Featured World 3:16

I have no intention of interacting with your posts..
You are not honest or sincere as far as I can tell.
If others want to interact with you,great. Your posts are always twisted.
I have no interest in where you try and steer the posts.
You post what you want. I will interact with others.

 

Reynolds,Jon Schaff,and Tfly disagree with me and there in no ad hominem.
it is not that you disagree. You must because of the error you hold..
Let me direct you back to comments made to you by Covenanter a few days ago.
He pointed out you make allegations about a person,change what they say then ,then ask them to respond.
Particular said the same thing.
Did you read those posts?
Why do you think they posted those things?
Biblicist said the same thing.
SG said the same thing.
Greek tim same the same thing.
Bosley,luke24, mm, and many others. Do you see a pattern here?
I could go on, but these threads are not about you.
If I want to know what you think I will ask you by name.
If I do not ask you by name,that means I am willing to move forward in life without your sage commentary. I will take that chance,and risk life socially distanced from your ideas.

 

Do you know of any Calvinist who teaches we are robots or puppets?
I have not seen that taught.
The language of the 1689 addresses that concern.

 

The insults come from your keyboard.
Why do you twist what is posted?
When your post is answered perhaps this is your default?
I cannot fully comment on this as you are still functioning
as a moderator.
So let it play out as I suggested, things will work out better.
If you are no longer a mod. I could answer in full.

 

When people observe and comment

Observations and comments on your posting does not constitute an insult.
What did I post that was not true?
These people all say that very thing about you.
Not one of the fine verses you mentioned say man has a free will.
Not one of those verses teach it either.
Your post is another bearing false witness as you are prone to do.
I asked you in a nice way to go your own way, until you are no longer acting as a "moderator ".
If that day comes I will have no problem answering you in full.
In the mean time let me clarify;
Go away JonC.
Go on a cruise, take a vacation, rent a winnebago and drive around.
If we need you we will contact you by name.
Your comments are not informative.
Your comments are not asked for
Your snide remarks about colorful crayons, and kindergarten theology can go somewhere else.
If I need such insight, I will request it .
In the meantime just go.
Y1 looks like he enjoys your interaction. Try him.
Have a nice life JonC....all the best to you and yours.
Bless your heart JonC.

 

Hello I TL,
Thanks for your response and reading the portion of the 1689.
I would ask you too read it again, but slowly as I read it as saying the opposite of your first read.
Did you miss the part where it said, in glory only?

 

If you want to discuss it, give me a call.
As Paul Harvey said, I will give you the rest of the story.
Dial star 67 and your number will not be visible to my phone.
My comments to him were as a poster, not as a Mod.
Did you ever notice that no other moderator says such things to a poster?
Salty?
RSR?
Squire?
AnnSni?
Dr.Bob?

 

Reynolds,
I am speaking about Calvinist writings.
Those I read teach opposed to it.
Spurgeon free will a slave
Chantry the myth of free will, both online

 

Reynolds,
What do you believe is outside of Gods control?

 

Reynolds,

Free-Will - A Slave

This is one of the great guns of the Arminians, mounted upon the top of their walls, and often discharged with terrible noise against the poor Christians called Calvinists. I intend to spike the gun this morning, or, rather, to turn it on the enemy, for it was never theirs; it was never cast at their foundry at all, but was intended to teach the very opposite doctrine to that which they assert. Usually, when the text is taken, the divisions are:

First, that man has a will.
Secondly, that he is entirely free.
Thirdly, that men must make themselves willing to come to Christ, otherwise they will not be saved.

Now, we shall have no such divisions; but we will endeavour to take a more calm look at the text; and not, because there happen to be the words "will," or "will not" in it, run away with the conclusion that it teaches the doctrine of free-will. It has already been proved beyond all controversy that free-will is nonsense. Freedom cannot belong to will any more than ponderability can belong to electricity. They are altogether different things. Free agency we may believe in, but free-will is simply ridiculous.

Our four points, this morning, shall be:

First—that every man is dead, because it says: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life."

Secondly—that there is life in Jesus Christ: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life."

Thirdly—that there is life in Christ Jesus for every one that comes for it: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life;" implying that all who go will have life.

And fourthly—the gist of the text lies here, that no man by nature ever will come to Christ, for the text says, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life."

So far from asserting that men of their own wills ever do such a thing, it boldly and flatly denies it, and says, "Ye WILL NOT come to me, that ye might have life." Why, beloved, I am almost ready to exclaim, Have all free-willers no knowledge that they dare to run in the teeth of inspiration? Have all those that deny the doctrine of grace no sense? Have they so departed from God that they wrest this to prove free-will; whereas the text says, "Ye WILL NOT come to me that ye might have life."

 

Reynolds,
the-highway.com/Myth.html

THE MYTH OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL FREEDOM

No one denies that man has a will — that is, a faculty of choosing what he wishes to say, do, and think. But have you ever reflected on the pitiful weakness of your will? Though you have the ability to make a decision, you do not have the power to carry out your purpose. Will may devise a course of action, but will has no power to execute its intention.

Joseph’s brothers hated him. They sold him to be a slave. But God used their actions to make him a ruler over themselves. They chose their course of action to harm Joseph. But God in His power directed events for Joseph’s good. He said, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good” (Gen 50:20).

Any sober reflection on your experience will produce the conclusion, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but THE LORD DIRECTETH his steps” (Prov 16:9). Rather than extolling the human will, we ought to humbly praise the Lord whose purposes shape our lives. As Jeremiah confessed, “O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer 10:23).

Yes, you may choose what you want, and you may plan what you will do; but your will is not free to accomplish anything contrary to the purposes of God. Neither have you any power to reach your goals but that which God allows you. The next time you are so enamored with your own will, remember Jesus’ parable about the rich man. The wealthy man said, “This I WILL do: I WILL pull down all my barns, and build greater: and there I WILL bestow all my fruits and my goods. . . But God said unto him. Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke 12:18-21). He was free to plan but not free to accomplish; so it is with you.

 

Free Agency by John Murray





by John Murray



In dealing with this topic it is helpful to begin with human action and to proceed from action to that which determines action. By this progression we may arrive at a more satisfactory analysis of what is involved in free agency or, as it has sometimes been denoted, natural liberty (cf. Westminster Confession of Faith, IX, i). In the matter of terminology it is necessary at the outset to distinguish between ‘free agency’ and ‘free will’. No necessary objection can be made to the latter term. A term denotes the concept understood by it, and a proper connotation can be given to the term ‘free will’. But frequently this designation has been used to express that concept of the will whereby the ‘will’ of man is regarded as autonomous and undetermined, and capable of volition good or bad, apart from any previous conditioning by our moral and religious character.

1. The Reality of Human Action. The thought hereby expressed is that man is endowed with power to perform certain actions within the realm of his created and dependent existence. In other words, man’s agency is not illusory; within the all-embracive providence of God he is possessed of agency which is exercised in action.

2. The Responsibility of Human Action. Man’s acts are worthy of blame or approval. Moral law, law of obligation, applies to him. His acts are within the sphere of ought and ought not. This obtains because he is made in the image of God and his actions must be in conformity with the likeness that defines his identity. God’s likeness is the pattern in accord with which man’s action is to be performed. The law that prescribes action or forbids it is the transcript of God’s perfection, the perfection of God coming to expression for the regulation of conduct consonant with it.

3. The Freedom of Human Action. The responsibility referred to above rests upon the fact that the action is the result of volition. Man wills or chooses to act. If he does not will to act, or if the act is contrary to his will, then the event occurring through his instrumentality is not in reality his action. He is the victim of some other power or agent over which he is not able to exercise control, and so he is not responsible for the event. We sometimes use the expression, ‘I did it against my will’. This is not correct. We may do things reluctantly, do things we detest. But if we do them, it is because we will to do them. We will to do the distasteful rather than not to do it. Something may be done against our will and, strictly speaking, we are not the agents. But when we do something, it is always because we willed the same.

We are responsible for our acts because they are the result of our volition, and volition is the choice thus to act.

4. The Determinant of Volition. It is a platitude to say that we will because we have the power to will. But the power of volition does not explain why we exercise this power in a certain way. Two men have the power to earn a livelihood. One does it by honourable labour, the other resorts to theft. What explains the difference? It is not the power of volition, for both are endowed with this quality. It is apparent that we must go beyond the power of volition and the mere exercise of this power in actual volition. This that lies back of the power and its exercise is the character. And because there is a radical difference of character volition is exercised in totally different ways. The character is the habitus of the person, the whole complex of desires, of motives, propensions, principles. This may conveniently be called the dispositional complex, and the complex comprises all that goes to make up the distinguishing moral and religious bent, aim, purpose, and propension. Scripture calls this the heart. ‘Out of the heart are the issues of life’ (Prov. 4:23). Our Lord expressed it in this manner, ‘Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man out of the good treasure sends forth good things, and the evil man out of the evil treasure sends forth evil things’ (Matt. 12:34, 35). ‘For from within, out of the heart of man, procced evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries’ etc.

(Mark 7:21, 22). The Scripture throughout is replete with this emphasis upon the heart as the fountain of both good and evil. Volition then is determined by the inward disposition. Dr. Shedd calls the one, immanent volition, and the other, executive volition. But whatever terms are used, the upshot is that much more belongs to a man than his meta-physical constitution and the series of volitions registered, and this is the determinant of the moral and religious character of his actions and course of life.

5. The Self-determination of Volition and Action. If volition is determined by the dispositional complex, in what does freedom consist? We are not free because the will or power of volition is in a state of indifference or indeterminancy. It is not an autonomous power or agent that can register any series of volitions by virtue of its unconditioned prerogative. Volition is causally determined by what the person most characteristically is. The liberty or freedom consists in the fact that the series of volitions is determined by the self; in the sense relevant to our topic, volition is self-determined. Action is self-action, volition is self-volition, determined by what the person is, and not by any compulsion or coercion extraneous to the person. ‘God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil.’1 James 1:13, 14 enunciates this description of the process of human action. ‘Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.’ This principle applies to all human situations in good and evil. It holds true in the fall and in regeneration. In the fall man’s disposition changed and this resulted in the overt act of transgression. In regeneration a new disposition is given and new volitions are the result. In no case is the volition contrary to the immanent exposition of heart and mind. Nothing can make a man will against the immanent disposition of heart and mind. Such a supposition would amount to a violation of the nature with which we are endowed.

This is not to deny the influences brought to bear upon man for good or for evil, influences of suasion to good or of temptation to evil. The consideration is simply that the person must come to acquiesce in that which the solicitation involves. The disposition of the person is affected, not by compulsion, but by adoption or acceptance.

Freedom is thus defined negatively and affirmatively, as the absence of compulsion and self-determination respectively. A man is responsible for his acts because they are due to his volitions. He is responsible for his volitions because they are self-propelled, exercised without compulsion and expressive of what he is in the innermost bent, bias, and disposition of heart and mind. Understood thus, freedom is rational spontaneity.

6. The Inclusiveness of Freedom. This freedom is not restricted to the sphere of volition and action. It applies to the heart, the dispositional complex. The heart of man is his own. Man is depraved, but this depravity is his and he is responsible for it. In the fall the disposition of man became unholy. Though great mystery surrounds this change, yet the unholy disposition was his, and for all its movements he was responsible for this reason. In regeneration God gives a new heart. But once given, it belongs to the person regenerated and, though efficaciously imparted, it is not a disposition compulsively imposed so that the new disposition does not violate that which is most characteristically his. In other words, whatever the immanent disposition is, it is his with consent, and not by compulsion contrary to his will.

7. The Power of Contrary Choice is not of the Essence of Free Agency. In dealing with this proposition it is necessary to distinguish between contrary choice and alternative choice. Contrary choice is the ability to choose between alternatives that are morally antithetical, between good and bad regarded not relatively but absolutely in terms of God’s judgment. Alternative choice, on the other hand, is the choice between alternatives that are ethically of the same character, alternatives that are both good or both bad. The proposition applies only to contrary choice. We may examine the proposition and define it both negatively and positively.