Did Jesus Ever "Violate" Anyone's "Free Will"?

When every knee shall bow to our Lord, I can see many people's will being violated.

When there is weeping and gnashing of teeth and the utterance of "Lord Lord, did we not", I can see many people's will being violated.

Jesus is Lord and He shall be feared for the Holiness He is.

Well, for one, people do not have autonomous free will.

Paul and Lazarus are some pretty good examples of how God sovereignly moved in people's lives.

Rubiks said:

How do you know Lazarus never willed (or wanted not) to be raised from the dead?

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Have you ever seen a dead person do something/anything?

JoeP222w said:

Have you ever seen a dead person do something/anything?

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No, have you?

But people who are punished by God had the free will to be on his side though

jimmyjimmy said:

He is the Potter, and we are the clay, right?

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I have a big problem with that analogy because clay isn't sentient.

Rubiks said:

No, have you?

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Then how do you know that Lazarus either willed or didn't will to be raised from the dead? Dead people don't will anything.

Rubiks said:

No. Jesus never made someone convert to Christianity. If someone rejected the gospel, he preached it to the next person and moved on.

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Lydia, Paul and Lazarus would disagree with you.

Acts 16:14-15 ESV One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. (15) And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.

-V- said:

However, when violating our free will DOES determine our eternal fate without us having any say in it at all, such violations make God a monster and a spiritual rapist.

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God is not obligated to man. God is sovereign, not man.

Man does not have the ability to frustrate God's will. No one will be in Hell saying, "God wanted to save me, but I frustrated His will, because I am sovereign, not God."

JoeP222w said:

Then how do you know that Lazarus either willed or didn't will to be raised from the dead? Dead people don't will anything.

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Do They? Read the rich man and Lazarus. (Luke 16:19-31)

-V- said:

The Calvinist view makes God violate His own nature. The highest ethic from God is love, that is His very nature. The Calvinist view forces God to be a monster in violation of the very love God is supposed to be.

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You have a very great misunderstanding of Calvinism and the sovereignty of God.

JoeP222w said:

Lydia, Paul and Lazarus would disagree with you.

Acts 16:14-15 ESV One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. (15) And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.

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That's not what OP asked.

jimmyjimmy said:

When Jesus walked the earth, did He ever "violate" anyone's "free will"?

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JoeP222w said:

God is not obligated to man. God is sovereign, not man.

Man does not have the ability to frustrate God's will. No one will be in Hell saying, "God wanted to save me, but I frustrated His will, because I am sovereign, not God."

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Another misrepresentation/straw man fallacy from the pro-Calvinist side. Jimmyjimmy tried the exact same thing. Denying YOUR VIEW of God's sovereignty doesn't mean I believe man is sovereign over God. If we have a choice on something, it's because God ALLOWS us to have that choice, leaving His sovereignty quite intact.

JoeP222w said:

You have a very great misunderstanding of Calvinism and the sovereignty of God.

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Not according to their own explanations of how God works.

JoeP222w said:

Well, for one, people do not have autonomous free will.

Paul and Lazarus are some pretty good examples of how God sovereignly moved in people's lives.

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Saul was a very zealous religious person though wrong. God has foreknowledge knowing if Saul was approached as he was on the road to Damascus and presented the truth Saul of his own free will would choose to believe and obey and not disobey as he could have chosen (Acts 26:19)

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Acts 16:13
And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. 14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.

Lydia was already a worshiper of God, so she was not totally depraved.
The order of events: 1) Paul spake the word of the lord, 2) Lydia heard, 3) Lydia's heart was opened. The Lord did NOT open Lydia's heart in a miraculous way apart from the word but her heart was opened by the Lord by means of His word preached to Lydia with Lydia choosing to take heed to what was spoken by Paul and obeyed by being baptized v15.

-V- said:

Another misrepresentation/straw man fallacy from the pro-Calvinist side. Jimmyjimmy tried the exact same thing. Denying YOUR VIEW of God's sovereignty doesn't mean I believe man is sovereign over God. If we have a choice on something, it's because God ALLOWS us to have that choice, leaving His sovereignty quite intact.

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So ... you're saying that a SOVEREIGN GOD can SOVREIGNLY give a man the choice of his desiny ?

In fact, ... isn't it a ding on God's sovereignity to suggest that He COULD NOT DO SO ?

A_Thinker said:

So ... you're saying that a SOVEREIGN GOD can SOVREIGNLY give a man the choice of his desiny ?

In fact, ... isn't it a ding on God's sovereignity to suggest that He COULD NOT DO SO ?

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That's about it, yep.

A_Thinker said:

God violates "free will" all of the time.

Did we ask to be born ?

But this doesn't mean that we don't have SOME free will.

Did Jesus ever ask individuals for participation in the accomplishment of His will (i.e. the exercise of faith, obedience, etc.) ?

My recollections ...

* He asked the father of the demon-stricken son if he had faith.
* He directed the servants at the wedding to fill the water jars.
* He asked a boy for his lunch.
* He asked the man at the pool of Bethesda if he wanted to be healed.
* He asked blind Bartimeaus to go wash his (mud-covered) eyes.

And it occurs to me that scripture says that there were places where Jesus could not act in a mighty way ... because of lack of faith ...

But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching. Mark 6:4-6

Jesus also indicated that men could resist the will of God ...

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Matthew 23:37

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You have highlighted some very appropriate scriptures. I was thinking about Mark 6:4-6 where it says that Jesus marveled because of their unbelief. If the Calvinist doctrine of Total Depravity which means total inability to believe the gospel or spiritual truths (without God regenerating first) is true then it doesn't make any sense at all that Jesus would marvel at unbelief. Certainly Jesus would be aware and have no reason to marvel of man's inability to believe if the doctrines of TULIP are accurate. But I think this passage of scripture, as do so many others, show that the doctrines of Calvinism are a man-made theology in opposition to the Biblical truth.

jimmyjimmy said:

When Jesus walked the earth, did He ever "violate" anyone's "free will"?

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I don't think so Jim. "A bruised reed He'll not break and a smoldering wick He'll not stuff out till He leads justice to victory." So I don't believe the Lord ever violated our free will. On the contrary, saints can disobey God's will. Peace in Christ brother .

jimmyjimmy said:

He is the Potter, and we are the clay, right?

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Romans 9:9:22
19You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?


The above is the favorite go-to verse for Calvinism to attack the view of libertarian free will. The verse was used to teach that God has the right to use Israel by binding her over to disobedience: Judaism, groups, nations, not individuals. As confirmed by this supporting verse:

Romans 9:11-13
11Yet before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad, in order that God’s plan of election might stand, 12not by works but by Him who calls, she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”c 13So it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Genesis 25:23
23The LORD said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb;
And two peoples will be separated from your body;
And one people shall be stronger than the other;
And the older shall serve the younger.”

Esau NEVER served Jacob, Edom did however serve Israel.