is indeed "deterministic", since God has determined in eternity to give mercy to only those who fear him! See my 16,447. God most assuredly does not indiscriminately dispense with his mercy or his grace or his love, for that matter! He never has and He never will!
 
Genez said:
Many works are done in the name of God.
All according to how they think in their own understanding how God would have them to do works.

When God says...

"Be still and know that I am God!"

Being still?
Is doing a work of God.
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There is not a single command by God that man is able to keep. Does God ask us to do the impossible? YES! That is precisely why we must be saved, because we are unable to obey His commands! Once we are saved we begin to obey, though not perfectly. . . .
 
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cv5 said:
"simply reflects that God's people are enabled to work for Him once they have been saved."

Quit veiling the determinists' dogma with syrupy rhetoric.

What you ACTUALLY mean is:

"simply reflects that God's people are enabled to work for Him once they have been KIDNAPPED and their volition overwhelmed and overwritten without consent or permission."
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Believe it or not, God does not need your permission!
 
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BillyBob said:
Believe it or not, God does not need your permission!
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Lol. Prove it genius.

Exo 19:5
Now therefore, ***if*** ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, ***then*** ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:

Exo 19:7
And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the LORD commanded him.

Exo 19:8
And all the people answered together, and said, All that the LORD hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the LORD.
 
Salvation is what God provided when He allowed Himself to be nailed and crucified.
Grace is the Act of God that made Him lay His life down.

Therefore, Salvation is a Gift of God's Grace.

But the second most important key to the entire process is Faith or Belief. If a person never believes what God did then they will never be saved. But if they do Believe or have Faith in what God did then they will be saved.

The dilemma here is how does a person Believe\have Faith?
Yes, God gives a measure of Faith to everyone.
But the person themselves have to put it into action.

Until a person puts the Faith God gave to them in action to Believe what God did and accomplished upon the Cross that person will never be saved.

So it does actually come down to what will the person do with the evidence God has provided about God's Grace and Works upon the Cross.
 
BillyBob said:
There is not a single command by God that man is able to keep. Does God ask us to do the impossible? YES! That is precisely why we must be saved, because we are unable to obey His commands! Once we are saved we begin to obey, though not perfectly. . . .
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False.

Num 32:12
Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun: for they have wholly followed the LORD.
 
Magenta said:
He was not the blockhead some are here saying they get to decide
whether or not to believe something after they have been convinced.
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I have just been listening to the brilliant, redoubtable Thieme Jr. who rightly asserts that the arrogant pseudo-intellectual IMMEDIATELY rejects sound Biblical doctrine.

Remind you of anyone on this thread?
 
posthuman said:
you don't see judicial hardening in Romans 10 because it's in 11.

the book doesn't actually have chapters; it's all one treatise. arbitrarily taking 1 without 3 or 10 without 11 will skew what the text is saying.
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Did you read my opening statement?

Here it is again: "Getting late so maybe more tomorrow. I'll touch on Rom10 now. If you want to follow up, I'll leave it for you to do so. One piece at a time so no Rom9 or 11 tonight, which actually address hardening."

You opened with Rom10. I started with Rom10.
 
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cv5 said:
Yet I eagerly hear Thieme daily (among others) and you have never heard of the man.
And yes, he is most certainly an avowed volitionist.
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How is it you are always wrong?
I have heard of him and no one has ever said man doesn't have volition.
 
BillyBob said:
There is not a single command by God that man is able to keep. Does God ask us to do the impossible? YES! That is precisely why we must be saved, because we are unable to obey His commands! Once we are saved we begin to obey, though not perfectly. . . .
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My sheep hear and they follow,
But what is the voice that they hear
Is it a voice crying out from the wilderness, or is it his ways they here that our instilled in there faith, instilled with the fruits of the holy spirit,

So here we see that believers are blessed with the fruits of the spirit and one in particular self control, I wonder why that wasn't given before they became saved,

Or is it in some fashion, like perhaps enabling grace, so as the message comes to you whilst your waiting for your heart to go bloom, within the message for you there is willpower, that enables you to overcome any inner selfishness. Which then give the ability to believe.

I mean this is surely how it is for a saved person,. when the fruits of willpower shine in our hearts we hear that way of the lord. And we do whatever needs to be done.
 
Magenta said:
Hating God's sovereignty is built into their heretical idolatry.
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Since FWers hate God's sovereignty, their hatred of his Lordship in this age would logically render them spiritually unfit to enter his visible, eternal kingdom in the next age. How could their ungodly, wicked disposition (clear evidence of no Fear of God in their hearts) ever change in the age to come?
 
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