Who chooses who?

[thehehe]

I was just thinking about it today: who chooses who? I mean, does God choose the Man or does the Man chooses God? Does God want you close to Him or does the Man want God close to him? So basically, who is really free? The Man or God?

I know, useless question.

 

[Thursday]

I was just thinking about it today: who chooses who? I mean, does God choose the Man or does the Man chooses God? Does God want you close to Him or does the Man want God close to him? So basically, who is really free? The Man or God?

I know, useless question.

God is free to create us with free will, so we both are free.

God's grace reaches out to all men according to scripture.

We choose how to respond.

 

[juvenissun]

I was just thinking about it today: who chooses who? I mean, does God choose the Man or does the Man chooses God? Does God want you close to Him or does the Man want God close to him? So basically, who is really free? The Man or God?

I know, useless question.

You choose God.
However, while God does not control you in that decision making, God knows you will do so.

It is a VERY useful question.

 

[timewerx]

I was just thinking about it today: who chooses who? I mean, does God choose the Man or does the Man chooses God? Does God want you close to Him or does the Man want God close to him? So basically, who is really free? The Man or God?

I know, useless question.

God wants you to choose Him on your free will. Free will means nobody influenced you!

 

[Albion]

God wants you to choose Him on your free will. Free will means nobody influenced you!

Since we haven't seen God, barely are able to comprehend what the nature of God is, and people can be told about God and the Bible 'until the cows come home' without it ever making an impression on them...

...it would appear that Faith or acceptance, when it happens, has something to do with God making it happen in us.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

God choses those who choose him. Its not a causal relationship, involving before and after. Thats the mistake, its not on a time line. Its simultaneous.

Its a matter of deductive relationship, not material cause and effect.

"And whomsoever Allah causes to err, you shall by no means find a way for him." Koran 4:88

By no means implies impossibility, so therefore it is an a priori truth. Its a matter of analytic relationship, rather than synthetic.


Modal logic would say "It is impossible that A and not-A" and also "If A then A, necessarily".



A being 'guidance'. Those who choose are chosen, necessarily, and vice versa, the chosen are by definition the ones who choose.

Its like asking which came first "1+1=2", or "2=1+1".


So asking which came first, the chosen or the chooser, is a category mistake.

Choosing is something like a performative utterance:

"Performativity is a term for the capacity of speech and communication not simply to communicate but rather to act or consummate an action, or to construct and perform an identity. A common example is the act of saying "I pronounce you man and wife" by a licensed minister before two people who are prepared to wed (or "I do" by one of those people upon being asked whether they take their partner in marriage). An umpire calling a strike, a judge pronouncing a verdict, or a union boss declaring a strike are all examples of performative speech."

 

[Albion]

God choses those who choose him.

This would mean that God did not do the choosing.

 

[JerushaC]

If we choose God he chooses to use us. I really don't know, that's just a thought.

Joshua 24:15
"If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

and

Psalm 119:173
"Let Your hand be ready to help me, For I have chosen Your precepts."

 

[Albion]

If we choose God he chooses to use us. I really don't know, that's just a thought.

But no matter how it's worded or qualified, that doesn't amount to him choosing us. If we say that because we choose him, "he chooses to use us," we're not talking about the same thing when we use the word choose.

It would be more accurate to say there, "If we choose God, he will deign to put us to use (in the accomplishment of his purposes)."

As I get it, the question of the OP is not about us having free will in most of our life's decisions but just about the big issue of whether Man finds and accepts God or if, OTOH, God makes that possible by giving us Faith by which we are brought to repentance and dedication to him.

 

[ecco]

I was just thinking about it today: who chooses who? I mean, does God choose the Man or does the Man chooses God? Does God want you close to Him or does the Man want God close to him? So basically, who is really free? The Man or God?

I know, useless question.

Man chooses God. In the vast majority of cases he chooses the God his parents told him about.

 

[JerushaC]

@Albion
Your right, but we are kinda pushing the same point. But God does choose to use certain Christians in different ways than others.

 

[Albion]

@Albion
Your right, but we are kinda pushing the same point. But God does choose to use certain Christians in different ways than others.

It's probably right that you are asking us to be cautious about how to proceed. That's because there are several different concepts operating simultaneously in this thread. At least, that's how I see it.

Do we have Free Will in choosing God or does he choose us? But if he elects some to salvation, does that mean he doesn't also have some system of choosing select people for the accomplishing of certain roles in history? Those would be different kinds of "choosings."

 

[Sofaman]

If a god exists and is onmipotent then he:

1. Knew the choice you would make even before you existed
and
2. Had a choice as to whether or not to create you

So effectively, if God exists, there is no choice. It was all predetermined by him.

Which begs the question, what kind of horrible person creates something in the knowledge that it will be subject to torture for eternity?

 

[Albion]

If a god exists and is onmipotent then he:

1. Knew the choice you would make even before you existed
and
2. Had a choice as to whether or not to create you

So effectively, if God exists, there is no choice. It was all predetermined by him.

Which begs the question, what kind of horrible person creates something in the knowledge that it will be subject to torture for eternity?

In the many discussions we've had about this, it's been made clear that to know the future is not, ipso facto, to predetermine the future.

 

[Sofaman]

How is it clear? If you know all possible outcomes of all of your choices, then you predetermine the future with every action that you choose to make, willingly or otherwise. Or does god not make choices, is he bound to carry out actions that are against his will?

If, hypothetically speaking, you were planning to have a baby with your wife and had prior knowledge that if she conceived on a Tuesday, the child would be born with significant congenital disabilities meaning the child would suffer permanent misery, pain and suffering throughout his/her entire life; or if she conceived on a Wednesday the child would be perfectly healthy and live a long life full of happiness and joy; would you still continue to attempt conception on a Tuesday?

 

[Albion]

How is it clear? If you know all possible outcomes of all of your choices, then you predetermine the future with every action that you choose to make, willingly or otherwise.

No, you don't. You merely know what will happen. That's a critical difference.

Or does god not make choices, is he bound to carry out actions that are against his will?

As we see in the Biblical account, he clearly has allowed Man to make choices, including those that are against his will. If he did not, there would be no sin.

If, hypothetically speaking, you were planning to have a baby with your wife and had prior knowledge that if she conceived on a Tuesday, the child would be born with significant congenital disabilities meaning the child would suffer permanent misery, pain and suffering throughout his/her entire life; or if she conceived on a Wednesday the child would be perfectly healthy and live a long life full of happiness and joy; would you still continue to attempt conception on a Tuesday?

I wouldn't...but the question is far too generalized. I am sure that some people WOULD go the other way, for reasons other than you are contemplating.

 

[Sofaman]

Does God create people with the prior knowledge that they will use their free will to choose not to believe in him?

 

[Albion]

Does God create people with the prior knowledge that they will use their free will to choose not to believe in him?

That's the big question that divides Arminians from Calvinists and Free Willers from Predestinarians.

If Free Will is the way it is when it comes to the matter of choosing God, he certainly knows in advance who will do so. If we are incapable of making that choice on our own such that he has to predestine those whom he chooses to bring to Faith, he also knows who they are. The fact that he has foreknowledge is almost universally accept as true, but it doesn't settle anything.

 

[Sofaman]

Does God have the ability to choose which humans to create? For example, when he saw my blueprint, could he have chosen to give life to another human in my place?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

This would mean that God did not do the choosing.

I can see your based in cause effect relationships opinion, but I view it like "Which came first the ink on the paper or the writing?"