...then why do we have freewill?

[JGG]

Henry McLeod asked this question:

If sin comes from freewill...Then we either don't have free will in heaven, or there is sin in heaven.

(In this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/threads/if-all-sin-comes-from-free-will.7903842/)

Several people answered that we lose or give up our freewill in heaven. Others say we are changed, transformed or cleansed.

I feel Henry is not asking the obvious follow up questions:

Why then, did God give us freewill? I've always been told that "God doesn't want robots, or puppets" but if we're going to be robots without freewill in heaven, why not just make us that way to begin with? If we're going to be changed, transformed, or cleansed, why not just make us in the final form to begin with? Why create this existence at all if God can create us in His preferred, final, perfect, heavenly form?

My apologies for asking questions.

 

[oi_antz]

Do you know of something that God cannot make? Would you reckon that willing, sincere love and devotion is one such thing? I don't believe that being miraculously changed to be robots is the right answer to the question. Also I agree with comment made that freewill causes sin is a false premise. Freewill with wholesome desires should not cause sin.

Edit: it was good to have asked this question too, it is constructive. Thank you for being that way.

 

[JGG]

Do you know of something that God cannot make? Would you reckon that willing, sincere love and devotion is one such thing? I don't believe that being miraculously changed to be robots is the right answer to the question. Also I agree with comment made that freewill causes sin is a false premise. Freewill with wholesome desires should not cause sin.

Edit: it was good to have asked this question too, it is constructive. Thank you for being that way.

I think the idea was that the reason we are capable of sin is that we have freewill. If we were robots we would not sin.

And it's true, the idea of something God cannot make is contradictory. So why not make beings who love him but do not sin?

 

[aiki]

I feel Henry is not asking the obvious follow up questions:
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1431698694306-1'); });
Why then, did God give us freewill? I've always been told that "God doesn't want robots, or puppets" but if we're going to be robots without freewill in heaven, why not just make us that way to begin with? If we're going to be changed, transformed, or cleansed, why not just make us in the final form to begin with? Why create this existence at all if God can create us in His preferred, final, perfect, heavenly form?

My apologies for asking questions.

If in heaven we are made such that we can no longer freely choose to do evil, it will only be after we have made a conscious, free choice for God and His righteousness here on earth. God, then, is not forcing anything upon His children when in the life hereafter he makes them truly free from sin. In doing so He is simply bringing them to the final conclusion of their life lived in honor and service to Him.

God did not make us incapable of sin right from the start because the love He made us capable of expressing toward Him cannot be compelled. Love must always be freely given or it is not love. But being able to freely love God means that we must also be able not to love Him, which means we can choose to live in rejection of Him, which is to live in sin.

Selah.

 

[anonymous person]

Henry McLeod asked this question:

If sin comes from freewill...Then we either don't have free will in heaven, or there is sin in heaven.

(In this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/threads/if-all-sin-comes-from-free-will.7903842/)

Several people answered that we lose or give up our freewill in heaven. Others say we are changed, transformed or cleansed.

I feel Henry is not asking the obvious follow up questions:

Why then, did God give us freewill? I've always been told that "God doesn't want robots, or puppets" but if we're going to be robots without freewill in heaven, why not just make us that way to begin with? If we're going to be changed, transformed, or cleansed, why not just make us in the final form to begin with? Why create this existence at all if God can create us in His preferred, final, perfect, heavenly form?

My apologies for asking questions.

We have free will in heaven but those chosen to attain that blessed state will have a beatific vision of Christ. We will have no desire to sin.

Life here in this age is like a boot camp, which prepares us to live in the age to come.

 

[ViaCrucis]

From a Lutheran perspective the problem of sin is rooted not in the fact that the human will is truly free, but in that the human will is not truly free.

This can be confusing since the idea of free will is usually a matter of philosophy in usual discourse rather than theology; wherein the matter of free will involves the power to make choices; i.e. free will is put forward as the alternative to fatalism. Lutherans aren't fatalists, that much should be said. We accept that our choices are, ultimately, ours. But when Lutherans talk about the freedom (or rather the bondage) of the will we mean that the will cannot truly be said to be free because the will is a slave to Sin. Sin, therefore, does not arise out of a truly free will, but instead sin arises from a will held in bondage to Sin.

In the Age to Come we are not sinless because the powers of choice are robbed from us; instead we are sinless in the Age to Come because we have been redeemed, set free, and liberated from the powers of sin and death which presently hold our humanity enslaved. The will is not less free in the coming age, but is instead truly free. It is the truly free will which does not sin.

The question however might then be what stops a person from sinning in the Age to Come? If the will is truly free then could not then a person be able to fall yet again? Without attempting a dogmatic answer I would instead posit that we must consider that, according to Christian teaching, our existence and our reality in the Age to Come is of a sort that we do not presently comprehend or can truly imagine--but we could put forward hypotheses as long as we do not try and be too dogmatic about it. In the Age to Come the person is fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ, the bonds that unite the a person together with God, in Christ, are in a life fully transfigured by the Holy Spirit (the Apostle speaks of the resurrection body as a "spiritual body" as opposed to the present "soulish body" that is, the body quickened by the Holy Spirit c.f. Romans 8:11) If we use the language of maturity, we might say that in present we are much like very small children but as we mature into adulthood there are simply things we no longer do. In the resurrection we are no longer infants, but mature adults--the issue of sin then being akin to issues which as infants and very small children we may have had to deal with, but as adults we have (hopefully) outgrown altogether.

Christian theology, historically, speaks of Theosis--also known as deification, though such a term is easily misunderstood in modern contexts--one way to describe Theosis is that we fully become the image-bearing creatures of God that we were always intended to be, we do not become "gods" in the sense that God is God, but rather we share in the Divine glory such that we become (in the words of St. Peter) partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Or as St. Athanasius writes in On the Incarnation of the Word, "[God the Word] became man so that man might become god." That is, the union of God and man in Christ (the Incarnation) involves, ultimately, the participation of man into the life of God, and this life being found in Christ who is Himself the one and only God-Man.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bling]

Henry McLeod asked this question:

If sin comes from freewill...Then we either don't have free will in heaven, or there is sin in heaven.

(In this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/threads/if-all-sin-comes-from-free-will.7903842/)

Several people answered that we lose or give up our freewill in heaven. Others say we are changed, transformed or cleansed.

I feel Henry is not asking the obvious follow up questions:

Why then, did God give us freewill? I've always been told that "God doesn't want robots, or puppets" but if we're going to be robots without freewill in heaven, why not just make us that way to begin with? If we're going to be changed, transformed, or cleansed, why not just make us in the final form to begin with? Why create this existence at all if God can create us in His preferred, final, perfect, heavenly form?

My apologies for asking questions.

It is a good question, but your conclusion and the answers you have been given are lacking.

God has free will so why does He not sin?

If sin did not have any purpose, why would God even put the tree of knowledge in the middle of the Garden?

Is not sinning man’s objective, since all mature adults sin at least for a time?

Angels are spiritual beings in heaven, so does the fact that a third of them sinned show they have free will?

Humans were made by God’s words “very good”, but is that perfect like Christ to begin with?

Could God make a being that has always existed (like Christ) or is that impossible by the definition of “always existed”?

We are here on earth to fulfill our earthly objective, so what is our earthly objective that could not be done in heaven and was not done in the Garden?

There are good logical practical reasons for making us the way we are and not like angels, so what are those reasons?

If we can sin in heaven why won’t we sin in heaven?

 

[oi_antz]

I think the idea was that the reason we are capable of sin is that we have freewill. If we were robots we would not sin.

Yes, this is true, but it's an association fallacy too. Sin does not exist because we have freewill, but it could be eliminated by removing freewill. Did you see those scriptures I presented in that thread you mentioned? The one who leads the world astray was removed from heaven. So if heaven has only people in there without the temptation of the one who leads the world astray, will they naturally want to sin, if what they naturally want to do, is whatever is good and right?

And it's true, the idea of something God cannot make is contradictory. So why not make beings who love him but do not sin?

Well this is what He has done. There are some though who have in their nature a preference to love other things. Jesus told us that if a man takes two masters, he will end up despising one of them. I think that the world has plenty of temptation to help strengthen the commitment of those who are decisively for Him, and to prove those who really despise Him, by their actions.

 

[JGG]

If in heaven we are made such that we can no longer freely choose to do evil, it will only be after we have made a conscious, free choice for God and His righteousness here on earth. God, then, is not forcing anything upon His children when in the life hereafter he makes them truly free from sin. In doing so He is simply bringing them to the final conclusion of their life lived in honor and service to Him.

God did not make us incapable of sin right from the start because the love He made us capable of expressing toward Him cannot be compelled. Love must always be freely given or it is not love. But being able to freely love God means that we must also be able not to love Him, which means we can choose to live in rejection of Him, which is to live in sin.

Selah.

This I find unsettling. Firstly, if we say God does not want to compel us to love Him, and wants us to do it freely, then we run into problems with the doctrine of heaven and hell itself. We are told that Jesus will save us if we believe in and love Him, and conversely that we will burn in eternal hellfire if we do not. These are cited as compelling reasons to believe, and love God. But I do not see how that is a free choice. We are offered the choice but are told that there are consequences to not believing, and benefits to believing. We are still compelled to believe.

 

[JGG]

We have free will in heaven but those chosen to attain that blessed state will have a beatific vision of Christ. We will have no desire to sin.

Life here in this age is like a boot camp, which prepares us to live in the age to come.

Is sin a tool that God wields then? I thought God hated sin.

 

[paul1149]

Why then, did God give us freewill? I've always been told that "God doesn't want robots, or puppets" but if we're going to be robots without freewill in heaven, why not just make us that way to begin with?

There will be no robotic saints in heaven. We will be FAR more alive, with FAR more power of free will, than we have ever dreamed of here. God requires that we choose Him. He will not force us to follow Him. He refuses to base His peaceable kingdom on coercion or force. Everyone will be there because they want to be there.

If you cannot see that the Lord deserves to rule, and if after the cruel cross you cannot see that His rule is the very definition of kind beneficence, you are missing the most foundational understanding of the nature of resurrection life.

Of course, there are some who see all this quite well, but who reject it because submitting would mean they have to give up their carnal lusts. The irony is that God's intentions for us are far better than anything we can conceive, to say nothing of His ability to bring them about, as opposed to our utter inability.

A really great read on this is Lewis' The Great Divorce.

 

[aiki]

This I find unsettling. Firstly, if we say God does not want to compel us to love Him, and wants us to do it freely, then we run into problems with the doctrine of heaven and hell itself. We are told that Jesus will save us if we believe in and love Him, and conversely that we will burn in eternal hellfire if we do not. These are cited as compelling reasons to believe, and love God. But I do not see how that is a free choice. We are offered the choice but are told that there are consequences to not believing, and benefits to believing. We are still compelled to believe.

But the reality is that many - really, most - do not choose to love God. What, then, of this compulsion you say people are under? It doesn't appear that most people believe they are under any compulsion whatever to love God. And so they freely choose to reject Him.

I'm puzzled why you think not loving God should be a decision which does not have consequences. Loving Him has very positive eternal consequences. Why shouldn't rejecting Him have equally negative eternal consequences?

Remember, too, that we aren't talking about loving another fallible, selfish human being. We are talking about the One who made us and sustains our existence moment by moment; He is the One who created us to know and fellowship with Him; He sacrificed Himself on our behalf that we might escape the punishment of our own sin. It is not, then, that we don't have enormous cause to love Him. There is no one more deserving of our love than our Maker.

Selah.

 

[anonymous person]

Is sin a tool that God wields then? I thought God hated sin.

Good question.

When once asked, ‘What is the definition of sin?’ Billy Graham gave the following answer:

A sin is any thought or action that falls short of God’s will. God is perfect, and anything we do that falls short of His perfection is sin.

So to answer your question, I don't think sin is something we should look at as something that can be wielded as a tool, but rather as something that people are guilty of thinking or doing.

So the question is really,

Can God use something that people are guilty of thinking or doing to bring about some good effect?

I think so.

Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers is one example that comes to mind, who is a type or foreshadowing of Christ.

What Joseph's brothers did to him was a sin. They sold him into slavery because they were jealous of him. But God was at work the whole time in the situation and used Joseph to save many people from dying from famine. Likewise Jesus was betrayed by His own people and crucified. This was a grievous sin. But God used it to make it possible for all men to be reconciled to Himself and have life eternal.

So yes God is able to turn what we mean for evil or what we fail in being perfect at, which is sin, into Good.

 

[JGG]

But the reality is that many - really, most - do not choose to love God. What, then, of this compulsion you say people are under? It doesn't appear that most people believe they are under any compulsion whatever to love God. And so they freely choose to reject Him.

Many of them accept another God(s) with other consequences for not believing. Others don't accept that gods exist. I would further put forth that those who "love" God based on the consequences, do not really love God at all, but are threatened by hell, or greedy for heaven.

I'm puzzled why you think not loving God should be a decision which does not have consequences. Loving Him has very positive eternal consequences. Why shouldn't rejecting Him have equally negative eternal consequences?

Because you just told me that God wants us to have a free choice. Once the consequences are offered, the choice isn't just about God, but whether we fear hell or desire heaven. As I said before, can one really say that they love God if they expect positive consequences for doing so?

When I married my wife I knew there was a pretty good chance she would only live for another few years. When she died I was crushed all the same, and it took a long time for me to put myself back together. Much longer than we were together. I loved my wife not for the positive consequences, and despite the negative ones. We don't love someone because of what we get out of it. Why would God be any different?

Remember, too, that we aren't talking about loving another fallible, selfish human being. We are talking about the One who made us and sustains our existence moment by moment; He is the One who created us to know and fellowship with Him; He sacrificed Himself on our behalf that we might escape the punishment of our own sin. It is not, then, that we don't have enormous cause to love Him. There is no one more deserving of our love than our Maker.

Yes, and these reasons make for a much better choice than choosing between heaven and hell. These are actions not contingent on whether we love God. But these are not the ones which get presented for why we should love God.

 

[terryjohn]

If i were created perfect, how would I know that it was perfection, having never known what it was like to be otherwise?

 

[JGG]

If i were created perfect, how would I know that it was perfection, having never known what it was like to be otherwise?

Presumably you would be sinless.

 

[oi_antz]

I really love this description, as it helps to show how Hebrews 10:14 has truth:

Other perfection relative. Perfection of any other person or thing, then, is relative, not absolute. (Compare Ps 119:96.) That is, a thing is “perfect” according to, or in relation to, the purpose or end for which it is appointed by its designer or producer, or the use to which it is to be put by its receiver or user. The very meaning of perfection requires that there be someone who decides when “completion” has been reached, what the standards of excellence are, what requirements are to be satisfied, and what details are essential. Ultimately, God the Creator is the final Arbiter of perfection, the Standard-Setter, in accord with his own righteous purposes and interests.—Ro 12:2; see JEHOVAH (A God of moral standards).

 

[Chicken Little]

Henry McLeod asked this question:

If sin comes from freewill...Then we either don't have free will in heaven, or there is sin in heaven.

(In this thread:
http://www.christianforums.com/threads/if-all-sin-comes-from-free-will.7903842/)

Several people answered that we lose or give up our freewill in heaven. Others say we are changed, transformed or cleansed.

I feel Henry is not asking the obvious follow up questions:

Why then, did God give us freewill? I've always been told that "God doesn't want robots, or puppets" but if we're going to be robots without freewill in heaven, why not just make us that way to begin with? If we're going to be changed, transformed, or cleansed, why not just make us in the final form to begin with? Why create this existence at all if God can create us in His preferred, final, perfect, heavenly form?

My apologies for asking questions.

questions are Not problems if you mean it and really can't understand it .
now the rest of us have spent ages and ages answering these questions with him for ourselves.
and no answers we can give you will even take the place of a real relationship with the creator of the universe .
so what we say here will fail to even come close and at some point you have to stop asking us and start asking him yourself and study and understand him for yourself . because I can't put 40 years of answers and blood sweat and tears that I got into a post.
NOW what isn't ok and it is always happening on this site is when an accusation against God or man is posed as a question that they don't even intend to understand. so lets hope you didn't do that.

first of all the next age is his kingdom and NOT "Heaven" and sin sure does exists.
and all those billions of aborted babies and maybe some others who live through the tribulation . and ages of people who never knew him .
so if he gives an eternal body to someone willing to sin is that fair ?
the punishment for sin is way worse for a immortal than a mortal.
which kind of body he gives to us when is not understood well by anyone .
so he isn't going to give a immortal body to anyone who is still capable of sinning in their body , soul or mind .
you can get a new body that only lives 1000 years for the next age and it will be an awesome reward. then if you are faithful in that age also an immortal body for the 8th day / last age which is really
"heaven",

sin can always exist some how .. but there no sin or sinner or mortal and any sort of dying/ hiding and cowardice or any such thing like that can exist then in that last age. certainly no sinning willfully .
Because we all will live in the presence of the Father and the Son as one, in a new world with new laws . it seems if you refuse to learn and to want to do these 10 little laws now maybe you surely won't like the next set of laws for the new age of Heaven either. it is not a matter of him making us anything we are what our choices have made us.
so we must make new choices.
now in this age He is looking for faithful people willing to help him in his kingdom as a man ( son of Adam )age . not his kingdom as GOD age..
IF they are willing to use what they are given lawfully to the benefit of others and his creation in his kingdom and in his age! Those people are probably to help him raise up all those aborted babies we dumped on him. all those people and children murdered at young ages. all who need a chance to grow up and LIVE and to do that in peace and the time for them choose what they will. and maybe the 1000 years is time to teach mankind to learn what we must know for the last age , maybe .
but it starts with choosing Life and never usurping and lying to others for your own benefits.
I do know is no one is going to His age if you do those kind of things which usurps others no matter how many magic prayers one pretends to say or pretends to mean.

well that is as good I can do, just in hopes that you stop asking us and start asking him and getting your answers from Him not men. only he can show you what you really want to know .

 

[NightHawkeye]

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.

And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

 

[aiki]

Many of them accept another God(s) with other consequences for not believing. Others don't accept that gods exist. I would further put forth that those who "love" God based on the consequences, do not really love God at all, but are threatened by hell, or greedy for heaven.

Well, people may reject God in favor of false gods, but under what constraints from these gods they may do so is really irrelevant to my point. The only God I'm talking about is the One, True God, Jehovah. And as far as He is concerned, what I have noted about your supposed compulsion to believe holds true.

I don't see how the consequences of choosing for or against God make it impossible to truly love Him. It seems to me you're simply making a general assumption that these consequences must preclude genuinely loving God. As the Bible says, God has given us ample reason to love Him. (1Jn. 4:17-10). The choice, then, isn't solely between positive and negative consequences, but primarily between recognizing and responding to the love God has for us or ignoring it. There may be some who see only a hell to shun and a heaven to gain, but there are others (myself among them) who are drawn to God because of His love for them. To the latter sort, heaven is only desirable because God occupies it. For these people, God and heaven are one and the same thing. Being as antagonistic to Him as you are this may seem unlikely or even impossible, but I tell you, nonetheless, that it is so for myself and many other followers of Christ.

Because you just told me that God wants us to have a free choice. Once the consequences are offered, the choice isn't just about God, but whether we fear hell or desire heaven. As I said before, can one really say that they love God if they expect positive consequences for doing so?

Yes, I think so. I love my wife dearly and married her, not because I thought it was my duty to do so, or because I wished or expected to live a bitter, miserable life with her, but because I believed that the consequences of acting on my love for her would result in a joyful, fulfilling life with her. Does anyone get married because they hope or expect that doing so will lead only to misery? Of course not! But does this mean, then, that their love is completely mercenary or selfish? No, I don't think so (though there is definitely some selfishness, especially at the start). What I've found is that as my love for my wife has deepened and matured, it is becoming less and less selfish. The ironic thing about this is that as I sacrifice myself for my wife, I gain a sweeter, richer relationship with her. But I had to grow into this kind of love.

What is true of love in my marriage relationship is also true in many ways of my love-relationship with God. I wouldn't have chosen to relate to a God who was all darkness and danger. I expected that loving God would be deeply rewarding and fulfilling. And He makes promises to me in His Word that it can be. God does not intend that I should embrace Him without positive inducement to do so. He promises that as I walk with Him and in love yield more and more of my life to Him, I will find that I gain a richer and sweeter experience of Him. And so it has been. But I had to grow into this experience and love of Him.

When I married my wife I knew there was a pretty good chance she would only live for another few years. When she died I was crushed all the same, and it took a long time for me to put myself back together. Much longer than we were together. I loved my wife not for the positive consequences, and despite the negative ones. We don't love someone because of what we get out of it. Why would God be any different?

I am deeply sorry for your loss. I can't imagine (nor wish to) the grief I would feel if I lost my wife.

Not to be callous toward your tragedy, but I don't agree that we love purely for utterly selfless reasons. Did you love your wife because she was a shrieking harridan who made your life a misery? I very much doubt it. I expect there were things about your wife, not least of which was her love for you, that drew you into a marriage with her. What induced you to marry her knowing the terrible sorrow you would soon have to face? Surely it wasn't only the prospect of that sorrow that drew you together as husband and wife. What made marrying her worth the pain doing so would bring? I'm not trying to suggest your love for her was not deep and true, but you could not have been entirely devoid of a selfish expectation of good in extending love to your wife.

God has made us to be powerfully motivated by what gratifies and satisfies us. And He approaches us in a way that recognizes this is part of our hard-wiring. As we walk with Him, however, what we come eventually to understand is that the most gratifying and fulfilling experiences of love are encountered as we, in love, turn away from self-gratification. Strangely, in the act of abandoning self-gratification we may find supreme gratification. This is what happens when we follow God's direction in how we seek to fulfill our desires.

Yes, and these reasons make for a much better choice than choosing between heaven and hell. These are actions not contingent on whether we love God. But these are not the ones which get presented for why we should love God.

Often, yes, and it is deeply saddening to me to see that this is so. In the matter of walking with God great numbers of people are appealed to by Christians in entirely the wrong way. God Himself is the reward of salvation, not the golden streets of heaven.

Selah.