I wrote a Letter to my Free Will

Free will to choose Jesus, Charlie.

your asking me to understand something I can't make sense out of.

Your telling me you have free will on the bases you have free choice.

So tell me how free will equals free choice

Since your the explaining you have free will and I don't know what it is, then it's on you to explain what it is

According to the Scripture below, hopefully it doesn't apply to any of us here! If it did, it would be a massive violation of a person's free will to think, for cryin' out loud!

Second Corinthians 4:4 . . . N.L.T. – “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.”

So you do identify with Paul in Romans 7, when he stated that he was out of control and needed a Savior? I used to when I believe I was self-centered and thought all my decisions were from myself. So, I'm just curious . . .

Hey, you're obviously smarter than me on this. I asked you to tell me what free will is if it isn't free choice. I mean, throw the dog a bone! haha

lol I don't know but everywhere I go on YouTube on discussions about free will. It just goes into all sorts of crazy ideas

Heres one is free will an illusion

We’re not on the same page, Charlie.

then there this one

Determinism verses free will

I mean talk about a head wreck

According to some sects within Christendom, that child abuse was decreed by God from eternity past to happen for His glory.

That was pretty interesting.

Right.

Well . . . hmmm. Not sure what's about to leap from my fingers next. Jordan Peterson. I like him. My heart has sympathy for him, but two things leave him confused. 1) It seems easy to judge in body language that he is fundamentally an unhappy person. 2) His discourse on free will couldn't possibly be accurate, for though he has been leaning toward Christianity these last several years, he is clueless about the doctrine of Spiritual Circumcision. It is impossible, impossible to understand free will if a person does not have a functional understanding of the Circumcision of Christ.

ok well the million dollar question is what is free will

But to be honest I don't think anyone can answer truthfully

The only answer you can possibly give me is a guess.

I've watched hundreds of debates on the subject. The only place it leads to is total confusion. And some emotional person trying to work out his own mind and the meaning of life.

So far in life I haven't heard anything from anyone,.there is such a clear understanding of free will

I hope that we are all feeling Enabled by the Lord today, for without this Enabling, we cannot stand firm. No choice nor amount of money can do what this Holy Enabling does . . . it creates Transformation so that a Christian can finally think and behave as God would have them.

2 Corinthians 1:21-22 NLT - "It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us."

Only if it means after death, and it doesn't.

THIS is what I'm talking about. Instead of all this whacky bickering and arguing, we could start having THIS kind of dialog! It is in this manner that heads can come together and actually accomplish something. Wow, what a breath of fresh air!

The definition of free will: To me, it doesn't really matter. I'm happy to take any official definition and go with the flow. Here's the one I have in my dictionary:
"Free Will is the ability to make choices without any prior prejudice, inclination, or disposition. For the will to be free it must act from a posture of neutrality, with absolutely no bias. It determines its own volitions; so as not to be dependent, in its determinations, on any cause without itself, nor determined by anything prior to its own acts. Indifference and therefore amorality belongs to Liberty in their notion of it, or that the mind, previous to the act of volition."

Based upon the definition above, free will is a virtual impossibility if we apply it (the definition) to each Chapter and Verse in the Bible.

Free will is simple to grasp from all sides, but only if a person is willing to study Circumcision of heart . . . but that could easily turn into a two-year study, which I always recommend.

surely the will that lives in all men whether saved or unsaved is the fathers will.

The freedom to make a choice without prejudice being associated to free will is a nice gesture, but isn't that Only Seeing God as liberal.

I have scoured the Bible for years in a timeline, chronological format for years, looking specifically for all things dealing with free will. Though there a couple of verses where God states that humans did things that He did not command, those kinds of passages are few and between. I might have found about 3 or 4 that really make a person wonder if total free will is an actual possibility. It's a tough one for me to figure out, which is why I started this thread.

yeah I kinda guessed you had your doubts.

From your opening post I sensed you where not totally convinced free will is an actual reality.

Disobeying God would be solely down to ignoring his will, but if you did Disobey him, his will would be still there afterwards whether saved or unsaved. Only the one who does the will of the father is free.

You would know not to sin because the will would be there telling you not to do it before you did it.

Or another way to look at is, the life you have is not your life it's his to give and his life to take away.

Only in Christ is a person free.

Who the son sets free is free in deed remember, but then what's free is Christ in you, your still held captive by Christ once your saved to prevent you falling.

As I believe Before the fall you was also free in spirit but the difference was you where not held captive and fell.

So if anything the most freedom man has ever had was before the fall.

The fall changed all that.

I like what you wrote.

When I see violations of human free will by God, it is in sooooo many stories like the one below. Look at what David says about the behavior of Shimei. Oh, and by the way, this story points to Christ and the abuse He took, all of which was a prearranged Plan by God. I'll throw that verse in too.

2 Samuel 16:5-13 NLT - "As King David came to Bahurim, a man came out of the village cursing them. It was Shimei son of Gera, from the same clan as Saul's family. 6 He threw stones at the king and the king's officers and all the mighty warriors who surrounded him. 7 "Get out of here, you murderer, you scoundrel!" he shouted at David. 8 "The LORD is paying you back for all the bloodshed in Saul's clan. You stole his throne, and now the LORD has given it to your son Absalom. At last you will taste some of your own medicine, for you are a murderer!" 9 "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?" Abishai son of Zeruiah demanded. "Let me go over and cut off his head!" 10 "No!" the king said. "Who asked your opinion, you sons of Zeruiah! If the LORD has told him to curse me, who are you to stop him?" 11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "My own son is trying to kill me. Doesn't this relative of Saul have even more reason to do so? Leave him alone and let him curse, for the LORD has told him to do it. 12 And perhaps the LORD will see that I am being wronged and will bless me because of these curses today." 13 So David and his men continued down the road, and Shimei kept pace with them on a nearby hillside, cursing as he went and throwing stones at David and tossing dust into the air."

Acts 2:22-23 NLT - "People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. 23 But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him."