Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

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So Grace causes one to believe. It's God's effectual power like when Grace made Paul into a believing apostle Eph 3:7

7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power

Saul was made a servant of Christ, by grace and power and it is the same for every believer, though all aren't made apostles, but the principal is same with might grace
 
Your so called plan of salvation has no conditions remember... "god" creates those he had planned to save based on ???? :unsure: .... and everyone else is shut out.

I don't have any "plan of salvation" but God does in his New Covenant Promises. Why don't you point us to all the bilateral conditions in that covenant? :rolleyes:
 
Right. Zero conditions apply to the pre-birth sovereign lottery. Obviously.

All of this absurd (and toxic) Calvinist rhetoric is therefore irrelevant and useless.

Evidently the reason for their protracted shrieking is the satisfaction that comes with gleeful gate slamming, damning and condemning those outside of their cloistered gnostic cult.

What are the conditions in the New Covenant that would apply?
 
You go off into unrelated things.
Things that take us off topic.
Then you demand that I accept what you said is true.

You are totally unrelated to what you responded to.
Which helps you with your desire to change the subject.

You are a thought-obstructionist.

You hate seeing righteousness out pacing you.
Don't bother wasting your breath.
I just put the worst offenders on iggy again. You know who they are.
 
The people who were told they had a heart of stone were the people in exile which means they did not learn and hardened their hearts and suffered the ultimate discipline.

I don't boast. Believing is God's design, it is how we live. Either we live by faith in God's word or we live by faith in ignorance or willful rejection of God's word. Our thoughts, words and actions are all based on what we believe. It does not require some "magic wand waving" to get us to believe whatever we want. It does however require grace and truth if we are to believe the word of God.

Yes it is His work within that changes us. As we learn the word, who He is, what He has done and learn to delight ourselves in Him, He gives to us His perspective and desires. It takes time to become like Christ. It is not some automatic pre-programmed robot style change as in "slip in a disc" with a new program written on it.

Your accusations are your way of thinking because you start from a different place. You assume everyone is born with a heart of stone, I don't. I know we are born neutral. Our hearts are neither stone nor flesh. They become stone in the same manner they become flesh, over time. Stone, by rejecting the grace and truth that the Lord meets us with and flesh by believing the word and allowing His grace to work, initially, on us and then once we are ready to hear and believe the Gospel, within us.

So, we come into this world as AMORAL beings NOT made in the image of God, and then at some point in time and space, we're transformed into moral creatures and magically become God's image-bearers? Not even Adam came into this world in a neutral state, since God considered him "very good" before his sin. And goodness is a moral attribute that flows from Agape Love! :rolleyes:You Shirely have chapter and verse for your theory, right?

But your theory is a great example of how you FWers love to diminish sin and exalt man.
 
I suspect the Lord has better things to do with His time than leading the mules where they will not go. ;)

Psalm 32:9
Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, Else they will not come near you.

;):ROFL:

But why do they desire the contrary way?

Why do they prefer it?
 
Okay then. Daniel spoke of Christ Dan 9:24-25

24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

So to impose Rom 1:18ff and natural creation revealed Christ is desperate just because those men seen a star. Christ must be supernaturally revealed as Jesus told Peter Matt 16:15-17

15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

I wonder why Jesus didn't praise Peter's astute observation powers of the moon, sun and stars and whatever else in creation.
 
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The people who were told they had a heart of stone were the people in exile which means they did not learn and hardened their hearts and suffered the ultimate discipline.

I don't boast. Believing is God's design, it is how we live. Either we live by faith in God's word or we live by faith in ignorance or willful rejection of God's word. Our thoughts, words and actions are all based on what we believe. It does not require some "magic wand waving" to get us to believe whatever we want. It does however require grace and truth if we are to believe the word of God.

Yes it is His work within that changes us. As we learn the word, who He is, what He has done and learn to delight ourselves in Him, He gives to us His perspective and desires. It takes time to become like Christ. It is not some automatic pre-programmed robot style change as in "slip in a disc" with a new program written on it.

Your accusations are your way of thinking because you start from a different place. You assume everyone is born with a heart of stone, I don't. I know we are born neutral. Our hearts are neither stone nor flesh. They become stone in the same manner they become flesh, over time. Stone, by rejecting the grace and truth that the Lord meets us with and flesh by believing the word and allowing His grace to work, initially, on us and then once we are ready to hear and believe the Gospel, within us.

So, the pagan Babylonians, and the surrounding pagan nations, were morally/spiritually superior to the Jewish exiles because their hearts were in appreciably better condition? The pagan world didn't drink up evil like water!?
 
...


In not sure you know whether your coming or going here ?

First you say there is no start to regeneration then you say there is, your really not making much sense, I suspect you just like to argue to please your other argumentative friends, and at same time just disregard simple basic understanding in the process, more fool you m, 🤐

There is no starting to regeneration as if it happens in phases.
You become instantly born again.
 
But why do they desire the contrary way?

Why do they prefer it?
because a little monkey came along and gave them all to many bananas and they all went cuckoo,

I believe it was that notorious hairy silly monkey, kept on living for free will and ended up eating to many bananas, he poisened himself and all the other little monkey with a potassium toxic overdose,

Afterwards the little monkey went backwards sadly 🤐
 
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Finding a good teacher would not last very long.
He has found the teachers he likes.

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.
Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great
number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 Tim 4:3​
.

Since you FWers pride yourself on the "good teacher(s)" you have found, I would would not want anything to do with them given the stupid contents of most of your posts.