Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
- Thread starter LifelongLearner
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B
Blue155
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I did not leave out Matthew 22:14, as I referenced in words. I simply forgot to reference it.
Like @Cameron143 can get into the Holy Spirits head and tell us that countless millions throughout history have never heard His Gospel.
Calvinism ruins THEIR witness for countless millions TODAY.
Use the search tool. And see the accurate exigetical treatment that I provided (citing the work of others) in several posts.
And it's nothing like the twisted meaning of the Calvinists.
The gist of it is simply called and invited, and then choosing to either attend or not to attend.
Being saved, means that we are set aside. That makes us Saints! Therefore, I will now address you as St. Jackson129.
Those who God chose to be alive for the Church age have also been chosen to be the Son's Bride.
That is why we were predestined to do our believing in the Church age.
For the Church is the Bride of Christ!
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and
gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the
washing with water through the word, and to present her to
himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any
other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way,
husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever
hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body,
just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be
united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5:25-32
False assumptions everyone of them. And your go-to "natural man" fallacy has been debunked an hundred times on this thread.
Garbage in garbage out.......
every word you see in the bible will be more or less used to prick everyone's conscience by God before being chosen m
All are called few are chosen
No mystery here
No calvinists here
The fact that millions of people have lived and died without ever hearing the gospel isn't in dispute. Neither does it have anything to do with Calvinism. It's simply truth. You have a bad case of CDS.
have you ever read Free Will by Sam harris?
It's only about 100 pages so it's a quick read.
Also, if you just go to YouTube and look for Sam Harris free will you will find a video of him hitting all the key points.
He argues that from a neurological standpoint, Free Will is an illusion, as we have no control over the electrical and chemical processes in our brains that produce our thoughts, our wants etc
you're sitting on the couch watching TV and you decide you want another glass of tea.
essentially, your brain has already made that decision before the conscious you gets the notification because that's the way our brains work
he cites another story in which test subjects were asked to choose between images on the computer screen.
by monitoring which parts of the brain's fired, the testers were able to accurately predict which images the test subjects would pick.
anyway, fascinating stuff
It's only about 100 pages so it's a quick read.
Also, if you just go to YouTube and look for Sam Harris free will you will find a video of him hitting all the key points.
He argues that from a neurological standpoint, Free Will is an illusion, as we have no control over the electrical and chemical processes in our brains that produce our thoughts, our wants etc
you're sitting on the couch watching TV and you decide you want another glass of tea.
essentially, your brain has already made that decision before the conscious you gets the notification because that's the way our brains work
he cites another story in which test subjects were asked to choose between images on the computer screen.
by monitoring which parts of the brain's fired, the testers were able to accurately predict which images the test subjects would pick.
anyway, fascinating stuff
Let's end some confusion, please.
He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not
blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name
before My Father and before His angels." Revelation 3:5
It says that names will be blotted out.
Not salvations.
The word translated "name," back in that day was interchangeable with the word "title."
Those who overcome? They will be the ones who kept on growing in sound doctrine
enabling them to overcome the evils that came their way.
Overcoming by means of knowing the Truth needed to do so.
Those who fail to overcome?
They failed to grow in sound knowledge and grace as to enter into maturity in Christ?
They are the doctrinal wise-guys that we find here and in other forums.
They will be denied their title of royalty that God had wanted to give them.
Their name was in the Book originally because God wanted all believers to reign with Him.
Blotted out?
For they proved themselves not trustworthy with their handling of God's authority as seen in how they distorted God's Word.
Such believers will have their title blotted out of the book and not be allowed to reign with Christ.
But they will be saved just the same. (1 Corinthians 3:11-15)
We have a God who is fair and just.
Yep. You did not get what I said. Read 2 Corinthians 7:1. You have to look at the whole counsel of God’s Word and not isolate verses in a vacuum. Yes, passages like in Ezekiel about the New Covenant are true. Ezekiel 36:27 says, “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
But like I said, do you believe this is happening automatically for all believers who are Elect? Is this happening in your own life? Is it happening in the lives of other Calvinists? How about other Christians in general? Have you ever heard of believers going into mental blackouts and suddenly obeying God without knowing what they were doing, or perfectly doing everything the Lord commands without ever resisting?
In other words, the verse is true, but it must be read in balance with other verses. Scripture interprets Scripture. I believe a Christian can allow God’s Spirit to cause him to walk in His statutes and to keep His judgments, but that is conditioned upon following the very requirements God has given to the believer. God enables, but we must yield. The promise is real, but it is not fulfilled apart from the believer responding to God’s Word.
....
Hey Dude, welcome, and yes, interesting, he does say it is impossible to describe a universe in which free will could be true; hard to even make sense of what is being claimed to be true about free will. But 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, 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 rewiting 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.
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 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.
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OLDBUTNEW
Guest
Well...I do appreciate your honesty and humility by admitting that.There are many deep things of God that I don't grasp or at least understand fully.
@Rufus : Thanks for that, Bro; That's very kind of you.
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OLDBUTNEW
Guest
cool, I'll be your sledge hammer aus,
You repented Because God gave you compassion.
He does so in prayer
His prayer travels trough an ark of light, straight to the heart and fills your heart with compassion
@Jordon : Thanks for this, bro; Good stuff!
So are you saying there are saved people not written in the book of life? If they are not allowed to reign with Christ where do they go then? If you are saved go to heaven but not reign with Christ how is that possible?
