There is no Free Will PERIOD

[BNR32FAN]

This, like most of the below, is not about salvation. It is about obeying the law.

The choice between life and death is not about salvation? The choice between turning towards God or away from Him is not about salvation?

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 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,”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭15‬-‭19‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

You’re not even trying to see the passage for what it says. Your only focus is to interpret it in such a way that it doesn’t contradict your theology but it’s not working because you’re having to ignore important details in the passage.

 

[HarleyER]

I understand, this is your approach and I respect it. My perspective on this (as shared previously) is that while human teachings have merit, they should aid in testing, not become the ultimate authority. I am weary of elevating this above the guidance of the Spirit and Scripture. Also have you considered the context in which they wrote and the presuppositions behind their views.

On a side note, I think the West tends to impose its theology universally, assuming a single context for humanity. This is a major critique in contextual theology. I agree with theologians that seek the timeless principles in the text, as God's timeless principles can be applied across contexts.

Also have you tried reading Romans and John through the lens of synergism? You may be surprised to discover God is a lot more relational than you think. Yes you can ask me to do the same


Im not sure how this statement is aligned with the monergistic view? The response we give God is not forced, manipulate or coerced. Rather it is given freely. We therefor have the capacity to reject His offer. God bears upon us untill we are overwhelmed by who He is that we respond positively. Therefore, since He is so persistent and patient, the rejection of His presence, is of greater condemnation and severe judgement. But in Christ we are empowered to do as He says, love as He loves.

Yes, He initiates, calls, and invites. We respond, surrender, and yield all of our faculties to His purposes. It is something they did in response to the call. God did not respond to Himself.
Samson serves as an example of God's deliverance for a nation who chose to continuously rebel against Him, yet He delivers them. The context for what is happening with Samson is found in Judges 2:10-23. If anything, it shows how God is merciful and long-suffering to a people who continually rejected Him, but yet the consequences of disobedience have to be upheld (Deuteronomy 29-30). We already agreed God is not the author of evil or hard hearts. It's a result of the choice offered them in Deuteronomy 30:15. But God, in His mercy, raises up judges to deliver them when they cry out to Him. God sovereignly worked through Samson's decisions, even his weaknesses, to achieve His larger purpose of delivering Israel. We know none of the judges were perfect. I see Samson's story demonstrating that God's sovereignty is not thwarted by human weaknesses or failure but rather, it's demonstrated through His ability to work through and with human choices and still maintain who He is. Faithful.

Also have you tried reading Romans and John through the lens of synergism?

I was a synergist for over 30 years and far before I even knew there was another view. When I would get to John 3, 6, 10.... and even the book of Romans it didn't make sense. Also, there was always the issue of reconciling the Old Testament (God of wrath) with the New Testament.

Im not sure how this statement is aligned with the monergistic view?

There is nothing that I do that enabled my salvation. I know that you would state the same thing. Where we would differ is that you would say that you would say that God opened your eyes and you accepted God's offer. I would say that God opened my eyes giving me the desire to accept His offer. A subtle but important difference.

 

[David Lamb]

If grace is not an offering why is He telling them to choose? The choice is their’s that’s exactly what God is telling them.

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 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,”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭15‬-‭19‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

I don't see God's grace either as an offering or an operation within God's elect. Somebody has said that grace is God's Riches At Christ's Expense. Grace is God giving sinners what they don't deserve, unlike mercy, which is God withholding from sinners what they do deserve.

 

[BNR32FAN]

You have been answered these multiple times in the past. Your verses are irrelevant to the subject. You consider them relevant because you think the lost have the same ability to will what the born-again have. You are dead wrong about that.

You make this claim when the passage we’re talking about God has specifically said that He is giving them the choice between life and death and “BUT IF THEIR HEART SHOULD TURN AWAY” they will surely perish. So not only do they have the ability to choose between turning away or not that choice has a direct effect on their salvation. Hopefully you don’t believe that they can turn away from God and only receive a physical death.

 

[BNR32FAN]

How many times do you have to be told before you hear it, that the ability to choose does not imply free will, (nor, in this context, does it negate God's decree?) ???

Yeah on this particular passage about David being given 3 choices I would agree and honestly I meant to remove this passage from the post because it doesn’t really pertain to the discussion of repentance. So I apologize for forgetting to remove it.

 

[BNR32FAN]

This you have been answered on, repeatedly. No wonder nobody bothers to answer you anymore on these! You ignore what is told you, then continue to post as though you were undefeated!

Grammatically, contextually, and logically, in English, ‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭7‬:‭31 ends with, "...it did not enter my mind to command such a thing!"

Logically? Are you trying to say that God made them sacrifice their children to Molech then rebuked them and punished them for it? Is that what you call logical? Do you not see how your theology profanes the very nature and character of God? There’s nothing illogical about God rebuking and punishing people for committing evil acts if they did it by their own free will.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I think we've been through this. Yes, God wants EVERYONE to be save. Man, on the other hand, doesn't want to be save. We love our sin too much. (John 3:19).

Now if we had a free choice, given the abover scenario, NO ONE would be saved. If you would have asked Paul if he wanted to be a Christian two minutes before his Damascus Road trip, you probably would have bee clapped in irons.

Ok what if someone asked Peter, or James, or John, or Andrew, or anyone else who believed? You constantly do this over and over and over. You quote a passage about one particular event and apply it to everyone as if it was intended to apply to everyone and ignore the rest of the examples in scripture where people did actually believe. The road to Damascus is a perfect example of free will, that’s precisely why Jesus appeared before Paul in order to prove who He is so that Paul would repent.

 

[Clare73]

So some of them were going to resist His offer of grace?

I do not see the word "grace" in that text.

Why is he saying choose either life or death?

And among his own natural people were those who were not his spiritual people.

Did all those in Israel obey?
They did not and, thereby, chose what they preferred; i.e., death.

 

[Clare73]

If grace is not an offering why is He telling them to choose? The choice is their’s that’s exactly what God is telling them.

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 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,”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭15‬-‭19‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

He is giving them directions.

Those whose hearts belong to him are empowered to obey them from their heart.

Those whose hearts do not belong to him may obey externally, but they have no power to truly obey from their heart, because their hearts do not belong to him.

 

[BNR32FAN]

He is giving them directions.

Those whose hearts belong to him are empowered to obey them from their heart.

Those whose hearts do not belong to him may obey externally, but they have no power to truly obey from their heart, because their hearts do not belong to him.

Why is He giving them instructions if they are only capable of doing what He has predestined them to do? Is it to give them a false sense of free will? Is it to give the illusion of a choice?

 

[Mark Quayle]

I don't think you fully got my point. I like both coffee and tea. What makes me choose coffee this morning? I can tell you what doesn't. No desire for coffee or thought of coffee actually makes me choose coffee. What makes me choose coffee is wanting the most to make the choice for coffee. So you need to answer what it is that makes someone want to choose coffee the most (Not just want coffee the most, but want to choose coffee the most). Sure, that decision is influenced by thoughts and desires, but what would it be that actually causes me to make that decision, to want to choose it the most? I know you can't give me the thousand things influncing me to make a choice, but I don't see how a higher number of causes would be proving me "wanting the most to make the choice for coffee" more likely to be caused by previous cause.

What makes you choose it is the strongest and most prevalent influences, affecting your mental and physical desires. I don't see how you can think that any choice is made out of a void. There are always causes. Even God chose out of his desire (if "desire" is a worthy descriptor).

Science has its limits. It can not even explain what consciousness is (or energy for that matter). Why would science be able to explain free libertarian will?

Of course it cannot. Particularly libertarian freewill in the creature! At best that is a metaphysical proposal. And more to the point, it is a false construction, self-defeating. It invokes either secondary first causes, or the force of mere chance, both of which are self-contradictory.

To me free libertarian will is part of being a conscious creature. I wouldn't be surprised if everything conscious has free libertarian will (as far as I use the term).

I think that you would agree that compared to God, our consciousness and sentience and self-awareness hardly figures on any scale.

Edit: It seems to be called "Panlibertarianism" or "Universal Libertarianism" when you believe all conscious beings inherently have free will.

If free libertarian will was depending on mere chance it would not be free libertarian will. Then you are using the term wrong. Mere chance does not make us responsible anymore than mere determination makes us responsible, which to say is: not the very least.

Then, as I said, you invoke secondary first causes, which is logically self-contradictory.

I didn't say anything about what is fair or not. I just said we can't be responsible if there is no free will outside predetermination. I'm not saying it can't be the way you put it, it can, but if you are right then logically, I don't think we at the same time can be responsible. If we are, then what logically might be morally wrong to man might be morally right to God, which makes God's moral a mystery and we can't trust our moral compass. If we by some mysterious way are still responsible for something that is against our logic and common sense, we, at least I would have to question God's character.

Whether we by free libertarian will can respond to the gospel or need to be regenerated first is another question. I don't think our view on free will has to give an answer to that.

Do me a favor and watch the first half, if not the whole thing, of this video. In it, you will hear described in extremely condensed manner, enough of the story of our redemption, beginning with the account of Joseph's coat of many colors, a whole series of seemingly 'improbable' events, where I have to imagine, from your POV, that you would see many many multiple interventions by God to keep history steered toward the cross, (which I think you will agree that the cross, at least, was predetermined by God) —enough of the story, I say, that it seems to me impossible to not see God's providence and causation throughout. And in the whole story, are human creatures making choices, that inexorably result in the Cross.

 

[Rose_bud]

I was a synergist for over 30 years and far before I even knew there was another view. When I would get to John 3, 6, 10.... and even the book of Romans it didn't make sense. Also, there was always the issue of reconciling the Old Testament (God of wrath) with the New Testament.

God's wrath is a just righteousness response to the violation of His holy nature.

I've grappled with similar questions in my walk with God. I saw Jesus as kind and gentle, but struggled to reconcile the Father's character, perceiving Him as an angry God, ready to punish me every time I messed up. (guess it was all the fire and brimstone preaching I was exposed too. Forever the sinner in the hands of an angry God). I just couldn't understand why they appeared so different. However, I brought my concerns to God one day. And there it was the faithful gentle whisper of the Spirit in my heart: If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. This truth transformed my understanding. It was Him all along. I realized that God's holy nature demands justice, and His wrath towards rebellion is a righteous judgment, not an emotional reaction. Yet, His patience and longsuffering reveal a love that desires redemption, as seen in in the character of the Son.
By taking a step back to see the big picture has helped me in a way to understand the nuances of God's amazing nature.

There is nothing that I do that enabled my salvation. I know that you would state the same thing. Where we would differ is that you would say that you would say that God opened your eyes and you accepted God's offer. I would say that God opened my eyes giving me the desire to accept His offer. A subtle but important difference.

But you still accepted. Nobody accepted on your behalf, nobody manipulated, forced or coerced you. With the empowering and knowledge that God gave you concerning Him, regardless if it wasn't fully understood. It was you that accepted and received the gift. You responded to the desire.

 

[Clare73]

Why is He giving them instructions if they are only capable of doing what He has predestined them to do?

They haven't been told yet what they are to obey in that particular case.

 

[Panthers]

 

[Panthers]

2 Corinthians 12:9

 

[Panthers]

 

[Panthers]

 

[Panthers]

There is no free will, period.
Choice is an illusion. (lie)

The argument is useless.
It just reinforces the lie, that there is a choice;
when there is not.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The choice between life and death is not about salvation? The choice between turning towards God or away from Him is not about salvation?

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity;

There you have it! It is talking about temporal life and prosperity vs adversity and even death.

“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.

Temporal. But indeed if they love the Lord it is by the Spirit of God, and not by the flesh.

But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 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,”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭15‬-‭19‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

You’re not even trying to see the passage for what it says. Your only focus is to interpret it in such a way that it doesn’t contradict your theology but it’s not working because you’re having to ignore important details in the passage.

Sorry, no. It is plainly about temporal life and blessings that result from obedience of the law, and from not pursuing other 'gods' but God alone. It is true that pursuing the law can lead to understanding one's need for God, and that is even hinted at here, I think, but Eternal Salvation is not what is meant by the choice set before them.

 

[Mark Quayle]

There is no free will, period.
Choice is an illusion. (lie)

The argument is useless.
It just reinforces the lie, that there is a choice;
when there is not.