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Free will, Free choice?

Do humans have have free will, and the ability to choose?

  • Yes

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    5

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The difference between man and God, though...

...is that man can only will. God is the one who can will AND do of His good pleasure. We can desire to do something all we want. We have the freedom to will anything, but we can execute NOTHING without the Father's sanction.
 
nikolia has said it well. We do hav ethe ability to choose, but God has the power to override or direct.
Pro 16:9 A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
 
Where does the bible say that man has the ability to choose?

It seems to me that the bible teaches that with out God we dead in sin, and I am not sure how a dead man makes desicions.

It also seems that we are told that we are slaves to sin, and will do the will of our master, and what ever we do it is sin.

And Paul said something like "the evil that I do not want to do, that I keep doing." If he does not want to do it then why does he do it?

I am not for this libertarian free will, I am for a free will that is confined to the nature of the person, if he is unregenerated all his choices will be dirrected by his unregenerated nature, like wise if he is regerated then he will have a new nature and will act out that nature.

Taking into concideration of the two wills at odds.

Anyways, while man can choice what pants he might where today, he can not choice God unless God choices and regerates the man.
 
Henry said:
Where does the bible say that man has the ability to choose?

It seems to me that the bible teaches that with out God we dead in sin, and I am not sure how a dead man makes desicions.

It also seems that we are told that we are slaves to sin, and will do the will of our master, and what ever we do it is sin.

And Paul said something like "the evil that I do not want to do, that I keep doing." If he does not want to do it then why does he do it?

I am not for this libertarian free will, I am for a free will that is confined to the nature of the person, if he is unregenerated all his choices will be dirrected by his unregenerated nature, like wise if he is regerated then he will have a new nature and will act out that nature.

Taking into concideration of the two wills at odds.

Anyways, while man can choice what pants he might where today, he can not choice God unless God choices and regerates the man.

Man can will ANYTHING. But it is not in his power to carry it out. Man can will to be something he even admits he doesn't know. I can will to be perfect. I can will to be transcendent. I can will anything I please, but it doesn't guarantee I know how to reach that goal, nor that (even if I did know) I am capable of moving myself towards it. The will has been given too much sway - it means very little when put up against the ability to do.
 
We are CLAY in the hands of God. What can clay do? Nothing.

Charlotte
 
Yes we do.

BUT!

We are slaves to sin because it's our nature, we choose to sin and reject God...
 
If you believe in a God that can see the future perfectly and created us, then we can have no free will. To God, time would be static. Every event would be fixed in spacetime. He would see the whole universe as we look at a timeline in a book.

So God had all the choices to make and left none for us. God chose to make Adam and Eve because they would sin. He made Satan knowing alll he would do. God could have made Bob and Anne, who would never have thought of eating that fruit. He could have made the great Angel, Santa, who would rather give gifts to children instead of try to temp people away from God.

So to God, we are as predictable as a falling domino or a computer. He knows exactly what we are going to do and we can not surprise Him (unless he is not omnipotent). So the world is like a painting in which the pigments are arguing whether they had the freewill to be the color they are.

Some other interesing ideas:
1) If you believe in free will, God could have made people with free will and be good. After all, God is good and has free will.

2) God does not say that people will have free will. In fact, He specifically takes it away from Pharoah in the exodus. Pharoah was going to let the Israelites go to the dester until God stopped him. Then God punished Pharoah and the Egyptians for doing what God made him do.

3) Free will is an illusion. The Sims has an option to turn on "free will." It looks like the Sims are making their own decisions. But we know that it is deterministic what the Sims will do and they are just following an algorithm -- just like us.

Quath
 
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