Dominion vs determinism 2

[Silverhair]

They do not rule out free will. Just read the extract from the 1689 Confession.
The fact that you have to face is that God is a whole lot smarter than you are. '"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."'

The extract from the confessions does not change what the DoG/TULIP make clear. Man has no free will under the calvinist view.

Show me where mans free will is found in the DoG/TULIP.

 

[Psalty]

You say @Psalty will not have a serious conversation re Rom 9:13 but is this "God has effectually made to believe and" not what calvinists say.

What does your DoG/TULIP tell us?

He doesnt want to answer:

1. Couldnt explain why God isnt responsible for sin at the fall, yet is sovereign over all things

2. cant explain how believers can have security, when he admits that believers fall away. Says scripture says we are secure, but wont answer how to reconcile people that believed those scriptures and fell away. No answer, walk away.

3. Refuses to answer basic calvinist questions on irresistible grace and effectual call

Its as if most Compatibalist calvinists want to affirm calvinism, but hate, hate, HATE to accept what it says.

 

[Ascetic X]

He doesnt want to answer:

1. Couldnt explain why God isnt responsible for sin at the fall, yet is sovereign over all things

2. cant explain how believers can have security, when he admits that believers fall away. Says scripture says we are secure, but wont answer how to reconcile people that believed those scriptures and fell away. No answer, walk away.

3. Refuses to answer basic calvinist questions on irresistible grace and effectual call

Its as if most Compatibalist calvinists want to affirm calvinism, but hate, hate, HATE to accept what it says.

Calvinists misuse the word “sovereign”.

Sovereign means a supreme ruler (monarch) or a state with independent authority, possessing ultimate power, self-governing, and not under outside control. It is often used to describe independent nations, monarchies, or ultimate power over a territory, but not controlling every single thing that happens.

Sovereign to Calvinists means God as puppet master, who decrees every single thing that happens, including disobedience to God’s commands.

So in their view, God wills that His will be violated, which means God is the author or originator of sin. If that is the case, no one can be punished for sinning, since God caused the sinning to happen. And no one will be rewarded for good deeds, since God made the good deeds happen.

This is not true Christian theology.

 

[JonC]

And the problem here is that I think that's what the free willers on here insist upon officially, but they don't really think through the implications of what influence on your free will is and what it feels like.

I disagree. I believe most people do realize that they are influenced, although probably no one realizes to what extent.

We encountered this in past conversations ("normal reading", "plain meaning", etc).

Influence can be productive or counterproductive. I seriously doubt anybody ignores that influence exists.

Free-will is making our choices freely even though predisposed to influences.

Libertarian free-will is making choices absent any influence (including personal desires).

The first is biblical and the crux of free-will arguments. The latter is the Calvinistic argument against their opponents in such debates.

 

[JonC]

See. Here's where I don't think you guys are really thinking this through. You simply cannot have chosen otherwise, if your choice was really according to your own will. Think this through. If your choice was what you willed then to "choose otherwise" would have to have not been your will. Or your will itself would have had to change first.

Again, I disagree. I think CH Spurgeon got it correct on this one.

The only logical way for free-will not to exist is if we exchange it for libertarian free will and ignore passages that describe men as freely choosing evil because their minds (and desires) are set on the flesh.

When men reject God it is a free choice. They are bound by sin (they are flesh with minds set on the flesh). But God does not cause men to do evil against their will (any more than man can be saved against his will).

The change is not in the exercise if one's will but in the will itself (a spiritual birth, a mind set on the Spirit). But we freely choose. Our will is not bound. We are bound (by sin or the Spirit).


Philosophy is fun. I am not sure we benefit, but it is something I have enjoyed at times.

 

[JonC]

If I can affect your free will and change what you desire then I can say that I changed your will without violating your freedom or coercing you.

No, you didn't. You changed a mindset or a desire. You did not change the ability to freely choose.

 

[percho]

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. Ecc 1:2
God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation. Gen 2:3 CSB
for to vanity was the creation made subject -- not of its will, but because of Him who did subject it -- in hope, Rom 8:20 YLT

Was the creation unwillingly, subjected to vanity, before the man sinned and brought the death to mankind?

Rom 8:21 NKJV because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Is, the bondage of corruption. the vanity, the creation was subjected unto, in hope?

Does the following verse have to do with that bondage? Hebrews 2:15 NKJV and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Did the following verse apply to Adam?
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. ----------------in Hope of the following?????

BTW what law sold the man, of the flesh, under sin? Was it? Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Is that the law which was broken that brought the need of redemption?

in Hope of the following?????
and when the fulness of time did come, God sent forth His Son, come of a woman, come under law, that those under law he may redeem, that the adoption of sons we may receive;

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Rom 8:19,21 NKJV

Are the sons redeemed out of sin and the death? Does the above also bring about the following relative to the devil?

Seeing, then, the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself also in like manner did take part of the same, that through [the] death he might destroy him having the power of [the] death -- that is, the devil -- Heb 2:14 YLT
he who is doing the sin, of the devil he is, because from the beginning the devil doth sin; for this was the Son of God manifested, that he may break up the works of the devil; 1 John 3:8


I have no clue if John Calvin ever considered the above. But the above is my understanding of the Word of the God.

Acts 15:18 YLT 'Known from the ages to God are all His works;

We have all sinned, thank God that he is God.........................................................................................................

 

[JonC]

@DaveXR650

Think of it this way - say you were brought up in a church practicing infant baptism. You have a child and plan on a baptism. You speak with a Baptist who persuades you that believers baptism is correct. You no longer desire to have your baby baptized as an infant.

That baptist persuaded you. Your desire to baptize the baby changed. But the choice to baptize the baby or not will still be a free choice.

"Will" can mean desire. But it can also mean the "refers to the mental faculty of choice". In the free will vs determinism debate it is the latter (not desire but the ability to make a choice of ones own accord).

In the context of free will, "will" is the conscious faculty of choice, intention, or decision-making. Free implies that this mental capacity operates without external coercion (Websters).

 

[Psalty]

I appreciate daves deep thoughts.

I like the discussion on compatibalism as a philosophical concept of determinism and how it plays out with with/choice.

Thanks for giving me more to consider. Enjoy your time away… I appreciated the flurry of time you spent interacting.

 

[Ascetic X]

I appreciate daves deep thoughts.

I like the discussion on compatibalism as a philosophical concept of determinism and how it plays out with with/choice.

Thanks for giving me more to consider. Enjoy your time away… I appreciated the flurry of time you spent interacting.

Convoluted debates on free will vs. determinism are merely a diversion that amuses philosophers.

Truth is so simple a child can understand its basic principles.

A child is given rules. If the rules are broken, the child is punished or deprived of something. The child cannot tell his parents that his disobedience was pre-determined by God or circumstances or past events, thus he should not be blamed or receive unpleasant consequences. This attempt at evasion will not succeed.

Sin vs. righteousness can only be based on humans making choices. If everything is pre-determined by a puppet master God, then humans cannot be held accountable for their actions on judgment day.

This is the simple, clear, obvious, self-evident truth.

To engage in juggling concepts and definitions around to try to wiggle out of this reality is a waste of brain cells and time.

 

[DaveXR650]

No, you didn't. You changed a mindset or a desire. You did not change the ability to freely choose.

Jon. I was getting ready to answer @Psalty on the same point. You are right. You always had the ability to freely choose. Please understand that. In Calvinist theology, when done right, they do not say that one cannot freely choose as an absolute inability. What they are saying is that we do not freely will, on our own, to come to Christ, because our own free will doesn't want to. Can I prove that? Well, I can show you the things none other than John Owen wrote regarding this. He wrote that the central problem for us is our free will. Not that is doesn't exist. Calvinists, even more modern ones including R. C. Sproul, say that our inability is real, but that it is moral, not absolute.

Now the key here is two things. One, when a Calvinist says you couldn't have chosen otherwise, what they are saying is that you couldn't have chosen otherwise and have that choice also have been what you most wanted to do, which again, is the real definition of free will. The reason being that there is only one "what you most wanted to do" for a given decision point. Yes, you could have chosen something else, if you had wanted to - but that could not have been your number one choice at that time. Where you guys are messing up is that you look back and realize that another choice may have been better, and that you could have done that, and you could - but at the time you in truth did not want to do that as your primary and only most desirable thing. What you did is what won out as your own free choice. The fact that you could have made a different choice is really hypothetical because once again - the choice you did in fact make, if it was truly your choice at the time, is the only thing you could have done - and still had that been your choice. To choose differently would have required that you willed differently. When a Calvinist points that out do not claim that he is saying that you were blocked or coerced by God from all other choices. All he is saying is that you have to own the fact that your free choice was yours, and that it depended upon your will.

R.C. Sproul went into this with the example from Alice in Wonderland. And he pointed out that the only time the above is not true is in situations where the choice is of no value, in which case it doesn't matter and does indeed become a matter of whim. Indeed in that case you truly could just as well have chosen either alternative because since it didn't matter anyway, you had no reason to evaluate and determine a choice. To go left is just as good as to go right, as he said.

 

[JonC]

Jon. I was getting ready to answer @Psalty on the same point. You are right. You always had the ability to freely choose. Please understand that. In Calvinist theology, when done right, they do not say that one cannot freely choose as an absolute inability. What they are saying is that we do not freely will, on our own, to come to Christ, because our own free will doesn't want to.

This is my point as well. Calvinists replace "free-will" with "libertarian free-will". It is not an honest discussion.

Here is an interesting question - Does God have "free-will" (the libertarian free-will Calvinists impose into free-will theology)?

That is, can God "want to do something" contrary to His nature? Can God, for example, desire evil? I do not believe so.

Likewise, those in the flesh cannot please God. Why? Because a mind set on the flesh is hostile to God.

 

[Ascetic X]

In Calvinist theology, when done right, they do not say that one cannot freely choose as an absolute inability. What they are saying is that we do not freely will, on our own, to come to Christ, because our own free will doesn't want to. Can I prove that? Well, I can show you the things none other than John Owen wrote regarding this. He wrote that the central problem for us is our free will. Not that is doesn't exist. Calvinists, even more modern ones including R. C. Sproul, say that our inability is real, but that it is moral, not absolute.

This makes no sense.

When I first heard the gospel explained to me as a teenager, at a church camp, my own free will did want to come to Christ. I walked up to the altar and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior.

Matthew 11:28

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

 

[DaveXR650]

This is my point as well. Calvinists replace "free-will" with "libertarian free-will". It is not an honest discussion.

Why would it be dishonest if they continually try to explain the difference in their writings?

That is, can God "want to do something" contrary to His nature? Can God, for example, desire evil? I do not believe so.

Calvinists don't either.

Likewise, those in the flesh cannot please God. Why? Because a mind set on the flesh is hostile to God.

Right.

 

[DaveXR650]

When I first heard the gospel explained to me as a teenager, at a church camp, my own free will did want to come to Christ. I walked up to the altar and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior.

I'm glad you brought that up. This is just my opinion but there is in my view nothing at all wrong with your assessment of what happened that day. Don't let any of the Calvinists on here or anywhere else throw water on this and claim that you then believe you saved yourself or that it in any other way is not valid because you do not hold to or try to understand all the Calvinist theology. I was in a series of meetings held at our small church when I was saved in the same way. And yes, I responded to an alter call as was the custom at that church. If it is any help at all please understand that all the Calvinists I know would also be completely happy with such a testimony as yours.

These discussions are of some value if you are so inclined but anyone is completely in their right to call baloney and just do like you did without further analysis. I sometimes wonder myself if that wouldn't be the best course after all.

 

[Ascetic X]

I'm glad you brought that up. This is just my opinion but there is in my view nothing at all wrong with your assessment of what happened that day. Don't let any of the Calvinists on here or anywhere else throw water on this and claim that you then believe you saved yourself or that it in any other way is not valid because you do not hold to or try to understand all the Calvinist theology. I was in a series of meetings held at our small church when I was saved in the same way. And yes, I responded to an alter call as was the custom at that church. If it is any help at all please understand that all the Calvinists I know would also be completely happy with such a testimony as yours.

These discussions are of some value if you are so inclined but anyone is completely in their right to call baloney and just do like you did without further analysis. I sometimes wonder myself if that wouldn't be the best course after all.

Thank you for your support. Philosophical reasoning about concepts like free will and pre-determinism tend to become laborious, convoluted, and abstract. It often clouds the simple self-evident truths of what we experience in life.

It is similar to the tedious argument about how nobody ever does anything selflessly, there is always a selfish motive, some sort of personal reward involved. This idea then twists things around and attempts to negate the virtues of self-sacrifice, altruism, and putting the needs of others before your own. The end result is to foster the attitude that you might as well be self-centered, since there is no other way to live.

 

[Ben1445]

Hyper-Calvinists believe that God will save ppl who’ve never heard the word of God. That is not biblical, as faith comes by hearing (or reading as well, imo) the word of God.

That addresses one side.

 

[Ben1445]

At last a sensible question! Thank you! 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' That's in the Bible and therefore non-negotiable.
But men and women will not call on the name of the Lord. John 3:19. 'And this is the condemnation; that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.' Romans 3:11. 'There is none who seeks after God.' 1 Cor. 2:14. 'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.....' Jer. 13:23. 'Can the Ethiopean change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to doing evil.'
The non-elect cannot call upon the Lord, not because He prevents them, but because they have wicked, unbelieving hearts. Therefore God, in His great mercy, has chosen a great crowd of men and women, from every nation, tribe, people and tongue, for salvation, and has opened their hearts to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Titus 3:3-7. For we ourselves [Paul and Titus] were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts amd pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Saviour towards man appeared, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.' [see also Ephesians 2:1-10]

Through God's mercy and the new birth, men and women who, of their own free will, rejected God, now, of their own free will, renewed by the Holy Spirit, trust in Him and receive salvation.

Very quickly, hyper-Clavinists believe that the Gospel should not be preached to all, but only to "sensible sinners." Well, if they were sensible they wouldn't be sinners! Calvinists, including Calvin himself and A.W. Pink, believe that the Gospel should be preached freely to all, and sinners tols that if they will repent and trust in Christ, they will be saved.

This is the other side that is murky.

 

[DaveXR650]

Dave my understanding of free will, the ability to choose otherwise, is biblical. That is why we can and are held responsible for the choices we make. How do you not see this?

I have never even suggested that man just picks some idea out of the air but have said many times that God uses various means to draw us to Himself. The drawing gives the person the information but the person has to choose what they will do with that information.

It seems to me that you are still to much of God has to change you before you can believe? But then the question is why does He not change everyone since He wants all to come to repentance.

You say I am going to far with my understanding of mans ability to choose, how so?

Sorry. I stepped away and there were a bunch of posts and I missed some. Yes, you could indeed have chosen otherwise and you are correct in that that is the reason we can be held accountable for our choices. I agree. What Calvinists are saying is that the choice you actually make in a situation is the free will choice of what you most wanted to do. And the problem here is your will. You must do according to your will or else you are not doing according to your will and thus your choice was not free. You may end up a Calvinist more so than me, which would not be hard.

It seems to me that you are still to much of God has to change you before you can believe? But then the question is why does He not change everyone since He wants all to come to repentance.

Now, honestly, here is where I think there might be a flaw in Calvinism. There has to be a sense in which a natural man can understand the requirements God has of us, and right and wrong to some extent, and so on. If there is no area for this to be true and if it turns out that there is no truth to men being able to accept or reject some light at some level - such that even the response rests God's work alone, then I am having trouble understanding how it can be said that all men who end up lost will be aware of rejecting God. Yet, most of the Calvinists I read say this is so. I don't know what the answer is. And the reason I am not a good Calvinist is that I do believe that God truly wants all men to repent. And to me, and @JonC is probably right in that it's because of my Western logical thinking, I cannot reconcile this with man not having at least some ability to respond to or reject God's grace - and that at a level which is ultimately decisive on man's part.

 

[DaveXR650]

So to clarify the above, I also believe Provisionism is flawed in that more, much more, is going on than that we can be provided with the requirements of God, the propositions of the Gospel, and that is all we should need to become right with God. This isn't new either. Read Arminius and the questions come up regarding the need for a prior work of the Spirit, whether it's persuasive or creative, and so on. I'm just admitting that I don't know for sure. I'm not a pastor or elder in a church that requires allegiance to a creed. And I'm a member of a church that officially allows freedom of views in these areas and so far it is working.