Free will compatible with Christian Theism?

[Serving Zion]

Romans 6:16 shows that one is either a slave to sin (wherein they are not really free to make decisions, but are easily manipulated by those who know how to work their weaknesses against them) and conversely that the Christian discipline teaches us to get control of our desires so as to control our thoughts, words and actions in the world .. thereby crafting reality with skill (James 3:2).

I spotted quite a powerful (albeit relatively harmless) example of this yesterday, as something to think about:

I did in fact choose the bottle - not because I am greedy, but because it is wisdom. The bottle would be recycled, and if I had not bought it, then someone else would have bought it anyway. The real sin is the one who takes the very same product that is presented in more affordable packaging and inflates it's price to make more than necessary profit by exploiting the one whose concern for the environment compels them to pay more than what the product is worth. That is where the sin of greed is manifested, and it is of the same evil essence as using inaccurate weights (Proverbs 11:1, Proverbs 20:14).

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Well the semantic scopes of the refrants don't have much overlap if that is what you mean. They share properties like, being shapes, having 2 dimensions etc but in the main the point could have been made just as easily by saying can God make a reality such that A and not A are true inntbe same way at the same time.
Would that have been less ludicrous?

Lol! No, it would be more ludicrous!

Good to hear from you as always

Good to see that you're still around asking questions.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hey all, I am an agnostic atheist, naturalist, humanist etc. In my worldview I am not sure what to make of free will and will be happy to admit this. That said today I am asking about the account and justification of free will on Christian theism.

In conversation with an apologist buddy recently, we got on to this topic and i had a hard time seeing how his view made sense. So here is the question as I see it.

God instantiated a universe. Could he have not created one? Was that an option or was he constrained by his nature, one of his perfections, such that the creative act was one that he had to take in order to be consistent with this nature?
If the latter then it doesn't seem much like free will but rather a forced continuation according to His nature.

In any event, God creates this universe and either he could have created a different universe or he was constrained to create only the universe we observe. Moreover, God, knowing all possible things, knows what would have occurred and what each human would choose to do in any possible universe he created. He chose (or didn't) this one. According to the Bible this universe has some interesting features including a plan for Jesus to come to earth and the names of the elect written in the book before the world even began (in the beginning...). So on Christian theism there is this plan that will work out as god has intended it. How is this compatible with free will. Just think of all the billions of "free will" decisions that would have led to the birth of a singe saved human. Their parents had to meet at the right time on the right day, while being in the right frame of mind, and so did their parents and their parents.... To say that these decisions could have gone otherwise is to say that it was possible that God's plan for salvation could have been thwarted by a single human decision, and all of God's prophecies and proclamations would have been wrong etc. So it seems that we humans have to choose to do exactly what God decreed for us in the moment He created the universe. This doesn't seem like free will to me.

What says you ?

I'd say I need to know more about the freedom of will to which you are specifically inferring; is it Extrinsic or Intrinsic. Because, I don't know that the extrinsic fact that Mommy won't let me have a cookie before dinner (when I really, really want one) counts as an infringement upon my intrinsic freedom of will, especially if her prohibition against my having a cookie does almost nothing to dissuade me from continuing to want a cookie (or two).

 

[JIMINZ]

That's almost a similar wording, but not quite! (see at end for the corrected wording)

By scripture, our choices are not already-decided ahead of time.

Just one Old Testament example of real choice, not predetermined: Lev chapter 26 --

3 “ ‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land."
...
14 “ ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands,15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. "

We see this over and over in scripture, this pattern of real choices, and God saying what the outcomes of those real choices will be.

We do know God can foresee where we are heading at the moment -- what destination our current direction will lead to -- and thus He knows where we will go if we do not change our course, But He gave us each our own individual spirit which has an ability to change direction!

.
These verses do ask for a choice to be made, but in order for them to be a valid argument, for mankind's expression of Free Will, these verses would have had to been directed at mankind, instead of the Israelites,......as they were.

Therefore your argument does not relate to all of mankind, it only relates to those people to which the remarks by God were directed, only one people, the Jewish Nation of Israel, Gods' chosen people.

 

[Halbhh]

.
These verses do ask for a choice to be made, but in order for them to be a valid argument, for mankind's expression of Free Will, these verses would have had to been directed at mankind, instead of the Israelites,......as they were.

Therefore your argument does not relate to all of mankind, it only relates to those people to which the remarks by God were directed, only one people, the Jewish Nation of Israel, Gods' chosen people.

We have choices presented to us in the New Testament. Remembering Christ said to us, "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." -- we are to listen to His words (in the gospels) and take His words in. We will find He gives instructions and tells us what will happen if we do them, and what will happen if we do not. It's the same pattern in that way as the Old Testament quote we just discussed. For example, in Matthew 7:24-27.