Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
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Perhaps we willers should start a thread and leave the others their piece. I mean, this was started as an unfreewill, and we're just, at least at first glance, making seem as the most popular opinion. After all, it's been in gestation nine months now. Let them the space to nurse this to its maturity so we can at least see some fruit.
OK, you clearly need the obvious spelling out to you. The deductive power we were blessed with which is called reasoning, it enables us to make decisions.
Suspect your reasoning power is more limited than most, look for a more detailed definition, it might help.
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Blue155
Guest
Thanks. When you discover you exercised your free will to know and write that, you can let me know, and when you discover you didn’t exercise your free will, you can let me know what you used to exercise against it.
Yep, i too think Adam and Eve had free will. However, we're fallen, free will is impossible for us because of our own contamination and that of others. We're incapable of pure, ethical choices, which is what leads to misery, strife, wars etc.We were given dominion in Genesis, chapter one, is that not where the "free will" comes from?
But we do have the ability to chose right and wrong, and once we choose of our own free will to believe, then we receive the ability to do the right thing.
Cracked up laughing, i made a choice to write that, being on my own meant i could, whether somebody else wanted me to, or not. If somebody was here and didn't want me to write that, they could possibly stop me doing so, whether i willed it or not.
We don't have free will in our fallen state, it's that simple.
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Blue155
Guest
When you discover you exercised your free will to know and write that, you can let me know, and when you discover you didn’t exercise your free will, you can let me know what you used to exercise against it.
Choice and will are not the same, we can choose something but can be prevented from enacting it by the will of others. Also being able to prevent them enacting their will at times.
We still have will but not free will in our fallen state.
Once you choose the right thing to do, you then receive the ability to choose the right thing to do.
Too funny. Because you present a very clear case of putting the cart before the horse.
The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8 v 6-8 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2 v 13-14
I thank the Lord we don't have free will currently, people of limited reasoning ability such as yourself, would make the world a lot scarier than it is at the moment.
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Blue155
Guest
When you discover you exercised your free will to know and write that, you can let me know, and when you discover you didn’t exercise your free will, you can let me know what you used to exercise against it.
By the way, when an unbeliever says they just exercised their free will, since they don’t have free will according to you, what were they exercising to know they had free will, to which you say they wasn’t?
It's impossible to restore vision to those blind because they choose not to see. You're either in that category or just want to drag discussion down to your level.
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Blue155
Guest
Choose? Did you say choose? Did they use their free will to choose? Then why talk to me?
We are not told their will was free, but we can surely safely assume they did not become enslaved to sin until they actually sinned. However, they were of the natural world, which we are told is where the desire to sin originates, as in, coming from the world and not from the Father. Aside from wanting to be like God in knowing good and evil, they did not want to die. The lie the serpent told was in fact, you shall not surely die, since God agreed with the assessment that A&E had become like Him in knowing good and evil. They did have some knowledge of God before that... I am just now pondering the connection Scripture makes between knowing God and attaining to life ever after. It seems obvious that what A&E knew of God was not enough to bestow life ever after on them and also, to attain that, they would have needed to have eaten from the Tree of Life. Some believe they did but there is zero evidence to suggest that and good reasons to believe they had not.
James 1 verses 14-15; 1 John 2 verse 16 Each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life- is not from the Father but from the world. .
It appears that you are viewed from a higher level, and talking to you provides an additional rise?
I'm replying to your erroneous comments, you're not the sort of person i enjoy discussion with.
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Blue155
Guest
Then why are you discussing with me if you don’t enjoy it? Makes no sense.
That is one interesting comment, cheers friend!We are not told their will was free, but we can surely safely assume they did not become enslaved to sin until they actually sinned. However, they were of the natural world, which we are told is where the desire to sin originates, as in, coming from the world and not from the Father. Aside from wanting to be like God in knowing good and evil, they did not want to die. The lie the serpent told was in fact, you shall not surely die, since God agreed with the assessment that A&E had become like Him in knowing good and evil. They did have some knowledge of God before that... I am just now pondering the connection Scripture makes between knowing God and attaining to life ever after. It seems obvious that what A&E knew of God was not enough to bestow life ever after on them and also, to attain that, they would have needed to have eaten from the Tree of Life. Some believe they did but there is zero evidence to suggest that and good reasons to believe they had not.
James 1 verses 14-15; 1 John 2 verse 16 Each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. For all that is in the world- the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life- is not from the Father but from the world. .
