Free Will or God's Plan?

[soultrekkin]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

 

[timothyu]

God sent the good news of the Kingdom. We have the free will to accept or reject it. In doing so we either accept or reject the ways of man. Simple.

 

[Ricky M]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

Both. God has a plan, but we are free to ignore it.

 

[GaveMeJoy]

Both. God has a plan, but we are free to ignore it.

I think it’s more nuanced than that. If we can thwart God’s plan and make his plans not happen, he’s not God and he’s not sovereign he’s just a spirit being hoping we make the right decisions so that the stuff he’s mapped out comes to pass. That’s not my God

 

[timothyu]

he’s not God and he’s not sovereign he’s just a spirit being hoping we make the right decisions

Actually He is loving enough to give us total freedom and what we chose is up to us. However in the end like the prayer says He will get His way as His will will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Whether or not you are a part of that is on your head, not His.

 

[solid_core]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

b)

The true God is in control and knows everything before it happens.

 

[nonaeroterraqueous]

I think if God "loved" us enough to give us free will (free from predestination)...we would cease to exist. I think our continued existence is a continued act of creation, and every act of creation is an act of predestination. We live not by bread alone, but by the words that come from the mouth of God, now, even as in the beginning.

 

[Tania11]

Good question. I think it can be both.
I guess I would need to know the definition of free will.

 

[Lily76_]

i think God is ashamed of what we do with our free will we start wars with each other because we want power money and status
the world is going to hell the only and the most important person we need right now is Jesus he saves us
be ready my bothers and sister the time is near at hand

 

[BBAS 64]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

Good Day,

That depends how you define free-will, how are you defining it?

Does God have a free-will, is it just like ours?

As a point of historical baptist reference here is Spurgoen this question:

Free-Will - A Slave

The 1689 London Baptist confession states:

CHAP. IX.
Of Free Will.
1. God hath indued the Will of Man, with that natural liberty, and power of acting upon choice;
that it is 169neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.
2. Man in his state of innocency, had freedom, and power, to will, and to do that 170which was
good, and well-pleasing to God; but yet 171was mutable, so that he might fall from it.
3. Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost 172all ability of Will, to any spiritual good
accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, 173and dead
in Sin, is not able, by his own strength, to 174convert himself; or to prepare himself thereunto.
4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of Grace 175he freeth him from
his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone, enables him 176freely to will, and to do that
which is spiritually good; yet so as that by reason of his 177remaining corruptions he doth not perfectly
nor only will that which is good; but doth also will that which is evil.
5. The Will of Man is made 178perfectly, and immutably free to good alone, in the state of Glory


166 Joh. 1.18.
167 Col. 1.21. Gal. 5.17.
168 Joh. 16.8. Ps. 110.3. Luk. 1.74.75.
169 Mat. 17.12. Jam. 1 14. Deut. 30.19.
170 Eccl. 7.29.
171 Gen. 3.6.
172 Rom. 5.6. ch. 8.7.
173 Eph. 2.1.5.
174 Tit. 3 3,4,5. Joh. 6.44.
175 Col. 1.13. Joh. 8.36.
176 Phil. 2.13.
177 Rom. 7.15.18,19 21.23.
178 Eph. 4.13.
16
In Him,

Bill

 

[98cwitr]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

Free will is an illusion. We have a will, but it certainly is governed by our God-given natures. If you had free will, you could simply will yourself to not sin, and therefore follow the whole law, and thus render the need for Christ unnecessary. Christ came because man is not able to save himself on his own.

I'll ask a non-rhetorical question to summarize my thoughts on this: If God is both Creator AND Omniscient, why would He create someone He knows will, or would, never believe?

 

[SeamusDelion]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

Historical discussion has made “free will” a systematically ambiguous phrase. It is used to mean:
1. Free agency, that is, ability to make and execute one’s own decisions, thus incurring accountability for what one does. All Western philosophies and theologies assert free will in this sense, except behaviorism that sees mental and volitional acts as by-products of physical processes. The assertion means we are not robots, nor are we programmed by some other mind, as computers or persons under hypnotism are, nor are our actions mere conditioned reflexes like those of Pavlov’s dogs. But we are moral agents expressing our authentic selves in our conduct. The will is here conceived psychologically and dispositionally, as the directedness of human nature whereby preferences, resolutions, and impulses come to be acted out. Free agency is entailed by the scriptural insistence that humans are answerable to God, the judge of all.
2. Ability to trust, obey, and worship God, that is, power to respond to God heartily and happily in service that shows a loving desire for God’s company and a purpose of exalting and honoring God. Reformed theology, following Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and Edwards, unanimously denies the existence of free will in this sense in any except the regenerate, in whom this capacity is partly restored now and will be perfected and confirmed in heaven. Augustine first schemed out the fourfold state of humans as freedom in Eden to sin (Lat. posse peccare), no freedom in our fallenness not to sin (non posse non peccare), partial freedom in the present life of grace not to sin (posse non peccare), and full bestowal in the future life of glory of inability to sin (non posse peccare)—which for Augustine meant perfect freedom from all that is truly evil for all that is truly good. In English-speaking Reformed theology of the past four centuries’ idiom, the denial of free will to the unregenerate is correlative to the assertion of total inability to merit, due to total depravity (total not in degree, as if all are as bad as they could be; but in extent, meaning that all human activity is morally and spiritually flawed at some point, so none are as good as they should be). This in turn is correlative to assertions that sin has dominion over fallen humanity, that original sin is the universal human condition, and that monergistic regeneration through sovereign grace is the necessary and sole source of such faith, repentance, and godliness as emerge under the Word.
Against this, Pelagianism ancient and modern holds that free will in the defined sense remains intact in all humanity despite the fall, and semi-Pelagianism sees it as diminished but not destroyed. Semi-Pelagianism, viewing humanity as essentially good though weak through sin rather than essentially bad but restrained by common grace, appears substantively, if not under that name, in Arminian and liberal Protestantism; in Eastern Orthodoxy, which follows the free will teaching of the Greek Fathers; and in pre and post-Tridentine Roman Catholicism, which sees human merit as decisive for salvation.
The conception of Free will throughout this debate is narrower than in the “free agency” (no. 1 above) view. Free will here means, quite precisely, being able to do what appears good, wise, right, and pleasing to God, out of a heart that rejoices in it just because it has these qualities.
3. Metaphysical (ontological) indeterminism, that is, the state of not being fully controlled by one’s insights (i.e., one’s understanding of what is best to do), nor by one’s character, nor (some would add) by God. Free will here signifies power to act irrationally and at random, which is certainly a fact of life: it is sometimes dignified with the name of liberty of indifference or the power of contrary choice.
Does this fact, which makes everyone’s future acts unpredictable to a degree so far as humans are concerned, imply that God’s predetermining foreknowledge of each person’s future behavior is in any respect incomplete, so what is done is not always God’s will? A spectrum of semi-Pelagian positions, from classical Arminianism with its concept of God’s selflimitation to process theology with its doctrine of the finitude and relative impotence of God, say yes; Reformed theology, with the Bible, asserts that no future event is unknown or indeterminate to God and that contrary views err by conceiving God in humanity’s image. There seems to be no need to buttress this scriptural position by claiming that the will (i.e., the agent) is always moved by the strongest motivational drive operative at that moment, as Edwards did. This claim seems to deny the reality of random action, which is implausible.

Augustine, Enchiridion; and On Grace and Free Will; D. and R. Basinger, eds., Predestination and Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom (1986); Calvin, Inst 2.1–4; J. Edwards, Freedom of the Will, in Works, vol. 1 (1957); M. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, trans. J. 1. Packer and O. R. Johnston (1967).

JAMES I. PACKER​

 

[SeamusDelion]

Free will is an illusion. We have a will, but it certainly governed by our God-given natures. If you had free will, you could simply will yourself to not sin, and therefore follow the whole law, and thus render the need for Christ unnecessary. Christ came because man is not able to save himself on his own.

Perfectly said. And I say the EXACT same thing.

 

[SeekingGloryOnThisJourney]

So as Christians do we have free will or does God already have a plan for our lives?

God has a Will for all of us..
If we choose it.
Matthew 22:14
"For many are called, but few are chosen."

 

[SeamusDelion]

God has a Will for all of us..
If we choose it.
Matthew 22:14
"For many are called, but few are chosen."

That's gotta be the funniest out of context I've ever seen someone use a verse.

Many are called - Meaning that salvation is an offer to everyone who will believe. However, these people will not accept the free gift of salvation, and so are predestined to hell by default (as a RIGHTEOUS and JUST JUDGEMENT FOR A SINNER LIKE ME!!)

but few are Chosen - These are God's Elected, predestined Chosen people who could be from any part of the world (Nation here would be a better translation in these type of verses. ) - (Whole world in John 3:16 - a better translation would be mankind. - Obviously God wants to preserve His creation through His Elect.) These people will preserver and enter into the Lords Rest.

Hope this helps.

 

[98cwitr]

God has a Will for all of us..
If we choose it.
Matthew 22:14
"For many are called, but few are chosen."

Your thoughts on Proverbs 16:9, 20:24 and Ezekiel 36:26 please.

 

[WebersHome]

.
When a growing boy, I asked my mom this question:

If God is able to see in advance what I'm going to do, then how do I have free will?

Well; my mom didn't know, but I found out later that free will doesn't come with a right to privacy.
_

 

[StillGods]

we have more free will than we realise

 

[BBAS 64]

we have more free will than we realise

Good Day,

True...

 

[StillGods]

Good Day,

True...

View attachment 280417

if free will can carry us to hell, it can carry us to heaven if we choose Jesus, Praise God!