Featured Free Will?

Is there a point to this?

 

Its a troll. It gets banned and then returns under another username and makes the same posts over and over.

 

Awesome argument.

http://begthequestion.info/

 

By your own free will your posted the OP above.

 

Our free will can only operate within the sovereign will of God.
Our will can go against God's perceptive will....that is how we are able to sin.

 

To say there is NO freewill in humans is to make God the author of evil. That he makes us sin. Which would make him evil. That line of thought is blasphemy.

 

You are correct.

The idea comes from Gnosticism. Unfortunately Augustine, who before he became a Christian was a Gnostic. He carried the idea into his theology. John Calvin was a great admirer of Augustine and incorporated this false belief in his theology.

 

Which idea are you saying Calvin supported? Calvin did not say God caused us to sin. He actually writes "God is not the author of sin" and "let us remember that our ruin is attributable to our own depravity, that we may not insinuate a charge against God himself".

When Calvin refers to man deprived of the freedom of will, it has always been in context of "willing" to do good for the Glory of God. Until regeneration we lack that will. We are in bondage to our sinful nature and our will is a slave to sin. Are will is that of the flesh.

Maybe I have missed understood your statement? Maybe you are talking about something else.

 

Calvin "foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen..."

Therefore Calvin taught that God decreed sin to take place; that he authorized it; that He is cruel and vindictive to purposely use men like ISIS to inflict the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians. This is Calvin's God of love. But wait! Calvin doesn't have a God of love!

 

I am in a hurry to an appointment. Here is a start.

 

DHK,

Making conversation here....

What about Pilate and Judas. What if they made a different choice? Jesus was put on the cross due to direct actions of these two. If Pilate chose to let Jesus go free, then what? Would God raise his hands in disbelief? Could Pilate override God's sovereign will?

How did sin come to be if God did not allow us to sin? To say that will violated God's sovereign will in order to sin, is to say he is unable to control his creation. Which would reduce him from his God status.

 

Calvin wasn't teaching anything similar to "allowing sin." Even the non-Cals" will believe that a sovereign God allows sin, as He did in the Book of Job.
Calvin decreed that God orchestrates all things and that includes sinful acts.
There is a big difference.

Pilate was fully responsible for his own action. Jesus even told him he was. Just because Christ knew what the decision would be, does not mean that he was forced before the foundation of the world to make that decision. God is omniscient. He knows what will happen. But he doesn't force it to happen.

 

Well, I have never seen either of them refer to 2 gods. As far as total depravity of the natural man(lost).....

Many versus point to natural wickedness of men
"There is none who does good, no not one"

" There is none that seek God"

"There is none righteous, no not one".

" The carnal mind is enmity against God....So, then those in the flesh can not please God"Romans 7: 7-8

Ephesians 2 says we are spiritually dead....Dead.....how can a spiritual dead person do anything good. My good I mean anything done for, and that brings glory to God.

This is where Calvin and Augustine get total depravity. Plus other verses....I am offering an incomplete view of their references. Augustine claimed natural men(sinful) retains free will( liberium arbitrium) , but lacked spiritual liberty. Calvin summarized Augustine's position by saying " This liberty(of the lost) is compatible with our being depraved, the servants of sin, able to do nothing but sin. In this way, then, man is said to have free will, not because he has a free choice of good and evil, but because he acts voluntarily, and not by compulsion ".

They never taught that man lacked free will to act, but lacked ability to chose God for God. " The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only" The is the freedom of the will Augustine was referring to as liberty in the ultimate degree.

 

I agree God allows us to sin. I believe it is a violation of his perceptive will, not his sovereign will. It is impossible to act against Gods sovereign will. It is his perceptive will we break.

Where does Calvin teach God orchestrates sin? He clearly wrote " God is not the author of sin"....his words

 

No he didn't. He was predestined to post it, at the exact time and day that he posted it!

 

Calvin "foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen..." (Calvin, Institutes, III: xxiii, 6.)

 

:laugh: You will see partial quotes and out of context quotes by those void of understanding;

from the 1689 conf ;

Chapter 3: Of God's Decree

1. God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein; nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established; in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree. ( Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:11; Hebrews 6:17; Romans 9:15, 18; James 1:13; 1 John 1:5; Acts 4:27, 28; John 19:11; Numbers 23:19; Ephesians 1:3-5 )

2. Although God knoweth whatsoever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything, because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions. ( Acts 15:18; Romans 9:11, 13, 16, 18 )

3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of his glorious justice. ( 1 Timothy 5:21; Matthew 25:34; Ephesians 1:5, 6; Romans 9:22, 23; Jude 4 )

4. These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished. ( 2 Timothy 2:19; John 13:18 )

5. Those of mankind that are predestinated to life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving him thereunto. ( Ephesians 1:4, 9, 11; Romans 8:30; 2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:9; Romans 9:13, 16; Ephesians 2:5, 12 )

6. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so he hath, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto; wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by his Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation; neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. ( 1 Peter 1:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:9, 10; Romans 8:30; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:5; John 10:26; John 17:9; John 6:64 )

7. The doctrine of the high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election; so shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel. ( 1 Thessalonians 1:4, 5; 2 Peter 1:10; Ephesians 1:6; Romans 11:33; Romans 11:5, 6, 20; Luke 10:20 )

see for yourself;

http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/calvin/bk3ch23.html