A Biblical and Logical Defense for Libertarian Free Will

[webdog]

By your reasoning, our choices are between a blackmailer and a briber. Or open theism. Take your pick.

D. None of the above.

 

[quantumfaith]

I never said that God "needed" to create sinners. Maybe some believe that, I do not.

By your reasoning, our choices are between a blackmailer and a briber. Or open theism. Take your pick.

How about the possibility (in my view fact) that God grants man a relative degree of freedom and assigns with that freedom a concomitant responsibility.

The very first recorded words of God to man: "You are free to eat from any tree of the garden (Genesis 2:16)

This "freedom" was not absolute and it was "granted" by God himself. The freedom was limited, but it was real nonetheless. Along with that freedom came the responsibility (the warning) in 2:17.

 

[quantumfaith]

I never said that God "needed" to create sinners. Maybe some believe that, I do not.

By your reasoning, our choices are between a blackmailer and a briber. Or open theism. Take your pick.

If in fact, those were my ONLY three choices, I would happily go with Open Theism, but we all know the sample space is not so limited.

 

[canadyjd]

You keep attaching the word determining to the word influence which is confusing the matter because it presumes your position....(that influences are determinative) Remove that word and you'll have the sin nature influencing you when you sin rather than determining you to sin. See the difference?

I keep attaching the word "determining" because it is in your definition of LFW, which denies a determining influence.

If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform the action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won't...It is within his power, at the time in question, to take or perform the action and within his power to refrain from it. (emphasis mine)

And because you used the word to support your position in post#20

However, we are created in HIS IMAGE, and thus may have been given the ability by God to make first cause choices...choices undetermined by anyone or anything outside the agent making the choice, (emphasis mine)

And in post#24

So we are not arguing for uncaused choices, but instead self-determined choices...choices not determined by someone outside the agent (i.e. God). (emphasis mine)

What exactly is sin "influencing" if it is not influencing the person's decision to sin... which is exactly what Romans 7:20 specifically says... that sin has a determining influence on a person's decisions.

Sense you have denied the determining influence of sin in your definition and in your arguments, it is clear that your view of LFW is contrary to Romans 7:20, which says otherwise.

To say that the "sin nature influences you when you sin rather than determining you to sin" makes no logical sense, imho. You appear to be saying that the sin nature has no influence until after the decision to sin, and the person starts sinning. Is that what you are saying?

peace to youraying:

 

[Skandelon]

Your not following my reasoning. Try this:

Let's look at the last time you sinned.

Could you have done otherwise? Could you have resisted that temptation? Or, as you put it, was your sin nature a determining influence so as that you couldn't have done otherwise?