Free Will is a Fallen Will

[GodsGrace]

That would not be a Calvinist answer.

Ephesians 2 and Romans 3 and John 3 and John 6 and John 10 and many, many more places all teach us that no person WANTS to be saved while they are dead in their sins until God grants them the gift of faith ... which opens the door to the grace of salvation. So the fact that the jailer would ask is evidence that the Father was already drawing him to Christ.

You are not very good at answering for Calvinists.

The jailer WANTED to be saved.

This thread is about free will.

Do you prefer to talk about how regeneration comes before faith?
This is also an interesting concept that I do not find in scripture.
Maybe in a new thread?

But do you see how I've always been correct about free will being at the BASE of Calvinist beliefs.

Take away free will and calvinism falls apart.

What does unwilling mean in the following verse?

Matthew 23:37
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.

 

[atpollard]

Again, you don't answer my post.

Which of the 5 points did Calvin NOT believe to be true?

This thread is about free will.
Should I believe the YouTube videos you sent...
or should I believe what the Institutes teaches about free will?

I'll watch them a little later and will reply.
But, again, I posted scripture in a long post..I hope you answer to that.

And yes, I DO read the institutes....
I don't like learning from YouTube or the net.
I like to go straight to the source and see for myself.

I choose not to read The Institutes by Calvin because I don’t care what Calvin believed, so why should I read an extended quote from them and respond because you asked me to. I still do not care what Calvin believed because I follow scripture as I understand it and not John Calvin. I am sure that you can probably find many books about John Calvin and The Institutes if you want a second opinion. However, I am not the man for the job.

 

[GodsGrace]

The question is ...
How do you reconcile the statement “it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” with the verses before and after in a way that does not negate the meaning of these words?

• Is God at work in you?
• Does God make you “will”?
• Does God make you “do”?
• Is it according to God’s purpose (good pleasure) or your purpose (good pleasure)?

• Yes
• No
• No
• God's purpose...but my good pleasure

God does not make anyone DO anything they do not want to do. See my previous post about Jesus crying over Jerusalem. How does that make any sense if it is GOD that decides?

later.

 

[GodsGrace]

I choose not to read The Institutes by Calvin because I don’t care what Calvin believed, so why should I read an extended quote from them and respond because you asked me to. I still do not care what Calvin believed because I follow scripture as I understand it and not John Calvin. I am sure that you can probably find many books about John Calvin and The Institutes if you want a second opinion. However, I am not the man for the job.

 

[atpollard]

I didnt' use scripture that time because I was complaining to you that you do not answer my posts but keep bringing up Augustine.

I tend to bring up Augustine only to refute claims that all of the Early Church Fathers taught “not Calvinism”. Augustine was an ECF and scholar of both Hebrew and Greek and he taught many of the things that Reformed Theology would later return to when people could read the Bible for themselves and see that Paul taught things contrary to the Church in Rome (the Church that the Reformers sought to reform and the Protestants were protesting against).

In every case, Augustine was a small part of a larger post ... yet it was Augustine that you spent most of your passion responding to.

 

[Hospes]

Calvinism has a standard set of beliefs.
If you don't agree with all of them, then perhaps you're not a calvinist?

Let me address of few of your points.

Calvinist typically describes a person who is in substantial agreement with the five responses to Arminianism produced at the Council of Dort. I know of no Calvinist that fully believes all that Calvin wrote. TULIP is simply a clever English acronym used to sum up the five points. So I really am a Calvinist, but like many other Calvinists, do not agree with all he wrote.

I also believe God is sovereign.
GOD IS SOVEREIGN.
Anyone who does not believe this is a little off in his thinking.

If I understand you correctly, I see your position the same as I would in this analogy:
You care for a precocious two-year-old that is prone to disobedience and wandering off. As you approach a busy highway, you decide what you most want is for the child to have the freedom to obey/disobey you, so you thoroughly instruct her - using all your powers of persuasion - to not cross the highway until you say the way is clear. The child rebels, runs into the highway, and is killed. When the police come, you tell them you had no responsibility for the child's actions, because the child had free-will and chose to rebel.

Again, if I understand you, you assert God as "off the hook" for what goes wrong because, just as you permitted free-will in the analogy, He permits free-will to us. Let me know if I am not understanding you.

And why would Jesus tell us to be perfect in
Matthew 5:28 if He knew it didn't depend on us?

And why would Jesus explain about the man who build his house on a rock if He knew it wasn't up to us to decide where to build our house?

God commands of us what we cannot do. He commands us to be perfect, to rejoice always, to not grow weary of doing good, to not fear, to "take heart", etc. You have lived long enough to know at times these commands are beyond our capacity to obey. So with Augustine, we pray "Give what you command, and command what you will." The commands drive us towards desperate dependency on God, not a mustering of our will to obey.

 

[atpollard]

However, my point is that Calvin came along 1,500 years AFTER Jesus and the Apostles --- why was his belief never accepted before? Perhaps because it's wrong?

Jesus (John 6:44)
Apostle Paul (Romans)
Apostle Paul (Ephesians)
Apostle Paul (Philippians)
Apostle Paul (Timothy)
Apostle John (1 John 2:19)
Clement (c. 90 AD)
Ignatius (93 AD)
Didache (95 AD)
Barnabas (97 AD)
Unknown [The Epistle to Diognetus] (130 AD)
Augustine (380 AD)

None of the early church fathers taught “Free Will” either. They were writing letters dealing with other issues and trying to survive. However, with that said, the ECF certainly emphasized the Sovereignty of God and never praised the Free Will of men:

Clement
1 Clement 0.0, “The Church of God which sojourns in Rome to the Church of God which sojourns at Corinth, to those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ...”
21.9, “For he is the searcher of thoughts and desires; his breath is in us, and when he so desires, he will take it away.”
27.4-5, “By his majestic word he established the universe, and by a word he can destroy it. “Who will say to him, ‘What have you done?’ Or who will resist the might of his strength?” He will do all things when he will and as he wills, and none of those things decreed by him will fail.”

Ignatius
0.0, “Ignatius... to the church at Ephesus in Asia, blessed with greatness through the fullness of God the Father, predestined before the ages for lasting and unchangeable glory forever, united and elect through genuine suffering by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God...”

(to Smyrnaeans)
4.1b, “But I am guarding you in advance against wild beasts in human form- men whom you must not only not welcome but, if possible, not even meet. Nevertheless, do pray for them, if somehow they might repent, difficult though it may be. But Jesus Christ, our true life, has power over this.”


Didache
3.10, “Accept as good the things that happen to you, knowing that nothing transpires apart from God.”

Barnabas
19.6b, “Accept as good the things that happen to you, knowing that nothing transpires apart from God.”


The Epistle to Diognetus
9.1, “So then, having already planned everything in his mind together with his Child, he permitted us during the former time to be carried away by undisciplined impulses as we desired, led astray by pleasures and lusts, not at all because he took delight in our sins, but because he was patient; not because he approved of that former season of unrighteousness, but because he was creating the present season of righteousness, in order that we who in the former time were convicted by our own deeds as unworthy and, having clearly demonstrated our inability to enter the kingdom of God on our own, might be enabled to do so by God’s power.”

 

[JLB]

Calvinist typically describes a person who is in substantial agreement with the five responses to Arminianism produced at the Council of Dort. I know of no Calvinist that fully believes all that Calvin wrote. TULIP is simply a clever English acronym used to sum up the five points. So I really am a Calvinist, but like many other Calvinists, do not agree with all he wrote.

Fair enough.

Thanks for clarifying your beliefs.

Could you share one or two things that John Calvin write that you don’t agree with.


Honestly, this could be true of many writings from many theologians.


JLB

 

[JLB]

21.9, “For he is the searcher of thoughts and desires; his breath is in us, and when he so desires, he will take it away.”

Any rational Christian can read this a plainly see that this statement shows that at least Clement didn’t believe OSAS.


If the Spirit of God is in a person then taken away, where does that person stand in salvation?



JLB

 

[GodsGrace]

I choose not to read The Institutes by Calvin because I don’t care what Calvin believed, so why should I read an extended quote from them and respond because you asked me to. I still do not care what Calvin believed because I follow scripture as I understand it and not John Calvin. I am sure that you can probably find many books about John Calvin and The Institutes if you want a second opinion. However, I am not the man for the job.

Sure a,,,but you do go by the Westminster Catechism or the Synod of Dort or one of those.

I posted the quote to back up my belief about what Calvin thought about free will. You said that he didn't agree with TULIP which is BASED on free will.

I 'm going to watch your videos now.

Are you going to reply to my post no. 150?

 

[GodsGrace]

I tend to bring up Augustine only to refute claims that all of the Early Church Fathers taught “not Calvinism”. Augustine was an ECF and scholar of both Hebrew and Greek and he taught many of the things that Reformed Theology would later return to when people could read the Bible for themselves and see that Paul taught things contrary to the Church in Rome (the Church that the Reformers sought to reform and the Protestants were protesting against).

In every case, Augustine was a small part of a larger post ... yet it was Augustine that you spent most of your passion responding to.

I just refuse to reply to the above.

Please answer my post no. 150.

I want to speak about ONLY SCRIPTURE.

Enough with Augustine.
No one agreed with him.....!

 

[atpollard]

Can we agree on this?

Are you really asking a Calvinist if he believes that all men are sinners and need a savior ... (as in because they are “Totally Depraved” and incapable of saving themselves by their own Free Will, God by “Unconditional Election” must exercise “Irresistible Grace” and draw sinners, dead in sin, to the Son where they can receive Eternal Life)? ???
Yeah, I think we can agree that all men are sinners and need a savior ... even Abraham needed a savior.

 

[Hospes]

Fair enough.

Thanks for clarifying your beliefs.

Could you share one or two things that John Calvin write that you don’t agree with.


Honestly, this could be true of many writings from many theologians.


JLB

Calvin mixed civil and church polity in ways that I do not agree with. He seemed okay with a "state" church. Beyond that, I'm not sure where I part ways with him, especially since I have not studied his writings to any significant degree. Most of my understanding of Reformed theology comes from the Puritans and contemporary teachers.

 

[JLB]

Calvin mixed civil and church polity in ways that I do not agree with. He seemed okay with a "state" church. Beyond that, I'm not sure where I part ways with him, especially since I have not studied his writings to any significant degree. Most of my understanding of Reformed theology comes from the Puritans and contemporary teachers.

Ok. Thanks for sharing.


There are many things I agree with from Reformed Theology, that I have indicated to atpollard.

However their are some I strongly disagree with.



JLB

 

[JLB]

Yeah, I think we can agree that all men are sinners and need a savior ... even Abraham needed a savior.

Amen.



JLB

 

[JLB]

as in because they are “Totally Depraved”

If totally depraved was used in scripture then you would have a point.

Apparently, totally depraved has different meanings to different people.



JLB

 

[atpollard]

Please answer my post no. 150.

OK.

[Philippians 2:1-18 NASB]
1 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not [merely] look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, [and] being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for [His] good pleasure.
14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing; 15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain. 17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. 18 You too, [I urge you,] rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

1. The BIG PICTURE is not directed at salvation, so we are gleaning leftovers from the text when we are looking at this passage for insight into SOTERIOLOGY (Free Will vs TULIP). However that does not mean that there are not grains of truth that can be gleaned. So the big picture is about CHRISTIANS (those already saved) living a life of service and encouragement towards one another. It is good advice.
2. Hidden in the middle between following the example of Christ (the beginning) and taking personal responsibility to persevere through hardship (the end) is a short but powerful statement of hope and encouragement and power ... no less that GOD HIMSELF is at work inside of us. God is committed to HIS good pleasure ... meaning that God will do what God has decided to do and nobody and nothing will stop God from achieving His goals. God is working INSIDE us to WANT or DESIRE to do what is right, so we do not fight this battle against the old self alone. God is at work INSIDE us to DO what we want to do ... what God wants us to do. We are not FORCED by God, we are empowered by God to DESIRE the things that God desires (that is the renewing of the mind promised elsewhere in scripture) and we are empowered by God to DO the things we desire (the answer to the prayer of Paul in Romans “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” [Rom 7:22-24])

God HELPS us to do what He desires from us...
He does not MANIPULATE our heart....

God “helps us” by manipulating our heart.

• [Ezekiel 36:25-27 NASB] 25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
  • God will baptize (cleanse with water)
  • God will remove an old heart and give a new heart (change our desires).
  • God will indwell us with His Spirit to “cause” [empower] us to walk according to His Laws.
  • Less than “enslavement” but more than just “encouragement”.
• [Jeremiah 31:33 NASB] 33 "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
  • God has written His Law on our heart ... that involves SOME manipulation of the human heart ... for the better.

 

[GodsGrace]

Let me address of few of your points.

Calvinist typically describes a person who is in substantial agreement with the five responses to Arminianism produced at the Council of Dort. I know of no Calvinist that fully believes all that Calvin wrote. TULIP is simply a clever English acronym used to sum up the five points. So I really am a Calvinist, but like many other Calvinists, do not agree with all he wrote.

You see Hospes,,,when speaking to a reformed person, sooner or later the conversation turns to CALVIN. This does NOT happen when speaking to non-reformed Christians on any topic. Why do you suppose this is? Perhaps it's because it's called Calvinism because Calvin was very influential in spreading this belief?

If I understand you correctly, I see your position the same as I would in this analogy:
You care for a precocious two-year-old that is prone to disobedience and wandering off. As you approach a busy highway, you decide what you most want is for the child to have the freedom to obey/disobey you, so you thoroughly instruct her - using all your powers of persuasion - to not cross the highway until you say the way is clear. The child rebels, runs into the highway, and is killed. When the police come, you tell them you had no responsibility for the child's actions, because the child had free-will and chose to rebel.

Again, if I understand you, you assert God as "off the hook" for what goes wrong because, just as you permitted free-will in the analogy, He permits free-will to us. Let me know if I am not understanding you.

Are you a two year old?
Do y ou have the ability to know what God desires from you?
Or does God have to force HIS will on you?
When you decide to sin,,,is it YOU that decided to sin, or did GOD decide for you to sin?

IF GOD MAKES THE DECISION FOR YOU TO SIN...
Then YOU are off the hook,,,not God.
Since the sin was not YOUR decision...how could you be responsible for it?

Calvinism makes all sinning that takes place the responsibility of GOD....and removes all culpability from us.

It's the opposite of what you understood.

2 Corinthians 5:10
10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

How can God recompense us for what WE HAVE DONE...
IF it is HE that determines our actions?

God commands of us what we cannot do. He commands us to be perfect, to rejoice always, to not grow weary of doing good, to not fear, to "take heart", etc. You have lived long enough to know at times these commands are beyond our capacity to obey. So with Augustine, we pray "Give what you command, and command what you will." The commands drive us towards desperate dependency on God, not a mustering of our will to obey.

Augustine again.



To be perfect means to be complete in our desires,,,,NOT to be perfect like Jesus was.

To rejoice means to be happy IN THE LORD,,, not to be happy according to what the world believes happiness is. I go through tribulation and am very sad at times...but I am always JOYFUL.

We should not grow weary of doing good. If we do it means we are doing beyond what we can handle and it is not of God.

That man A....from Hippo also said this:

“For a prohibition always increases an illicit desire so long as the love of and joy in holiness is too weak to conquer the inclination to sin...”
― Augustine of Hippo, City of God

Why would he say that our joy in holiness is too weak to conquer the inclination to sin
IF IT IS GOD'S WILL THAT WE SO SIN??

So does this mean that GOD IS TOO WEAK OR UNABLE
to make our love and joy strong?

Yes, calvinism sure does bring up a lot of interesting questons.

 

[GodsGrace]

Jesus (John 6:44)
Apostle Paul (Romans)
Apostle Paul (Ephesians)
Apostle Paul (Philippians)
Apostle Paul (Timothy)
Apostle John (1 John 2:19)
Clement (c. 90 AD)
Ignatius (93 AD)
Didache (95 AD)
Barnabas (97 AD)
Unknown [The Epistle to Diognetus] (130 AD)
Augustine (380 AD)

None of the early church fathers taught “Free Will” either. They were writing letters dealing with other issues and trying to survive. However, with that said, the ECF certainly emphasized the Sovereignty of God and never praised the Free Will of men:

Clement
1 Clement 0.0, “The Church of God which sojourns in Rome to the Church of God which sojourns at Corinth, to those who are called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ...”
21.9, “For he is the searcher of thoughts and desires; his breath is in us, and when he so desires, he will take it away.”
27.4-5, “By his majestic word he established the universe, and by a word he can destroy it. “Who will say to him, ‘What have you done?’ Or who will resist the might of his strength?” He will do all things when he will and as he wills, and none of those things decreed by him will fail.”

Ignatius
0.0, “Ignatius... to the church at Ephesus in Asia, blessed with greatness through the fullness of God the Father, predestined before the ages for lasting and unchangeable glory forever, united and elect through genuine suffering by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ our God...”

(to Smyrnaeans)
4.1b, “But I am guarding you in advance against wild beasts in human form- men whom you must not only not welcome but, if possible, not even meet. Nevertheless, do pray for them, if somehow they might repent, difficult though it may be. But Jesus Christ, our true life, has power over this.”


Didache
3.10, “Accept as good the things that happen to you, knowing that nothing transpires apart from God.”

Barnabas
19.6b, “Accept as good the things that happen to you, knowing that nothing transpires apart from God.”


The Epistle to Diognetus
9.1, “So then, having already planned everything in his mind together with his Child, he permitted us during the former time to be carried away by undisciplined impulses as we desired, led astray by pleasures and lusts, not at all because he took delight in our sins, but because he was patient; not because he approved of that former season of unrighteousness, but because he was creating the present season of righteousness, in order that we who in the former time were convicted by our own deeds as unworthy and, having clearly demonstrated our inability to enter the kingdom of God on our own, might be enabled to do so by God’s power.”

Why don't we start a thread on the Early Church Fathers and what they believed?

Tertullian (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus) 160-225 AD

Apologist and a polemicist against heresy. He is perhaps most famous for being the oldest extant Latin writer to use the term Trinity. Cyprian’s teacher.

I find, then, that man was constituted free by God. He was master of his own will and power…For a law would not be imposed upon one who did not have it in his power to render that obedience which is due to law. Nor again, would the penalty of death be threatened against sin, if a contempt of the law were impossible to man in the liberty of his will…Man is free, with a will either for obedience of resistance. (c. 207, Vol. 3, pp. 300-301)


Some people act as though God were under an obligation to bestow even on the unworthy His intended gift. They turn His liberality into slavery…. For do not many afterwards fall out of grace? Is not this gift taken away from many? (Tertullian On Repentance chap. 6.)


Irenaeus of Lyons 120-202 AD

The Apostle John had a disciple named Polycarp, and Polycarp had a disciple named Irenaeus.

”But although we shall be understood, from our argument, to be only so affirming man’s unshackled power over his will, that what happens to him should be laid to his own charge, and not to God’s, yet that you may not object, even now, that he ought not to have been so constituted, since his liberty and power of will might turn out to be injurious…Therefore it was proper that (he who is) the image and likeness of God should be formed with a free will and a mastery of him self;… At present, let God’s goodness alone occupy our attention, that which gave so large a gift to man, even the liberty of his will.” /Chapter 6[


And again, who are they that have been saved, and received the inheritance? Those doubtless who do believe in God and who have continued in His love… and innocent children, who have had no sense of evil.


But man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect similar to God HAVING BEEN MADE FREE IN HIS WILL, and with power over himself, is himself his own cause that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff. (c. 180, E/W), 1:466


This expression, ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not,’ set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free (agent) from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will (toward us) is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves… (c. 180, Against Heresies 37; God’s Strategy In Human History, p. 246)

and plenty more....

source: https://bjorkbloggen.com/2012/05/08...free-will-and-objecting-to-the-sinful-nature/


BTW, You never post your source...you're supposed to.

The verse you chose have nothing to do with free will...each one can be explained apart from theology of calvinism.

 

[atpollard]

You see Hospes,,,when speaking to a reformed person, sooner or later the conversation turns to CALVIN. This does NOT happen when speaking to non-reformed Christians on any topic. Why do you suppose this is? Perhaps it's because it's called Calvinism because Calvin was very influential in spreading this belief?

More likely the reason is because you keep bringing Calvin up and asking Calvinists to respond to something that he wrote.

Why don’t you ask other people to respond to the writings of John Calvin? He has as much to do with their personal beliefs as he has to do with our personal beliefs (which is almost nothing).