Featured The nature of free will and where might it come from.

It is the nature of "Free-Will" that to "allow" God to rule over you has intrinsic meaning.... It is not the nature of man to "allow" God to rule over them.

No, If it were...then they had no freedom either to "choose" or not to "choose" to rebel or obey by eating the fruit. Adam quite willfully ate of the tree, and was in no way deceived as Eve was. For their sin in eating the tree to be meaningful, they would have had to posses some freedom to either obey or rebel.
We sometimes seem to think that there must have been special properties to that tree. We seem to sometimes think that (like the tree of life) that there was something particularly special about that tree as opposed to any others. As far as I can tell, there is no reason to think so.
For all we know...the only thing special about that tree whatsoever was merely God's command NOT to eat of it... Theoretically, God might just as well picked out any other tree at random and told them not to east of THAT tree and the results would have been the same, I think.

 

If mankind cannot make autonomous choices that alter the outcome of their lives, then God is the author of sin. Adam volitionally sinned when he chose to eat the fruit, thus he was able to go against God before he ate.

God created mankind with the ability to make autonomous choices which He can allow or override at His discretion. This God given ability to choose to give glory to God when we repent was according to God's purpose and plan of creation, to choose for Himself a people for His own possession.

 

Michio Kaku proposing that Quantum Physics entails free will. I like to think that free will (God's) existed prior to QP, but I get his point.

In a world populated with self determining created beings, it seems that all that is needed in the physical world is specific-event indeterminism within a generaly probabilistic universe... And it seems that science currently supports both. Without quantum physics we could not have either... And then where would free will be? For athiests, having 'indeterminism' does not get them anything more than that.

So, 'indeterminism' advances free will for the theist more than it does for the athiest.

 

If there is a better and more accurate or succinct way of stating these truths....Then, I personally am unaware of them...:thumbsup::wavey::godisgood:

 

This is a claim without warrant.

Saying, "Sin is meaningless without freedom to obey or rebel" doesn't make it so.

It's the very same mistake contra-causal free will folks make with love. They contend that man must be free to choose to love or choose to hate or the love that they have is not meaningful love.

The error here is the assumption that love requires something that GOD'S LOVE has never had- the ability TO NOT DO SO.

God the Father does not have the ABILITY- he is not ABLE to NOT LOVE the Son.

He would be able to sin if he could do that.

Freedom (the ability to do one or the other) adds nothing to love.

Therefore, freedom is not necessarily essential to the meaningfulness of sin, either.

 

If they hadn't free will until after they ate the fruit, then how did they come to eat the fruit in the first place? Ok ok, God made them do it, and everything is just one big act with God rejecting himself through those he damned before the foundation of the world and receiving himself through those he unconditionally elected before he made satan and man sin and to God be the glory great things he has done. Get real.

 

I think when most talk about free will they are actually talking about a free agency. We have others who know what free will is and think of those who talk about free will is ridiculous(free will not those who talk about it). Man can only work within the boundaries that God has placed them in, so they are free agency within those boundaries. If i want to fly i can't will myself to fly without something made to help me. I can't will time to stop. If i have already started smoking and addicted i would have to fight my own will to quit. Those who want to diet have to fight against their own will to eat what ever they want.

God gave Adam over to his own evil desire, for God will for Adam was not to eat from the tree of knowledge good and evil. Where did Adam get this evil desire from, Eve who was deceived by a liar the murderer from the beginning. God was not the murderer it was Satan. God already prepared for the one who will crush the serpents head the work of the devil and whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. We are to believe God who is blessed forever even over our own evil desire, understanding.

Ephesians 6 :
The Armor of God

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 

adam had that free will that you seek all of us to have, bu since his fall, NONE of those in adam retained true free will, as it is bound up andrestrained by the sin natures now residing within us!

 

Does ANY except God have absolute Free will though? is there EVER something ever occus without God know of it beforehand, and either he caused it or permitted it to happen?

 

The mistake you are making here is thinking that Calvinists believe that depraved men do not make choices between two options. You may want to say that it is not a real choice but to say that the belief in total depravity means that sinners do not make choices is wrong.

Sinners choose all of the time. They just always choose evil. They cannot BUT choose evil. Even the righteousnesses which they do are as filthy rags. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. Their motive is NEVER God-centered and so it is ALWAYS idolatry.

But they choose. Anecdote: Between fried catfish and raw oysters I will choose fried catfish every time. That is a willful choice and I will never do otherwise unless compelled to do so. So it is with sinners. Sinners, between an option to honor God and honor themselves, will ALWAYS choose to honor themselves. That is a choice that they will always make- every time. Like my disdain for raw oysters they have an invincible disdain for the righteousness of God and only wish to go about establishing their own righteousness.

But they still make real choices- it is just that their real choices are always self centered and totally void of a conviction that the one true God ought to be preeminent and receive glory for their actions.

I don't understand. Adam would have been inherently sinful if he did not have a free will???

I do not think he was predisposed to evil either.

I just think evil is the inevitable result of the removal of good.
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I think he did, too. That's not my point. My point is that Adam did not have to have the ability to do evil in order to be truly loving and honoring toward God.

Unless I mis-understand your intent...it was. This was the statement I responded to:

Lewis is wrong about that. Lewis freely and rightly confesses that he is no theologian. He was a wonderful philosopher but a very poor theologian.

Don't get me wrong- I LOVE Lewis. I think he was brilliant. But theology was by no means his strong suit as he freely admits.

Your standard of right is bigger than and precedes God and thus becomes God itself to which who we call God must yield.

Right is what God does because God does it.

God is what God is and it so happens that what God is is a God whose love does not have contra causal free will.

Thus, contra causal free will is not that great.

 

Luke........I think you somehow missed the thrust of my argument before, as we BOTH were arguing the same thing too often. Maybe we can try again...I think you missed a LOT of what I was saying.....

With respect to this statement though:

This is fine.....as far as the analogy goes....but, if you would choose "fried cat-fish" over "STEAMED" Oysters (not raw) (especially with a cool Pint of Newcastle Brown Ale)....Than, we no longer have ANYTHING to say to one another. :wavey:

Lewis was MODEST.........he wasn't NEAR as bad a "Theologian" as he claimed he was.....Lewis was basically LYING about his own ability when it came to Theology. He was Modest...not ignorant. BTW...Take EVERYTHING he says with a grain of salt, including his "forwards" wherein he lambasts his own Theological knowledge....He was viewing Theological expertise under the umbrella of Modern COE Theology anyway...not Post-Modern American Neo-Calvinism!!!

 

We need to go out to a seafood restaurant and I'll try some of those oysters and Ale you make sound so good- so long as you pick up the check!

Lewis was a philosopher, not a theologian.

I just finished Mere Christianity and you and I both would question the foundations he lays for his theology in that book.

His philosophy is unparalleled- so don't get me wrong; I think he was BRILLIANT.

But his theology was not up to par.

Regardless, it's always a joy to converse with you! Seriously.