Can We Really Exercise Free Will?
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People think having, making, and being responsible for making choices equates to free will, but that is not at the heart of the discussion, nor does the ability to make choices even equate to the will being free. The question essentially boils down to whether or not the natural man is free to choose to love, believe in, submit to, and follow God before God makes that person alive in Christ and circumcises their heart, because, according to Scripture, nothing good comes from the natural man whose heart is wicked... it is with the heart one believes, and darkness hates the light and cannot comprehend it, because the natural man is hostile in his mind toward God, a slave to sin, captive to the will of the devil, a lover of darkness etc. suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. For freedom Christ has set us free. Look up Pelagianism.
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From: John 8:34; 2 Peter 2:19a; Galatians 4:8; Romans 7:14; Ephesians 2:3b; Romans 6:6 ~ “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” They are slaves of corruption. When you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. You were of the flesh, sold under sin. We were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Our old self was crucified so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Romans 8:7a, Galatians 5:17, John 1:5, John 14:17 ~ The mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. The flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. Darkness does not comprehend the Light. The world cannot receive the Spirit of Truth, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.
The debate concerning free will is basically an argument about Limited Atonement!
Do all men who receive atonement – receive it because they put their trust in Christ by themselves, or were they drawn to Christ by God alone? Who sets the plans for what happens in this world? Who puts all things in motion?
In your post you said: For example, back when I first met my lovely wife I just stopped dead in my tracks! I knew that I knew she was THE one for me. Of my own free will, I pursued her. I prayed a LOT over her and I chose of my own free will to make her my bride. I have the Lord Jesus to thank for creating His lovely daughter and I love her dearly. So how is it in ALL of that did I not have free will?
I have to ask, could you have made that choice if God had not created her to begin with?
Do all men who receive atonement – receive it because they put their trust in Christ by themselves, or were they drawn to Christ by God alone? Who sets the plans for what happens in this world? Who puts all things in motion?
In your post you said: For example, back when I first met my lovely wife I just stopped dead in my tracks! I knew that I knew she was THE one for me. Of my own free will, I pursued her. I prayed a LOT over her and I chose of my own free will to make her my bride. I have the Lord Jesus to thank for creating His lovely daughter and I love her dearly. So how is it in ALL of that did I not have free will?
I have to ask, could you have made that choice if God had not created her to begin with?
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He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favor from the LORD. Proverbs 18:22
My pastor gave a Bible lesson, teaching us what the Hebrew reveals about Proverbs 18:22.
He explained, according to what they read in many translations, that many men think they have found a good thing by simply finding a wife… While end up unhappily married. Why?
He leveled with us, telling us how too many were jumping to conclusions when deciding to marry ..
He took the time to teach us, from the Hebrew, what many translators are failing to realize.
This pastor was a full-time dedicated Hebrew scholar. Not someone who simply used word studies and dictionaries.
He carefully broke down the Hebrew for us.
And, here is what he showed us..
Whosoever finds a good wife . . .receives grace from Jehovah/God.
God's grace caused you to find a good wife. Not simply, a wife is a good thing.
enuf said... grace and peace.
free will does NOT = Choice for the 7 x 70th time.
But again refuse you acknowledge that we are talking about mans will being enslaved to sin, or to obedience leading to righteousness. When you say freewill and I say freewill we are talking about two different things. I get what you are talking about and can agree 1000% that we have the gift of choice and can choose. It's you that refuses to understand what we mean when we say men have no "free" will. So the fact you purposefully refuse to understand is an indictment on you, not us. It's not that hard to understand when your purpose is coming together and uniting the body, but when it's your mission and purpose to divide and condemn, when you refuse to listen and understand. As the whole CDSC do constantly. It's sad and disgraceful.
But again refuse you acknowledge that we are talking about mans will being enslaved to sin, or to obedience leading to righteousness. When you say freewill and I say freewill we are talking about two different things. I get what you are talking about and can agree 1000% that we have the gift of choice and can choose. It's you that refuses to understand what we mean when we say men have no "free" will. So the fact you purposefully refuse to understand is an indictment on you, not us. It's not that hard to understand when your purpose is coming together and uniting the body, but when it's your mission and purpose to divide and condemn, when you refuse to listen and understand. As the whole CDSC do constantly. It's sad and disgraceful.
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God, knowing how each one of us will think, and how would choose for something, has pre-determined who is to be involved for a given situation that God will bring about to have on display before the eyes of angels.
Keep in mind. For the angels, our lives are often for them like watching a movie. Movie stories written and created by how people are being sovereignly placed before angels to watch and study. In many ways, for them, it is like watching a presentation to learn about themselves. Learn by how God (being the casting director) presents a story for them with His choice of human actors. He chooses each actor according to God's full knowledge of how he will choose to think and behave when placed into situations that God sovereignly predetermined to take place.
For example...
The sufferings of Job.
What happened to Job was intensely watched by both fallen and the elect angels.
With great interest, angels were watching Job's ordeal, which developed for them into an intense ongoing drama.
What happened to Job was something intense and deeply personal to the angels. Because, they had come out of their own great personal conflicts and sufferings that involved God's dealing with the angels during the era of the rebellion of Satan.
So, because God knows how we would each choose freely? God utilizes that knowledge to create scripts for scenes to present before angels to learn from. And, to even to be entertained by what is presented!
That is why it says...
In the same way, I tell you,
there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10
The angels cheer because of how God has sovereignly placed people into situations, and utilizes how He knows each free will would interact within given situations, situations that God in eternity past set the stage for!
God has predetermined, using the free will of man, the entire show of History!
In Christ.... grace and peace
Keep in mind. For the angels, our lives are often for them like watching a movie. Movie stories written and created by how people are being sovereignly placed before angels to watch and study. In many ways, for them, it is like watching a presentation to learn about themselves. Learn by how God (being the casting director) presents a story for them with His choice of human actors. He chooses each actor according to God's full knowledge of how he will choose to think and behave when placed into situations that God sovereignly predetermined to take place.
For example...
The sufferings of Job.
What happened to Job was intensely watched by both fallen and the elect angels.
With great interest, angels were watching Job's ordeal, which developed for them into an intense ongoing drama.
What happened to Job was something intense and deeply personal to the angels. Because, they had come out of their own great personal conflicts and sufferings that involved God's dealing with the angels during the era of the rebellion of Satan.
So, because God knows how we would each choose freely? God utilizes that knowledge to create scripts for scenes to present before angels to learn from. And, to even to be entertained by what is presented!
That is why it says...
In the same way, I tell you,
there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.”
Luke 15:10
The angels cheer because of how God has sovereignly placed people into situations, and utilizes how He knows each free will would interact within given situations, situations that God in eternity past set the stage for!
God has predetermined, using the free will of man, the entire show of History!
In Christ.... grace and peace
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I was not speaking of how God chooses those whom He saves.
I was speaking about what He chooses them to be doing, knowing they will be saved.
Can you see the big difference?
I was speaking about what He chooses them to be doing, knowing they will be saved.
"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:10
Can you see the big difference?
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Well laying aside the fiction about the angels, you're slowly turning to accept destiny, but you are still trying to hold on to the error of freewill and because you're trying to ride two horses at the same time when they are going in opposite directions you'll get stretched between them until something has to snap one way or the other.
I like when they ask for proof, get shown the proof, and then immediately they have to state that they disbelieve the proof and yet even in their unbelief they have to tacitly acknowledge the ultimate reality since that is after all what actually happened.
Behold the fruits of the error of freewill where they start to claim that God is limited and that they themselves have unlimited freedom.
I like when they ask for proof, get shown the proof, and then immediately they have to state that they disbelieve the proof and yet even in their unbelief they have to tacitly acknowledge the ultimate reality since that is after all what actually happened.
Behold the fruits of the error of freewill where they start to claim that God is limited and that they themselves have unlimited freedom.
*sigh* This discussion generates rather more heat than light............ God is sovereign and can do what He pleases. Yet He cannot lie. If He did, He would not be God. God gave Adam and Eve free will. They abused that freedom and chose to disobey God. And so they became sinners. All their descendants are sons of disobedience.
Man cannot live righteously. Does that mean that he has not free will? Not at all. But man cannot choose to live righteously, otherwise he would not be a sinner. God chooses and decides according to His nature as God. Man chooses and decides according to his nature as a sinner. God holds everyone responsible for their deeds. Everyone is the sum total of their decisions. If that is not free will, I don't know what is.
Man cannot live righteously. Does that mean that he has not free will? Not at all. But man cannot choose to live righteously, otherwise he would not be a sinner. God chooses and decides according to His nature as God. Man chooses and decides according to his nature as a sinner. God holds everyone responsible for their deeds. Everyone is the sum total of their decisions. If that is not free will, I don't know what is.
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I have said the opposite, that we are just as limited to our nature/character as God is for we are created in His image and likeness therefore, there is a family resemblance.
What you showed me was Adam and Eve trying to lie their way out of their own responsibility for their error by blaming others. And you think their lies are truth? Such thinking is a woeful shame.
Again.
John 8:32
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Except our will of course because that can never be free.
What you showed me was Adam and Eve trying to lie their way out of their own responsibility for their error by blaming others. And you think their lies are truth? Such thinking is a woeful shame.
Again.
John 8:32
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Except our will of course because that can never be free.
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Funny enough you lay out almost perfectly why there is not freewill. The presence of outer influence means no freewill. The sum of consequences means no freewill. God holding anyone accountable means they don't have freewill. It does however mean there is one will, which is God's will, thank God therefore for both his mercy and his swift execution of justice, God's will be done forever and ever!
Here they go trying to claim that their sins put them on the same level as God. That's like exactly how the serpent beguiled the woman.
God asked man "did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" Man says "the woman gave it to me, and I did eat."
Is this a lie or the truth?
God then asked woman "why did you do this?" Woman says "the serpent beguiled me and I did eat."
Is this a lie or the truth?
God curses the serpent saying "because you did this..."
So it is that man and woman told God the truth and the narrative of the verses immediately before proves it but that the serpent he is the one that did lie and is the father of lies. He told her she has freewill to eat any of the trees, he told her she won't die, and he told her that by sinning she would become like God. None of what the serpent said came to pass because it was all a lie.
2 Peter 2:19
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
I have said the opposite, that we are just as limited to our nature/character as God is for we are created in His image and likeness therefore, there is a family resemblance.
What you showed me was Adam and Eve trying to lie their way out of their own responsibility for their error by blaming others. And you think their lies are truth? Such thinking is a woeful shame.
Again.
John 8:32
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Except our will of course because that can never be free.
What you showed me was Adam and Eve trying to lie their way out of their own responsibility for their error by blaming others. And you think their lies are truth? Such thinking is a woeful shame.
Again.
John 8:32
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Except our will of course because that can never be free.
God asked man "did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" Man says "the woman gave it to me, and I did eat."
Is this a lie or the truth?
God then asked woman "why did you do this?" Woman says "the serpent beguiled me and I did eat."
Is this a lie or the truth?
God curses the serpent saying "because you did this..."
So it is that man and woman told God the truth and the narrative of the verses immediately before proves it but that the serpent he is the one that did lie and is the father of lies. He told her she has freewill to eat any of the trees, he told her she won't die, and he told her that by sinning she would become like God. None of what the serpent said came to pass because it was all a lie.
2 Peter 2:19
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.