Question about Free Will

"I know no one knows the motivation of God."

The cheif end of God's will is to bring Glory unto himself.

Bryan
SDG

 

I think the answer to what you are looking for can be found in the two great commandments Jesus gave, which He said summed up everything else: Love God and love your neighbor. Since these are commands, that means they are choices. However, with our sin natures, they are choices that we might want to make but can't follow through with.

But Adam and Eve could. They could follow through. Before sin came into the world, they were capable of perfect obedience to God. "If you love me, you will obey me," Jesus said. There was their choice. The Bible says Eve was deceived, but Adam wasn't. So it wasn't that Eve didn't sin, but it's that she didn't sin by choice in the same sense Adam did. He was not deceived and chose to sin -- chose to disobey God. That is why sin entered the world through him and not through Eve. It is not that Eve didn't sin, though. She did.

Again, Jesus ties love and obedience. Both are choices. Without choice, however, we can neither love nor obey. And God seems to have created us to love, if Jesus' commands are to be looked at. That is the one command -- our one purpose to be.

That is why Adam and Eve had to have a choice. Without the choice not to obey, obedience means nothing. Without the choice not to love, there is not a decision to love. Both require choice.

The angels also had choice. But, seeing God face to face, there is no way they could be redeemed when they fell. They had seen it all, known God, and refused Him. At least a third of them were that way.

But the purpose of angels? Paul says it is to serve us! Hebrews 1:14 says ALL angels are to be ministering spirits to us. We see the same with Lucifer/Satan when God addresses him through Ezekiel's address to the King of Tyre -- Ez. 28:13 + -- he was to be a guardian cherub in Eden. That means Eve would have known him and thus truly been deceived. It's an interesting line of thought to follow there!

At any rate, both men and angels have the freedom to choose.

One last note: God did not need us to love Him. He had that before. He is Triune and the perfect expression of Love within that Triune nature of one for another. God is not incomplete without us.

Nevertheless, He chose to create us to join Him in that love, to become a Bride for the Son whom He loves so.

Why not destroy everything with the Flood and start over? Essentially, that is exactly what He did! But He also left the memory of a life before with the human race almost, I think, as an invitation to the life that is to be for those who choose to say yes to Him.

The last loose end is one I left at the beginning. As sentient adults, we need new natures to be able to obey and love God, and thus fulfill the reason for our creation. This is what Jesus referred to in John 3 as being 'born again.' We must not only be born physically, but we must be born again spiritually through the power of the gracious Holy Spirit.

The choice is still there for every man.

 

Libertarian free will is an UNBIBLICAL concept.

 

Human 'robots' are unbiblical.

 

I agree. That's why I don't believe humans are robots.

 

Without Free Will it's all preprogrammed. Human Robots.

 

Not true.

The Bible does not teach "free will". You are hard-pressed to show that it does. Does it teach "choice"? Yes. But that does not equate to free will. Free will would imply an infinite number of options to choose from. Sin inhibits choices to the point where we choose along our desires. Before salvation we are slaves to sin and ALWAYS choose "sin". Our wills are not free to choose "not sin". We have no "free will"...only God does.

 

This is a common logical fallacy called "No Third Option" (I forget the latin name for it). It narrows everything down to two possible choices - free will or robots - without considering that there could be a third, fourth, fifth, or any other possible option.

Martin Luther argues (and I agree 100%) that we have free will, but what we choose of our own free will is determined by our inclination. And since we are born spiritually dead, we always choose to please ourselves and not God. So while we are "free" to choose anything we want, what we want is only evil (or good with selfish motives, which makes us slaves to our own sinful desires.

Only after our hearts are regenerated do we begin to want what God wants. And so we retain our free will after we are saved, but now we have been made alive with Christ and have a new Spirit. We desire to please Him so much that we willingly become "slaves" of a sort to righteousness, wanting what God wants.

In both cases we have free will, but nowhere between them do we choose salvation of our own free will. We always had the freedom to do so, but we were never willing to choose Christ. We choose Christ not of our own free will, but because our inclinations have been changed, and for the first time in our lives, we actually WANT to exercise our will to choose Christ.

In the above scenario, whether you agree with it or not, we have free will which is bent toward sin and unable to choose Christ because it is not willing (does not WANT) Christ. We have a time when God steps in and regenerates our heart and brings us to life, after which we can do nothing but WANT to choose Christ of our own "free will".

That is nothing whatsoever like the way most people describe free will, yet it certainly does not suggest we're robots. So it is at least one third option.

 

I agree with your post...but the term 'free will' is not a good term to describe that belief, you know? It implies libertarian free will.

 

I agree. I also dislike the term "free will" because it is almost self-contradictory. One wills what one is inclined to will - and that tells you right there that it is not "free", no matter which way it turns. IMO you can't grasp this topic without taking "inclination" into account, and that changes the whole way one looks at so-called "free will".

 

I agree completely.

 

Adam might of had free will, upon creation, He certainly didnt have any knowledge of Good AND evil.

the two are one..knowledge of..."Good and evil"

so he was ignorant of knowledge...no good, no evil

upon choosing to attain knowledge..he became a slave to sin..meaning..he didnt have free will.

when God the creator inseminates an adopted child with the spirit of Jesus. The new believer no longer is a slave to sin. but a slave to God.

still man has no "free will"
our choices have changed, yet under another set of parameters. we can not choose outside the parameter God has set.

(ie, remove the new spirit that God has given us.)

 

Your concept of free will seems to be hard to define. With free will, man is able to choose what he "wants" from among the choices available.

Adam had 1 choice (2 options), or decision to make. To obey the one commandment or not. He chose to disobey. Adam exercised his free will in making a choice that appealed to him. His decision wasn't forced on him.

When God draws people to himself, these people have a choice to make as well. Respond or ignore. They use their free will to make this decision. (I know, Calvinists will disagree with this.)

Having the choice already made for you isn't free will. Just because you happen to like all of the sinful options doesn't mean you don't have free will.

 

adam had to eat of the tree. He had to partake of the knowledge of Good and evil.

the lesson was about how he went about making the choice.

he took of the tree. instead of asking God for the fruit.an observation of this lesson that persists even in our relationship with his Son today. everything we receive of God..we ask. everything for the flesh. we take.

Now to the case that human beings have "free will" after the choice that adam made for mankind.

I disagree that man has any "free will". we have the spirit of the flesh which was created by God to be in enmity or opposition to the spirit of Christ. we are enslaved to its parameters. we do not seek God, nor the things of God (christ).

It is God who seeks us to the point that He inseminates us with his sons spirit and we react to his choice, of choosing us. we do not choose God before this action on his part.

if we had a choice, we would refuse everytime.

although after God Chooses us,

we either react positively or negatively towards God "drawing" us to his christ.
that is the process of being "set aside" or sanctified to be priests of God in his family.

it is our ignorance at this point that allows us to be obedient or disobedient to living by faith to the purpose of his christ. Remember his christ is the high priest between us and God. either we establish a relationship with christ or refuse the relationship. that determines how we act and react in Gods family.

Although we are still his children and contain his sons spirit. that doesnt change no matter how his children react. good or evil.

choosing to do evil while being a member within Gods family will not bring permanent seperation, yet it will bring a lack of Joy and fellowship with their brothers and sisters.

seeing that there are paramters within Gods family that cannot be violated even if we cant see them.

Me2

 

Then it couldn't have been Adam's fault, could it? You can't blame someone for doing something that they had no other choice in.

We were created to be in opposition to the Spirit of Christ?

React? What is this reaction? A reflex, perhaps? Can't be a "choice", because you've eliminated that possibility...

So then we again have this "reaction"...:

So God chooses us, and we then somehow "react" toward him or away from him. I don't understand this unless it means we choose...?

 

glorybound,

I was referring to a limited will and not a free will.
the initial salvation experince is initiated by God to man.
we are "saved" of God..by grace.
mankinds only possible reactions.."thank you"

Now our new spirit is bent to please or "give ourselves away". Thats Our new Spirits nature. Love.
God presents his plan of reconciliation by the introduction of Christ.
His mediator for us to communicate by faith to God.

its NOT that mankind REFUSES to communicate to God its "HOW".

the "wisdom" and the initial one way lessons of the Holy Spirit teaching us about Christ and changing our habits of harmful abuses against ourselves and others is fairly easy to accept.

its the understanding part thats the hold up.
its the moment of trials or trying the wisdom that the Holy Spirit is teaching US.

thats where 99% of believers turn away from..

its accepting Gods nature of loving and forgiving others.
mankind has had a lifetime in the flesh and its easier for them to deny this activity. this is where we find those who desires more than anything to please God. by Completely giving their lives to him. and not witholding or drawing back from him. and we also find the 99% who turn away from accepting Gods true nature, and sovereignty. This is where God seperates the Sheep and Goats.
this is where we demonstrate to ourselves that we walk the walk. but some turn away.

but its Gods nature. But, its their new nature. Its Jesus Christ Nature. to forgive, to offer mercy towards those that are offensive to the new believer. Jesus warns us of persecutions against us. Yet we really arent listening and its see in our reactions when the offenders must be forgiven by us towards the offenses they commit against us.
and we refuse to accept that this is Who God Is.

there you go,
had their chance at free will and took it. they turned or fell away or fell from grace by refusing to follow jesus. To follow his transforming event of the very nature of the believer. thats "limited free will" inside the nature or parameters of the Spirit of Christ.

or shall I say, They chose to be anti-christ.
they refused "through their imaginations" to follow Gods instructions that faith in Gods methods or that his very nature is Right and true..

To Love God, and Love Man

they turn Gods truth into a lie.
and yet God still calls them a member of His family.because they have his spirit within them.

so is that free will?
or Limited free will?

Me2

 

So the birds built a nest in my chimny, and its summer and who wants to light a fire there anyway. But one day one of the adult birds goofed and flew down all the way into the fireplace.

Stuck in a sooty dark place, thrashing about. Then when I open the glass doors of the fireplace, hiding in the sooty ashes and wood laid there.

This bird has no hope, is lost forever, and nothing he can do will save him.

Now I'd gladly pick him up and take him outside, but this bird will have nothing to do with me, he thinks I'm dangerous.

So I open the front door wide, giving a glimpse of the blue sky outside and step away from the door.

The bird sees the sky, flys out the door, and I presume back to the nest, saved at last! No doubt he has an interesting story to tell to the family back in the chimney.

Did this bird exercise free will to save himself?