DOES GOD CHOOSE, OR DOES MAN CHOOSE?
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It’s true that men love darkness but nevertheless every man knows that there Is a GOD and must be obedient to faith meaning choose GOD.
Have any if you ever created something and let your creation decide for itself retroactively the purpose you had for creating it?
Like just tossed random ingredients into an oven for a random amount of time at a random temperature, while you watched to find out what in the world you were accidentally making?
Like just tossed random ingredients into an oven for a random amount of time at a random temperature, while you watched to find out what in the world you were accidentally making?
E
eternally-gratefull
Guest
Not sure how this negates free will, and mans ability to chose to follow God or reject him, if that was the purpose you had in mind.
Unless they have artificial intelligence implanted within them, the creations of human beings cannot decide anything for themselves. They are what they are.
Now when God created mankind, He chose to create them in His image and likeness, which means that human beings were created with free will. At the same time there would be good outcomes for good choices and evil outcomes for evil choices. So Adam and Eve made evil choices and paid for it, and so does all of humanity. Today God commands all men everywhere to repent, but does not compel them to do so. If they make the wrong choice, they pay for it in eternity. So rather than create robots, God created the Law of Consequences (the Law of Cause and Effect).
not to negate free will - but i was thinking through the implications if what we call 'free will' is the complete autonomy it's sometimes described as. at some point that agency we describe i think necessarily challenges the omniscience and omnipotence of God, so the question seems natural to me, whether He knew what He was doing when He created me, or if i am able to 'surprise' Him. am i 'purposed' by a God whose purposes are impossible to thwart, or am i 'experimental' ?
there's all kinds of absurdity here. i do mean to draw attention to it - not necessarily to destroy the idea of human agency, but to refine it, because if we don't approach this subject in a way willing to look at the implications to an absurd degree, i don't think we're going to understand it in any meaningful way. if we don't maintain reverence for Him, we're going to diverge from the truth.
why do you say creating us in His image necessarily gives us 'free will' ?
because it's an attribute of Him? that's cause and effect?
wouldn't that reasoning apply to any attribute of Him, then? why aren't we omnipotent? why aren't we omniscient? why aren't we perfectly good? holy? just? wise? why 'free will' and not some other attribute?
you said yourself that our creations aren't autonomous - why don't we create completely free agents, by necessity, if He does so and being made in His image automatically makes us completely free agents? why doesn't being made in His likeness make us automatically creators of things with complete autonomy? why no transitive property?
i think you made an arbitrary affirmation. a non-sequitur.
I prefer the term self will over free will. Clearly man is self willed, and the aim is to become aligned with God's will. Jesus prayed against His own self will, that the will of the Father be done over His own human will 
am i created with a purpose or not?
if i am created according to His purpose can i 'defeat' His purpose? can i by my autonomy cause Him to fail? to prevent Him from completing His own will for me. His free will trumps mine, right?
or am i essentially individually purposeless, one of uncountably many coin tosses, where only those that come up 'heads' are counted? when He made me, did He essentially go into the kitchen with a recipe in mind, or did He do what i was asking about a few posts earlier, toss a bunch of random things from the fridge & cabinets into the microwave, and only find out later whether i turned out edible or not?
does 'foreknowledge' mean He knew before the microwave timer dinged, because He's smart and good at probability math, and after He set the timer randomly He started doing the chemistry equations in His head, or does 'foreknowledge' mean He knew before He even went to the kitchen?
((not trying to be irreverent - trying to say things in a way we can understand and relate to))
if i am created according to His purpose can i 'defeat' His purpose? can i by my autonomy cause Him to fail? to prevent Him from completing His own will for me. His free will trumps mine, right?
or am i essentially individually purposeless, one of uncountably many coin tosses, where only those that come up 'heads' are counted? when He made me, did He essentially go into the kitchen with a recipe in mind, or did He do what i was asking about a few posts earlier, toss a bunch of random things from the fridge & cabinets into the microwave, and only find out later whether i turned out edible or not?
does 'foreknowledge' mean He knew before the microwave timer dinged, because He's smart and good at probability math, and after He set the timer randomly He started doing the chemistry equations in His head, or does 'foreknowledge' mean He knew before He even went to the kitchen?
((not trying to be irreverent - trying to say things in a way we can understand and relate to))
Jesus prayed against His own self will, that the will of the Father be done over His own human will
is that prayer perfect divine will and imperfect human will meeting with each other, or is it the perfect merciful lovingkindness of God and the perfect holy justice of God?
who exactly is speaking when He says "my will" ?
is that prayer perfect divine will and imperfect human will meeting with each other, or is it the perfect merciful lovingkindness of God and the perfect holy justice of God?
who exactly is speaking when He says "my will" ?
if it's two perfect, divine attributes of God in the statement "not my will but thine" -- rather than humanity and divinity -- then the Son that wills that the cup should pass is the perfect justice of God, because if He did not lay His life down for us the whole world would remain condemned, and the Father that wills the cup should be drunk is the perfect mercy of God, passing over iniquity.
Christ will come again in judgement - but the Son of Man came first to take up the cross, as He said, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father, which is that none of those given to Him should be lost. "given" it says, John 6:39. one doesn't give something that one doesn't have authority to give
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved... For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Romans 10: 9&13).. So it would appear that we choose Christ for salvation. But of course, it is not God's will that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9), so in that sense, God chose everyone who had ears to hear.
Who was sweating blood in the garden at the thought of what He was facing? Clearly when Jesus was praying for God's will to be done and NOT His own, He was speaking from His humanity.is that prayer perfect divine will and imperfect human will meeting with each other, or is it the perfect merciful lovingkindness of God and the perfect holy justice of God?
who exactly is speaking when He says "my will" ?
In the face of family , friends that we're concerned about and praying for, with God all things are possible. That being said Jesus chose all the apostles including Paul...Johnny come lately. They didn't choose him.
[h=1]Romans 2:4 (KJV)[/h][FONT="]4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?[/FONT]
[h=1]Romans 2:4 (KJV)[/h][FONT="]4 Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?[/FONT]
He prayed about more than the cup passing, though. He prayed for us. The fervency of His prayer doesn't necessarily mean human fear of pain and death.
Would praying for us cause Him to sweat blood?
Was He fighting His will to NOT pray for us?
That would not really make sense
Would praying for us cause Him to sweat blood?
Was He fighting His will to NOT pray for us?
That would not really make sense
That'd be silly
But He wept over Jerusalem. How passionate might He be about all those who are His, and what would befall us all?
i've faced death, and the heartbreaking aspect for me was thinking of how it would affect those who love me, you know?
Even knowing that in the end of things, we would be reunited.