Free will, and original sin --a discussion continued

[Cis.jd]

You likewise are claiming that God controlling means we don't choose. You cannot demonstrate that to be true. You insist God operates on our level. He does not.

If he is controlling us then logically we aren't choosing. In my replies here, i asked/referenced the Lord's prayer. What is in that prayer, the answer is

Perhaps you need to see the crude picture of a child stirring up an ants' nest. He knows what they will do and causes them to act according to their nature.

You just made an analogy of God and a child messing around on an ants nest.

As for Adam and Eve, I don't know how to find your original question. I assume it to bring into view the difference in original sin that mankind since them is under, vs the fact they disobeyed even without that disadvantage. I don't see how that means they had absolute free will, nor that God cannot have controlled absolutely even every motion of every minutest particle of their being and even what Satan said, yet without himself sinning, nor changing the fact that they indeed made a real choice.

The original question is copy pasted by you in the opening post and paraphrased in every quote of mine. "I assume it to bring into view the difference in original sin...." what are you talking about, everything you just said here is irrelevant to what I asked in regards to your views and the Fall. This is not what i've asked you. You are dancing around this and replying in a way to take my argument out of the context because you know you are failing to make any sense.

 

[pasifika]

If Scripture is the authority, then we do have choice. Nevertheless, our nature will out itself within every choice.

Yes a free will to do whatever you like but not you free will to do the will of God...we are unspiritual and God is Spirit, two different nature...

 

[JAL]

"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?

My reply follows:

It is human logic, that denies God's transcendence. We cannot blame God for our sin.

Um..yes we CAN and SHOULD blame Him, if He designed us to sin inexorably. Put the blame where it belongs. And if you don't like where that leads, change your theology.

 

[Dave L]

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

We are a wicked species.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Um..yes we CAN and SHOULD blame Him, if He designed us to sin inexorably. Put the blame where it belongs. And if you don't like where that leads, change your theology.

You don't think God understood exactly what would happen when He made man and allowed Satan to lie to him?

If that's the case, why was Christ crucified before the foundations of the Earth were laid?

 

[fhansen]

There you go again. Where do you get that there is no part for man's corrupt will to play? He indeed does choose. And chooses against God. I don't pretend that we are not totally involved in our own sin.

Man's will has no role to play if he's not responsible for his own corruption, and then has no choice in consenting to his own justification and salvation.

 

[fhansen]

Sure we can refuse to "accept", but those he chooses will not finally, because he changes their hearts. According to Scripture, the dead in sin cannot do so, ALWAYS willfully rejecting him. BTW, the word "receive" concerning his indwelling Spirit is not quite the same thing as "accept", the currently popular word that admits to the supposed integrity of man, vs the purpose of God.

We don't have to accept. We cannot accept without grace, without God's movement within us, and yet we can still resist and reject that grace.

 

[fhansen]

His election are literally His children... that's how.

No free will, only freedom to respond. No created being changes the mind of the Most High God, and it is a post-Enlightenment romanticism of human sovereignty (I control my own destiny..."). No humans controls his or her own destiny, but every one of us is still responsible for how we respond to our "fate". It is an apparent paradox because of how we think (academically), but commonplace spiritually.

We have already been told that there is an election (in the canon, Apocrypha and gnostics), and that there is an election that has ALWAYS been with the Most High God. We were also told many, many people who thought they were children of the Most High God will be utterly rejected.

These definitive things (if we believe the Most High God and Word of God) have already happened. Everything that will happen has already happened.

God, existing in eternity, knows everything in immediacy, but that knowledge doesn't impact us; from our perspective things only happen in time, and our choices occur in time and shape our lives for better or worse.

We don't know the future, as God, alone, knows; we don't know who will persevere and who will not, who are numbered among the elect, with absolute certainty. From our perspective we're to just pick up our cross and follow His will to the best of our ability, and trust the Just Judge to render His verdict with perfect wisdom, justice, mercy, and love.

 

[misput]

Anyone can say, "Anyone can quote scripture but very few understand it."

If you can't answer the question, just dodge it

 

[JAL]

You don't think God understood exactly what would happen when He made man and allowed Satan to lie to him?

Did God foreknow the Fall? Not in my opinion. Regardless, I don't see how Reformed theology can claim that it is morally upright for Him to make the Fall inexorable.

If that's the case, why was Christ crucified before the foundations of the Earth were laid?

I don't think that verse is terribly clear, and I have my own opinions about it much too complex to discuss here. I think there are more pressing issues to discuss first.

 

[misput]

We are a wicked species.

According to God who says His creation is very good and that we cannot enter His kingdom unless we become like a little child, you are unable to reconcile your theology with the God who loves us all. Like others you take certain passages literally and seem to be comfortable with the contradiction it creates. That may be OK with you but God gives me understanding because I ask for it.

 

[Dave L]

According to God who says His creation is very good and that we cannot enter His kingdom unless we become like a little child, you are unable to reconcile your theology with the God who loves us all. Like others you take certain passages literally and seem to be comfortable with the contradiction it creates. That may be OK with you but God gives me understanding because I ask for it.

You need to be saved before you can understand scripture.

 

[misput]

You need to be saved before you can understand scripture.

You need to be saved before you can understand scripture.

Still dodging the question

 

[Dave L]

Still dodging the question

What question?

 

[misput]

You need to be saved before you can understand scripture.

Is that why you do not understand? I am sorry, I never would have thought that about you

 

[misput]

What question?

 

[Cis.jd]

nevermind

 

[misput]

His doctrines are from Satan, that is why his ways of arguments mirror every looney false prophet who thought they where better than everyone so they are just not wrong, and cited all these cherry picked verses in scripture. The Holy Spirit is the God of wisdom, and since this person is not making any effort (or sees the importance) of making an intellectual discussion for his views, then there is no Spirit in his talks.

It is impossible to defend a contradiction successfully.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Did God foreknow the Fall? Not in my opinion. Regardless, I don't see how Reformed theology can claim that it is morally upright for Him to make the Fall inexorable.
I don't think that verse is terribly clear, and I have my own opinions about it much too complex to discuss here. I think there are more pressing issues to discuss first.

What kind of god doesn't understand the consequences of His actions?

 

[Kaon]

God, existing in eternity, knows everything in immediacy, but that knowledge doesn't impact us; from our perspective things only happen in time, and our choices occur in time and shape our lives for better or worse.

We don't know the future, as God, alone, knows; we don't know who will persevere and who will not, who are numbered among the elect, with absolute certainty. From our perspective we're to just pick up our cross and follow His will to the best of our ability, and trust the Just Judge to render His verdict with perfect wisdom, justice, mercy, and love.

The Most High God has literally told us EVERYTHING. We reconcile His "infiniteness" by being His child, just like any child reconciles their parents'
feats and knowledge by sharing in their genetics, and inheriting the ability to extrapolate what they do because we know they love us, and do not tell us lies.

We have been led, dogmatically, to desire ignorance when it is really control. We think "not knowing" is the MO of the Most High God, when He repeatedly tells us His plan. We aren't supposed to be ignorant as Children of the Most High God, because ignorance is a trait of demiurges and darkness.