FATE VS FREE WILL

[childeye]

My apologies. I wasn't addressing your post specifically. Sorry I gave that impression. Just the use of the word "right" when referring to our desire or tendency to rebel against God. I don't see it as a right because there are serious consequences for our rebellion.

AW. Too bad. I thought I wrote a good post. Did you at least read it?

 

[WIP]

AW. Too bad. I thought I wrote a good post. Did you at least read it?

Maybe what your saying is that our will is not free but just a will? I could go along with that.

 

[childeye]

Maybe what your saying is that our will is not free but just a will? I could go along with that.

That would simplify things. I just find the term free is contradictory in my reasoning. In freewill, We're supposed to be both free from sin and free from God at the same time, which is really like serving two masters, even as we choose back and forth. On top of that, it's really no different to me than saying I'm not free from God and I'm not free from sin at the same time.
I can only conceive of a freewill as one not deceived into serving a false god, since that is what we should seek and need freedom from.

 

[john darling]

In freewill, We're supposed to be both free from sin and free from God at the same time

Nah, that's not free will. We can never be free from God in the sense that we can reject God and escape the consequences for that decision (Luke 13:6-9). We are free to reject God. We are free to ignore God. We are free to curse God. We are free to fight against God. We are free to serve God. We are free to obey God. We are free to love God. We have the freedom to move back and forth between these choices but again, with consequences and rewards. We have the God-given right to make that choice because, as WIP has suggested, God wants us to love him because we choose to love him.

 

[Doulos Iesou]

I see the word "right" used by a number of posters in this thread with regard to free will. I think there's a difference between a "right" to rebel and a desire, option, or ability to rebel. A true robot would not desire nor opt to rebel as it would do only as it is programmed to do. If God programmed us to do, act, speak, and think only exactly what He wanted from us, could we love Him?

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." Matthew 22:37

Would this commandment have any purpose at all if we didn't have the ability (free will) to not follow it?

Free will bespeaks an ability and it implies a degree of autonomy bestowed upon by our creator. Often people express freedoms as rights, but I wouldn't necessary put it that way.

 

[childeye]

Nah, that's not free will. We can never be free from God in the sense that we can reject God and escape the consequences for that decision (Luke 13:6-9).

But respectfully, since this is true what you say, then we don't have free wills. To me you're simply saying we have no choice but to submit to God lest we die, since He alone is Life. But this is how you say it, that all wills must freely submit to God, of necessity for life, or else die. That's an oxymoron to me, since 'freely' implies voluntary, and 'must' implies compulsion out of dire necessity. It's like you're saying you can freely choose to not eat food and die, therefore you can freely choose to eat and live. That is an equivocation wherein it is reckoned that the power of life and death is thus in your hands. But to the contrary, the scriptures are saying that we are fated to die, unless God intervenes. We don't have access to the tree of life, and therefore life can only be a gift obtained through God's mercy, and not something we can choose apart from faith and hope in God's mercy. 1 John 5:11. 1 John 5:12. Therefore, free will in the moral purview, is simply vanity.
noun
noun: free will; noun: freewill

1. 1.
   the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.
   synonyms: self-determination, freedom of choice, autonomy, liberty, independence.

We are free to reject God. We are free to ignore God. We are free to curse God. We are free to fight against God. We are free to serve God. We are free to obey God. We are free to love God. We have the freedom to move back and forth between these choices but again, with consequences and rewards. We have the God-given right to make that choice because, as WIP has suggested, God wants us to love him because we choose to love him.

I am a human being. I recognize and testify that I Love God, my parents, siblings, wife children, etc... without any freewill choice applicable. To know God is to Love God. I don't Love Him for rewards or in fear of consequences, it's unconditional and involuntary. The fear of God is a Spirit of God and not a choice either. I can't see someone freely volunteering to find ways to make God angry. To me someone first has to not Love God to want to do that. Freewill obscures spiritual discernment.

When I hear you say that God wants us to Love Him, only if we freely choose to Love Him, I am "forced" to wonder how you define God. Your imagery suggests that God is ignorable, an object to be judged and rejected if found unworthy, and that God can deserve our cursing and rebellion if we so freely choose. And therefore you count it as your God given right to do so. Then, in your reasoning, this is made palatable by also mentioning that we can also do the other, and volunteer to Love Him, honor Him, worship Him, etc..., IF we so freely choose to. You talk as if you don't know Him, since these are thoughts that only someone who doesn't know Him would ponder as viable choices. These words carry no Godly Truth. They are thoughts that show freewill to be a construct built upon a false image of god. This is Satan's voice obscuring the Truth of God as he has from the beginning. He doesn't know God, that is why there is no Truth in him.
John 8:44. This scripture is not intended to be applied to you.

Below are scriptures I am using out of 1 John, to verify my points about Love, loving others, and loving God, not being a choice. Please show me how any free choice of mankind is involved in loving God according to these scriptures without the equivocation that they could reject God but didn't. To rephrase: I am saying that anyone who would reject His Spirit, does not know His Spirit, and therefore does so, only because they are possessed by the powers of spiritual darkness; And therefore, God's Spirit is not rejected by a freewill that also could have Loved God, if they simply chose to, because they would first have to know Him, to Love Him. Psalm 111:10. 2 Corinthians 4:4.

1 John 4>
13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
If you freely choose to say that we can freely choose to reject His Spirit, then I will freely use this scripture to freely show it is Satan freely working inside of a person that would freely choose to freely reject God: 8 He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. To me these scriptures have shown that any person whether they are the highest angel or the lowest man, Love God according to their knowledge of god/God.

 

[OzSpen]

Maybe what your saying is that our will is not free but just a will? I could go along with that.

What motivates this will to choose anything? Or, doesn't it have the ability to anything at all? What's the purpose of 'just a will'?

 

[WIP]

What motivates this will to choose anything? Or, doesn't it have the ability to anything at all? What's the purpose of 'just a will'?

When I think of the word "free" I relate it to freedom, which implies an ability or option without consequence. In the US I have free speech but it's really not totally free. It is only free until I use my speech to infringe upon another's rights such as in the case of slander.

What I'm thinking is that in similar manner our will is not totally free. We can't do whatever our little minds and hearts desire without facing consequences for what we choose. I can choose to not love God but there will be a consequence for that choice so in that sense, my will is not free. It is my will, for God certainly does not will for me to not love Him, but it is not totally free.

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." Mark 12:30 NKJV

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV

Hope that helps clarify.

 

[Sinthesis]

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Obadiah.)

 

[smaller]

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• Opinions are plenty and have little value so please do not state positions that have no basis in scripture.

Obadiah.)

 

[Seabass]

Tell us what you believe!

The seed has been planted in my heart! I believe that we have free will which in turn is our fate.
Do you believe one way or the other?
I believe in Fate so much so that it comes down to the very moment you wake up everyday to the very moment you go to bed. I believe our whole lives are predestined and everything that happens to us, the good the bad and the ugly, is all a package God wrote in his Book long ago.
"is there anything of which can be said this is new? It has already been here in ancient times before us."

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
Can you come up with bible verses?

Lk 10:30 "And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead."

Lk 10:31 "And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side."

(My emphasis in below quotes)

John Calvin “What we must prove is that single events are ordered by God and that every event comes from his intended will. Nothing happens by chance.” (The Institutes of Christian Religion, Book I, Ch. 16, Sect. 4).

John Calvin “Everything is controlled by God’s secret purpose, and nothing can happen except by his knowledge and will.” (The Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 16, Section 3)

John Gill (Calvinist) on Luke 10:31 " Nor was this a chance matter with respect to God, by whose providence all things are ordered, directed, and governed; nor any wonderful thing with respect to men, which fell out in an uncommon way, beyond expectation; the phrase only signifies, that so it came to pass".


"BY CHANCE", means this priest of his own freewill choose, at that particular time to take that particular route (see Eccl 9:11 "time and chance") and God permitted it and did not preordain this priest to take that particular route at that particular time. If anyone, including Calvin or Gill, wants to argue God preordained this priest to take this route at this time against his will, then it can also be argued God preordained the other men, (the thieves in Lk 10:30) against their will, to rob and injure this man and left him to die. God then becomes morally culpable for this evil..

 

[childeye]

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Obadiah.)

 

[WIP]

I suppose I could have used the word "trust" instead but I suspect Satan does not love God. I also wonder, if it was not possible for us to choose to not love God then I would wonder why this commandment was given.

"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." Mark 12:30 NKJV

 

[childeye]

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Obadiah.)

 

[childeye]

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The scripture references you give must be to actual scripture in an accepted Christian Bible.

Obadiah.)

 

[smaller]

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Obadiah.)

 

[Seabass]

(Post deleted. Response to a deleted post. Obadiah)

 

[smaller]

(Post deleted, response to a deleted post. Obadiah)

 

[childeye]

(Post deleted for failing to comply with the following A&T guidelines:

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• Opinions are plenty and have little value so please do not state positions that have no basis in scripture.

Obadiah.)

 

[john darling]

To me it seems strange that you misuderstand me so consistently. There is something deeper happening here than a theological debate. I'll give an example.
In a previous post you said:

I believe Love is a spiritual force and not a choice/decision. For example, I Love my parents and my brothers and children. I don't deliberate whether to love them or to not to love them, before I love them. I don't choose to Love them and I cannot choose not to. It's the same way with God. If compared to a computer, I am therefore, by default, programmed to Love God, my parents, my brothers, and my wife and children, and that is my honest testimony. I therefore will not testify that I choose/decide to Love God lest I be a liar.

You describe the love for your family as an involuntary "force" which you do not decide on; it's something god "forces" you to do.

Aside from the obvious fact that many men out there do not love their family in deed, though they may espouse to in word (Matthew 15:8), I wonder if you can see that "love your family" is not a command of Jesus. Love your neighbor is. To say, "I love my wife and kids" in the lovey dovey emotional context which your example suggests is hardly a reasonable example of free will (Matthew 5:46). Include a cheating spouse, or violent kids, or alcoholic granparents who can't take care of themselves and you may find that this "natural" love doesn't flow so freely as you suggest. My experience has been that there's a whole lot of personal choice involved in loving people who are difficult to love.

Anyway, back to the love your neighbor thing, what about people who are not in your family; the smelly begger on the street corner or the obnoxious drunk who suddenly wants to fight with you because he mistook his stumbling in front of your path as you suddenly cutting in on his path? Do you also have no choice but to love them?

Jesus told a story about a Samaritan who helped a wounded man in need (Luke 10: 31-33). Two religious men were also included in the story, but they did not help the wounded man. One man made a choice to help his neighbor while the other two made a choice not to help. There's nothing in this story about God forcing them to help or Satan forcing them not to help.

To me, I see teachings like this and I think it is obvious that we have the freedom to reject God and to choose Satan or vice versa. (Edit, ToS 2.4, offering unwelcome spiritual advice. Obadiah)