Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

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Only in your attic are there any inconsistencies. Both groups get to act freely according to their nature. The condemned gladly play their roles that leads them to perdition, while the redeemed joyfully, thankfully and lovingly praise God for his gracious gifts which empowered them to choose to repent and believe according to the new life and nature given to them. No inconsistencies.

Yeah but he could give the new nature to everyone and save everyone which is what he wants but he doesn't because then he couldn't show the world how glorious he is by only saving some and showing the others to be the horrible people they are even though the ones he did save were also horrible people but got a new nature so they wouldn't be horrible anymore and be different from the ones that he didn't give a new nature too even though he could so they too could be the redeemed joyfully and thankfully and lovingly praising God for his gracious gifts that he didn't want to give them.

o_O:eek::unsure::confused:
 
In 1 Timothy 1 many types of sinners are mentioned, and 1 Timothy 2 picks up on this idea. That's why it begins with Therefore.
All doesn't mean what you claim.
He instructs Timothy to pray for all men, because God desires all types of sinners be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Did each and every person in the entire human race regard John the Baptist as a prophet (Mark11:32)? Did all humanity without exception wonder whether John was perhaps, the Christ (Luke 3:15)? Did every member of the human race, without the exception of even one, search for Christ (Mark1:37)? Clearly, the meaning of the word "all" (or "every", or even "world", etc.) does not always mean every member of the human race.
There are probably more, but I won't waste my time!

Please don't. Context determines the all. To suggest that God does not want all men as in every single person to know the truth and be saved is to say God desires men to be deceived and destroyed. For what sort of God are you advocating?

You want to worship that sort of god, go ahead, but not this little black duck.
 
I'm impressed, Bro! Good on you! You're a true Christian, sir!
ah dont worry bro,

I've decided I'm having to much of a head ache, trying to reason with people.

So I'm deciding to give up with the people in trying to reason with.

It's been really disturbing to be honest.

I think there starting to effect me as well now.

Anyhow take care mate.
 
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Please don't. Context determines the all. To suggest that God does not want all men as in every single person to know the truth and be saved is to say God desires men to be deceived and destroyed. For what sort of God are you advocating?

You want to worship that sort of god, go ahead, but not this little black duck.
To suggest that He wants/desires all to be saved but is unable to pull it off is even worse.
 
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She doesn't believe in prevenient grace or depravity or divine enlightenment.


"Divine enlightenment" comes after belief not before.

I do not believe in the Augustine version of depravity which is completely false.

The assertion that this places me in the Pelagian school of thought is just dumb because there is the actual correct biblical view which is neither Augustine of Pelagian.
 
The Calvinists are now forgetting all their mocking by calling others free-willers and audacious to think we could even choose for God. (even while God was administering his power of grace, needed to place us in such a position).
That's pretty much what we have been saying all along. It's called regeneration! It doesn't come from us, it is a gift, a fruit of the work that He is doing in us.
 
To suggest that He wants/desires all to be saved but is unable to pull it off is even worse.
With the elect thou wilt be elect: and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted. With the holy one thou wilt be holy: and with the valiant perfect.
 
That's pretty much what we have been saying all along. It's called regeneration!
It doesn't come from us, it is a gift, a fruit of the work that He is doing in us.
So many of them prefer to believe the opposite of what the Bible explicitly articulates...

The extent to which their self-exalting philosophically based notion causes
them to contradict and outright deny what Scripture says is quite telling.
 
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Life in its self was not a mistake, the mistake was life did not accept life from life, without the acceptance being provided, it would be impossible, but the acceptance was provided, and the life still did not accept, because God had decreed it should and it never. His life sold it's self to sin out of thinking it could live.

God gave you freedom of thought but his will and life.

And you have to ask how could life (the breath of life) from life not accept life from life.

Gods life lives in you sir and his life and his word lives in you.

Which was and had always been, before sin existed.

So we ask God to reveal his wisdom as to why His breath of life did not accept life from life in the garden. And he can reveal it through his life, in you and for you, and through his word.

The life knew the word sir before it rejected life, the life was his breath of life created in his image,

Your life knows the word now which was and always has been.

Every time you hear the word now, his life in you, knows it to be true, and will know it's the word from the beginning.

God breathed a living active word to Adam which his life knew in Adam, (the breath of life),

God is not a God that punishes for not knowing,

Your life which is his life, knows as it's spoken to you, as and when it's spoken, same as Adam.

Because you was also there at the beginning, my life is his and life and word, which now is speaking to his life in your life, from the begining sir.

There's no way to stop what has been sowed and willed and decreed.

If his word commands his children to bless m then we don't call that religion, we call that his word.

His faith his way his life giving word that saved you.

You're a fantasy man....
You make stuff up.
You wax poetic....

Keep it for the baby Christians.
You might impress a few of them.
 
That's pretty much what we have been saying all along. It's called regeneration! It doesn't come from us, it is a gift, a fruit of the work that He is doing in us.

That comes after belief and no initial saving faith in the Good News is not a gift according to scripture it is "through faith."

Not one person has made a good case using the original language, hermeneutics and context that saving initial faith is a gift.
 
That comes after belief and no initial saving faith in the Good News is not a gift according to scripture it is "through faith."

Not one person has made a good case using the original language, hermeneutics and context that saving initial faith is a gift.
Is faith not a good thing in your theology? All good things come from God.

1-Corinthians4-7b-John3-27-Romans9-15-16s.png

1 Corinthians 4 verse 7b; John 3 verse 27; Romans 9 verses 15-16 ~ What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did also receive it, why do you boast as not having received it? John replied, "A man can receive only that which is given him from heaven." "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then, it does not depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.
 
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You want to worship that sort of god, go ahead, but not this little black duck.

This doctrine hardens people because the doctrine itself is very harsh, with a god who only favors some for salvation, and then because

of the backlash they receive they harden themselves, it is a real challenge for the truth to penetrate their soul and to recognize it is

a very false system made up of a patchwork of proof texts out of context.

They do not care and/ or they are blind to it, they want to protect their status as uniquely created and chosen for salvation.

What comes to mind when you think of this type of teaching? :whistle::censored:
 
This doctrine hardens people because the doctrine itself is very harsh, with a god who only favors some for salvation, and then because

of the backlash they receive they harden themselves, it is a real challenge for the truth to penetrate their soul and to recognize it is

a very false system made up of a patchwork of proof texts out of context.

They do not care and/ or they are blind to it they want to protect their status as uniquely created and chosen for salvation.

What comes to mind when you think of this type of teaching? :whistle::censored:

Heishere and sawdust, what's going on here?
 
That's pretty much what we have been saying all along. It's called regeneration! It doesn't come from us, it is a gift, a fruit of the work that He is doing in us.

The gift comes from God, by making us free to choose (by grace).
And, the person being enabled by grace, choosing correctly.
For without God's enabling grace-power being supplied from God?
Nobody could believe.

For the source of our depravity (which is the flesh) must be made paralyzed (by grace) in its ability to dominate over a soul.
A soul who will then make his choice, having made free to do so by grace.

Otherwise? It's cruel to think God will condemn those who had no say in the matter.
Condemn them for what?
His failing to enable them to make their choice, which would be to reject?
Angels that fell had no fallen nature when they made their choice to reject.

It is not being thought through well enough by some here.

For God makes sense!
Some blame the contradictions on his sovereignty, and never deal with being logical.

Logos has the same root as the word, logic.
 
This doctrine hardens people because the doctrine itself is very harsh, with a god who only favors some for salvation, and then because of the backlash they receive they harden themselves, it is a real challenge for the truth to penetrate their soul and to recognize it is

a very false system made up of a patchwork of proof texts out of context.

They do not care and/ or they are blind to it, they want to protect their status as uniquely created and chosen for salvation.

(y) They learned to enjoy the trap that have fallen into via denial and rationalization.

What comes to mind when you think of this type of teaching? :whistle::censored:

................ "Elitism."

The belief that certain persons or members of certain groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their superiority, as in intelligence, social standing, or wealth.


.
 
"Divine enlightenment" comes after belief not before.

I do not believe in the Augustine version of depravity which is completely false.

The assertion that this places me in the Pelagian school of thought is just dumb because there is the actual correct biblical view which is neither Augustine of Pelagian.
I didn't place you in a category.
 
Yeah but he could give the new nature to everyone and save everyone which is what he wants but he doesn't because then he couldn't show the world how glorious he is by only saving some and showing the others to be the horrible people they are even though the ones he did save were also horrible people but got a new nature so they wouldn't be horrible anymore and be different from the ones that he didn't give a new nature too even though he could so they too could be the redeemed joyfully and thankfully and lovingly praising God for his gracious gifts that he didn't want to give them.

o_O:eek::unsure::confused:

If God can force some totally depraved to believe?
He should then save everyone...

Unless?
God likes tormenting.

They deny their own inconsistencies and throw out the smokescreen of God's sovereignty.
It is quitting, and refusing to keep marching to the destination God wants for them to have in Maturity in Christ.

......
 
According to your perception of salvation perhaps, but not according to the true salvation of the Bible which is not dependent upon man's intervention or action in any sense. It can't be because man is spiritually dead and as dead unable to respond:

[1Co 2:14 KJV] 14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

Some of the unsaved will definitely become saved; some of them definitely will not become saved, which equates to a "might" relative to all of the unsaved. So, an offer of salvation was not given contingent upon a person's actions. However, we know that the elect begin as unsaved but at some point, they must become saved, and we know that God gives only to those He saves spiritual life and with it a love of the truth and to no others. In the end, that will leave only those not elect and not saved as the ones who remain perished.

With Christian love, I would simply encourage you to read the whole chapter. Verse 14 makes much more sense when not taken in isolation. Personally, when discussing these verses here, I like to get a refresher in reading the chapter in the KJV at Biblehub.com. Here are some contextual points to consider:

#1. Paul says the deep things of God are revealed to us by the Spirit after we believe.

Paul explains this in the verses immediately before 1 Corinthians 2:14:

1 Corinthians 2:10–13
“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

Paul is talking about the deep things of God and
how believers understand them because they already “have received…the Spirit which is of God.”

This is after salvation, not before.

So when Paul says the natural man does not receive these things, he is not referring to the Gospel.
He is referring to the deep spiritual truths that only the indwelt believer can grasp.

The Gospel itself is the milk of the Word, and Paul expected the unsaved to respond to it.


#2. Even believers can be “carnal” and unable to receive deeper truths when they justify sin, which proves 2:14 is not teaching Calvinistic inability.

1 Corinthians 3:1–3
Paul tells believers that they are “yet carnal” and cannot receive the deeper things of the Spirit.

And the reason Paul calls them carnal is clearly stated. They were justifying the sins of envying and strife, as 1 Corinthians 3:3 says, “For ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying, and strife… are ye not carnal.” These sins placed them in danger of judgment. Paul explains in the same chapter that believers who justify such sins are like perishable materials such as hay and stubble that will be burned up, while he himself would be saved through the fire. They were defiling their temple by justifying various sins and were warned that “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.”

Paul writes, “I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat.”

This proves:
The inability in 2:14 is not a unique condition of the unregenerate. Even believers can resist spiritual truth when they walk carnally.

Therefore 2:14 cannot be describing an absolute inability to believe the Gospel.

#3. The Bible clearly teaches that the unsaved can understand the Gospel when God brings conviction and light.

John 1:9
“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

John 16:8
The Spirit reproves “the world” of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

If the natural man had no ability under the Spirit’s conviction, this reproof would be pointless.

#4. The unsaved can receive the Word before salvation, because this is how faith comes.

Romans 10:17
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Hearing comes before saving faith.
If the natural man could not receive truth in any sense, Romans 10:17 would be impossible.

Faith in the word is how we have ACCESS to God's grace.

Romans 5:2 says,
"By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

Calvinism teaches that grace comes first in Election and then regeneration (new birth) and then faith.

1 Peter 1:23 says,

“Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.”

You are born again by believing God's word by faith, which is the Bible. Keep reading into chapter 2 and it says that we are to desire the sincere milk of the Word (See: 1 Peter 2:1-2 KJV).

#5. The Bible shows natural people responding to God’s truth before being regenerated.

Acts 2:37
They heard the Word, were pricked in their heart, and asked what to do.
This was before regeneration.

In Acts 17, the Bereans examined the Scriptures daily before believing.
Therefore many believed.

Acts 17:10-12
"And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few."

#6. 1 Corinthians 2:14 is about rejecting spiritual wisdom, not inability to believe the Gospel.

Paul is contrasting:

Spiritual wisdom ("Wisdom of God" - KJV)​
vs​
Carnal thinking ("Wisdom of Men" or the "Wisdom of the world" - KJV)​

Which applies to both unbelievers and believers.

Since Paul applies the same inability to believers in 3:1–3, the inability is clearly a moral, voluntary refusal, not divine withholding of ability.

#7. Scripture directly contradicts Calvinistic inability by describing the unsaved resisting the Spirit.

Acts 7:51
“Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.”

If the natural man cannot respond, he cannot resist.

#8. God commands all men to repent, which assumes ability under God’s gracious drawing.

Acts 17:30
“God commandeth all men every where to repent.”

God does not command what is impossible for man under His gracious influence.




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