justcoolforyou
Active Member
This goes against the god of the bible who said to the hebrews to choice life of death
Upvote
0
Free will/predestination
- Thread starter J0SHUA
- Start date
zippy2006
Dragonsworn
Here is your assumption: if I do something freely, then God could not have planned it or brought it about.
That is a false assumption. God is the Creator of all things, even free acts. All of our free acts are part of his plan. Our sins are something he permits to happen and incorporates into his plan in a secondary way. God does not cause sin directly because sin is a kind of darkness, a malformed act that is lacking existence in crucial ways. If a sinful act included all of the existence God intended an act to have, it would not be a sin but a good act, but we can take a good act and twist it away from its true nature.
Upvote
0
Thursday
Well-Known Member
Eze 18:32
32"For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies," declares the Lord GOD. "Therefore, repent and live."
1 Tim 2:4
3This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Matt 23:37
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
Upvote
0
guyfriendly
Active Member
God predestined what God foreknew based on man's free-will - Romans 9. I'm leaning more toward this view.
Sure, there are things predestined, but it's only predestined because of God's foreknowledge of what man will choose, either to reject the gospel or accept the gospel. Very simple here.
By the way, I think the Calvinist teachings does not deny Free-will. What they're saying is that man are dead in their sins (their will is enslaved by sin) and no matter what man will not come to God on his own. Man has freewill in every area of their lives except this one. Jesus taught this in the book of John chapter 8, that if the son sets you free, you are free indeed. The slaves is subject to his master. Jesus must first sets you free. You cannot be free on your own.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
guyfriendly
Active Member
Your statement "Could we choose God without being regenerated? No" as far as my understanding goes, faith comes first before we are regenerated. Ephesians 2:8.
Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--
Faith comes first. Justify by faith - Romans 5:1.
I could be wrong though. But it seems to me we have to believe first and then God justify us before we could become regenerated. Calvinism teaches regeneration first then comes faith.
Upvote
0
- Jan 28, 2002
- 27,511
- 45,436
- 67
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Calvinist
- Marital Status
- Married
Hi GF, there is a difference between the terms, "regeneration", and being, "saved/justified". The "regeneration" part, or quickening of our hearts of stone .. Ezekiel 36:26; John 3:3 (which are dead in trespass and sin .. Ephesians 2:1-3) is something that God alone does for us (I believe the RCC, and others, understand regeneration as something that happens during baptism, typically as infants).
After we are regenerated or "born again", we are the ones who do the believing, of course, but only because God has first enabled us to do so (because of being "regenerated"). This is why "saving faith" is rightly said to be a "gift" from God (Ephesians 2:8). This is also why our initial choice to "believe" is not seen as a "work" on our part, because our saving response to Him in faith is only possible because of Him.
The Bible also teaches what it does in Romans 3:10-12 concerning seeking God apart from His grace, and 1 Cor 2 is very clear about the problem we all face as non-believers/"natural" men and women, our "condition" that stops us from coming to faith apart from His help in doing so.
"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." ~1 Corinthians 2:14
So coming to Christ as a "natural man" would be impossible, obviously (see again Ephesians 2:1-3 which describes us as being "by nature, children of wrath" outside of Christ).
Quite frankly, all of this (quickening/regeneration, faith, justification) may happen at basically the same time, but for the sake of understanding, that is the order of salvation as the Bible seems to teach it.
If faith preceded regeneration, that would mean that our justification is, at least to a degree, something that is "merited" by us (because it is something we would choose to do on our own, IOW, APART from His grace), justification then becoming (in part, at least) the "reward" for our obedient behavior.
This is part of the reason we Calvinists believe what we do. If you'd like to look into this further, there is really only one book to recommend as the place to start, Dr. R C Sproul's little book called, Chosen by God.
Yours and His,
David
"As many as had been appointed
to eternal life believed"
Acts 13:48b
Last edited:
Upvote
0
- Jan 28, 2002
- 27,511
- 45,436
- 67
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Calvinist
- Marital Status
- Married
Hi NT! I'm not sure the Bible says that God "plans" everything, but I think it can be easily argued Biblically that He "ordains" whatsoever comes to pass. Whether He "allows" it to happen or "causes" it to happen, nothing happens apart from His foreknowledge and ordination, as I'm certain you'd agree
See Ephesians 1:11, "God .. works all things after the counsel of His will"
Yours and His,
David
I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure" ~Isaiah 46:9-10
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure" ~Isaiah 46:9-10
Last edited:
Upvote
0
You started off sounding pretty convinced, but at the end you don't sound so sure. So let me see if I can help. Ask yourself the following questions:
1. Did anyone COMPEL Adam and Eve to sin?
2. Has anyone ever COMPELLED you to sin?
3. If you have ever sinned, was it because YOU CHOSE to do so?
4. Does the Bible say that ALL HAVE SINNED and come short of the glory of God?
5. Does the Bible also say that Jesus is the Lamb of God who took away THE SIN OF THE WORLD?
6. Does the Bible say that WHOSOEVER WILL may take of the Water of Life freely?
7. Does the Bible say that God commands ALL MEN everywhere to repent?
If you can honestly answer those questions you will discover that God does not predestine anyone to Heaven or to Hell. That is a lie of the Devil.
Upvote
0
Razare
God gave me a throne
The fallacy is that free will would have to not be predestined.
A will which is the ability to choose, does not equal a situation of occurrences outside the ability for God to foreknow.
It is a human idea these two concepts would be exclusive, using "either or" logic.
It is rather best described as AND (in a binary sense.)
How does that work with God then in terms of responsibility?
God himself has a free will and ability to choose. That ability God has, God gave us exactly what he has. It's the same ability to choose that God Almighty has to choose.
Therefore, just because God is very very smart and understands how choice works, does not mean we did not get the ability to choose from God. No, rather we got exactly what God has in that department, so we have no room to complain if God is really brilliant in other areas and foreknows all ends.
And if you don't like something, choose to take it up with God, and he can change it quite often, if it is scriptural. He did for King Hezekiah. God said, "You're gonna die soon." Hezekiah repented to God for God to do something, so God altered destiny.
God did not lie when he said Hezekiah would die, no, God is greater than destiny.
A will which is the ability to choose, does not equal a situation of occurrences outside the ability for God to foreknow.
It is a human idea these two concepts would be exclusive, using "either or" logic.
It is rather best described as AND (in a binary sense.)
How does that work with God then in terms of responsibility?
God himself has a free will and ability to choose. That ability God has, God gave us exactly what he has. It's the same ability to choose that God Almighty has to choose.
Therefore, just because God is very very smart and understands how choice works, does not mean we did not get the ability to choose from God. No, rather we got exactly what God has in that department, so we have no room to complain if God is really brilliant in other areas and foreknows all ends.
And if you don't like something, choose to take it up with God, and he can change it quite often, if it is scriptural. He did for King Hezekiah. God said, "You're gonna die soon." Hezekiah repented to God for God to do something, so God altered destiny.
God did not lie when he said Hezekiah would die, no, God is greater than destiny.
Last edited:
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
tatteredsoul
Well-Known Member
We have limited will - as in, we get to choose who/what we follow, who/what we put our faith in, and how we react to sin and adversity. Everything else is consequential to our destination, which has been planned and preordained.
Upvote
0
- Dec 27, 2015
- 3,061
- 1,899
- 69
- Country
- Australia
- Faith
- Catholic
- Marital Status
- Married
I've struggled with this for a while. I've made this plain ad infinitum on Catholic Answers Forums, which is about the only other forum I regularly post on (far more than here), but I claim the night my own father died, he appeared in my room.
That was in January 1979. I still remember it, what we said, and the terrifying scream just before he disappeared again.
During part of the exchange, he cried out, "I always was doomed! I didn't really have any choice!"
I argued back (and I was a somewhat perplexed atheist at that time) saying, "That can't be right!" (in the ethical sense).
He replied, "Oh, it's right all right! You can see that from here!"
But later in the same exchange he cried out, "I was WILLING!" (to act in the cruel, stupid way he did, which in the end condemned him - and do so for 20 years).
So somehow or other, both operate together. I don't know how.
As an addendum to that story, I drove a cab part time for a few years. One night I just happened to be in the street where he died. Now the things he said on that night he died were fairly disturbing, so I prayed for a "sign" that it really was him (oh, don't worry, I've been to pastors etc. about it all), and that what he said could be trusted.
I got back this sort of sense that I ought to know better than to ask for a "sign", but I persisted. Now he died at No. X, Rivington Street, Nundah.
I think it was the next cab shift a couple of days later when I pulled up at the Queen Street rank in Brisbane, and waited my turn. Eventually a bloke rocked up, a bit the worse for wear, hopped in the back, and just said "Nundah!"
I asked, "Whereabouts in Nundah?" He just sort of barked, "Just drive! I'll tell you where to go." So off we went.
And ended up at No. (X-1) Rivington Street, Nundah, directly opposite the block of units where my father died.
Now you might call that coincidence, after I'd prayed for a "sign", but I don't. There were probably a quarter of a million residences in the same radius from where I picked him up.
So as far as I'm concerned, I got my "sign". But this intrigues me - I had free will where I drove, there were traffic lights, other cab jobs, the radio work, delays, traffic, and of course the passenger also had free will when he'd leave the pub, which cab he'd take etc. And then there was the almost perfunctory way he gave the instruction, "Just drive! I'll tell you where to go."
I think God somehow masterminded that "sign" despite the alleged free will of both parties - me and the passenger.
If we take Judas as an extreme example, or for that matter the disciples themselves, Christ called all of them personally. Yet Christ also made it clear that "one had to be lost so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled", and at the same time told the others that "I chose you. You didn't choose me."
Yet my father said "I was WILLING!" (and he kept up his stupid, cruel, bad tempered, vindictive behaviour for 20 years). And the passenger and I both went through the rituals of "free will" - my driving, and his desire to go home at a certain time. Yet somehow both sets of free will were engineered to give a "sign".
So somehow, both "predestination" and "free will" work together. I mean if there was no element of "predestination" at all, then God could hardly have a "plan", or it would amount to nothing more than a bunch of two legged apes all making a bunch of random choices for thousands of years, and somehow getting a result out of that.
His active Will is in the mix somehow.
But don't ask me how. I have no intention of trying to be Freud to God's Ego or Id.
That was in January 1979. I still remember it, what we said, and the terrifying scream just before he disappeared again.
During part of the exchange, he cried out, "I always was doomed! I didn't really have any choice!"
I argued back (and I was a somewhat perplexed atheist at that time) saying, "That can't be right!" (in the ethical sense).
He replied, "Oh, it's right all right! You can see that from here!"
But later in the same exchange he cried out, "I was WILLING!" (to act in the cruel, stupid way he did, which in the end condemned him - and do so for 20 years).
So somehow or other, both operate together. I don't know how.
As an addendum to that story, I drove a cab part time for a few years. One night I just happened to be in the street where he died. Now the things he said on that night he died were fairly disturbing, so I prayed for a "sign" that it really was him (oh, don't worry, I've been to pastors etc. about it all), and that what he said could be trusted.
I got back this sort of sense that I ought to know better than to ask for a "sign", but I persisted. Now he died at No. X, Rivington Street, Nundah.
I think it was the next cab shift a couple of days later when I pulled up at the Queen Street rank in Brisbane, and waited my turn. Eventually a bloke rocked up, a bit the worse for wear, hopped in the back, and just said "Nundah!"
I asked, "Whereabouts in Nundah?" He just sort of barked, "Just drive! I'll tell you where to go." So off we went.
And ended up at No. (X-1) Rivington Street, Nundah, directly opposite the block of units where my father died.
Now you might call that coincidence, after I'd prayed for a "sign", but I don't. There were probably a quarter of a million residences in the same radius from where I picked him up.
So as far as I'm concerned, I got my "sign". But this intrigues me - I had free will where I drove, there were traffic lights, other cab jobs, the radio work, delays, traffic, and of course the passenger also had free will when he'd leave the pub, which cab he'd take etc. And then there was the almost perfunctory way he gave the instruction, "Just drive! I'll tell you where to go."
I think God somehow masterminded that "sign" despite the alleged free will of both parties - me and the passenger.
If we take Judas as an extreme example, or for that matter the disciples themselves, Christ called all of them personally. Yet Christ also made it clear that "one had to be lost so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled", and at the same time told the others that "I chose you. You didn't choose me."
Yet my father said "I was WILLING!" (and he kept up his stupid, cruel, bad tempered, vindictive behaviour for 20 years). And the passenger and I both went through the rituals of "free will" - my driving, and his desire to go home at a certain time. Yet somehow both sets of free will were engineered to give a "sign".
So somehow, both "predestination" and "free will" work together. I mean if there was no element of "predestination" at all, then God could hardly have a "plan", or it would amount to nothing more than a bunch of two legged apes all making a bunch of random choices for thousands of years, and somehow getting a result out of that.
His active Will is in the mix somehow.
But don't ask me how. I have no intention of trying to be Freud to God's Ego or Id.
Upvote
0
Rick Otto
The Dude Abides
- Nov 19, 2002
- 34,112
- 7,406
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
In Eph1:4, it says He planned whom to save before He created.
Him being omniscient would imply (at least to me) He doesn't act unthinking, or without knowing the consequences of His actions.
So everything He created, He knew its beginning from its end even before anything existed.
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
tatteredsoul
Well-Known Member
Ha! "Limited will" is perfect, unless you want or need some credit for yourself for some reason. But even then, it still allows for an iota of freedom.
Can you imagine if we all truly had "free will?"
I think He would have destroyed the world a long time ago (for good/"final apocalypse").
Upvote
0
Rick Otto
The Dude Abides
- Nov 19, 2002
- 34,112
- 7,406
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
Who gave permission for a Calvinist to join the "Admiralty"?Hi GF, there is a difference between the terms, "regeneration", and being, "saved/justified". The "regeneration" part, or quickening of our hearts of stone .. Ezekiel 36:26; John 3:3 (which are dead in trespass and sin .. Ephesians 2:1-3) is something that God alone does for us (I believe the RCC, and others, understand regeneration as something that happens during baptism, typically as infants).
After we are regenerated or "born again", we are the ones who do the believing, of course, but only because God has first enabled us to do so (because of being "regenerated"). This is why "saving faith" is rightly said to be a "gift" from God (Ephesians 2:8). This is also why our initial choice to "believe" is not seen as a "work" on our part, because our saving response to Him in faith is only possible because of Him.
The Bible also teaches what it does in Romans 3:10-12 concerning seeking God apart from His grace, and 1 Cor 2 is very clear about the problem we all face as non-believers/"natural" men and women, our "condition" that stops us from coming to faith apart from His help in doing so.
"A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." ~1 Corinthians 2:14So coming to Christ as a "natural man" would be impossible, obviously (see again Ephesians 2:1-3 which describes us as being "by nature, children of wrath" outside of Christ).
Quite frankly, all of this (quickening/regeneration, faith, justification) may happen at basically the same time, but for the sake of understanding, that is the order of salvation as the Bible seems to teach it.
If faith preceded regeneration, that would mean that our justification is, at least to a degree, something that is "merited" by us (because it is something we would choose to do on our own, IOW, APART from His grace), justification then becoming (in part, at least) the "reward" for our obedient behavior.
This is part of the reason we Calvinists believe what we do. If you'd like to look into this further, there is really only one book to recommend as the place to start, Dr. R C Sproul's little book called, Chosen by God.
Yours and His,
David
"As many as had been appointed
to eternal life believed"
Acts 13:48b
Upvote
0
The Hammer of Witches
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Both free will and predestination/predetermination are correct. It may seem contradictory, but it is simply beyond our comprehension. He created us with free will, but already laid out his master plan, and knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. We make our own decisions, but he is in control of everything.
Upvote
0
This site stays free and accessible to all because of donations from people like you.
Consider making a one-time or monthly donation. We appreciate your support!
- Dan Doughty and Team Christian Forums
Similar threads
