Free will, and original sin --a discussion continued

fhansen

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This is a reply to Cis.jd, where I am unable to reply within the thread, since replies have been closed off:

Cis.jd says:
"The way i cite scripture isn't by cherry picking verses and taking part in an "interpretation battle" but using references in the Bible (or just general theology)

"For example if your arguments (or your interpretation to all the verses cite for your support) about predestination and everything you just said here is correct, then explain to me this:

"In Genesis with Eve taking from the tree did God predestined his creation to disobey, so he created disobedience to him, meant for us to be sinners, and then cursed us anyway?

"Since God predestined everything – he created/destined our own choice, salvation, sin, everything, then you cannot love him, nor believe in him. You where just made on auto-pilot to only obey him, simple as that, and therefore nothing is good, nothing is righteous."


My reply follows:

You make a huge logical jump saying "...God predestined his creation to disobey, SO he created disobedience..." "So" there, being another way of saying, "therefore". The logic is wrong.

You do the same thing again by saying, "...he created/destined our own choice, salvation, sin, everything, THEN you cannot love him, nor believe in him." "Then" there, being another way of saying, "therefore". The logic is again wrong.

It is human logic, that denies God's transcendence. We cannot blame God for our sin. We can indeed credit him for providing a way for us to see our unworthiness of his grace. As Clete has said to me, I want my cake and eat it too, and I suppose what I just said sounds like that, but no, God can do only good. If my logic is bad, ok, I relent, because I accept the fact that God can not sin above my logic, but God providing for us to behave according to our sinful nature is not the same as God making us robots.

Nor, even, is he to blame for Adam and Eve's sin, though they did it without an original sin nature. As I like to say, "Don't pretend that we are unwilling participants in our own sin."
If God created us to sin, to disobey, then there is no other direct cause of sin/evil/disobedience than Him, regardless of His "transcendence". And He'd be less good and trustworthy than satan. It's only due to the free will of created beings that moral evil (sin) is even possible.
 
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BarnyFyfe

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Psalm 147:5
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.

1 John 3:20
For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.

Hebrews 4:13
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Jeremiah 1:5
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Proverbs 15:3
The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

Isaiah 40:28
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

1 Chronicles 28:9
“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

Acts 1:24
And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen

Matthew 10:30
But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Jeremiah 23:24
Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

Psalm 147:4
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.

Romans 11:33-36
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Isaiah 40:13-14
Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

Romans 11:33
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Job 28:24
For he looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens.

Isaiah 42:9
Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”

Isaiah 46:9-10
Remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

Psalm 147:4-5
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.

Psalm 139:1-4
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

Psalm 139:4
Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

1 Corinthians 2:11
For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Isaiah 46:10
Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Matthew 10:29-3
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

John 21:17
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

1 Kings 8:39
Then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind),

Romans 1:20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Psalm 56:8
You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?

Job 34:21
“For his eyes are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps.

Job 37:16
Do you know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of him who is perfect in knowledge,

Acts 17:27
That they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

Matthew 6:8
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Psalm 139:7-10
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

Proverbs 5:21
For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord, and he ponders all his paths.

Psalm 139:12
Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

Deuteronomy 29:29
“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Psalm 33:13-15
The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.
Mighty nice of you to prove my point so quickly and thoroughly.
 
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BarnyFyfe

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It's all a mystery! Who can know it? Therefore, just accept it!

Gee, I never get sick of hearing this tired old argument, which is nothing but a lazy cop out. I guess God wasn't really serious when he said....

Isa 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

If you can't rap your mind around something, then fine....but please don't think that you speak on behalf of everyone.
And if you don't feel like putting in the meager effort necessary to follow a thread discussion....please don't reply out of context.
 
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SkyWriting

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Anyone got something like a chart or diagram that highlights this debate?
Both sides have scripture that they throw at each other.
The two cannot be reconciled.


image_scan.png
 
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Cis.jd

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You make a huge logical jump saying "...God predestined his creation to disobey, SO he created disobedience..." "So" there, being another way of saying, "therefore". The logic is wrong.

You do the same thing again by saying, "...he created/destined our own choice, salvation, sin, everything, THEN you cannot love him, nor believe in him." "Then" there, being another way of saying, "therefore". The logic is again wrong.

Nothing in this "response" answers the question I gave in that other thread. It's just "your logic is wrong" out of nothing.

It is human logic, that denies God's transcendence. We cannot blame God for our sin. We can indeed credit him for providing a way for us to see our unworthiness of his grace. As Clete has said to me, I want my cake and eat it too, and I suppose what I just said sounds like that, but no, God can do only good. If my logic is bad, ok, I relent, because I accept the fact that God can not sin above my logic, but God providing for us to behave according to our sinful nature is not the same as God making us robots."

But based on your arguments about free will and predestination in that thread, then we do have a problem with certain things in the Bible such as sin. Even the Lord's prayer becomes a problem.

I'm not interested in taking your round 2, i'm not going to beat a dead horse. God does help lead us to the right path – brilliantly paving the roads for us, at the end of the day we still chose whether to accept him or not.
 
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Clete

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This is a reply to Cis.jd, where I am unable to reply within the thread, since replies have been closed off:

Cis.jd says:
"The way i cite scripture isn't by cherry picking verses and taking part in an "interpretation battle" but using references in the Bible (or just general theology)

"For example if your arguments (or your interpretation to all the verses cite for your support) about predestination and everything you just said here is correct, then explain to me this:

"In Genesis with Eve taking from the tree did God predestined his creation to disobey, so he created disobedience to him, meant for us to be sinners, and then cursed us anyway?

"Since God predestined everything – he created/destined our own choice, salvation, sin, everything, then you cannot love him, nor believe in him. You where just made on auto-pilot to only obey him, simple as that, and therefore nothing is good, nothing is righteous."


My reply follows:

You make a huge logical jump saying "...God predestined his creation to disobey, SO he created disobedience..." "So" there, being another way of saying, "therefore". The logic is wrong.

You do the same thing again by saying, "...he created/destined our own choice, salvation, sin, everything, THEN you cannot love him, nor believe in him." "Then" there, being another way of saying, "therefore". The logic is again wrong.

It is human logic, that denies God's transcendence. We cannot blame God for our sin. We can indeed credit him for providing a way for us to see our unworthiness of his grace. As Clete has said to me, I want my cake and eat it too, and I suppose what I just said sounds like that, but no, God can do only good. If my logic is bad, ok, I relent, because I accept the fact that God can not sin above my logic, but God providing for us to behave according to our sinful nature is not the same as God making us robots.

Nor, even, is he to blame for Adam and Eve's sin, though they did it without an original sin nature. As I like to say, "Don't pretend that we are unwilling participants in our own sin."

The theological term for what you are presenting here is "Antinomy". It's a way for theologians to get around logical inconsistencies in their doctrine. Every single time that anyone (it's almost always Calvinists) deploys the "antinomy" trump card, I always make a point of thanking them for conceding the debate. Thanks! :)

The worst part of your tactic is that you begin by telling your opponent, who made a brilliant argument by the way, that he's the one who's logic is wrong! That's really rich because the very next thing you do after telling him that his logic is bad is to throw logic completely out the window and down the street!

Tell me this - and this is a serious question that I'd really like for you to try to respond too - what heretical doctrine(s) are we NOT allowed to call an "antinomy"? Just name any wacky doctrine at all that it wouldn't work on.

If I wanted to start preaching that God and Satan are the same being and that they're really just two sides of the same coin (which some nut cases actually believe, by the way). How would you prove me wrong if, in response to any argument you make to the contrary, I can just slip the old antinomy trump card out of my back pocket and slap it down on the table and tell you that your logic is wrong? In what fundamental way would that be any different that what you are doing here?

I think that whether you make an attempt to answer that or not, the question pretty much answers itself, right?

The fact is that there is no such thing as "human logic". I mean, there is, of course, a manner in which people think that isn't rational and that is based on emotionalism or something other than sound reason which could be rightly called "human logic" if you wanted to employ a figure of speech, but plain reason isn't what "human logic" is! If it were, we literally couldn't know anything at all.

Many in the Christian community seem to be gravitationally pulled toward this idea of real, actual, sound reason being "human logic". Those in the Charismatic movement are probably the group that does this most flagrantly. They'll just straight up tell you to your face that you should stop thinking about it and just believe it. And that's the whole entire point of adopting the attitude! Christians don't ever adopt this anti-intellectual attitude about anything else in their life. A Christian won't show up to a Home Owners Association meeting and employ such a tactic and tell the board that the broken leafless tree in their yard might appear dead but they answer to a higher authority than the board's ability to see and analyze evidence. When the transmission in their car goes out, they don't think that it's going to fix itself, they take it to a mechanic. When they bake a cake, they preheat the oven. When they put their pants on, its happens one leg at a time. Two plus two equals four. Etc. For every other aspect of their lives, reason works! It's only when it comes to matters of doctrine that they seem willing to toss their brains right down the sewer and sacrifice the singular tool that exists by which anyone has ever understood anything. They come up with a seemingly endless parade of reasons why they should ignore reason never noticing that they are using reason to pronounce every syllable of their self-defeating "arguments".

The truth is that there is no such thing as an irrational truth, nor could there be. There could not be a more blatantly obvious oxymoron than a truth that is not rational. Reason is utterly irrefragable. No truth can be uttered without it and no utterance of truth can be understood without it. Any attempt to undermine the veracity of reason, uses reason to do it and thus defeats itself the moment any such stupidity is uttered.

Okay, well I'm out of time. I could go on for some lengthy period of time on the subject but this will have to do for now. I'll be traveling tomorrow and out of town for several days and so it may be a while before I can post anything else.

Merry Christmas to you all and may God bless you and yours!

Clete
 
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rnmomof7

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I actually saw a thread here claiming that God Himself is not free to choose. Talk about your rabbit holes.

Could have been something I wrote...I asked if God has free will?
That is something to contemplate because He can not sin, He can not violate His attributes and He can not divide Himself or He ceases to be God..
 
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rnmomof7

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Can you explain how that justifies predestining a soul to hell before it is born?

Romans 9:
10Not only that, but Rebecca’s children were conceived by one man, our father Isaac. 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.”d14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Certainly not! 15For He says to Moses:

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,

and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”16So then, it does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.18Therefore God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden.


The question is ..does anyone deserve to be saved?
 
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SkyWriting

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The theological term for what you are presenting here is "Antinomy". It's a way for theologians to get around logical inconsistencies in their doctrine. Every single time that anyone (it's almost always Calvinists) deploys the "antinomy" trump card, I always make a point of thanking them for conceding the debate. Thanks! The worst part of your tactic is that you begin by telling your opponent, who made a brilliant argument by the way, that he's the one who's logic is wrong! That's really rich because the very next thing you do after telling him that his logic is bad is to throw logic completely out the window and down the street!

- God planned, executes, and controls the location of each electron in the Cosmos.
- You can choose not to believe that.

This illustrates that the two sides are not able to be reconciled.

Except by God.

p3-08-line-opt.jpg
 
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Mark Quayle

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The theological term for what you are presenting here is "Antinomy". It's a way for theologians to get around logical inconsistencies in their doctrine. Every single time that anyone (it's almost always Calvinists) deploys the "antinomy" trump card, I always make a point of thanking them for conceding the debate. Thanks! :)

The worst part of your tactic is that you begin by telling your opponent, who made a brilliant argument by the way, that he's the one who's logic is wrong! That's really rich because the very next thing you do after telling him that his logic is bad is to throw logic completely out the window and down the street!

Tell me this - and this is a serious question that I'd really like for you to try to respond too - what heretical doctrine(s) are we NOT allowed to call an "antinomy"? Just name any wacky doctrine at all that it wouldn't work on.

If I wanted to start preaching that God and Satan are the same being and that they're really just two sides of the same coin (which some nut cases actually believe, by the way). How would you prove me wrong if, in response to any argument you make to the contrary, I can just slip the old antinomy trump card out of my back pocket and slap it down on the table and tell you that your logic is wrong? In what fundamental way would that be any different that what you are doing here?

I think that whether you make an attempt to answer that or not, the question pretty much answers itself, right?

The fact is that there is no such thing as "human logic". I mean, there is, of course, a manner in which people think that isn't rational and that is based on emotionalism or something other than sound reason which could be rightly called "human logic" if you wanted to employ a figure of speech, but plain reason isn't what "human logic" is! If it were, we literally couldn't know anything at all.

Many in the Christian community seem to be gravitationally pulled toward this idea of real, actual, sound reason being "human logic". Those in the Charismatic movement are probably the group that does this most flagrantly. They'll just straight up tell you to your face that you should stop thinking about it and just believe it. And that's the whole entire point of adopting the attitude! Christians don't ever adopt this anti-intellectual attitude about anything else in their life. A Christian won't show up to a Home Owners Association meeting and employ such a tactic and tell the board that the broken leafless tree in their yard might appear dead but they answer to a higher authority than the board's ability to see and analyze evidence. When the transmission in their car goes out, they don't think that it's going to fix itself, they take it to a mechanic. When they bake a cake, they preheat the oven. When they put their pants on, its happens one leg at a time. Two plus two equals four. Etc. For every other aspect of their lives, reason works! It's only when it comes to matters of doctrine that they seem willing to toss their brains right down the sewer and sacrifice the singular tool that exists by which anyone has ever understood anything. They come up with a seemingly endless parade of reasons why they should ignore reason never noticing that they are using reason to pronounce every syllable of their self-defeating "arguments".

The truth is that there is no such thing as an irrational truth, nor could there be. There could not be a more blatantly obvious oxymoron than a truth that is not rational. Reason is utterly irrefragable. No truth can be uttered without it and no utterance of truth can be understood without it. Any attempt to undermine the veracity of reason, uses reason to do it and thus defeats itself the moment any such stupidity is uttered.

Okay, well I'm out of time. I could go on for some lengthy period of time on the subject but this will have to do for now. I'll be traveling tomorrow and out of town for several days and so it may be a while before I can post anything else.

Merry Christmas to you all and may God bless you and yours!

Clete
I have yet to see what it is you are claiming as "antinomy" on my part. But yes, Merry Christmas to you and yours, too!
 
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Mark Quayle

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Nothing in this "response" answers the question I gave in that other thread. It's just "your logic is wrong" out of nothing.



But based on your arguments about free will and predestination in that thread, then we do have a problem with certain things in the Bible such as sin. Even the Lord's prayer becomes a problem.

I'm not interested in taking your round 2, i'm not going to beat a dead horse. God does help lead us to the right path – brilliantly paving the roads for us, at the end of the day we still chose whether to accept him or not.

None of this is a problem with God. If God says he predestines, then indeed he does so. He does NOT say he gives us free will, though he does imply choice. If Scripture is the authority, above our arguments, then you are on the losing side to say that free will determines his predestination.

He does not "help lead us to the right path". He leads us. Whether we follow (obey) him or not, as a matter of fact. For the elect, he leads in the ways of righteousness, FOR HIS NAME'S SAKE. This is not about us. But ok. enough, Cis.jd. God bless you.
 
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