You would not have been saved had you not exercised your free will to choose God.
Is that correct?
If so, by exercising your free will to reject God, after you initially chose God, can you remove yourself from being saved?
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Do We Have Free Will 2
- Thread starter Sai
- Start date
Is that correct?
If so, by exercising your free will to reject God, after you initially chose God, can you remove yourself from being saved?
timtofly
Well-Known Member
A double minded man could go back and forth their whole life. They may not know their own heart. God only knows the outcome. Do you know very many who can never make up their mind?
I take this to mean you agree that a Christian can lose his salvation in the same fashion that he gained his salvation...by virtue of free will.
Sai
Well-Known Member
“For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 1:18 ASV
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. | American Standard Version (ASV) | Download The Bible App Now
atpollard
Well-Known Member
How does someone, of their own free will, simply choose to change their mind about what they fundamentally believe to be true?
How does someone wake up one morning and suddenly change his mind and believe that the Sky is Green and the Grass is Blue?
Certainly that is easier than one day believing that YOU are master of your destiny and death is "nothingness" and 'god' is an invisible unicorn that makes the simple minded feel good ... and the next day CHOOSING (theoretically of your own free will) to suddenly believe that God is real, those that reject God are the fools, there is a life after death, and Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?
How is this "free will choice" to turn everything you believe upside down really supposed to work?
How does someone wake up one morning and suddenly change his mind and believe that the Sky is Green and the Grass is Blue?
Certainly that is easier than one day believing that YOU are master of your destiny and death is "nothingness" and 'god' is an invisible unicorn that makes the simple minded feel good ... and the next day CHOOSING (theoretically of your own free will) to suddenly believe that God is real, those that reject God are the fools, there is a life after death, and Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?
How is this "free will choice" to turn everything you believe upside down really supposed to work?
Sai
Well-Known Member
Old age
atpollard
Well-Known Member
Yes. Every human chooses to hide from God, every time. It is what our free natural fallen will wants to do. “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” That is why “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” and why God must “remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” and why “No one can come to [Jesus] unless the Father who sent [Him] draws them”.
Sai
Well-Known Member
So he had a will that was limited by his sin nature and before the fall he was in a stare of unconfirmed holiness with the ability to make an unholy choice. Sounds like the idea of a free will is disproven by Adam who knew God face to face and had no reason to hide from God did so because he had died spiritually. However, once God went to him and not visa-versa he was regenerated immediately even tho God did not ask him to repent.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
I don’t really see that in the man whose first words to God were to throw Eve under the bus for what Adam had done, and then to blame God for giving him Eve in the first place. After this, he goes on to raise two sons where one immediately kills the other. There may have been room for a little more “regeneration” in Adam.
Sai
Well-Known Member
I don’t really see that in the man whose first words to God were to throw Eve under the bus for what Adam had done, and then to blame God for giving him Eve in the first place. After this, he goes on to raise two sons where one immediately kills the other. There may have been room for a little more “regeneration” in Adam.
Regeneration means being born again. Eve was thrown under the bus post fall pre regenerated. We are not responsible for the elect vs non elect, our job is to treat all as able to receive Christ, Cain was not Able.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
Sorry, but I am just not following you here.
I was only speaking of Adam and the events recorded in Genesis about him.
Technically, God gave Adam several chances to repent.
”Where were you?” was not a question that God did not know the answer to. “Who told you that you were naked?” and “Did you eat from the Tree?” were both questions that God already knew the answer to (omniscient), so they were all really invitations for Adam to confess and repent.
Sai
Well-Known Member
The question was did Adam have free will. He did not. He could not go to God because of total depravity, God went to Adam, God sacrificed the animals and clothed Adam. The questioning displayed Adam’s fallen state of mind, one that could not repent. It was the belief of God’s covenant made with Adam after the fall that caused Adam’s regeneration. Adam and Eve believed the promos of the seed of the woman and that was their required content of faith for salvation. No asking Adam to repent, merely declaring the results of Adam’s sin and the provisions were to be accepted or rejected by both Adam and Eve. We know that they believed by Eve’s declarations the birth of Cain when the text reads; I have gotten the God Man. Eve’s theology was correct but her application to Cain was incorrect obviously.
Sai
Well-Known Member
Repentance is always when used in the context of the gospel is a synonym for faith.