Featured Free will is unimportant in the grand scheme of things

I thought I did but I will do it more directly. You say that God does not have the power to NOT love the Son. Yet while the Son was on the cross the Father forsook the Son.
No disrespect but I think you and many others are trying to create a God that fits a doctrine that is so single file that it rejects things about God that scripture teaches about Him.
God allows man free will. God also works through sovereign election. God loved the Son, but God forsook the son.
I would suggest that you not try and separate the Godhead and see it as one loving another and impossible not to forsake or NOT love another in some moment in time..
God's election is scriptural, but so is man's free will. Only God can work good from the two which are contrary.

 

I have to get ready for church, I will answer your last post in a few hours.

 

Thanks Luke, same to you!

Actually, I have a few minutes here, so I want to address the scriptures when they say there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Luke, suppose I said to you that none of my in-laws goes to church, no, not one. Would you understand that to mean they are absolutely unable to attend church? NO, of course not. You would simply understand it to mean literally what I said, that none of my in-laws goes to church.

And this is your error concerning this verse. You are reading INABILITY into it, when it is not there. Oh, it is possible it could be implying inability, but it is not telling you that all men lack the ability to do good. It would be error to form doctrine from an argument of silence, but that is exactly what you and all Calvinists do with this verse.

Fact is, Jesus himself directly said sinners can do good.

Luk 6:32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

Here Jesus said that sinners love those that love them, and they do good to those who do good to them. Now, it is absolutely true that Jesus is making the point that it is a greater love to love those that hate you, and to do good to those that use you, nevertheless, it is still good to love those that love you and to do good to those that do good to you.

What kind of person would you be if you hated those that love you, and did evil to those who do good to you?

So, it is truly good and no sin to love those that love you, and to do good to them that do good to you. This is no sin, this is true good.

Nevertheless, it is greater love to love those that hate you, and to do good to those that do evil to you.

Sinners can do good, Jesus said so.

 

So let me understand you correctly. Are you saying that God the Father stopped loving his Son at Calvary??

I stated what scripture stated. The Son was forsaken. The greek word is associated with not loving the thing or one being forsaken. I would ask you this. Did the Father forsake the Son?

It depends on what you mean by free will. If you mean what most "non-cals" mean, then no God does not allow it.

I don't know what others hold as free will. I hold it as the ability to choose unobstructed by force or coercion while at the same time that free will in no way obstruct God's sovereign election and His sovereign election in no way obstructs our free will.
Two opposing and conflicting truths that can only be dealt with by an all powerful, all knowing God.

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As to the OP:

Freewill is supremely important to the entire understanding of God's provision (not providence here) for mankind. If for no other reason that the determinist cannot structure a reasonable theodicy to answer the Problem of Evil. As Plantinga has demonstrated, only a Free Will Defense is tenable.

The determinist position makes God a moral monster. One can reconcile a predestinarian position with free moral agency and present a biblically faithful soteriology without having to assume determinism.

 

How do you explain the seeming contradiction of God being love yet making the tree so available and enabling Adam to such a state that he could choose not to obey? Do you say Adam didn't have a choice? Closer to being consistent would be the statement, "The greatest love is displayed when it is so great that the power to do otherwise is not chosen."

 

Would sau that God ALONE has true free will, as it is His very nature to love, so he was freely chosing to do what was Natural to Him to do!