Defining terms shortens debate: Free Will

[Philip_B]

I frankly feel that if you remove from the concept of FREEWILL the idea that we might have the freedom to make a choice (and to accept the responsibility for that choice) we are diminishing our creation in the image and after the likeness of God. If your sense of determinism means that we have no will of our own only that which has been determined, then moral culpability becomes meaningless. If you do bot these things then you rob FREEWILL of Freedom and of Will, and are left with a vacuous theological concept of little worth.

The Classic O words in the Divine Descriptors are Omnipotent (all powerful) Omniscient (all knowing) and Omnipresent (God is present at every moment in the space time continuum).

The accounts of creation in scripture at no point suggest that God created robots, that is pre-programmed and only capable of decisions based on empirical data. That is simple not who we are.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Wow. Not that I know all about either one, and nobody does --we wouldn't even understand the words-- but like I said, we know enough. "At all"?

You have to make up something the Bible does not say, to promote any degree of autonomy. But predestination is a constant theme, by name, and by synonymous words, throughout the Bible. Choice is not synonymous with Free Will, neither is ability to decide, neither is responsibility for one's decisions. What else you got?

All I did was thank you. Maybe I am missing something here. If so, please point it out to me.

 

[Mark Quayle]

All I did was thank you. Maybe I am missing something here. If so, please point it out to me.

Hahaha.. I said wow because you got it pretty much backwards. I posted several items that God has shown us about his reasons for election, and you thank me for showing I know nothing at all about what his reasons are.

Meanwhile, you say I showed that I know what God's reasons are not, when I didn't mention any in that post. I did mention some conclusions drawn on false assumptions concerning what God's reasons are not.

"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice. I'm starting to feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole with this "debate".

 

[Mark Quayle]

I frankly feel that if you remove from the concept of FREEWILL the idea that we might have the freedom to make a choice (and to accept the responsibility for that choice) we are diminishing our creation in the image and after the likeness of God. If your sense of determinism means that we have no will of our own only that which has been determined, then moral culpability becomes meaningless. If you do bot these things then you rob FREEWILL of Freedom and of Will, and are left with a vacuous theological concept of little worth.

The Classic O words in the Divine Descriptors are Omnipotent (all powerful) Omniscient (all knowing) and Omnipresent (God is present at every moment in the space time continuum).

The accounts of creation in scripture at no point suggest that God created robots, that is pre-programmed and only capable of decisions based on empirical data. That is simple not who we are.

I'm not sure what you are arguing against here. Who is removing from the concept of freewill, the idea that we have freedom of choice?

There are mainly two contributors that I have argued with at length in this thread, that claim that if all is determined, then there is no choice, and they have studiously used "choice" as logically implying "autonomy", while avoided the term "will' for the most part, apparently ignoring the fact that Calvinism does proffer the idea of Will.

"The King's heart is as a watercourse in the hand of the Lord. He directs it wherever he pleases."

 

[bbbbbbb]

Hahaha.. I said wow because you got it pretty much backwards. I posted several items that God has shown us about his reasons for election, and you thank me for showing I know nothing at all about what his reasons are.

Meanwhile, you say I showed that I know what God's reasons are not, when I didn't mention any in that post. I did mention some conclusions drawn on false assumptions concerning what God's reasons are not.

"Curiouser and curiouser", said Alice. I'm starting to feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole with this "debate".

So, precisely what criteria did God use to choose you in particular?

 

[Mark Quayle]

So, precisely what criteria did God use to choose you in particular?

You use "criteria" as though his choice was a selection according to merit, worthiness or fit. He MADE me to fit, he didn't have to measure me before selection.

But even now I am not what I will be. I am not yet complete, within this temporal life.

How would I know if I am of the hand, knee, ear or what? That is God's purview. But I know I am the only one he has selected for my particular part, because he will not fail to accomplish what he has set out to do. Criteria? How would I know?

 

[renniks]

You, sir, are creating problems that don't exist, not only in your theology, but in your critique of my posts. Are you going to claim, contrary to Scripture, that God does not pick some?

He doesn't pick some, unless you mean he chooses those who believe.
C'mon, quit trying to deny the implications of your theology. Unconditional choosing is the basis of Calvinism. Logically, it means God is arbitrarily choosing some people while rejecting most.

 

[renniks]

Your choices are willed by YOU. You don't need an autonomous will to have a will set against God. You don't need an autonomous will to have a will to reject God, nor is your will capable of accepting God, unless God changes your will. Autonomy doesn't even enter the picture.

Lol, total nonsense. I can't set my will against God if I have no will of my own. And yes my will is capable of choosing God... you are just making stuff up.
In your system, God is just choosing himself and you are just along for the ride.

"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,"

 

[renniks]

God does not "want" us to sin? What does that even mean, when referring to the Almighty, who has everything. He does not hope we sin, he does not command us to sin, he does not himself tempt anyone. You promote a notion of a god who is like us, flying by the seat of his pants to fix the problems he did not mean for us to make!

I means this:
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

It means we have a real choice. It means more than God not tempting us. It means we can choose not to sin by relying on him. If sin has dominion over us, you have to blame that on God. Really? Where does scripture say that my sin is God's doing in any way, shape or form?

 

[renniks]

Your notion that God causing all things whatsoever come to pass means that man's choice is not real is bogus. As a matter of fact, our choices, though responsible, are of no integrity until God gives us freedom in Christ, and even then, the only reason is God in us is also causing us both to will, and to do of his good pleasure

Again, you directly contradict yourself. God causing all things can not mean anything but that mans choices are not choices at all. Can I do something other than what God has chosen for me to do? God gives us freedom in Christ when we choose to rely on him. How ironic that you choose the verse that comes after this one:
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

Pretty obvious when you put them together that it's not an either/or. It's not just God working, but us cooperating that causes us to move forward.

14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”[c] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life.

Just look at all the conditions we have to meet in order for God to work in us.

 

[bling]

Of course there are many causes. God uses every single one of them, as a matter of fact. But to say that there are a multitude of causes as a first cause, is nonsense.

Science will be logical enough to admit, IF there is a first cause, it is by definition causeless. BTW, First Cause is as much a philosophical question as theological. But like everything else, theological truth and scientific truth and logic do not conflict. Science and philosophy agree to the logical necessity of the law of causation. Therefore, first cause, or infinite regression of causes. They will argue out the yingyang that first cause need not be God. But any good scientist, atheist or otherwise, will admit, even claim, that IF God is First Cause, then our decisions are caused by God.

Nobody has been able to do more than to assert that there can be more than one first cause. I have yet to see anything even near proof. And no matter the degree one wishes to to ascribe to autonomy, that is still what it requires --no cause, in one way or another. We are not autonomous. Our choices are real, and willed, but autonomous --no.

“Scientist and atheist and otherwise” see the need for a “first uncaused, causer” and have everything naturally falling in place afterwards, thus needing no more “first cause”, but that is not the way deist see it. God (a first causer that can generate an infinite amount of first causes) we pray to for supernaturally going against the natural effect (results of the initial first cause) and do something differently. The changes God makes along the way are His free will choices or are they a knee jerk reaction by God. The floor was not the natural cause resulting from the one first cause, as an example.

 

[bbbbbbb]

You use "criteria" as though his choice was a selection according to merit, worthiness or fit. He MADE me to fit, he didn't have to measure me before selection.

But even now I am not what I will be. I am not yet complete, within this temporal life.

How would I know if I am of the hand, knee, ear or what? That is God's purview. But I know I am the only one he has selected for my particular part, because he will not fail to accomplish what he has set out to do. Criteria? How would I know?

Once yet more, you have affirmed my assertion that you do not, nor cannot, know. Thank you.

 

[GenemZ]

God chose us. Not to be saved. But, because He knew we would believe and be saved.

What did he choose us for? To be found in Christ when we believed. God could have taken the soul of Moses and had him born in 1975. Knowing Moses would choose to believe? Then it would be that God chose Moses before the foundations of the earth to be found in Christ when he believed. Moses was not predestined to be a part of the Bride of Christ. Only those in the Church were.

God does not choose us to believe. He chooses into what realm we will enter when we choose to believe. If God so sovereignly chose to do so? He could have chosen us all here today to be born in the Exodus generation. If He did that? He would have not chosen us in Christ Jesus before the foundations of the earth.

For, if we were being alive then? And, being a believer? That would mean we would not have become a new creation in Jesus Christ when we believed.....

It would have meant we had not been chosen by God (He picked and chose = elected) to become the Bride of Christ. That is what God chose and elected. He "voted" for us to be found in Christ when we believed.

John the Baptist did not live to see the Church age. He never claimed to be the Bride of Christ. Rather, John considered himself to be in with the friends of the Groom!

The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the
bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears
the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete." Jn 3:29​

John said he was a friend of the Bridegroom. Not the Bride. John the Baptist thought according to Jewish custom of weddings.

He knew He was not to be a part of the Bride of Christ. For, God chose only those in the Church for such an awesome position in His Kingdom. Chosen before the foundations of the earth.

God did not chose us to believe. He chose us for a purpose because He knew we would believe.

grace and peace....

 

[Mark Quayle]

Lol, total nonsense. I can't set my will against God if I have no will of my own. And yes my will is capable of choosing God... you are just making stuff up.
In your system, God is just choosing himself and you are just along for the ride.

"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,"

I have no problem with the idea of will and choice. I have a problem with the idea of it being autonomous. That simply makes no sense, nor does it fit with Scripture. Did I say you have no will of your own?

You say, "In your system, God is just choosing himself and you are just along for the ride." I hope you can see that isn't what I said either, nor does Calvinism -- it is only your conclusion concerning what we believe. In my "system" as you term it (it isn't a system, but ok) God is choosing for his own sake, and we are along for the ride, but not only for the ride, but he is also doing it for the sake of the Elect, because he loves those he created for that purpose.

You apparently have no idea how much you depend on the operation of CHANCE.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If sin has dominion over us, you have to blame that on God. Really? Where does scripture say that my sin is God's doing in any way, shape or form?

What??? How in the world can you come up with "you have to blame that on God"? I never said that my sin is God's doing. My sin is MINE, my will totally involved, striving against my

It means we have a real choice. It means more than God not tempting us. It means we can choose not to sin by relying on him.

I've been saying all along that we have real choice. Where is anything I have said contrary to this?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Again, you directly contradict yourself. God causing all things can not mean anything but that mans choices are not choices at all. Can I do something other than what God has chosen for me to do? God gives us freedom in Christ when we choose to rely on him. How ironic that you choose the verse that comes after this one:
12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

Pretty obvious when you put them together that it's not an either/or. It's not just God working, but us cooperating that causes us to move forward.

14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”[c] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life.

Just look at all the conditions we have to meet in order for God to work in us.

You are wrong again. I have not contradicted myself. God causing all things does NOT mean choices are not choices at all. ONCE AGAIN, if our will strives against our creator, it doesn't matter WHY our will does so --it does so. We DO sin against God, and he will have justice.

It amazes me that you continue to demand self-determination. What kind of status do you ascribe to humanity, that we are capable of contending (thought yes, indeed we try) against God, that he should be mindful of your obstruction? Your obstruction, like Satan's plays right into God's hand. Don't be fooled. We can do nothing apart from Christ.

 

[Mark Quayle]

“Scientist and atheist and otherwise” see the need for a “first uncaused, causer” and have everything naturally falling in place afterwards, thus needing no more “first cause”, but that is not the way deist see it. God (a first causer that can generate an infinite amount of first causes) we pray to for supernaturally going against the natural effect (results of the initial first cause) and do something differently. The changes God makes along the way are His free will choices or are they a knee jerk reaction by God. The floor was not the natural cause resulting from the one first cause, as an example.

"First Cause generating an infinite number of first causes" is frankly nonsense, logically. Sorry, but yeah. So is your conclusion from “Scientist and atheist and otherwise” see the need for a “first uncaused, causer” and have everything naturally falling in place afterwards, thus needing no more “first cause”. Thus needing no more first cause? What do you mean by "needing"? That they no more need to consider God than that? or that logically, once the motor has been cranked, it no long needs a starter? I don't get what you are saying, or if I do, it is nonsense.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Once yet more, you have affirmed my assertion that you do not, nor cannot, know. Thank you.

Ok, I'll play. How have I done that? Kindly explain.

 

[GenemZ]

I have no problem with the idea of will and choice. I have a problem with the idea of it being autonomous.

God's power to control our flesh (grace) frees up the soul to make a choice. For its our flesh that enslaves the soul. Our depravity stems from our souls being stuck in a defective biological vehicle that our soul needs to navigate around in the material created world.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh;
for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For
the good that I want (his soul), I do not do, but I practice the very
evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want,
I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me." Rom 7:18-20​

As Paul tells us his depravity was not to be found in his soul. Its to be found in his flesh. Flesh that dominated his soul's desire to do what is good.

Our fallen defective flesh will enslave our soul unless God's grace power intervenes to free the soul from the effects of the flesh.

That is why we need to be saved by grace! For without our flesh being taken under control by the Holy Spirit? Our soul could never choose for the "faith" being presented to us by means of the Word of God.

grace and peace

 

[GenemZ]

You are wrong again. I have not contradicted myself. God causing all things does NOT mean choices are not choices at all.

God causes us to be made able to make choices. That is what grace does for us.

Did the Lord hard wire Adam to name the animals as Adam had done? God willed that Adam freely name them as Adam chose to.