The Fallacy of Freewill

[Pard]

Freewill. It is the key point of many a person's understanding of both their own salvation and of God. I once thought freewill was the greatest thing in the entire world, and then I finally met God, and I understood that freewill is a really good lie that a lot of Christians believe because it enables them to, well I don't know actually, I have my ideas but I don't wish to presume upon people's reasoning, so i will stop my train of thought on that little matter right now!

What I can say is this, freewill takes from God. Freewill diminished God's story, which, by the way, is the Bible. Freewill takes away from God's love. Freewill supposes that a man can, without the help of God, make the active choice, while still in the flesh, to say no to what the flesh wants and to then deny the flesh, and pick God. But that's not how it works!!! It doesn't work that way at all! God doesn't let you decide for Him, because if He did that then He'd NEVER get anyone at all into Heaven.

Now, don't get me wrong, we humans have freewill. We really do. I can make the choice, without the intercession of the divine, to, say, paint my room red instead of blue. I can make the decision, without God's intervening, to buy an Xbox instead of a Playstation. I can, without any heavenly insight, choose to drive down to the cornerstore and purchase a big old stack of Playboys. I can, without divine intervention, pick someone at random and kill them. I can do a lot of really unimportant, sinful, and evil things without the help of the divine. That's freewill. Freewill always picks the pleasureful because we are sinful, we are fleshly, we are worldly.

To do anything that isn't neutral or negative towards the matter of salvation, that is to do anything positive towards your salvation, takes an act of God! It takes a miracle. It is literally God changing the invisible laws that bind this universe when a human being goes to Christ. It is God changing their heart. It is God, and not humans. It isn't God extending out His hand and a human looking up, seeing it, and then reaching for it. It is God reaching down from heaven and picking you up by the collar and yanking you up to be with Him.

Some people will call it rape, they say that for God to decide for you is raping your mind, depriving you of the intellectual ability to make the active and willing choice that you are rightfully entitled to as a human.

That's just wrong. Sometimes analogies are just wrong. I don't care if it flows really well, not all analogies work. They work really well when God picks them, but when a human gives the whole analogy thing a try it is like a crap-shot.

Well, to that person I'd have to say that they should go read Romans 9:20,21 because this literally speaks directly to your argument. It says "WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION GOD?! WHO ARE YOU, THE POT, TO QUESTION THE POTTER?" To paraphrase God in Job 40:7, "Put on your cup and lets fight like men!"

In fact Romans 9 speaks entirely of this matter of predestination, as well as some of the later verses in chapter 8. Go, read it.

John 8:34, Jesus says, “Everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin.â€

How many people here who have acquainted themselves in anyway with the history of slavery in America can point to any of those slaves and say "They decided to no longer be slaves and then they were no longer slaves?" You can't, because no slave can make the decision to no longer be a slave. It doesn't work that way. You cannot make that decision. You are a slave, you are at the mercy of your master and your master is Lucifer, the devil!

Romans 3:10-18 gives the account of all non-Christian hearts:

“No one is righteous, no not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together, they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.â€​

Freewill doesn't magically change all that. That is fact and no amount of will is going to fix that problem. Only God is going to fix that problem, only a God who lovingly reaches out and fixes you.

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." (Romans 8:7)

You are God's ENEMY! Look to the Old Testament and see what God does to His enemies! No white flag is going to save you, even if you could wave that white flag! But you cannot! You cannot wave that white flag because you do not want to, as an unsaved human you have no desire to raise the flag of surrender. As an unsaved human all you want to do is fight God, continuously. You want to sin all day, never ending.

Maybe the lynchpin in any freewill doctrine is 1 Corinthians 2:14:

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.​

Unless you have the SPIRIT OF GOD WITHIN YOUR BODY you cannot accept His Word, His Truth, His Son. If you cannot accept these things than you cannot make the freewill choice for God. You will fight Him. You will call Him a fool. You will spit in His face. The only way to come to God is when God has already come to you. The only way to "get" God is if He already has you! The only way that God will ever become you only desire is if the Spirit is already inside of you and that can only happen when God decides to take you and make you His.

There is no freewill when it comes to matters of salvation. Freewill in this regard is a fallacy, a lie, a ruse, a trick. It is a means of diminishing the glory of God. It is a way to remove His credit from the end of the movie. It is a way to rewrite the Bible so that man is shown in a kind manner.

Let's take one last look at the Bible on this matter, for the moment.

Paul. Paul is the premier writer on the topic of predestination, that is the absence of a freewill choice on the part of the believer before coming to salvation. He is probably the biggest writer on this topic because his coming to Christ was so dependent on this notion of predestination (that isn't to say that all the other apostles had something besides predestination, in fact you go and look. Each one came to Christ when Christ came to THEM and said COME. He didn't say "Hey wanna be me friend and come for a walk with me?" He said "COME!".).

Paul, he didn't meet Jesus from some nice apostle on the side of the road. No God struck him blind on the side of the road. God said, "WHY ARE YOU PURSUING MY PEOPLE?" And then God healed him of his blindness. Paul didn't go "Wow, God healed me, I am going to make the active choice to now believe in Him!" No Paul BELIEVED IN HIM because God changed his heart. Just as God changed ever single Christian's heart that has ever lived, lives, or will live.

 

[cyberjosh]

There is no freewill when it comes to matters of salvation. Freewill in this regard is a fallacy, a lie, a ruse, a trick. It is a means of diminishing the glory of God. It is a way to remove His credit from the end of the movie. It is a way to rewrite the Bible so that man is shown in a kind manner.

That is an interesting way of putting it. As you say, we really do have freewill, but when it comes to salvation we have no say-so on the means or requirements of salvation, nor do we choose the process - other than how difficult we make it for God to work on our heart (there is no sense in denying that God clearly says in Scripture that His own people resist Him at times) - and so really salvation is completely coming under the influence of God's will (else God's salvation is not working on us and keeping/preserving us). Salvation is God's working and essentially it includes as part of its very nature the surrendering of our will to His, our mind being conformed to His, not the other way around.

And I would look at the 'surrender' part as our operative duty, and many times the only way to get there is to be humbled. Where choice comes in is whether we will choose to humble ourselves, or whether God in the process of chasing after us (who were lost and dead in trespasses, by no means seeking God) will have to humble us Himself first so that we see the error and futility of our natural ways. It is clear that it is even better that we would judge ourselves first, lest we be judged by God, thus humbling ourselves first of our own accord is preferable to God. The result of the humbling should be to ask God to work what we clearly cannot in our own lives. That is surrender.

The salvation process itself is the surrender of our will to God's. I believe the Scripture also warns us, regardless of our doctrinal views or how we think it fits in with freewill or sovereignty, that we can walk away from God's salvation process. Only those who endure to the end shall be saved. And what would there be to be endured if salvation is not a process by which God conforms (or rather transforms) our contrary ways to His righteous ways? This is a life long transformation of yielding and obeying and exercising faith by which God's power, and not our own, works in us to change us. I know people will disagree with me, but that is my honest, humble, and yet firm understanding of what I believe the Scripture says to us about salvation.

But I think you really have something here Pard. The more we surrender to Christ the more we walk in His new life and become transformed from glory to glory by His power and perfect will.

God Bless,
~Josh

 

[Slider]

My take on freewill is that it is a fallacy. Of course, we have freewill on some things, as the OP mentioned. Everyday life's little choices.... However, can we really call it "freewill" if God reserves the right to intervene, and has done so?

The problem with arguing against freewill (for me at least) is that people will refuse to give up the idea. If they did, they would lose any control they thought they had in their salvation. they couldn't say, "Hey! I made a choice for Christ and I changed my life!" They can no longer take any of the credit if Jesus Christ planned it out the whole time and steered the ship!

the typical arguement is, "We aren't robots!".... Of course not.... But you are a sheep. And sheep have the choice of whether to eat grass on the north end of the pasture or the south end. They don't get to choose which pasture they eat in or what flock they are a member of, though.

Another objection is that if we don't have free will, people somehow come to the conclusion that such means we don't have to do anything. That's not true, and it certainly isn't my belief, nor what I'm saying.

Still, People like the idea of free will. Perhaps it's ok just to let them live under that delusion. They're happy believing they are in control of their spiritual well being and chosen path. Does it matter if they realize that they were predestined and their life is foreordained?

Maybe.... Maybe not.

 

[Pard]

Josh, if you'd like I wouldn't mind a nice discussion about what you brought up in your last point, but a new topic would be required.

Slider, I don't know either. I think you are right though, maybe some people are predestined to be wrong. One of God's hobbies is to rebuke, perhaps He decided "This whole judgement thing is going to be boring if all the sinners are damned and all the saved go right to heaven with no scandal! I should make some of these guys believe in "freewill" so that I can correct them on it." Now that would be funny! If the freewill doctrine was in fact something that God made them believe :toofunny

 

[Former Christian]

Pard

I was going to respond. But since this is just a joke to you, why bother. And you have the free will to joke about God all you want.

NC

 

[Pard]

Pard

I was going to respond. But since this is just a joke to you, why bother. And you have the free will to joke about God all you want.

NC

Oh come now! I'm sorry to break it to you but it isn't all about starched collars and chest-high khakis! Humor isn't a bad thing, Jesus was a pretty funny guy. He had to be. He had to live a truly human life, and that means laughing and joking, so that He could die a truly divine death.

But if you don't want to contribute to the conversation just because I like to laugh...

 

[Slider]

Oh come now! I'm sorry to break it to you but it isn't all about starched collars and chest-high khakis! Humor isn't a bad thing, Jesus was a pretty funny guy. He had to be. He had to live a truly human life, and that means laughing and joking, so that He could die a truly divine death.

But if you don't want to contribute to the conversation just because I like to laugh...

Hey, I like to laugh.... The problem is it (meaning Pard's response to me) isn't too far off from the truth. It isn't the truth, but it isn't far from it either.

 

[Pard]

That's all right, Slider. [Insert joke here.]

But what I did want to get into is the origin of the freewill doctrine.

As I outlined above, freewill doctrine is a ruse. It is a lie that is designed to make God's followers glorify themselves, even if in the smallest of ways. It is a way to take credit from where it is due and lumping it on where it has NO RIGHT TO BE! No one has any right to claim that they made a decision int heir own salvation, because that means you have a right to diminish God's glory in order that your glory may be magnified! And that's wrong, because remember, the Bible is the story of God! The Bible isn't about humans, it has lots and lots and lots of humans in it, in fact there are 3237 characters in the Bible that are given a name. That doesn't include the countless "extras". But you know what, that entire Bible is about only one of them, and only about Him in part. And that one person is Jesus, and the parts that are not about Jesus are about God and God's love, and God's paving the way for Jesus. It isn't about you, me, Paul, David, Moses, Noah, or Adam. It's about Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Now once we understand that a) the Bible is about God and nothing else and b) freewill doctrine takes away from God's glory we can begin to wonder why a bunch of God-loving, God-fearing christians came up with the doctrine at all.

And that's where it gets interesting!!!

Erasmus of Rotterdam is the guy who really brought about this concept of freewill in a positive light during the reformation, and he is the one that many protestants turn to in order to create their own basis for freewill. He was alive at one of the most amazing times in church history, the Reformation. How I wish I could have been there to just listen to people have such debates. Imagine! Today we sit around the dinner table with relatives and talk about politics and health care reform and salt. Back then they sat around a table with relatives are argued about doctrine, theology, and what the Bible said! Glorious day, how good of a time would that be?!

Well, back to the matter at hand. Erasmus was an interesting character. He was a Catholic priest. He was Dutch. And he was a member of a group of people we now call "Renascence Humanists". Now I am sure this Erasmus character was a "nice" guy, but he is akin to the "modern church" where we have a lesbian pastor, porn stars for ushers, and the pews are filled with all manner of actively sinful and unrepentant souls. It's like going to a UU church. No one cares who you are, all you have to do is believe in Jesus. And to give them some credit, their doctrine is right on the money with their existence. They are using freewill to decide for Christ while at the same time also reasoning, with their freewill, that you can be a christian and also be in a state of habitual sin, that is be unrepentant and live an unchanged life.

This Erasmus character wasn't someone I'd want to frame my beliefs on. He was very much a proponent of the greatness of humankind. He wanted everyone to be educated in the humanities so that all humans could reach their full potential, and while this sounds great, what this means is glorifying humankind, human activity, human skills. That's wrong, wrong, and WRONG!

To quote the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy:

"Here, one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding homage and allegiance. Humanity—with all its distinct capabilities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities—was the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophized on their knees, but, bolstered by the new studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature."​

These guys were scholars who used the Bible as a way of justifying "good intentions". They enjoyed the Bible because it let them flex their minds in an very philosophical way. To paint a picture of what these guys would look like in today's world:

Imagine a hippy liberal who lives in the park across the street from UC Berkley. This person lives across the street because they are 47 years old and still going to college (colleges don't allow you to live on campus after a certain age). This guy is a "Christian" who attends a "great" church, and sit in a pew next to his Buddhist boyfriend and their Wiccan roommates. They all do as they please and they go to church so they can learn all those "great teachers" that Jesus said. To this guy the Bible is a "great" book because it teaches a lot of lessons on being nice to people, loving people, and giving. And it also is a "great" book because it speaks to the atrocity of war, the horrendous nature of the wealthy, and the foolishness of the "religious".

That is who Erasmus is akin to. Now who here would ever listen to theology from the guy I painted for you above? Seriously? I don't think anyone would listen to this guy!



This Erasmus was expanding upon the beliefs of the Catholic church. He preached indifference towards the reformation, but in regards to freewill he just couldn't leave well enough alone. He had to speak up, because freewill was such a pivotal point to what he saw as a loving God.

Luther rebuked this man in his own book "The Bondage of the Will", which he literally wrote in direct retaliation to Erasmus' book "The Freedom of the Will". Luther, in his book, correctly states that a human can only come to God when he makes a loving choice for God, and that the choice can only be made when God makes you His and allows your heart to become inclined towards His way. You are a sinful person, an enemy of God, and while you were His enemy He came to you and changed you, that you may come to Him! And Romans 5:10 puts it this way: "While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son."

That is God, doing the work. You can't reconcile your own heart. Solomon said that we make a decision from our heart. And Jesus said that our heart only makes a decision for sin.

Needless to say, Luther wont he debate.

Now this is where I get such a chuckle!

My own "people", the Pentecostals, the Calvary Churches, the Assemblies of God, they all adhere to Arminianism. One of the five tenants of Arminianisn is that God allows you the freewill choice to decide for Him. And they base their belief on the foundation of the freewill doctrine as set out by Erasmus, who is a guy they would never even let into their churches! They'd see this guy from a mile away and quickly lock the doors and close the blinds and turn off all the lights, and when he knocked on the door the deacon would go "No one is here!"

I bring up Erasmus because I think it is important to realize that the freewill doctrine comes from a guy who wasn't even a christian. He sought for his glory and for the glory of humanity, not for the glory of God.

Snakes don't make anything worth profit except for their own skin, and they need to be dead in order to make profit out of that!

 

[Ernest T. Bass]

Well, as the saying goes...people have the free will not to believe in free will.

 

[Pard]

Well, as the saying goes...people have the free will not to believe in free will.

And some are predestine to believe in freewill

Good to see we have jokers in both camps!

 

[Ernest T. Bass]

And some are predestine to believe in freewill

Good to see we have jokers in both camps!

Predestined = force, not free will. So ironically they would be force to believe in free will when free will really does not exist, that is, forced to believe in something that does not exist.


Your turn, if you so choose.

 

[Pard]

Predestined = force, not free will. So ironically they would be force to believe in free will when free will really does not exist, that is, forced to believe in something that does not exist.


Your turn, if you so choose.

See, humor! And a tough one to follow up...

Freewill means to have a series of choices and to pick only one of them without any intercession or outside influence. This would mean, at the most essential and basic level, having to make a choice for Christ without ever reading His book. But when we expand the scope of freewill to include outside influences, and thus allowing the Bible to be taken into account when making that decision, we are allowing ration to curtail some of our freewill so that it can be logical.

This means that the predestined doctrine calls for the believer to ration away all their freewill, freely and willing, in order to say that they had no decision in their own salvation.

EDIT, just saw that last little line. FUNNY! And I do feel I should mention that it was decided for me that I should post this, and I didn't do it of my own choice. Just as if you end up posting it was God's desire that you speak against His will for you.

 

[Ernest T. Bass]

See, humor! And a tough one to follow up...

Freewill means to have a series of choices and to pick only one of them without any intercession or outside influence. This would mean, at the most essential and basic level, having to make a choice for Christ without ever reading His book. But when we expand the scope of freewill to include outside influences, and thus allowing the Bible to be taken into account when making that decision, we are allowing ration to curtail some of our freewill so that it can be logical.

This means that the predestined doctrine calls for the believer to ration away all their freewill, freely and willing, in order to say that they had no decision in their own salvation.

EDIT, just saw that last little line. FUNNY! And I do feel I should mention that it was decided for me that I should post this, and I didn't do it of my own choice. Just as if you end up posting it was God's desire that you speak against His will for you.

I agree that free will is simply having the ability to choose between 2 or more choices, but I do not agree it is without influence. God and Satan both have influence on the world and the choices that are made...Satan has great influence on the world. Even with influence, you make the final choice and are responsible for that choice.

You say "This means that the predestined doctrine calls for the believer to ration away all their freewill, freely and willing, in order to say that they had no decision in their own salvation."

It seems you are saying man is born with a free will but then he has to use that free will to ration away that free will.... I choose not to believe this. How could I ever be sure I have rationalized it away when the whole rationalization is based upon free will?

If I had no decision in my own salvation, then God is 100% at fault if I am lost. God then become culpalbe for the lost for I have no repsonsibility in this at all.

You say "Just as if you end up posting it was God's desire that you speak against His will for you."

See, that is your free will choice that God is against free will.

 

[Pard]

I agree that free will is simply having the ability to choose between 2 or more choices, but I do not agree it is without influence. God and Satan both have influence on the world and the choices that are made...Satan has great influence on the world. Even with influence, you make the final choice and are responsible for that choice.

You say "This means that the predestined doctrine calls for the believer to ration away all their freewill, freely and willing, in order to say that they had no decision in their own salvation."

It seems you are saying man is born with a free will but then he has to use that free will to ration away that free will.... I choose not to believe this. How could I ever be sure I have rationalized it away when the whole rationalization is based upon free will?

If I had no decision in my own salvation, then God is 100% at fault if I am lost. God then become culpalbe for the lost for I have no repsonsibility in this at all.

You say "Just as if you end up posting it was God's desire that you speak against His will for you."

See, that is your free will choice that God is against free will.

I think you may have understood my last post. I meant it in jest, an attempt to understand the predestine doctrine, and the mind that believes it (such as this one), through a free will light.

That being said, you did raise some points of note and I will speak on them...

EDIT: And I do sympathize with you for having wrote such a long response to such a short question, but there was no way around it. I wish you to understand because I feel this is truly an important matter, a matter that concern's God's glory and His due credit...

It seems you are saying man is born with a free will but then he has to use that free will to ration away that free will.... I choose not to believe this. How could I ever be sure I have rationalized it away when the whole rationalization is based upon free will?

If I had no decision in my own salvation, then God is 100% at fault if I am lost. God then become culpalbe for the lost for I have no repsonsibility in this at all

I am going to ignore the parts that I feel are addressed in the top bit where I express some concern of you not understanding the direction from which my last post came, and will skip to what I believe is the heart of the matter, which is really the second paragraph, which I am paraphrasing below:

How can a predestination doctrine not directly reflect the culpability of God in the lives of all the damned?​

Interesting! I think Romans 9 has some light to shed on this matter:

10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad —in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”​

I am going to attempt to address this without getting into the hotly debated bit of scripture in verse 13. Here Paul is saying that God picks some, and some He does not pick. That's very simple (without the questions that will come to mind, that is!), right? God picks some people, He did in Israel and He did with Jacob and Esau. Esau was the rightful heir to all the land of his father, but Jacob, the second son, ended up taking it all. God wished for Jacob to be the heir and so, despite birth right, He made it so by allowing Esau to sell it to Jacob and for a bowl of porridge!

Paul goes on in the next series of verses:

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.​

Now, in order to save length, I am going to not post the story of Pharaoh in Exodus. It shall suffice to say that Pharaoh didn't go along with God's plain and ended up dying because of it. Did God decide that Pharaoh should deny Him though? No! But it does look that way when we read the bit in Exodus without some light (and this is a very hard story for both freewill and predestine doctrines to cover, and they both often fail here, and they both often speak only to the 7 verses that help their position while ignoring the other 7 verses!)

To summarize, Pharaoh's heart was hardened in two ways, as the scripture describes. Both by Pharaoh hardening his own heart and by God hardening his heart. It is interesting how this goes back and forth "Pharaoh hardened his heart" ... "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" ... "Pharaoh hardened his heart" ... "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" ...

What is one to make of this? Simple! Pharaoh is the one who hardened his own heart, because he had a broken heart, a heart that did not know how to respond to love. We know God could not harden Pharaoh's heart, that would be evil, and thus not something God would do. God's response to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart is unchanged, even though the verses describe who hardens the heart as different. Each time God comes to Pharaoh in LOVE and says "Hey, let my people go, or else you will be punished even harsher than the time before..." And each time Pharaoh says "No!", but each time God only ever comes to Pharaoh in love.

You see, it is love that is hardening Pharaoh's heart, or better put, it is Pharaoh's contempt for such love, love that he cannot understand, that is hardening his heart. Have you ever loved a man who hated you? A man who hates expects to be hated in turn. He does not expect to be loved, but when you do love him he becomes more and more irate. We see this time and time again in the New Testament.

So, you see, back to Romans 9:14-18, Paul is saying that God is the same, He loves you and unless your heart is fixed you can never love Him back, and in fact His love will drive you from Him. His love will drive you to more sin because you despise love in your heart, because you have a corrupt and broken heart.

So, the next question, logically, is "Why is God going to blame me, then? I cannot help but sin unless He helps me, so why blame me at all?" And Romans 9 responds:

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory​

WOW! What words! I quoted this above, in a different manner, and I probably should have just addressed this right off the bat. Again, this brings to mind, for me, the ending of Job. God says to Job, "WHO ARE YOU TO QUESTION THE ALMIGHTY? I AM ALL KNOWING! I WAS HERE BEFORE THE WORLD WAS EVEN MADE! I KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, I KNEW YOU BEFORE YOU DESCENDANTS ARE BORN, AND YET YOU WISH TO QUESTION ME?! PREPARE YOURSELF, BOY, BECAUSE YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A BATTLE YOU CANNOT WIN!" (Needless to say that is a paraphrase...)

I do not intend to leave you hanging with the answer "I don't know, and I don't question God." Although that is the truth, and I don't pretend to know His ways or question God, I can say that there is more in these last verses than just a cop-out!

I did this once before, but it can never be understated, so I shall say it again.

The Bible is meant to glorify God. It is His Book, about Him, and His power, and His glory, and His love. It is about Him. Not you, not me, not David, not Satan, but Him. All the glory be to God! God.

Paul is pretty clear here, God made some people to glorify Him, and some people He made that they may be "common", which is to be as normal human, a broken human. He did this so that He may loving teach and teach and teach these people, even knowing they would never open up to Him because they are broken, but He did so still, in love. And this awesome, indescribable, untouchable love is His glory, and His glory alone.

That common man does have the freewill to decide for Christ, but that common man NEVER will decide for Christ. That common man will always decide for the flesh, and the flesh will always decide for sin.

You see, freewill exists, it does, it really and truly does, but it will never make the decision to go to Christ UNLESS Christ first makes the decision to go to you and to change you, to fix you, that you may decide for Him.

Paul ends chapter 9 by quoting Isaiah, and I think it is a fitting verse to leave this post on, because it speaks right to the heart of the matter, and I will just let this verse from Isaiah rest on your heart, I will not mar God's words with my understanding because there is no need, it is such a clear verse that it's understanding need no annotation:

Isaiah 1:9 -
Unless the Lord of hosts
Had left us a few survivors,
We would be like Sodom,
We would be like Gomorrah.​

 

[former atheist]

I have to disagree strongly with any doctrine or theology that basically teaches that we do not have to respond to God’s grace or salvation; an act of Free Will and that our destiny is already pre-determined. I believe there is a huge difference between God pre-determining our salvation and God simply knowing in advance what we will do with our lives.


It is abundantly clear to me, clearly taught in scripture, that we are allowed Free Will, the right to choose, if you will, to respond to God or to not respond to God. What we do not have any control over whatsoever is how God will exercise his Will upon us in-so-doing. Although we take God at his Word!


This means that we do not actually get to choose salvation or destruction for ourselves, but what we have here is a God who allows us some influence over our ultimate destiny; by way of his Will exercised in our own lives. Which means, if we surrender ourselves to the very fact that, by no mean through our own Will, actions or works, will we ever attain salvation; but by Gods works, glory and by his Will shall we be saved in Christ Jesus. Therefore, in some way we do surrender our own Will to the Will of God in our lives, but to surrender in and of itself is an exercise of our own Free Will.


Often, the same people who think that there really isn’t any Free Will are the same folks who will quickly blame the Devil for their Sins. These are the folks who do not want to take responsibility for their own actions, and I fear when they meet the Lord on Judgment day; having to give an account of their lives, God will refute them when they again try to pin their own decision to Sin on the Devil. God will account those Sins as un-repented Sin, because the Sinner would not have accepted responsibility and therefore not repented of the Sin.

 

[2bfoundinhim]

This is one of the best threads I've found on this subject, way to go Pard.

My two cents worth, the scripture that says:

If I be lifted up will draw all men unto me, actually says..... "Drag" instead of Draw. Definitely describes more than a gentle nudge, huh?

Blessings

 

[CalledToServe]

Pard, my brother, free will is the reason and cause for sin. Without it then we are no different then the angels.

Onto the topic of predestination, this doctrine tries to position itself as opposed to free will and say that everything is mandated by God beforehand and we have no say in the matter. This view contradicts what Jesus taught that we have to come to Him to be saved. This indicates that God knows that we have free will. Now back to predestination on one fact that is overlooked by those that adhere to it...

God knows beforehand all possible outcomes of your freewill and choices of that freewill. He does not automatically set us on a course that we have no choice in following. Now to refute predestination all together is from my own life. If God had predestined me to be a minister, at the age of 12, then I would have never gone through the trials and tribulations I have that were a result of my choices. I was sexually, physically, and emotionally abused, but it was my choice to walk away from God and seek out the world to numb the pain I was in. I chose this and not God. God just happened to know what my choice would have been ahead of time and knew how to alter His plan for my life. Now 30 years later, I am in school to be a minister and heed His call for my life. Those 30 years have taught me a lot about how to minister to people effectively by using my life story as an example of what God can do.

I can say this about God because He is omniscient and omnipresent. To limit Him is putting your will and view onto God which is what predestinationists do.

 

[2bfoundinhim]

"Quote"
CalledToServe
If God had predestined me to be a minister, at the age of 12, then I would have never gone through the trials and tribulations I have that were a result of my choices.

Don't bet on it, God uses all things to bring us into the knowledge of His will for our lives.

I believe the choices you made is what has given you great understanding of how to deal with and minister to, those who have been hurt by the same circumstances.

Remember we must through much tribulation, enter the Kingdom.
Trials and Tribulations is apart of our Growth in Him.

Blessings

 

[Elijah674]

This is one of the best threads I've found on this subject, way to go Pard.

My two cents worth, the scripture that says:

If I be lifted up will draw all men unto me, actually says..... "Drag" instead of Draw. Definitely describes more than a gentle nudge, huh?

Blessings

I only read your remark here! But it did bring to my mind Gen. 6:3's STRIVING of the Holy Spirit for 120 yrs. along beside Noah's preaching & was wondering if Drag is used.. or draw there?? Anyhow, it seem's if I recall correctly?? that most all could not be even budged, let alone dragged into the Ark.

And the Re: The Fallacy of Freewill;)

As mentioned elsewhere, perhaps we need to find several prophets (1 Cor. 14:32) using their pen to illustrate this important doctrinal subject? Such as Rev. 12's several names meaning the same spirit.

 

[Pard]

OK, I see two good questions here!

Now the first is one I will only speak to in short, because it has no concern on the topic of freewill, and so I do not wish to clutter this topic with things that are not about freewill and predestination. That being said, I will quickly address Former Atheist's question/comment. I do thank you for noting that it is a generalization, and not a rule, that many predestination people blame the devil for their sins. And I agree it is wrong, and you and I can have a good chuckle together, in heaven when God refutes those who believe that. My sins are my own doing. I had a broken heart. I had a heart of hate. Hate can only respond with hate, it knows nothing but hate. I had a heart that hated, and so I sinned. It was not anyone's fault but my own. I had the freewill choice to decide for Christ, and I decided for sin, like every other sinner. We do have freewill, and we always will decide for the side of our flesh, unless God comes along and fixes the heart.

Next, onto CalledtoServe. First, thanks for your brief testimony!

Now, onto the matters at hand. Freewill is the reason we sin. We will always sin if our hearts stay "common", and we will always sin in freewill. I do not mean to be rude, but perhaps you did not read my first or second or third bit? I did bring this up in each of my three long posts, but I so understand that they are long an I often skip over long posts, read the topic, read the first paragraph and then respond. I covered this issue at length, freewill is always going to opt for either neutral or negative options in the terms of salvation.

Next, I do not see how predestination subverts God's awesome power by saying it is a limitation. It would appear to me that the limiting doctrine is that which says God sits back until a man decides that he wants Christ in his life. God doesn't wait for man, He goes and plucks them right on up and to say otherwise, would appear to me, to be a limiting view of His power. Now I am ready to be rebuked if I am wrong, so please let's discuss this!

Lastly, I'd really appreciate it if people would discuss the points I brought up and also the verses of scripture. I am trying to learn here and I can learn best in a manner that uses the Word. I do not mean to cast a lesser meaning on previous posts, I have enjoyed them all!

EDIT: Elijah, hey brother! Still waiting on that PM!

Uh, could you expand? I'd love to discuss but I need something to discuss. As a believer in this doctrine I have no problem turning to any verse that speaks of such matters and seeing it as a verse in favor of predestination, and likewise when I read Revelations 12 I only see a chapter that strengths my doctrinal view.

And a final note to CalledToServe, I must agree with 2b. I would further use my own testimony to suggest that there is a difference between the walk TOWARDS Jesus and the walk WITH Jesus. I walked towards Him for a while, thinking all the time I was with Him already, and it is only now that I understand that I was walking towards Him and not with Him. And even when I do walk with Him I am bound to find trials and tribulations, but the mark of walking with Him is VICTORY over those trials, and not certain failure and death.