Free Will

[section9+1]

I wouldn't mind manipulation myself if everyone turned out the same way, but if some are engineered to love God and others are let go and condemned, that gets difficult.

 

[GillDouglas]

I wouldn't mind manipulation myself if everyone turned out the same way, but if some are engineered to love God and others are let go and condemned, that gets difficult.

That is why we must pray for those who are still lost, that God would soften their hearts and remove the veil. My father is one that I pray for daily.

 

[section9+1]

Then God should just do it. Does he love you more than your father or are you more easily influenced? Sounds like everyone wants your father saved except him. Cannot the sovereignty of God override that?

 

[OzSpen]

I make choices every day. So do you. For example, I can walk down the street and see all the pretty girls in their fine spring apparel. I can choose to see them for a moment or I can fix my eyes and start to lust. If I live in the flesh I will continue to gaze and that lust will eventually turn to sin, in my mind, at least. What will happen next? It will pain me, it will ruin my immediate fellowship with God. I will become a slave to sin during that time. I will go backwards or stay lukewarm.

If I stop looking and live in the spirit, I will continue in fellowship with God, I will grow, I will move forward.

Given that it is God that makes me both willing and to do of His good pleasure, do I really have a choice in the matter? That is the question I cannot fully answer. One interesting aspect of this is the further we get away from sin and the closer we get to God, the FREEER we are. Therefore, even if I am meant to not be able to make a particular choice to sin against God, in reality it's getting closer and closer to REAL freedom. Being a complete slave to God is freedom INDEED!

Therefore, I really don't want any freedom of choice aside from what God wants for me. I want my will to be His will and I want His will to be my will. Why? Because it will result in REAL freedom!

Late Apex,

Can you or I today choose which god/God we will serve: the Lord God Almighty, the god of Buddhism (it doesn't believe in a personal god), the gods of Hinduism or Allah?

Oz

 

[OzSpen]

Then God should just do it. Does he love you more than your father or are you more easily influenced? Sounds like everyone wants your father saved except him. Cannot the sovereignty of God override that?

Cannot the free will and resistance of a person override that?

Are people free agents or not?

Oz

 

[OzSpen]

I find it odd that God needs to engineer me to love him. Is it because I naturally don't love goodness or is it because he is so naturally unlovable? How could you tell the difference since we are just manipulated into it either way? It seems in my old natural self I was able to love some things for their own sake without any outside manipulation on anyone's part.

That seems to be one side of the coin, as promoted by one theological view. There is another perspective

Oz

 

[OzSpen]

That is why we must pray for those who are still lost, that God would soften their hearts and remove the veil. My father is one that I pray for daily.

Gill,

Why should we pray for them when they are unconditionally elected to salvation (and damnation as Calvin believed) and they cannot resist God's grace - according to the TULIP soteriology?

Oz

 

[bling]

Comparing sinful man against sinful man in war is not analogous to God (The creator of heaven and earth who upholds ALL things by the word of His power, who cannot lie, has no shadow of turning, who's ways are NOT our ways) against a fallen, sinful creature made of dust, who is here today and gone tomorrow, like the wind.

Fallen creature against fallen creature (your example)

THE perfect Creator against a fallen creation who do not deserve the "least of His mercies." (reality)

The enemy soldier and enemy of God can both surrender and at their point of surrendering they are not “joining” their enemy and their former enemy they were fighting is still their enemy.

I fully agree the enemy soldier or rebellious disobedient sinner at the moment of his/her surrender does not “deserve” anything due to former war crimes.

So the analogy works for the rebellious disobedient sinner and vicious soldier.

The difference you bring up is with God and the enemy, since God has an unbelievable huge Love and the enemy of the soldier love will be much less and/or not at all.

Paul describes all humans as being children of God, so do you believe we were made in God’s image and everyone starts out a child of God?

 

[GillDouglas]

If something could happen or occur outside of God's sovereign permission, then whatever it is that came to pass would nullify the sovereignty of God. If God is not sovereign, then He is not God at all. However, since He is sovereign everything that happens, choices of men included, must have been made to happen by His sovereign permission. If God has decided to allow something to happen we can say that He has foreordained it to occur.

The sovereign authority of God is always greater than the authority of His creation. All other forms of authority exist and have their authority by God's command and sovereign permission. He created the universe, and has the authority to have done and do with it what is pleasing to His holy will. This most certainly included the fate of men.

 

[GillDouglas]

The enemy soldier and enemy of God can both surrender and at their point of surrendering they are not “joining” their enemy and their former enemy they were fighting is still their enemy.

I fully agree the enemy soldier or rebellious disobedient sinner at the moment of his/her surrender does not “deserve” anything due to former war crimes.

So the analogy works for the rebellious disobedient sinner and vicious soldier.

The difference you bring up is with God and the enemy, since God has an unbelievable huge Love and the enemy of the soldier love will be much less and/or not at all.

Paul describes all humans as being children of God, so do you believe we were made in God’s image and everyone starts out a child of God?

I do not see any reason that a righteous God should be loving toward a creature who hates Him and rebels constantly against His divine authority. If grace is obligated, then it is no longer grace. God owes no one mercy.

 

[Late Apex]

Late Apex,

Can you or I today choose which god/God we will serve: the Lord God Almighty, the god of Buddhism (it doesn't believe in a personal god), the gods of Hinduism or Allah?

Oz

Sure we can. Guess which god the heathen will choose? Answer: any god, EXCEPT for the One True and Living God, the creator of heaven and earth, the God of the bible.

 

[Late Apex]

I wouldn't mind manipulation myself if everyone turned out the same way, but if some are engineered to love God and others are let go and condemned, that gets difficult.

I think it might be a good idea to distinguish between natural inability and moral or spiritual inability. I will not argue that man has the natural or physical ability to call out to God. If I required someone to lift a 400 pound rock but did not give him the ability to do so, it would be unjust for me to condemn him for not doing what I ask. Certainly you will agree that man has the physical ability to call out to God. In the Bible it says that man is without excuse in regards to the heavens clearly showing that God created this universe and all in it. Yet, man will not turn to God.

On the other hand, as Pink describes in The Sovereignty of God, a moral inability is a different story. This is what we are talking about. Fallen man hates the God of the Bible. If a man were to tell you "I cannot walk past Bob Smith without wanting to kill him. I cannot control myself, I hate him that much." This man has the physical ability not to kill but he does not have the moral or spiritual ability. Where does this man belong? In prison.

We are God's creatures. Does not God have the right to do as He will with His own? Is God required to save someone that hates Him and wants nothing to do with Him? Who are we to reply against God? I am just a creature made from dust. Am I supposed to council God, the one who actually formed me out of nothing and breathed into me the breath of life? Does the creature know more than the creator?

 

[Late Apex]

Gill,

Why should we pray for them when they are unconditionally elected to salvation (and damnation as Calvin believed) and they cannot resist God's grace - according to the TULIP soteriology?

Oz

Because God said to "pray." That's why. Why preach? Because that's what God wants. Why did God chose the foolishness of preaching? Because that's what God wants. God is running this world the way He wants to. Why are we not all born with 2 eyes in front and 2 eyes in the back of our heads? Because that's the way God made us.

Did not Jesus Christ KNOW that He had to die on the cross? Yes, yet He prayed "let this cup pass."

 

[Late Apex]

The enemy soldier and enemy of God can both surrender and at their point of surrendering they are not “joining” their enemy and their former enemy they were fighting is still their enemy.

I fully agree the enemy soldier or rebellious disobedient sinner at the moment of his/her surrender does not “deserve” anything due to former war crimes.

So the analogy works for the rebellious disobedient sinner and vicious soldier.

The difference you bring up is with God and the enemy, since God has an unbelievable huge Love and the enemy of the soldier love will be much less and/or not at all.

Paul describes all humans as being children of God, so do you believe we were made in God’s image and everyone starts out a child of God?

I believe all Adams posterity is fallen and is at enmity against God. Only those born of the spirit are the children of God. There are sheep and there are goats. There are those on the left and there are those on the right. There are those that will live in eternity with God and there are those that will live in eternity in hell. There are those that God knew from the foundation of the world and there are those that God will say to "I never knew you."

Matthew 7:
[23] And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

 

[section9+1]

God has no requirement to save everyone. Most do not get saved. I think God's sovereignty is what set this whole system of salvation up to begin with. God has set the criteria for salvation, but he doesn't select who gets in and who doesn't based upon some mysterious arbitrary dice rolling.

 

[Late Apex]

God has no requirement to save everyone. Most do not get saved. I think God's sovereignty is what set this whole system of salvation up to begin with. God has set the criteria for salvation, but he doesn't select who gets in and who doesn't based upon some mysterious arbitrary dice rolling.

Why did God choose Israel? Were they better than anyone else? Did they have any redeeming qualities to where God would favor them over any other nation? No. Nothing has changed. God chose His children before the foundation of the world. If you are God's child He knew YOUR name before you were even born. Dead men cannot save themselves. Dead men can do NOTHING but be..........dead.

Ephesians 1:
[4] According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

 

[section9+1]

God chose Abraham and I do not know why. I don't think he used a dart board with a bunch of names on it and struck Abraham's. Sounds like a lot of times he regretted what Israel turned into.
If you are right then we are all actors on a stage with pre-written scripts and character roles. Meaningful choices don't exist. All the tragedies and sufferings of mankind really don't mean anything since it's all been pre determined. Sounds pretty cold to me.

 

[Late Apex]

God chose Abraham and I do not know why. I don't think he used a dart board with a bunch of names on it and struck Abraham's. Sounds like a lot of times he regretted what Israel turned into.
If you are right then we are all actors on a stage with pre-written scripts and character roles. Meaningful choices don't exist. All the tragedies and sufferings of mankind really don't mean anything since it's all been pre determined. Sounds pretty cold to me.

It may seem like that in our small minds. Does anyone know the mind of the Lord? His ways are "higher than our ways." The following is in the Bible for a reason. It's the truth.

Romans 11:
[33] O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
[34] For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?
[35] Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?
[36] For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

I believe God can do what you mention, yet have us being a VERY real part of what happens. For example, I may meet a stranger and start praying for them to be saved. What if God planted that desire in my heart and used my prayer as part of the plan. I don't know. All I know is what God tells me, so I pray, so I follow in submission. Who better to submit to than the KING of KINGS and Lord of Lords?

As Job says "tho He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Who else am I going to turn to? God has the words of LIFE !

 

[section9+1]

I don't disagree with your verses, but they are not a solution to the problem.

 

[Late Apex]

I don't disagree with your verses, but they are not a solution to the problem.

What's the problem as you see it?