Violation

Acts 1:1 In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning (the earlier work being Luke)


How does this support your point?

 

Our sin nature is such that we do not choose either; we by nature are sinners, early on we begin partaking of the pleasures of sin and we cannot, left in this condition see our pridicament. We are like Israel in the book of Judges every one doing what is right in his own eyes and not considering the truth of God.

Bro. Dallas

 

Here's two separate references dealing with age of accountability. The Nehemiah reference addresses the age of accountability thusly,

And Paul to the Galations describes it thusly,

Both seem to speak of obedience to the will of the father.

 

Is it not obvious? Luke specifiec both that Jesus did things and taught things. That's practice and teaching.

 

Does that mean that totally human Jesus has free will to do as well as speak? If Jesus who is totally human has free will why do you think that all mankind does not? Are we not all made in the same image?

 

Factor in the effects of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, Yelsew. Factor it in. You were not born in the same condition as Jesus and you were not born in the same condition in which Adam was created. You were born as a fallen human being.

 

Nevertheless, as the result of the fall, that which did not change in man is the total essence of what God created man to be, which includes possession of free will with which to choose to return home to God in the same manner that the prodigal returned home. Else what is the message in "the Prodigal Son"

 

The same message as the lost coin and the lost sheep that precede that parable - that Jesus came to seek and to save what was lost.

Yelsew,

Do you understand that you were born with a sin nature that Jesus was not born with and that Adam was not created with?

 

The result of the sin nature innate to man is that we will sin. The result of sin is that one gets a sin nature from it.

That is, until you sinned that first time and were aware that what you did was sin, you were innocent of sin, all the while possessing the innate human sin nature.

The prodigal is significantly different. In both the lost coin and the lost sheep, the "loser" went seeking the lost. In the case of the prodigal, the father waited for the son to return to him.

 

If I understand correctly, Yelsew, you are not affiliated with any denomination. Your theology sounds like you would fit in well in the Church of Christ denomination. Your thinking on "free will" sounds like what they teach. And I should know having been reared in that denomination and not leaving it until I was 43 years old.

 

That's interesting, however I will no longer align myself with a denomination or a congregation. Though I do, at least twice a week gather with and worship with churches of various denominations. Not today however, I have family from out of state visiting whom I seldom get to see. So we are doing our own worship service here in my home. They are, by the way Catholic, I went to Mass with them last yesterday and they agreed to have a worship time with me today.

 

So Yelsew is Yelsewian, and therefore does give him the right to make up his own church doctrine with no other accountability. I would suggest that he gets a Yelsewian board, but what is the fun with talking to yourself?

 

Many false religions have been started in this manner, the power of suggestion. However, Yelsew is accountable to God and to the Christ, Jesus the Son of God, so there is no possibility of a Yelsewnian Religion! Nice of you to suggest it!

 

Yelsew, Don't you mean creation, God, and Christ? And doesn't the light of the spirit inside you tell you what God wants? I don't see your problem. After all, you have developed your own little theology, you might as well get the tax exempttion, right?

 

Greetings to you all, pardon me if I step in.

This "Free Will" debate seems to go on wherever Cal's and Arm's get together!! LOL

Calvin said: why do we grace with a proud name such a slight thing as will.

Has anybody read Edwards' Freedom of the Will? He makes it clear that Will is not causative; that we do not exist in some mental equilibrium where free choices are presented to us like differenet types of candy, and we just take our pick.

Our wills are determined; they are determined by everything that we are. I often use the illustration that may be known to a few of my American brethren: the incident in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, where John Galt is captured. He gave himself up, destroyed his machine. He could have done otherwise, free willers would say that, as would Rand herself; but could he? Being John Galt, being all that his life and influences had made him, could he really have done anything else? Isn't that how the bad guys catch the good guys, by imprisoning the heroine, and waiting for the hero's sense of honour to bring him in?

As a sinner, my volitional choices are determined by my sinful and "depraved" nature: I choose against God - sin is essentially rebellion against God, whatever moral aspects it takes. God sends his law and says you should do this instead. But I don't. God is not responsible for the fact that I "freely" choose to continue in rebellion, even when he has told me what will happen, because my desires and motivations lie in a different path.

Hence, efficacious grace in Reformed doctrine. We are given new motives, new desires. This leads to new volition. The nearest Arminian doctrine I have found is that of prevenient grace, whereby God appeals to some boot-sector in our personality, and we might, or might not, respond. But that is not backed up by scripture.

For me, the teaching of scripture is for the Reformed view. For me, this is my experience in conversion to God, and of those I meet with.


regards

[ February 03, 2003, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: Solly ]