God wanted man to fall

Daniel Marsh said:

It takes freewill to obey.

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What is denied is total free will, the power to do whatever one chooses to do, as in choosing to live a completely sinless life.
Man's will does not have the power to make that choice, his free will is limited.

dóxatotheó said:

sure

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Is that a "yes"?

Daniel Marsh said:

It takes freewill to obey.

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The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. -- Romans 6

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. -- John 6:44

And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” -- John 6:65

According to scripture, it takes more than a man's own free will.

RDKirk said:

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. -- Romans 6

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. -- John 6:44

And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” -- John 6:65

According to scripture, it takes more than a man's own free will.

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Because we are no longer perfect. Only three people could make the choice not to sin. Adam, Eve and Jesus. As Paul says, the rest of us are governed by our flesh which is flawed. Jesus proved that a man could live his life without sin.

SuperCow said:

Because we are no longer perfect. Only three people could make the choice not to sin. Adam, Eve and Jesus. As Paul says, the rest of us are governed by our flesh which is flawed. Jesus proved that a man could live his life without sin.

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So imperfection is a deterministic factor. But "free will" is an absolute condition. If it's "mostly free will," then it's not "free will."

RDKirk said:

So imperfection is a deterministic factor. But "free will" is an absolute condition. If it's "mostly free will," then it's not "free will."

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Not 100% sure of the intent of your post, but I would say that Adam and Eve technically had more free will than we do. They had the choice to obey God or sin. We no longer have the free will to be perfect. We are “slaves to sin” as it says in Romans 6. We have the choice in everyday decisions, but we are no longer capable to live without sin, even if we want to.

TedT said:

My definition of a free will...

All FREE means is uncoerced:

IF GOD set it up so HIS new creation had no coercion or constraints upon their choices, forcing them to choose anything, they had free will.

The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:

1. Free will can't be coerced nor constrained:
Nothing in their created nature could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all genetics...

Nothing in their experience could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all, cultural or familial experience...

Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could FORCE them to choose good or evil, love or hate.

In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.
[Ref: definition of ingenuous: ingenuousness as: 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, worldliness; artless. 2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid.

2. Consequences must be known but not proved:
The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a true choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?” must be answered in full detail.

But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death here,” “life there,” was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.

If it were proven you would die if you went left, are you truly free to choose to go right? No, you are forced by your knowledge to go right. Therefore they must know, but without proof, the nature of the consequences of their choice.

Only then are they following their desires, their deepest hope in the nature of reality, defining the reality they most hope to enjoy.

Peace, Ted

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A very worked out definition. The problem with this definition is it relies on the perception of the individual of themselves, of their surroundings, of their future and its implications.

Sin and guilt is linked to free will, in the sense of responsibility and consequences.
As children, we all know sudden impluses will come upon a child to do something wrong or dangerous, and often they will just do it, like tripping up a sibling. Equally if you realise we are a bunch of interconnected fear and adventurous emotions, as we explore life, is this chosen or just built resulting in random success or failure.

What has become clear to me is over the first 20years of life, embedding all the issues and balances of life, one comes up with a platform of who one is and who one has chosen to be. So when anyone suggests free will, they have to put it into context of who we are at 20+. And you will find these folk know who they are and what they want to do and how. Cross one of their little lines and you will know about it. It is why I wonder why there is so much discussion about free will, when we live in a very steared and chosen environment, built on mans free will to explore and innovate. The whole philosophy of schools and knowledge is it empowers choice and free will, putting the actual opportunities available right in front of everyone.

The doubt in the argument socially has been did my authentic self make the choice or my social compromises and group conformity? And the answer to this question is how well people are connected to who they are and their own reactions without consideration of others. This gets more involved is who they are always considers others and the likely impact on them of anything. I have two daughters who are very much like this. It is who they are, as very caring people.

So maybe the question is around guilt and sin and not free will. For instance someone hurts me deeply so I can then cause them equal harm by doing x which is an actual sin, by stealing something, or lying about them, or hitting them. God declares the sinful behaviour is worthy of punishment, but actually points to its cause and suggests change in the heart so the issue does not go this far.

God bless you

RDKirk said: ↑
There is no true "free will" in scripture.

Daniel Marsh said:

It takes freewill to obey.

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Ummm, I tend to think that disobedience and rebellion proves a free will as GOD would not program us to be evil except in the most outlandish scenario. Obedience can be forced upon us by any number of means....

SuperCow said:

Not 100% sure of the intent of your post, but I would say that Adam and Eve technically had more free will than we do. They had the choice to obey God or sin. We no longer have the free will to be perfect. We are “slaves to sin” as it says in Romans 6. We have the choice in everyday decisions, but we are no longer capable to live without sin, even if we want to.

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My point is that if, as you say, we no longer have the free will to be perfect, then we do not have free will. Free will is an absolute concept--either you have it or you don't. "Partial free will" would not be "free will." If we are slaves to sin--which we are, the bible says so, then we do not have free will.

Or if we are saved in Christ, which the bible says a man can be, then it may be argued that by the grace of God we have been given the free will of Adam...which we then fully surrender to the will of God.

RDKirk said:

My point is that if, as you say, we no longer have the free will to be perfect, then we do not have free will. Free will is an absolute concept--either you have it or you don't. "Partial free will" would not be "free will." If we are slaves to sin--which we are, the bible says so, then we do not have free will.

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Well, if you go to that extreme absolute definition it can get silly. I don’t have the free will to jump off my roof and fly. I don’t have the free will to swim to the bottom of the ocean. Although both of these can be partially subverted by technology, I think we may both be confusing free will with ability. I may have the free will to avoid sin, but not the ability to maintain discipline strongly enough to do it perfectly.

RDKirk said:

Or if we are saved in Christ, which the bible says a man can be, then it may be argued that by the grace of God we have been given the free will of Adam...which we then fully surrender to the will of God.

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But even if you are saved, you sin. At least so long as you haven’t died and been resurrected.

SuperCow said:

Well, if you go to that extreme absolute definition it can get silly. I don’t have the free will to jump off my roof and fly. I don’t have the free will to swim to the bottom of the ocean. Although both of these can be partially subverted by technology, I think we may both be confusing free will with ability. I may have the free will to avoid sin, but not the ability to maintain discipline strongly enough to do it perfectly.

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No, it doesn't get silly. It's defined. Free will is the ability of any moral agent to make decisions of morality without constraints or consequences imposed by any other moral agent (such as God).

If God imposes consequences upon our actions, then we are not truly free to act, we act under compulsion and threat.

Scripture categorically denies that you have the inherent will to avoid sin. It also categorically denies that you have the inherent will to seek God.

SuperCow said:

But even if you are saved, you sin. At least so long as you haven’t died and been resurrected.

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So, does this mean that you think that our being trained in righteousness by harsh discipline is or can be a wasted effort of HIS love, Heb 12:5-11? I think there is a perfect inevitability to our restored free will being trained to never chose sin again, in these verses...

RDKirk said:

If God imposes consequences upon our actions, then we are not truly free to act, we act under compulsion and threat.

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But if GOD imposes nothing on us but only warns us of the legal and natural consequences for the decisions and actions HE wants us to avoid, we can believe HIM to be lying and ignore HIM or we can believe HE is exaggerating the bad effects and ignore HIM...or we can believe HE is telling us the truth and heed HIM, by our free, uncoerced, unconstrained will.

Such warnings are neither compulsons nor threats IF there is no proof that HE has any special knowledge or power....it is just HIS word, take it or leave it. Which way seems more important to you?

TedT said:

But if GOD imposes nothing on us but only warns us of the legal and natural consequences for the decisions and actions HE wants us to avoid, we can believe HIM to be lying and ignore HIM or we can believe HE is exaggerating the bad effects and ignore HIM...or we can believe HE is telling us the truth and heed HIM, by our free, uncoerced, unconstrained will.

Such warnings are neither compulsons nor threats IF there is no proof that HE has any special knowledge or power....it is just HIS word, take it or leave it. Which way seems more important to you?

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God creates the consequences. The grave and the abyss do not exist by their own will.

RDKirk said:

No, it doesn't get silly. It's defined. Free will is the ability of any moral agent to make decisions of morality without constraints or consequences imposed by any other moral agent (such as God).

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It is silly, because even if there were no God we would still have constraints simply by existing. I cannot go to a gym tomorrow and bench press 400 lbs. I am constrained by my physical strength and time. Maybe if I work out constantly for months I can get to 400 lbs., but not tomorrow.

Morality is like a muscle. The more often you do good things, the easier it becomes to continue to do good things. If you do evil things, then it is easier to do more evil things, and harder to be good. Adam and Eve pulled a mental muscle when they sinned and they could never get back to perfection. Humans are born and make mistakes often before we even know they are sins, and so we are unable to achieve perfection ourselves without help.

RDKirk said:

If God imposes consequences upon our actions, then we are not truly free to act, we act under compulsion and threat.

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And yet Eve and later Adam acted against God's wishes anyway.

RDKirk said:

Scripture categorically denies that you have the inherent will to avoid sin.

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Because we are all born genetically into sin, because of Adam.

RDKirk said:

It also categorically denies that you have the inherent will to seek God.

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What do you mean by inherent will? Anyone who prays does it to seek God.

TedT said:

So, does this mean that you think that our being trained in righteousness by harsh discipline is or can be a wasted effort of HIS love, Heb 12:5-11?

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I don't think the proper kind of discipline is a wasted effort. We're being trained to be better people. We just are unable to attain that in perfection in our current lives, except possibly for survivors of Armaggedon. We need help from God, and nobody since Jesus has lived a perfect life, though all past Christians have died and you cannot physically prove what has happened to them after that. You can possibly infer it through one of the competing interpretations of scripture, but you can't prove it.

TedT said:

I think there is a perfect inevitability to our restored free will being trained to never chose sin again, in these verses...

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Yes, it just doesn't happen in our physical lifetime. It happens afterwards.

RDKirk said:

God creates the consequences. The grave and the abyss do not exist by their own will.

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We know this by faith, not by proof. Do the vast majority of the non-Christian nations dwell in fear of Christian death or of the Christian hell? The atheist world scorns us for these unprovable consequences and laugh at our gullibility...how does this show they are constrained or coerced by them? In my definition of our free will that cannot be coerced or constrained, these coercions or constraints are perfectly compelling, they cannot be resisted, they are overwhelming such as the absolute proof of hell would be to everyone.

The grave and the abyss are not compulsions nor constraints or the whole world would be Christian. They are mere influences and of course GOD tried to influence all of us to accept HIM as our GOD and the Son as saviour from sin but influences are not coercions nor constraints because, as proven by this life, they can be ignored and rebelled against.

TedT said: ↑
I think there is a perfect inevitability to our restored free will being trained to never chose sin again, in these verses...

SuperCow said:

Yes, it just doesn't happen in our physical lifetime. It happens afterwards.

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Then why must we suffer this harsh discipline if it has no effect upon our choices? I consider that once we are sanctified and mature in holiness by our predetermined life, most saints die and go back home, their predetermined suffering has done its job and ends.

TedT said:

TedT said: ↑Then why must we suffer this harsh discipline if it has no effect upon our choices? I consider that once we are sanctified and mature in holiness by our predetermined life, most saints die and go back home, their predetermined suffering has done its job and ends.

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Of course it has an effect on our choices. Just like disciplining a child is intended to stop his behavior and choose good.

Are you suggesting that as soon as someone is baptized, accepts God, or is otherwise saved, that the person will never sin again from that point on in their life? Or are you saying that their life from that point on is their sanctification period, and when that is done they die?

If it is the latter, then it is almost exactly what I just said. If it is the former then the person is deluding themself.

TedT said:

The grave and the abyss are not compulsions nor constraints or the whole world would be Christian.

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They are indeed consequences. I said "constraints or consequences." You've chosen to focus solely on "constraints."