You can't chose to believe something can you?

Hammster said:

Aren’t you crediting God for making you as a person who loves the light? That doesn’t sound like free will.

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God deigned us to make choices. God allows some to be made in such a way that they will choose the light. God allows others to be may in ways where they will not choose the light.

Hammster said:

Back to square one. Why do some choose the dark and some choose the light?

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Because of how they are made (and in my case, I consider life to be part of the making process).

Hammster said:

Then where is the so-called free will? You make it sound like we are robots.

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Robots don't make choices.

We make choices.

Those that are saved will choose to be saved.

It is not a default position.

JohnB445 said:

I didn't choose to believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is the reason I can and do.

I didn't choose to believe in predestination, the Bible says God chose us and predestinates so I believe the word of God.

I didn't choose to believe in the Trinity, the Bible says these 3 testify as 1. The Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.

I didn't choose to believe 1+1=2.

So, in reality, we can't force ourselves to believe something, right?

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Hi John-

I think I would say it differently. Here's my take:

The gospel is an invitation to interpersonal relationship with God through Jesus. Like all interpersonal relationships, one person has to first reveal or disclose their personality. The second person then responds by 1) trusting the self-revealing is authentic by 2) acting on that revelation/self-disclosure.

1) God always takes the initiative in relationship through self-disclosing his mind (including his knowledge of his own being), his will, and his emotions. Just look at every instance of God communicating with someone and God is the one who is showing what he is like. Hebrews 1:1 explicit about this self-sharing initiative. Hebrews 11 is a list of "call and response" by various people. Of course, Yahweh is not human so its even more important for Him to communicate his glory in a way we can understand. Best of all would be if he could actually step into our human experience...and that's Hebrews 1:2, John 1:14, etc.

2) But second, all authentic relationship requires trusting response/cooperation/participation. Anyone who has ever been blown off or rejected by someone else will recognized this reality. This is what "faith" in the gospel sense is: interpersonal trusting participation, not mental agreement to certain facts or doctrines. Those come after the relationship See for example, Hagar's "doctrine" in Genesis 16 after she meets Yahweh: "He's the God who sees me." She had met the angel of Yahweh who was kind to her in her weak state and had blessed her, therefore her theology had a new "doctrine": Yahweh cares about me personally". Based on this self disclosing, she trustingly cooperates by returning to Sarah: that's "faith".

3) Since Jesus is Yahweh's final (Hebrews 1:2) and best self-disclosure ("If you have seen me you have seen the Father") to reject Jesus's message and work (i.e. not to put your trust in God's amazing love - Romans 5:8) is absolutely catastrophic. If you won't personally trust the God who dies for you, nothing will entice you to know him ("Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"). To be relationally connected to the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit is to have life (1 John 5:11a). The opposite is true as well (1 John 5:11b)

So to connect this to your comments:

• God's part: God always initiates by self-revealing, drawing us into personal relationship with Himself (John 6:44). So yes, we didn't choose him because we are incapable of interacting with him (he is an omnipotent, omniscient, Eternal Spirit) unless he chooses to show himself to us. That's how God's foreknowledge of us works. Our response is only possible because of his initiating love.
  
  
• Our part: We MUST respond with active, participatory trust (faith) in who he has shown himself to
  be. Hebrews 11:6 tells us why: In order to please God, you have to believe he's real, and that overtures to know him will be rewarded. This is why faith is commended throughout the Bible. God is the supreme Good, so being connected to him in loyal trust is the definition of "righteousness". "Trusting" in our own works to save us points us to a false source of good (ourselves). The "righteousness from God apart from works" comes through active trust in God's final word about himself and his trustworthiness: Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We are free to trustingly cooperate or not. There is no such thing as real relationship without choice and God desires real relationship (think Garden of Eden: to trust God or not to trust God). This is why in the New Testament concepts like "peace with God", "ministry of reconciliation", "fellowship with God" are really meaningful. We are now "partakers of the Divine Nature" (2 Peter 1:4), actively involved in the life of the Trinity, the only source of life in all of reality. As such, that life flows through us more and more which is additional evidence that our trust in "the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" is well-founded.(2 Peter 1:8)

As a side note, this normal, everyday understanding of how human relationships work is the best solution to the faith/works conundrum as well as the "lose/not lose your salvation" and a whole host of other hobgoblins of the mind that haunt Christians.

Hammster said:

Is believing, in this context, pleasing to God?

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Are you suggesting it isn't?

Hammster said:

I think it matters. And I’ve not mentioned predestination.

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Obviously we disagree.

Hammster said:

Back to square one. Why do some choose the dark and some choose the light?

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Why is this important?

Hammster said:

Then where is the so-called free will? You make it sound like we are robots.

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Careful.

Hammster said:

So why do some choose the light, while others choose the dark?

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Million Dollar question. All we can say is, what we desire/value the most, is what we choose.

JohnB445 said:

I didn't choose to believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is the reason I can and do.

I didn't choose to believe in predestination, the Bible says God chose us and predestinates so I believe the word of God.

I didn't choose to believe in the Trinity, the Bible says these 3 testify as 1. The Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.

I didn't choose to believe 1+1=2.

So, in reality, we can't force ourselves to believe something, right?

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Before conversion:

I chose to believe Jesus was a great man that was too good for this world and too good for me. I realized tha

I chose to believe in fatalism and that I was headed for destruction. Predestination made me realize I don't have to be a slave to fate; my free will can drive destiny and I can choose to be on the right side of it.

I understood the Father and Son, but not the Holy Spirit. After being graced by the Spirit I chose to pursue the Trinity.

Knowing 1+1=2 is a matter of intelligence and not faith; unless you don't have faith in intellect and are an antiintellectual. I don't get that from you though.

Hammster said:

Back to square one. Why do some choose the dark and some choose the light?

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has nothing to do with 'pre-programming' -- has to do with free will.

God "draws all mankind to Me" John 12:32.

God even comes to "His OWN and His OWN receive Him not " John 1:11
God asks "what MORE was there to do that I have not done?" Isaiah 5:4

The robot-system that Calvinism imagines - does not exist.

The free will system that He sovereignly chooses and supernaturally maintains does exist as Romans 10 points out.

Rom 10
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Calvinism fails in that it tries to "be god" but can't. So when it says God cannot know the future without you being a pre-programmed robot - they are wrong. God knew every Word Christ would say (as Calvinists will admit)- even so Christ had free will and was not a robot (as Calvinists will also admit). A mystery Calvinism cannot fathom. Yet it employs arguments that rely on concluding for the robot model simply because God knows the future, even though Christ Himself disproves that assumption that they are making.