Do we really have free choice?

You still looking at it as time.
What is already is. God sees it all right now. God sees His Son stand as a slain Lamb, right now, then and forevermore. The same is true for all things with God.

 

But my dear brother, you asked a question, I answered it and provided Scripture as well.

Acts 17:30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:​

HankD​

 

No, He already knows it all. He is all in all. You keep looking at it as if God had to wait until it happened to know. God knows all things but does not cause them to happen, He just knows what will happen in our time but in no time to Him. If He is looking at my death right now, why would He have to learn what my death will be. He already knows. He is looking at my resurrection right now. Why would He have to wait to know if He already knows. He is all in all.
You talk about going back in time but if the end has already happened to God, there is no going back. Going back is for man, not God. He can be there right now before the foundation of the world the same time He is at the end of time.

 

YES. We all have choice. We are not God's robot. Who gives us the choice? God did.

Adam and Eve made their choice. At first, God told them, they may eat ANY fruit trees, but except that tree, they do NOT eat - knowledge of good and evil, if eat this, shall be surely die. Adam did listened God's instruction. Adam and Eve both did ate any fruits trees in the Garden of Eden. One day, Satan appeared to Eve. He urged her to eat that tree with tempting. Eve believed Satan's lie. Then, Eve ate it, and gave it to Adam, and he did ate it. That was his choice, and he disobeys God. Today, we all have choices.

In Joshua 24:15 tells us, Joshua told them, they have two choices, to serve gods as idols, or he said, We determined to serve our God.

Nowhere in the scriptures telling us, that we are being forced by God to make decision to follow Christ all the times. John 6:66 tells us, all of Christ's disciples were scattered away, departed from their Lord, because of their fear and decision.

Christ never forced us to stay always obey and follow him all the times. He only give us of his 'command'. Most of us do not obey God, because of our decision and our flesh.

Who gives us of our brian? Obivously, God does. Why do we have brain? Because it is the center of our decisions and building of our knowledges.

WHY most of people are in hell than in heaven? - Matt 7:13-14

Because they make their own choice and decision. Christ commands us, that we ought fight with our faith in the narrow roard while remain following Christ all the way to end of our life. Most of them are end up by quit and give up, becaus eof their choice and decision. God does not force all followers to remain follow all the way throughout their life to the end. God allows us to make decision and choice. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us, God's willing, that He does not want ALL people go hell, but want ALL come to repentance. But, sadly, most people make their choice for refuse repent of sins, are in hell. Do not blame on God, for most people are in hell. Because of their choice and decision.

YES- we all have choice with our decision.

In Christ
Rev. 22:20 -Amen!

 

Here is a scriptural paradigm of free choice:

KJV Acts 5:1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
2 And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.​

HankD​

 

But not THE cause, as in made them!

 

So does the fact God is All knowing NEGATE the responsibility to choose as He commands us?
Why would God command us to choose if we can not? You have yourself and puzzle, wrapped in an engima and the only way to see what the answer is - is to search out these things herein.

 

hmm. tried to read through all the pages... just couldn't. haha.

anyways... yet another 'predestination' kind of debate eh?

God predestinated that all would go to be with him when they died or were taken by the Lord.

but - because of our choice of rebellion - we went against that plan of predestination.
---

i'm choosing to go to youth group tonight. - God knows that choice. God didn't make that choice for me. i made the choice. if i decide to change my mind - God would know. did God change my mind for me? no. i changed my mind for myself.

we make the choices - God sees them before we make them.
can we choose otherwise? what would be the point in trying? God would know if we were choosing otherwise anyways.

what are we really discussing though? free-will or free-choice?

if free-will -- we have none - for we Go by God's will - not ours..

if free-choice -- we make our own choices - God influences those or Satan influences those choices. they don't make the choices for us.

God bless!

 

Our choice is Free, according to post 152. What do you think?

 

I have never met one hyper-Calvinist who was not zealous and did not study scripture seriously in the beginning before changing. Many of them got off on the wrong path being misinterpreting scripture in light of its historical context which lies in a Jewish culture. We live in a Greek culture in the U.S. When I was in college I saw about 50 students stop sharing their faith after reading books and pamphlets given to them by Calvinists on the five points and causing quite a stir in churches and student organizations. It got so bad that they were told to leave meetings they came to attend because of their disruption and outbursts during the meetings. I just moved ftom an area with churches filled with those people you describe. I have personally dealt with quite a number of people who lost their joy because of confusion by listening to a number of hyper-Calvinists. I have watched numerous numbers of people stop sharing their faith. Some have even gone into Christian cults groups. You may have met a few but I have met many and have dealt with the damage left behind. In 2001 I dealt with one of the leaders in one of those cult groups. He lost part of his family over it. He had a lot of struggles theologically and in his ability to even think clearly in interpreting scripture.

What a lot of people don't realize is that the sovereignty of God interpreted in light of the Jewish culture is much different than we would interpret those same words in a Greek culture in the U.S.

The Jew would have said that God created sin. Without sin there would be no knowledge of sin. A person cannot know something that does not exist. The Jewe would ocntend that God created everything. On that basis I would eassily agree with you. I do not find many who would agree with that though thereby taking bits and pieces of scripture to suit their theology.

The Jew would also contend that God created evil simply because God created everything. God is a part of everthing.

Jer. 4:6, "Seek refuge, do not stand still, For I am bringing evil from the north, And great destruction."

 

Every choice has consequences good or bad.

 

The problem folks have with free choice is with the word "free".

In essence it is one of the differences between humankind and the animal kingdom.

A cow is a vegetarian.

Even a pig, which is an omnivor, cannot "choose" to eat a vegetarian diet alone.

They do not have the power to go contrary to their nature.

Many human beings choose a vegetarian lifestyle but from freedom of choice.

So the scriptural quote Acts 5:4b ...was it not in thine own power?..

HankD

 

Where does it say in scripture that our free will is inhibited by God's foreknowledge?

 

this is still going on! It looks like it has improved in tone from a couple of nights ago. I thank the Lord for that!

We got interrupted on this end by the arrival of a deaf and half (one eye) blind 5 month old white Lab puppy. It did not work out. One of the most beautiful white Labs I have ever seen and totally uncontrollable. That, actually, we could have handled with time, but the pup is already uncontrollably aggressive and tried to attack our other dogs as we attempted to introduce them one by one. A five month old pup trying to attack, seriously attack, a full-grown shepherd mix (over 100 lbs) would have been funny if the pup had not been so serious about it. King, our big guy, just fended him off a bit and trotted off after me obediently when I asked him to come back. The owner was astonished..."He's NEVER done anything like this...." I am wondering if the owner has been that aware of this pup all along.

OK, that was for those who were here when I signed off and wished us well with the new arrival. Now, back to the subject at hand.

Joseph asked me to look at Romans 9:22, claiming that it, all by itself, evidently, supported the Calvinistic point of view regarding predestination.

Here is the verse from the NIV, out of context:
"What if God, choosing to show his wrth and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath -- prepared for destruction?"

This does follow the section starting at verse 19 which is also a strong "support" used for Calvinism: "One of you will say to me: 'Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?' But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? 'shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?"' Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?"

And, in fact, if you do not take these verses IN context, they do appear to be supporting Calvinism. But the first rule of decent exegesis is to put the verses back into context and the second is to let Bible explain Bible. When this is done, Calvinism cannot honestly use these verses as backup.

First of all, the 'two vessels' that Paul is referring to is the subject of the book of Romans: the Jews and the Gentiles. He reaffirms this at the end of the chapter in question:
"What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the 'stumbling stone.' As it is written:
'See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.'"

Thus Paul not only reiterates who he is talking about, but closes that section with "the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." The Calvinists claim no one can trust in Christ who is not enabled to trust in Him, but that is nowhere found in the Bible.

Rather, we see that, in the first chapter of this very letter that was written to the Romans, God's wrath is poured out on those who suppress the truth -- seeing it and choosing to ignore it, preferring something else. If these people had no choice other than to suppress the truth because of their very natures, which is the claim of Calvinism, then God Himself is exhibiting two contrary characters in the Bible, and that is not the God of the Bible who does not change.

The verse Joseph asked me to deal with also follows the section regarding Jacob and Esau where Paul reminds us that "Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated." Calvinists often refer to this as a prophecy given Rebekah when she was pregnant with the boys, but that is wrong. The prophecy she was given only said there were two struggling within her and the older would serve the younger. Nothing was said about their characters or God's opinion of them. I did some serious checking on these claims by Calvinists and that resulted in a post here which my husband used as an article on his website, here: http://host380.ipowerweb.com/~setterfi/Esau.html

So in none of these passages, when taken in context, and when Bible is allowed to explain Bible, do I find any support at all for the Calvinist doctrine of predestination regarding the choosing of God before creation for who will be saved and who will not be saved.

Now, Reformedbeliever did pose a question, I think, which I did not recognize at first in his opening post -- regardless of Calvinism or any other approach (and, by the way, I am most assuredly NOT 'arminian'), if God foreknew it all, why did He not create all men with the desire for the truth so that all would be saved?

I don't know. The Bible does not tell us. I only know that He did create us to be able to choose really and freely how to respond to Him. I understand your question, if I have stated it correctly, Reformed, and it is one I have sometimes wondered about myself. But I am content to wait and find out what was going on later....smile.


You did ask, "how are our choices really free?" They are free because we can go either way. We can want either path. We cannot achieve, on our own, the path of righteousness -- that only comes through believing in (not just intellectual acknowledgment, but submitting entirely to the truth of Him) Christ. Our natures tend toward evil, but a tendency does not inevitablity make. All the laws of each nation are constructed because they must fight against something in our natures (or they would not have to be made). Yet we are expected to obey them and are usually punished if we don't. We have the freedom to obey or disobey man's rules which go against our nature and we expect of ourselves and teach our children, obedience to them. But somehow Calvinists seem to think this is not possible where God is concerned.

If all men were truly totally degenerate, then there is no one who would be faithful to his wife, no one who would not lie, or covet, or steal, apart from being a Christian chosen by God. Yet that is not what we see, and closing our eyes to the reality of what we actually see is doing what is mentioned in Romans 1 -- preferring a lie. God had not lied in His creation, whether it is of the stars or men's natures. Men WANT to do well, they WANT to improve and change themselves -- that is what every religion in the world is based on. So the freedom to WANT is clearly there. The ability to achieve what we want most certainly is not there, but the freedom to want is definitely there, and that is the crux of the issue.

Those who want the truth will be led by the Father to Jesus Christ. Those who prefer the lie will get that. "Seek and ye shall find" goes both ways.

 

I am simply trying to obtain an understanding of what scripture you are standing on since you posed a theological question with no scripture to actually base your question on. I see alot of human reasoning in your question but little theology.