Poll: Do we have a free-will or are we Predestined?

[orthodoxy]

Simply put,

You choose to go on a cruise, You choose to serve God, once you board the ship, once you give your life to Christ, you have activites ro do while on board, you have work to do that God has set forth for us, But there is only ONE pilot, who controls the ship, God controls the creation.

You can't go to the bridge of the ship and tell the captain which way to go, so how do you perceive that you can tell God which way to go. In the activities you do on board, they are the things provided for you to choose from. All are in the same boat, yet there is only one person who controls the direction of the ship. That person is God. Once you make the choice to board the ship, you give up you right to choose where you are going. Either you go where the cruise is bound or you don't go at all.

Frewill is to be able to tell the captain, I want to go to Aruba and He follow your choice for lack of the proper term. This you can't do there nor can you do it in God's ship.

Noah is a prime example of this truth. Once he entered the ark, he had things to do in the ark as God had given him to do, but he had no control over where the ark was bound once he was locked in by God.

Hismessenger

Hismessenger,

Once you make the choice to board the ship, you give up you right to choose where you are going.

do you read what you type?

"Once you make the choice"? Does God not also make the choice for you to get on the ship?

What kind of toothpaste do you choose to use?

Predestination, it appears to me, makes God an excape goat for blantant responsibility for a person's sin ... some one to blame ... an Adamic trait?

the words "whosoever desires"...a person controls the process of "self emptying" to "become more like "Him" for there is "no theosis without kenosis" without a "self determined" and "willful" "taking up of one's cross" to become "forsaken of God" there is no "following Him". How does one follow if one does not desire it?

BTW to this day people name the animals what they choose by free will just like Adam before the fall....

kyril

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Hismessenger,
do you read what you type?

"Once you make the choice"? Does God not also make the choice for you to get one the ship?

kyril

Jonah 1:2 "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me." 3 But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.

 

[tall73]

This thread has been moved as part of our theology re-organization. for more information read the announcement here:

http://www.christianforums.com/a80

 

[daveleau]

Jonah was an instance of free will and sovereignty. Jonah chose not to go, but God's sovereignty reigned supreme, as always.

Not Romans 9's discussion on sovereignty and Romans 10's discussion on human responsibility. To take a hard line on either stance is to attempt to put God in some restrictive man-made box. To take a hard line on either stance does not reflect the balance of Scripture. To take a hard line on predestination robs man of his responsibility. To take a hard line on free will robs God of his sovereignty. There is a balance.

A key passage in this discussion is Rom 8:28-30. Note that God's predestination follows His foreknowledge. The key is what He knows. Is our choice the only reason for His predestination? God's reasoning for predestination is not laid out in Scripture. But, God's foreknowledge is the reason for His predestination. What we choose tomorrow regarding doing His work was known by God in eternity past.

 

[Bill777]

Jonah was an instance of free will and sovereignty. Jonah chose not to go, but God's sovereignty reigned supreme, as always.

Not Romans 9's discussion on sovereignty and Romans 10's discussion on human responsibility. To take a hard line on either stance is to attempt to put God in some restrictive man-made box. To take a hard line on either stance does not reflect the balance of Scripture. To take a hard line on predestination robs man of his responsibility. To take a hard line on free will robs God of his sovereignty. There is a balance.

A key passage in this discussion is Rom 8:28-30. Note that God's predestination follows His foreknowledge. The key is what He knows. Is our choice the only reason for His predestination? God's reasoning for predestination is not laid out in Scripture. But, God's foreknowledge is the reason for His predestination. What we choose tomorrow regarding doing His work was known by God in eternity past.

Predestination and foreknowledge are very tightly related. God foreknows everything and that's why he can predestine everybody. If God didn't foreknow he couldn't predestine, but God predestines who will be saved and who will not be saved, God doesn't leave salvation to chance or human choice. God has kept a remnant for himself.

 

[simplyg123]

Predestination and foreknowledge are very tightly related. God foreknows everything and that's why he can predestine everybody. If God didn't foreknow he couldn't predestine, but God predestines who will be saved and who will not be saved, God doesn't leave salvation to chance or human choice. God has kept a remnant for himself.

this is your oppinion, who are you to limit gods power. The facts are we come into this world to do satans will, and under his control, is satan going to let you chose God, i doubt it. God has to draw you, or call you to him.

Our God created this world, saying that i dont believe there is anything he "COULD'NT" do

 

[Bill777]

this is your oppinion, who are you to limit gods power. The facts are we come into this world to do satans will, and under his control, is satan going to let you chose God, i doubt it. God has to draw you, or call you to him.

Our God created this world, saying that i dont believe there is anything he "COULD'NT" do

I think you misinterpreted my post. I believe God calls whomever he wants to, he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. I voted that man has no free will by the way which seems to be your opinion based on your post. God has both foreknowledge and predestines people, but when he predestines people is because he chooses people not because people have any kind of free will whatsoever. The same goes for God's foreknowledge, he foreknows because he made man and predestined him.

 

[Gukkor]

So, God being omnipotent, why couldn't He create our reality in such a way that we have true autonomy and free will while simultaneously keeping all things in line with His sovereign will? At one point, this would have been considered the kind of logical paradox that couldn't be possible no matter how powerful God was, but the discoveries of quantum mechanics have thrown a wrench into all that. If God can develop physics in such a way that light is at once a particle and a wave and make that actually make sense, then He can do as He pleases in regards to predestination, so far as I'm concerned. I have full confidence in the reality of both free will and the sovereignty of God. I'll leave it to God to sort out how exactly they manage not to contradict each other.

 

[DeaconDean]

I voted predestination because that is what is taught in the Bible. And because I agree fully with Martin Luther and what he wrote in "The Bondage of the Will."

God Bless

Till all are one.

 

[Mayflower1]

Jonah was an instance of free will and sovereignty. Jonah chose not to go, but God's sovereignty reigned supreme, as always.

Not Romans 9's discussion on sovereignty and Romans 10's discussion on human responsibility. To take a hard line on either stance is to attempt to put God in some restrictive man-made box. To take a hard line on either stance does not reflect the balance of Scripture. To take a hard line on predestination robs man of his responsibility. To take a hard line on free will robs God of his sovereignty. There is a balance.

A key passage in this discussion is Rom 8:28-30. Note that God's predestination follows His foreknowledge. The key is what He knows. Is our choice the only reason for His predestination? God's reasoning for predestination is not laid out in Scripture. But, God's foreknowledge is the reason for His predestination. What we choose tomorrow regarding doing His work was known by God in eternity past.

If we are in control of our own decisions though, then that would mean God wouldn't be omnipotent. Not only should He foreknow, but also be in complete control of our actions as well.

 

[Gukkor]

If we are in control of our own decisions though, then that would mean God wouldn't be omnipotent. Not only should He foreknow, but also be in complete control of our actions as well.

Why does it have to mean that? Couldn't God, being omnipotent and omniscient, have the ability to give people free will while maintaining His own supremacy?

In any case, I think you're misconstruing the nature of free will in relation to God. If free will does indeed exist (and I think it does), then it is because God allows it, not because it's some inherent part of us that he can't control. God could very easily pull us about like puppets on strings, but (from a free-will believer's perspective) He chooses not to, preferring instead to create real individuals with their own identities and choices. How He manages to do this without his foreknowledge getting in the way is, as I've said, beyond my ability to know, but then again, so is a lot of what God does. A human acting in the place of God wouldn't be able to do it, but God is greater than we are, so much so that it's possible that He could accomplish something that we'd see as a logical contradiction.

 

[Rick Otto]

Omnipotence isn't mere supremacy.
If God is your co-pilot, switch seats.

Allowance IS control. Allowance is "slack" in leash of restraining grace, the kind the Holy Spirit exercises upon the entire race to insure a civil environment for His elect. There is enough slack to let us experience why we need Him & should want to be with Him, to His glory.
Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

I am a real individual with my own identity & I choose not to believe in free will. (lol)

 

[Gukkor]

Omnipotence isn't mere supremacy.
If God is your co-pilot, switch seats.

Allowance IS control. Allowance is "slack" in leash of restraining grace, the kind the Holy Spirit exercises upon the entire race to insure a civil environment for His elect. There is enough slack to let us experience why we need Him & should want to be with Him, to His glory.
Romans 9:22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
23: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,

I am a real individual with my own identity & I choose not to believe in free will. (lol)

And as a firm believer in free will, I certainly will not try to impose upon you the belief in free will. I believe that a person has every right to believe what they want to believe, even if that belief is the belief that one can't believe what one wants...or something.

But yeah, as for allowance being a form of control, I agree, though I suppose I disagree as to the degree of freedom we are allowed. In any case, it falls in line with what I've been saying: free will does not mean that God isn't in control, in my opinion, as He is the one who endowed us with it in the first place. Likewise, the fact that God is in control does not infringe upon people's free will.

 

[Hismessenger]

On the contrary, If Jonah had free will His CHOICE to not go to Nineveh would have stood. This is what freewill is all about. To make a decision and have it stand just like Adam naming the animals.

Jonah had to obey the will of God. Our Choices cannot effect the will of God as this demonstrates. He went where he was told to go.

Hismessenger

 

[Hismessenger]

Orthodoxy, No we don't have free will to name the animals for all the names that we know are already given. Adam gave them names that didn't already exsist to choose from. There is a difference.

Hismessenger

 

[Gukkor]

Orthodoxy, No we don't have free will to name the animals for all the names that we know are already given. Adam gave them names that didn't already exsist to choose from. There is a difference.

Hismessenger

What, you can't just make up a name at random?

Y'know what? I'm going to name my next pet, "Flelio," just to prove that I can.

EDIT: Ironically, it appears that name that I thought I had just made up is an actual word in Spanish. Blast, foiled again!

 

[Easystreet]

I voted free will. God gave us a will to make choices. When we choose Jesus and are born again, Rom. 10:9-10 tells us how, then we are predestined to a future with God.

If Jesus is rejected, then after death a person is predestined to a future without God.

May the Lord bless you and May His Light shine upon you all the days of your Life.

Gordon

 

[Easystreet]

Jonah was an instance of free will and sovereignty. Jonah chose not to go, but God's sovereignty reigned supreme, as always.

Not Romans 9's discussion on sovereignty and Romans 10's discussion on human responsibility. To take a hard line on either stance is to attempt to put God in some restrictive man-made box. To take a hard line on either stance does not reflect the balance of Scripture. To take a hard line on predestination robs man of his responsibility. To take a hard line on free will robs God of his sovereignty. There is a balance.

A key passage in this discussion is Rom 8:28-30. Note that God's predestination follows His foreknowledge. The key is what He knows. Is our choice the only reason for His predestination? God's reasoning for predestination is not laid out in Scripture. But, God's foreknowledge is the reason for His predestination. What we choose tomorrow regarding doing His work was known by God in eternity past.

Appricate your post. I lean more to the view that Scripture does adiquitely speak to foreknowledge seeing man's decission following the necessary revelation of God's work and man's state. I have heard that view expressed by some Bible Teachers.

This post expresses my view: http://www.christianforums.com/t4698516-fatalism-bites-the-dust.html

 

[Rick Otto]

The reason God can see into the future is because He created it (with His eyes open )!

This so called "hard line" does not remove man's responsibility, it puts man's self-importance & his notion of freedom into eternal perspective.
Yes God created evil, but that doesn't make Him evil unless you ignore, and discount completely His motive.

The idea predestination makes us robots is born of the myth that we are somehow precious as individuals, born with some redeeming value or innate goodness. This detracts from the true magnanimousness of God's mercy.

 

[Hismessenger]

Freewill is the essence of mans sin. The belief that You can choose something other than what God has planned for you is saying to God, you created me but I will choose my destiny when in fact our whole being is not about us but rather we giving glory to God. That is what this is all about.

Hismessenger