James Disproves Free Will

JacksBratt said:

Nope... nothing to do with free will. The spiritually dead have chosen to reject Christ. Their choice... Now, they could choose to accept Him, or not... Free will.

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The Spiritually dead cant understand spiritual things (1 cor. 2:14) nor can they please God (Rom. 8:7-8). So I dont know where you get your idea that the spiritually dead have chosen to reject him and that they, under their own native resources, could determine to accept Christ. One has to be made spiritually alive by God in order to choose christ. I dont know where you get your ideas, but I can tell you the bible certainly doesn't agree with your comment.

JacksBratt said:

Correction... The lost just "don't" love God.
Again... this is for another thread. Nothing to do with the OP..

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Dont correct my comment when its biblically accurate. Its not that they don't love God its that they cannot. The Spiritually dead cant love spiritually. They cant understand spiritual things nor are their minds subject to the law of God nor indeed can they be. and another thing this is about James say8ing free will isnt biblical and there are other places in the bible that back what Dave is saying about free will. Its a bogus unbiblical teaching as it relates to being saved.

Clete said:

Okay, so now I've repeated it twice.

Do you have ANY intention whatsoever of actually debating the issue of free will or are you just here to throw out one liners and unsupported personal opinion?

I don't care which, just tell me so I can whether to ignore you from now on or not.

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Here ya go. Determinism debunks free will. Furthermore, you should stop thinking that you are entitled to a reply. Doing so, IMO, makes one sound rather arrogant.

Mark Quayle said:

On the contrary, it becomes incumbent on me to wear myself out for his sake.

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Why... we don't have free will. Nothing I can do will change whether person "X" is going to be saved...

Where does it say, in the bible, that we are to "wear ourselves out"?

1Reformedman said:

Dont correct my comment when its biblically accurate. Its not that they don't love God its that they cannot.

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I'm confused... I thought "we love Christ because He first loved us".

1 John 4:19 King James Version (KJV)

19 We love him, because he first loved us.

So, how does that work... I'm an unbeliever.. so ....I cannot love Him.. so why am I going to accept Him?

This is wrong... We are all capable of love. We realize that He loved us enough to die for us.. we love Him for it and ask Him to be our savior..

If we have no free will.... who makes the choice for us to "accept"?

JacksBratt said:

Why... we don't have free will. Nothing I can do will change whether person "X" is going to be saved...

Where does it say, in the bible, that we are to "wear ourselves out"?

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Again, is "free will" (though I am either a slave to sin, or to Christ) the same thing as ability to choose? I do not say we don't choose --of course we do. I don't say we don't have free will, unless by "free will" you mean that God must be "hands off".

So yeah, I can't help but talk about God and his Gospel. By the way, even if everything is pretermined, God uses means to accomplish his ends. So yeah, everything I, (or you or your great-cousin-in-law or even Satan) do makes a difference. We are how the predetermined is accomplished. This isn't rocket science.

JacksBratt said:

I disagree. The spiritually dead are well aware of the wrong that they do. We are all well aware and possess the knowledge of morals... right and wrong.

The spiritually dead just don't believe in Christ, heaven, hell or the need for salvation. They reject Christ.. by choice.

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The spiritually dead not have any idea that they are spiritually dead, deaf and blind. We see this with atheists daily. The spiritually dead cannot choose Christ because of being in bondage to the sin nature. ONe cant be freed from this bondage but That doesn't happen until one has been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit. There is a difference between knowing the difference between Good and evil in the natural realm and being able to understand spiritual things. The spiritually dead cannot understand spiritual things, (1 corinthians 2:14) nor can they please God. Rom 8:7-8 So there's is NO way a lost one could choose christ by his own natural moral ability. You conflate natural moral ability with spiritual ability.

You said they chose to reject Christ because they don't believe in Christ, heaven, hell or the need for salvation. That is not entirely true. They reject him because they are in bondage to the sin nature. It is because of that nature that the lost are unable to accept Christ, heaven, hell or the understand the need for repentance and salvation. One can only choose according to the bondage of the will. When one becomes a believer he is no longer in bondage to the old nature but he is now in bondage to the new nature that desires God. So once again his will isn't really free. Desire has much to do with choices. The lost one has no desire for God, nor does he understand he cannot have that desire, nor can he understand why he has no such desire. So he will always reject Christ.

JacksBratt said:

I'm confused... I thought "we love Christ because He first loved us".

1 John 4:19 King James Version (KJV)

19 We love him, because he first loved us.

So, how does that work... I'm an unbeliever.. so ....I cannot love Him.. so why am I going to accept Him?

This is wrong... We are all capable of love. We realize that He loved us enough to die for us.. we love Him for it and ask Him to be our savior..

If we have no free will.... who makes the choice for us to "accept"?

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That was written to believers about believers. It was not written to believers about unbelievers. CONTEXT, friend, context. Who makes the choice for us to accept? God gives you a choice when he regenerates. The choice is a part of the gift known as the new nature. One cannot please God as an unbeliever (Rom.8:7-8) so what makes you think you could believe in God? Don't you think that choosing Christ would please God? The bible tells us it does please him when one comes to believe. But that is a gift just the like the ability to choose Christ is a gift.

JacksBratt said:

I'm confused... I thought "we love Christ because He first loved us".

1 John 4:19 King James Version (KJV)

19 We love him, because he first loved us.

So, how does that work... I'm an unbeliever.. so ....I cannot love Him.. so why am I going to accept Him?

This is wrong... We are all capable of love. We realize that He loved us enough to die for us.. we love Him for it and ask Him to be our savior..

If we have no free will.... who makes the choice for us to "accept"?

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Who said we have no "free will", or perhaps more to the point, what did he mean by "free will"? Reformed Theology does not deny choice --real choice.

Who said you "accept" him? If you are an unbeliever, you cannot love Him, so no, of course you won't "accept" him. (By the way, the Bible uses the term "receive", not "accept". There is a huge difference.

What makes you love him, if you are at enmity with him? What makes you realize that he loved you so much? Spiritually dead, you have the intellectual and emotional integrity, and that above others who are also undeserving, to make a worthy spiritual decision? What makes you more able than those who turn away?

JacksBratt said:

I'm confused... I thought "we love Christ because He first loved us".

1 John 4:19 King James Version (KJV)

19 We love him, because he first loved us.

So, how does that work... I'm an unbeliever.. so ....I cannot love Him.. so why am I going to accept Him?

This is wrong... We are all capable of love. We realize that He loved us enough to die for us.. we love Him for it and ask Him to be our savior..

If we have no free will.... who makes the choice for us to "accept"?

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The new birth or being regenerated by Gods Spirit changes ones disposition towards God. Apart from being born again man is dead in sin and blinded from spiritual truths in Christ.

Cis.jd said:

Hmm. I have the ability to obey not to muder.

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You didn't understand the question, did you? Show me a single command that contains within the command itself YOUR natural moral ability to obey it. First of all, you don't show a command that seems to say what you're saying. You didn't show me the command "Do not murder", but for the sake of argument let's assume you did. Now you're going to have to show that you got your natural moral ability to not murder from the command itself. I think you're going to find that the ability to obey a command never comes from the command itself. Ability is always external to the command.

JacksBratt said:

What a sad state of mind.

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Ever heard of determinism.

JacksBratt said:

I disagree. The spiritually dead are well aware of the wrong that they do. We are all well aware and possess the knowledge of morals... right and wrong.

The spiritually dead just don't believe in Christ, heaven, hell or the need for salvation. They reject Christ.. by choice.

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You are speaking unbiblically. The lost cannot please God thus they can't choose Christ because to do so would please God. Let me remind you the lost cannot understand spiritual things. Its just that simple

So who has free will and who doesn't??

Dave L said:

“For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be. Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.” James 3:7–12 (KJV 1900)

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the thought may be there but you control whether your words give life to the thought

Dave L said:

But the thought is there. And James doesn't lie.

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1Reformedman said:

You didn't understand the question, did you? Show me a single command that contains within the command itself YOUR natural moral ability to obey it. First of all, you don't show a command that seems to say what you're saying. You didn't show me the command "Do not murder", but for the sake of argument let's assume you did. Now you're going to have to show that you got your natural moral ability to not murder from the command itself. I think you're going to find that the ability to obey a command never comes from the command itself. Ability is always external to the command.

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No. You are not understanding my answer. First of all, I don't have to show I got my ability to not murder from the command itself, because I've never argued such. My argument is simply being able to chose to follow it or not. How I am able to do that, or where it comes from, is meaningless in this argument.

This question of yours is out of place and very purely worded that is difficult to understand what you are implying. Which makes Mark's co-signing and explaining your own arguments very strange. How can someone, who is already loaded with with many arguments towards others have the time to know someone elses and know exactly what he has been implying regardless of how poorly explained it is?

Dave L said:

James says none can do this.

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no he doesn't

Dave L said:

as far as I can tell, the born again come the closest but still sin occasionally.

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for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Do you remember that verse??

Romans 10:19 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

you have to choose to believe before you can be saved so that tosses out the idea that only born again have free will... let's try again shall we...