HELL

[Mark Quayle]

This verse is addressed to Christians. The question still remains, can you quench the Spirit and go on your own, since we are not always doing what God wants.

That question, and its answer, (that of, "Yes, you can quench the spirit and go your own way"), is irrelevant to the question of libertarian free will. When you go your own way, it is because you choose to, and that, not uncaused.

 

[bling]

Asking mere humans God's reasons for His actions is not what He teaches. Your interest is primarily attacking me. God's Word is more important than anything I say.

I am questioning the support for your conclusions.

 

[bling]

Mark Quayle said:
That's a simple fiction.

Demonstrate just one choice anyone has made that is uncaused. Show how it is actually spontaneous, arising for no reason whatsoever, out of nothing.

Nothing comes from nothing.

Whether we are nothing (to which I agree—we are not nothing) is irrelevant to your point. It does not make any choice we make uncaused. It only makes the choices willed. And the Bible is very specific about the slavery of the will to sin and the flesh, or to Christ. That we do choose, does not prove free will.

I quote you, adding the strike-through: "The prodigal son had the free will choice to stay in the pigsty starving to death (getting what he fully deserved) or go to his father in hope of totally undeserved Love." See? The sentence works just as well, without the words, "free will", in it.

That we do not understand why it seems free does not mean that it is free—i.e., uncaused. The Bible teaches actual, real choice, and the responsibility to choose right. It does not say that we do so uncaused. That we do so according to our will actually should show us that we do so according to our inclinations and desires and preferences. We always choose according to what we prefer at that instant of choice. That preference, and that choice, is the result of myriad causes.

And the fact that choice (or anything else, for that matter) is indeed real is only by God's establishing it. Thus, no matter your theology, if your theology admits that God is indeed omnipotent, self-existent, first causer, that choice is logically necessarily established by God.

Eve without being a sinner made a choice, so why was that not a free will choice?

 

[bling]

I can't find that verse.

The mission statement is the two Laws, all laws come from, Love God and secondly Loving others with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. to do that you need a free will Love and not some instinctive love (robotic love).

 

[bling]

bling said:
Right and it is God's will for mature adult humans to have just limited free will to have the opportunity to fulfill their earthly objective and become like God Himself (Love).

Not to mention the self-contradictory nature of the concept, "limited free". Is it really free, in the usual sense—i.e. 'unencumbered' or 'without constraint'—in one who is only a creature? They only claim it because they think it releases God from blame for evil, and to give justification for God to hold people responsible for their own sin (as if he needs it).

The one choice can be without restrains. A person does not have to become God to have some limited free will choices.
God cannot be unjust.

 

[Rescued One]

The mission statement is the two Laws, all laws come from, Love God and secondly Loving others with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. to do that you need a free will Love and not some instinctive love (robotic love).

Your comments are not Bible verses that refute my understanding. God says nothing about robots. He talks about giving the Chosen new natures. He is sovereign and has the right to change a person's nature.

Read John 15:16

 

[Mark Quayle]

The mission statement is the two Laws, all laws come from, Love God and secondly Loving others with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. to do that you need a free will Love and not some instinctive love (robotic love).

Assumes it has to either be uncaused Love, or robotic love. Not so.

It is willed, and it is even chosen, and it is not automatic.

Can you demonstrate any choice anybody makes that is uncaused?

This reminds me of something I have noticed repeatedly. In discussion with most people, including believers of your ilk, they agree with me that there are always influences, and even sequence of causation, right up to when I point out that Almighty, Self-Existent, First Cause, is the source of all subsequent effects-come-causes, the squawking begins. --Not because the logic is poor, but because they need to keep God away from all appearance of evil. I think a good analysis of how thinking and choosing and sinning is accomplished would also keep God away from all appearance of evil.

The Bible does not qualify love as "free will love".

 

[Mark Quayle]

The mission statement is the two Laws, all laws come from, Love God and secondly Loving others with all your heart, soul, mind and energy. to do that you need a free will Love and not some instinctive love (robotic love).

Still didn't show the verse @Rescued One asked for. Only showed your reasoning. The verse you refer to does not say what you extrapolated your tangent to say.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The one choice can be without restrains. A person does not have to become God to have some limited free will choices.
God cannot be unjust.

Take a good look at those two concepts, side-by-side, "free will", and, "limited". You see no self-contradiction there? "Limited" is another word for "constrained", and the dictionary defines free will as the ability to choose, not constrained. God is not unjust.

 

[Rescued One]

Why are you the blessed one and not others in your family?

Why are you upset that God chose to bless me? Is everyone on earth Christian?

bling, I'm glad you asked me although you could have searched your Bible if you have one.

2 Timothy 1:9 ESV
9who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

 

[bling]

Your comments are not Bible verses that refute my understanding. God says nothing about robots. He talks about giving the Chosen new natures. He is sovereign and has the right to change a person's nature.

Read John 15:16

Matt. 22: 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

God does not have to tell us about something that will only exist way in the future. If something or someone is programmed to something than that is robotic.

 

[bling]

Assumes it has to either be uncaused Love, or robotic love. Not so.

It is willed, and it is even chosen, and it is not automatic.

Can you demonstrate any choice anybody makes that is uncaused?

This reminds me of something I have noticed repeatedly. In discussion with most people, including believers of your ilk, they agree with me that there are always influences, and even sequence of causation, right up to when I point out that Almighty, Self-Existent, First Cause, is the source of all subsequent effects-come-causes, the squawking begins. --Not because the logic is poor, but because they need to keep God away from all appearance of evil. I think a good analysis of how thinking and choosing and sinning is accomplished would also keep God away from all appearance of evil.

The Bible does not qualify love as "free will love".

God is not limited to do only what His first cause would result in Him having to do, He can create another first cause sequences at any time.
What makes God's Love, so much greater than any non-free will love? That is the type of Love we want.
did God force Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge or just allow her of her own free will to eat the fruit?

 

[bling]

Still didn't show the verse @Rescued One asked for. Only showed your reasoning. The verse you refer to does not say what you extrapolated your tangent to say.

Matt. 22: 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

 

[bling]

Take a good look at those two concepts, side-by-side, "free will", and, "limited". You see no self-contradiction there? "Limited" is another word for "constrained", and the dictionary defines free will as the ability to choose, not constrained. God is not unjust.

No not at all. I do not have the free will to fly around the room, but that does not mean I cannot have free will in other areas.
I can make mental choices to do some sin, which is a sin, but not have the freedom to physically carry out that sin.
We agree that "God is not unjust". Yet, it would be unjust for God to condemn one person for sinning the person could not keep from doing and not condemn another person for doing the same thing because God made the choice to forgive him and not the first for no reason (being arbitrary is never fair.)

 

[bling]

Why are you upset that God chose to bless me? Is everyone on earth Christian?

bling, I'm glad you asked me although you could have searched your Bible if you have one.

2 Timothy 1:9 ESV
9who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

I am not in the least "upset" with God because God is perfectly Just. Those who go to hell, choose not to humbly accept God's Love as pure undeserved charity, so they made the free will choice.

 

[Rescued One]

I am not in the least "upset" with God because God is perfectly Just. Those who go to hell, choose not to humbly accept God's Love as pure undeserved charity, so they made the free will choice.

All sinners make bad choices until God changes them.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Matt. 22: 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

God does not have to tell us about something that will only exist way in the future. If something or someone is programmed to something than that is robotic.

Strawman, or, Moving the Goalposts. What does this have to do with someone programmed to do something? This is not programming nor robothood. It is about causation. You choose because you have preferences and find yourself needing to choose. Pretty simple. You have not been able to show that it is uncaused. All you do is revert back to the notion that if you are caused to do something, the will is irrelevant. It is not irrelevant. I've taken you even further back than that, to show that NOTHING can even BE, unless God (First Cause) establishes it. You can't show it isn't so, except by repeating your thesis, and its various corollaries.

 

[Mark Quayle]

No not at all. I do not have the free will to fly around the room, but that does not mean I cannot have free will in other areas.
I can make mental choices to do some sin, which is a sin, but not have the freedom to physically carry out that sin.
We agree that "God is not unjust". Yet, it would be unjust for God to condemn one person for sinning the person could not keep from doing and not condemn another person for doing the same thing because God made the choice to forgive him and not the first for no reason (being arbitrary is never fair.)

Are you not then arbitrarily choosing which category is free and which is not?

"What is it that makes you think that your choices are free?", is my question. You judge it on the notion that God would be unjust to condemn someone for doing what his nature "makes him do", as if it wasn't his own choice. Nobody says that he didn't choose. But more than that, Scripture does not say that it is only his choices that condemn him, but (John 3:18), that he failed to believe. Contextually, we find that is talking about his being at enmity with God. Simple. Why is he at enmity with God? Because Adam sinned and the sin nature is inherent in all "flesh". God has every right to choose to hate Esau and love Jacob. It is not unjust. And it is not because of some construction where God looks down through the corridors of time to see that Jacob chose well.

The Strawman you posit concerning God being arbitrary is so full of weakness, I don't even know why you considered it worth defeating. God made everything, to include every person and every most miniscule particle, for his own purposes. He owns us, and has the right to do as he pleases with what he made. You want to raise us to his level of morality??? Or, just as bad, to bring him down to our level, to judge what he says plainly in scripture (Romans 9), because it isn't fair? What makes you think God is fair? Read the parable of the workers in the field —does he not have the right to be generous with what is his to give, to whomever he chooses to give it? Notice that not one of those workers deserved the full day's pay, except those complaining. Yep, they will get what they contracted for.

 

[Mark Quayle]

God is not limited to do only what His first cause would result in Him having to do, He can create another first cause sequences at any time.
What makes God's Love, so much greater than any non-free will love? That is the type of Love we want.
did God force Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge or just allow her of her own free will to eat the fruit?

God is not limited by our false, self-contradictory, notions either. It is not a question of whether he can create another first cause. It is a question of whether there can logically be any but one first cause. The very words, as I have shown, are self-contradictory! "Causing something uncaused"???

So you want to begin a new sequence of causation with each person. Do you not see how that is self-defeating? Not only is there plenty of evidence that each person is caused to be, and influenced on every side by conflicting and mentally accented thoughts and feeling about those influences, those accents themselves results of past events and influences, etc etc ad infinitum, but you would have the very creator of fact and reality to not know or understand to the most miniscule proportion and detail EVERY thing he created, but rather, that it be a mere grand experiment to be trained this way and steered that, to see what would become of it.

I hope sooner or later you can begin to see the enormous, infinite, difference between the Creator and his creation. That is SEEMS to us that we are truly spontaneous is no evidence that we are. More difficult, though, for you, is the admission that the command does not imply the ability to obey. That we are responsible with our life for what we are inclined to do is no indication that we can avoid doing it. We are born with that bent, and except by the mercy and Grace of God (Eph 2:8,9) we are going to receive according to what we have done, to include even our very words, thoughts and intents. You would have, in the end, some way that a person actually deserves mercy and grace??? If my salvation, or any good I choose, depends on any virtue endemic to myself, I am lost, but if it depends on God's mercy alone, then GOD's choice prevails. THAT is the only safe place to be.

Jesus didn't make salvation possible. Jesus SAVED.

 

[Mark Quayle]

All sinners make bad choices until God changes them.

Amen that! In fact, they can only make choices that are at the core made at enmity with God, until he changes them.