Can We Really Exercise Free Will?

[tourist]

NO!!

God doesn't elect but rather appoint.

 

[sawdust]

Actually, if we could shed the baggage of what's meant by @Rufus and begin looking at this rhetoric with a little effort applied to semantics, logic, other Scripture, and some mutual understanding and grace to work, I could work with it.

"By you're [your] freewill choice [to believe God] you are in Christ Jesus"

• 1Cor1:30 clearly identifies God as the origin, the source, the cause for believers being in Christ Jesus. No matter how much poor argumentation is thrown against us, I'm comfortable some of us fully understand and believe this foundational truth - from God we are in Christ Jesus.
• And from God is required that we choose to believe Him to be entered into Christ Jesus by Him. So, in this sense of God requiring that we choose to believe Him, it could be said that we do enter into Christ in part by choice as is God's will and design and actually, His command and requirement.
• Following @Rufus method of FTFY, I've changed His rhetorical statement to reflect God's requirement to believe which I believe we do make the choice to do just as He requires that we do. I just wouldn't change 1Cor1:30 and would find other Scripture to back this up which I'm not going to do now.

I don't know how many times the scriptures command us "to believe" before it gets through there is something we must do which, in and of itself, does not cause our salvation.

Personally I think the problem begins in the understanding that human nature is born wicked which, it is not. Human nature is to be found in the soul which is created in the image and likeness of God. But that is another story for another thread.

Appreciate your posts.

 

[studier]

God doesn't elect but rather appoint.

For reason (click here), I'd have to disagree with you assuming it's a statement you're making.

Elect and choose overlap.

 

[Magenta]

Romans 8 verse 29-30; Ephesians 1 verse 5 ~ Those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will.

 

[studier]

I don't know how many times the scriptures command us "to believe" before it gets through there is something we must do which, in and of itself, does not cause our salvation.

Personally I think the problem begins in the understanding that human nature is born wicked which, it is not. Human nature is to be found in the soul which is created in the image and likeness of God. But that is another story for another thread.

Appreciate your posts.

Agree.
Wise to withhold for another thread.
Yours also.
Thanks!

 

[tourist]

For reason (click here), I'd disagree with you assuming it's a statement you're making.

Elect and choose overlap.

Do you believe that all the evil leaders past and present were put there by chance or random acts of violence? Is not God in control of all things? With chance, there can be no prophesy. Impossible.

 

[Cameron143]

Don't misrepresent what I said. You do ask a lot of questions but rarely answer mine. To get the previous answer I had to press and ask twice.

What is all of God though? If God is not choosing us to believe, who is doing the choosing to believe?

My sincerest apology for not responding to your question or questions.

I believe salvation is all of God. Read Ephesians 1. The One doing everything is God.

I don't really understand choosing to believe. I've never chosen to believe. I either believed something or I didn't. Faith comes by the word of God. When I got saved, I heard the word of God and believed. When I heard the gospel and didn't get saved, I didn't believe. Faith didn't come by the word of God those times. When I did believe, the Spirit of God employed the word of God and birthed faith in me. Thus, I believed.

 

[studier]

Do you believe that all the evil leaders past and present were put there by chance or random acts of violence? Is not God in control of all things? With chance, there can be no prophesy. Impossible.

I believe what the Scriptures I pointed you to say about who and what YHWH chooses.

There's another word used in the Text better suited to "appoint".

 

[tourist]

I believe what the Scriptures I pointed you to say about who and what YHWH chooses.

There's another word used in the Text better suited to "appoint".

OK. Carry on.

 

[Jackson129]

Thank you for responding. Another problem I see is people claiming they agree with the Scriptures I post
but not my interpretation of said Scriptures. Well, guess what? I way more often than not simply let the
Scriptures speak for themselves. Then I get people all over me for the Scriptures I post and they
deny, flat out deny, what they say but then claim they agree. The lies that fly around here are out of this world.

But yet when we say "for God so loved the world He gave his only begotten son ,that who so ever believes on him shall no perish but have everlasting life" suddenly the word world has 17 differnt meanings in Greek. Verse speaks for its self IMO. He died for us ALL.

 

[GWH]

This member has written over 65,000 posts over a period of over 10 years. Extensive, consistent, post history to draw your own conclusions.

From what I have seen and experienced, Mag is a good artist but reluctant to engage in a systematic discussion of Scripture,
prone to projection and very unforgiving of my apologies for offending her.

 

[Magenta]

Acts 13:47-48 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and
glorified the word of the Lord, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

 

[Magenta]

But yet when we say "for God so loved the world He gave his only begotten son ,that who so ever believes on him shall no perish but have everlasting life" suddenly the word world has 17 differnt meanings in Greek. Verse speaks for its self IMO. He died for us ALL.

Does that mean all will believe or that all will be saved whether they believe or not?

Because it seems to me that the Bible is pretty clear that not all will be saved.

Some will not be spared the second death specifically because they do not believe.

 

[Magenta]

From Ephesians 1 According to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, God has made known to us the mystery of His will, which He purposed in Christ before the foundation of the world. In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him Who works out everything by the counsel of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, would be for the praise of His glory.

 

[Jackson129]

Acts 13:47-48 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles,
to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ” When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and
glorified the word of the Lord, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

Appointed for eternal life IMO means God knew they would always believe before they were ever created. Because He knows everyone and everything. Those who do believe didnt have a gun to thier head when they finially made the decision. Man's responsibility when hearing the word are part of the equation.

 

[Jackson129]

Does that mean all will believe or that all will be saved whether they believe or not?

Because it seems to me that the Bible is pretty clear that not all will be saved.

Ugggg it says all who believe will be saved. Obviously not everyone is going to believe.

 

[Magenta]

Appointed for eternal life IMO means God knew they would always believe before they were ever created. Because He knows everyone and everything. Those who do believe didnt have a gun to thier head when they finially made the decision. Man's responsibility when hearing the word are part of the equation.

Another verse says God did not choose because of anything we had done. Foreknowledge is mentioned somewhere also but it does not say knowledge in terms of Him knowing what we would choose to believe, if that is what you are saying. In fact we are told that people do not choose for themselves, and that the unsaved do not seek after God, that God must draw them, it is His lovingkindness which works repentance in us, and that those given to Jesus by God WILL come. There is nothing about choosing there. Just the given fact that those given will come. My own process was long and drawn out. I did not want to believe. I did not want to be a Christian. I was distressed when it seemed that was the direction I was going. And yet, I continued to go to church, I met others along the way who were Christians whom I admired, I got involved in an Alpha Course (are you familiar with it?) because of some of those people, and during that course I DISCOVERED that I no longer needed any more convincing of the Truth of God's revealed written Word. Some people make choosing to believe sound like they are in a cafeteria lineup picking their selections.

Foreknowledge could be in terms of how Jesus knows some but not others.

 

[Magenta]

Ugggg it says all who believe will be saved. Obviously not everyone is going to believe.

So what was your point???

 

[Magenta]

Titus 3 verses 4-5 ~ When the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

 

[Magenta]

2 Timothy 1 verse 9 He has saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but by His own purpose and by the grace He granted us in Christ Jesus before time began.