My confusion....

Here's what I got


Arminianism= The will was not so affected by the fall as to have left man without a trace of goodness, there is still an "island" of righteousness. Also man can still muster up in himself a desire for God.

Calvinism= Man is completely and utterly spritually dead. There is no "island" of righteouness, man would never desire or chose God.

It depends on who you ask, really. The real answer is that we don't have "free will," but a contingent will.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

Ooh, a contingent will. I like that! Good way to clarify this, Jon!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Jon_ again.

Arminian Free Will ---all boils down to us "accepting" the free gift. It seems that many arminians will wholeheartedly agree that the Holy Spirit draws, that God is very involved in the process of a non-christian learning the Gospel, but will stop short of accepting that this drawing is irresistible It seems that they believe that God gives us the ability to make the choice, but we could still decide against Him. It's like they can't bear to think the God would actually make us WANT Him--There's that little part inside that says "NO I want to make that final decision! I want a little piece of the Glory!" They just can't accept that once God opens your eyes, you cannot resist Him, and why would you want to?

Calvinist Free will---accepts that, as Jon so well put it, our will is contingent. We will make choices based on what we most strongly desire at any given moment, and when God opens our eyes and hearts, we most certainly desire Him above all. Until that moment, we don't see spiritually, or understand spiritually, so how could we possible make a free will choice for Him when we don't even have that option? It's just not there. We are ignorant of God.


Our "will" is so much more free when we are in Christ. Because we finally have the ability to make a choice for God, and our good deeds are finally pleasing to Him because we make them for the Glory of God and not for our own gain or glory.

I see the ultimate difference as both have separate views on God's sovereignty and authority and man's natural attitude towards his Creator.

Free Will sees it unfair for God to not let humans choose their eternal home(assuming men have the inherent goodness to do so), where Election sees that man's will is too sinful to even desire, less choose, heaven and that God's will ultimately prevails.

^ Very simplistic but a sort of basic idea..

Luther's Bondage of the will is a good example.

The unsaved can not , not sin. Their will is in bondage to sin .

Everything they do is sin

It is only the saved that have a TRUE free will .

We can chose not to sin , something that the unsaved can never not do

shadrach_ said:

So then, what else is there besides the Arminians and the Calvinists? An other viewpoints? (Catholics dont count )

Click to expand...

Well, pretty much everyone has their own opinion of how "free will" works. What, in particular, are you trying to understand?

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon