PaulThomson said:
You haven't given an example. You have merely restated your claim that a lot of people has claimed that "
God would be violating the sanctity and integrity of a person's free moral agency if He ever sovereignly moved against that moral agency."
Who has even claimed that there is such a thing as "the sanctity and integrity of a persons free moral agency. Free will does not mean one's free moral agency. Free will means the freedom to keep or change one's own desires. One can keep one'sown desires against doing something while being forced to do it.
But God unilaterally changing our desires ,so that we cannot keep our own desires against doing something even though we want to keep them, is a violation of free will. Free will is not about moral agency, i.e. the ability freely to
do moral or immoral acts.
Please try to challenge the definitions others use for free will, not straw man definitions.
I have addressed "free will" often. Some think the will of man is a "neutral" faculty. That man comes into the world not swayed by the other faculties. Some think the will of man is autonomous. That we have this God-given right of self-rule. That we have some kind of right to act independently of other.
Also, you have the will and desires backwards. You have the will wagging the desires, when in fact, it's the other way around. Our minds, passions and consciences constitute our desires which consist of our wants, cravings, wishes, covetings, intentions etc.. This is why scripture speaks so often to man's desires -- far more often than it does to man's will. The NC promise is that God would indeed unilaterally give his people a new heart which is the seat of all man's faculties. The promise includes a lot more than giving just a new will
Also, when God gives a person a new heart, it's for the reason that the old heart that's in natural man is desperately wicked and deceitful above all else! Don't you know that there is NOTHING sound in man? That the whole head is injured, the whole heart is afflicted? That from the sole of man's feet to the top of his head, there is no soundness in him? Don't you know the thoughts and intentions of man are evil continuously? That's there's nothing good in the natural man's flesh? So, how is God violating someone's corrupt will (and heart!) by graciously and mercifully setting him FREE FROM it with a new heart that will have new desires, new wants, new intentions, new thoughts, etc.. When God gives a person a new heart, he is in essence setting a prisoner of his old heart FREE from all its corrupt desires. Yet, in your world God would be doing an evil thing by setting the prisoners free!? Didn't Jesus say, "If the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed" (Jn 8:36)!? What in the world do you think he meant -- setting people free from what: From their virtuous, pious, humble, God-fearing lifestyles?
Often, the same words translated as desire and want are thelO and thelEma., the words used for will as verb and noun respectively. Wisdom/folly, discrimination/ignorance and judgment/instinct prioritise and rein in the competing desires to yield to the one the person decides is the most important desire., which is then pursued.
The heart is the invisible part of a person, their soul and spirit. Giving a new, clean, perfect spirit that is able to commune boldly, guilt-free and shame-free with God is giving a new heart, even if the mind is only changed a little at this stage. Some data about God and ourselves is changed, but most of our operating system continues to need radical upgrading/transformation/renewal.
The unbelieving man is more than his flesh. He is also mind and spirit. The man, whether believer or unbeliever, who sets his mind on what his flesh can experience, is fleshly/carnal/soulish/natural. The man, whether believer or unbeliever, who sets his mind on what his spirit can experience, is spiritual. The one who sets his mind on the things of the flesh cannot please God and is at enmity with God. The one who sets his mind on the things of the flesh can please God, but still might not please God, if the spiritual things he sets his mind are not godly. Scripture does not say that the unbelieving spiritual man cannot receive any teaching from God. It is only because you have forced your Calvinist assumptions into scripture that you believe the unbeliever who is setting his mind on spiritual things cannot receive teaching from God.
God does not show favouritism. Ig God were to unilaterally change the desires of some so that the can be spared hell, but leave others’ desires unchanged so that they must surely be condemned to hell, He would be showing favouritism, and be breaking His own word and be condemned as a sinner. I don’t believe He shows partiality.