Preordination

[steaver]

I am wondering how the TULIP believing crowd balances preordination with freedom of choice as a believer. Or doesn't it allow for freewill at all.

Do you guys preach a balance of some sort or are all believers just like puppets on a string having no freewill at all to do as they personally see fit to do something as in something for the Lord?

 

[annsni]

I know how others preach but I know how my own husband would preach when speaking on the subject (he hasn't preached on it yet that I know of). He would say that we don't quite understand how free will meets sovereignty but God uses both in salvation. Not one man or woman who has been saved didn't want to be saved and not one man or woman who is unsaved wishes they could be saved but can't.

 

[Yeshua1]

I am wondering how the TULIP believing crowd balances preordination with freedom of choice as a believer. Or doesn't it allow for freewill at all.

Do you guys preach a balance of some sort or are all believers just like puppets on a string having no freewill at all to do as they personally see fit to do something as in something for the Lord?

i would see it as being that God is always sovereign in how He deals with us, and that we are sinners, whose 'free will" response to the Gospel was compromised with the fall of adam, as we are all now found by God in him....

We would freely decide to stay enemies of God in ourselves, as we resist the light of Christ, and prefer to stay in the dark... We do want religion and God of our own making, one who allows us to have own theology regarding salvation, and who appeased by good works and self efforts!

So ALL of us would be "puppets" in sense of being ensnared/enslaved by sin, and would freely reject jesus!

That is why we see it as by grace alone, as unless the Lord decided to intervene and allow us to get saved, NONE would 'freely" decide to be saved!

 

[steaver]

i would see it as being that God is always sovereign in how He deals with us, and that we are sinners, whose 'free will" response to the Gospel was compromised with the fall of adam, as we are all now found by God in him....

We would freely decide to stay enemies of God in ourselves, as we resist the light of Christ, and prefer to stay in the dark... We do want religion and God of our own making, one who allows us to have own theology regarding salvation, and who appeased by good works and self efforts!

So ALL of us would be "puppets" in sense of being ensnared/enslaved by sin, and would freely reject jesus!

That is why we see it as by grace alone, as unless the Lord decided to intervene and allow us to get saved, NONE would 'freely" decide to be saved!

Are you answering as a TULIP believer?

 

[Yeshua1]

Are you answering as a TULIP believer?

yes, but please remember that just as there are varying degrees/shades to non cal theologies, same way with calvinists!

 

[steaver]

yes, but please remember that just as there are varying degrees/shades to non cal theologies, same way with calvinists!

Ok

So how do you view freewill? As non-existent within the believer?

 

[billwald]

Post #2 is a good, traditional answer.

I think we are actors on a stage, reading our scripts.

 

[steaver]

Post #2 is a good, traditional answer.

I think we are actors on a stage, reading our scripts.

In a way, isn't that the conclusion of TULIP's teaching on preordination?

 

[steaver]

Where are all the TULIP folks? Did I ask something they cannot answer?

 

[12strings]

I am wondering how the TULIP believing crowd balances preordination with freedom of choice as a believer. Or doesn't it allow for freewill at all.

Do you guys preach a balance of some sort or are all believers just like puppets on a string having no freewill at all to do as they personally see fit to do something as in something for the Lord?

(I'm answering as a TU-IP)

Technically, Belief in the Tulip could be limited to soteriology...that is, one could hold to tulip and believe that people make free choices, but that each of us has chosen sin and is so innately sinful that we would not choose God unless he irrestably calls some. One could believe that and also believe that other than our sinfulness keeping us from choosing God on our own unless he chooses us, We are completely free in all of our decisions, not foreordained by God at all to any of them, good or bad.

I think most Cals would not take that path, though; since they would see it as unbiblical. Some would say that we can't really understand how God's soveriegnty works with our choices. Some would say that we do exactly what we want to do, but that ultimately God is the one guiding our desires. I have not problem with either of these explainations.

The problem with talking about a "balance" is someone might end up saying God is "mostly" sovereign and we have "mostly" free will.

Most calls would reject the idea of totally free wills in humans. Many will say that nothing happens unless God Causes it to happen. Others would say nothing happens unless God EITHER causes it or ALLOWS it, and that it is somehow part of his over-arching plan. We would point to the verse in Acts that say the people who crucified Jesus did what God had predestined to take place...and yet God still held them responsible for thier actions.

The Bible says God chose me, and says that I must choose him. So I believe both of those.

 

[12strings]

Post #2 is a good, traditional answer.

I think we are actors on a stage, reading our scripts.

Are you saying this is your personal view, or this is your view of calvinists?

 

[savedbymercy]

The Elect after conversion walk a life that has been preordaind by God Eph 2:10

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The Will of the New Creation conforms willingly with that which God has ordained or prearranged for them to do !

No ones will is ever free from God's Sovereign Decree !

 

[Yeshua1]

The Elect after conversion walk a life that has been preordaind by God Eph 2:10

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The Will of the New Creation conforms willingly with that which God has ordained or prearranged for them to do !

No ones will is ever free from God's Sovereign Decree !

Again, that all applies to them AFTER saved, by placing faith in Christ!

 

[savedbymercy]

Again, that all applies to them AFTER saved, by placing faith in Christ!

You teach a works salvation, accursed of God !

 

[steaver]

The Elect after conversion walk a life that has been preordaind by God Eph 2:10

10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The Will of the New Creation conforms willingly with that which God has ordained or prearranged for them to do !

No ones will is ever free from God's Sovereign Decree !

Is it your view that there is no such thing as a free will in the believer to do right or do wrong? The believer can only do as God directs? Whether that be right or wrong.

 

[mont974x4]

I am a 5 pointer.
The more I read Scripture the less I see free will as being a reality, so the question of the OP does not enter the picture. The Bible says we are slaves to sin prior to our salvation. The Bible also says the called are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son in Romans 8. Romans 9 tells us that God created some people for common/unclean usage and others to be used for great good and to be holy. It also says that since I am not God I am in no position to question Him or accuse Him of being unfair.

Can you tell me of anyone in Scripture who wanted to not obey Gods call that God let walk in ongoing complete rebellion? He did not accept "no" from Moses, Abraham, Jonah, the Apostles (including Paul)....or me.

He chooses those He saves. He also enables who He chose to choose Him. He gives us the faith that is necessary to be saved, and that is His grace that saves us.

 

[savedbymercy]

Is it your view that there is no such thing as a free will in the believer to do right or do wrong? The believer can only do as God directs? Whether that be right or wrong.

The New Creation always obey's God. Paul said to the Phillipian Believers this Phil 2:12

Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

This constant obedience is a Covenant Blessing Eph 36:26-27

26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.


The Blessings of the New Covenant in Christ's Blood, gives the Elect a Faitful Obedient Life to the Will of God.

Thats why Paul could write to the Ephesians and address them as this Eph 1:1

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

 

[steaver]

The New Creation always obey's God. :

Correct me if I am wrong, but I gather from your post in other threads that you seperate the inner man (spiritual man) from the fleshly man. The inner man cannot sin and thus has no freewill at all to sin. So how do you see the fleshly man? Can he sin at (free) will? What I am wondering is if you believe there is any such thing as a free will within a human being.

 

[steaver]

I am a 5 pointer.
The more I read Scripture the less I see free will as being a reality, so the question of the OP does not enter the picture. The Bible says we are slaves to sin prior to our salvation. The Bible also says the called are predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son in Romans 8. Romans 9 tells us that God created some people for common/unclean usage and others to be used for great good and to be holy. It also says that since I am not God I am in no position to question Him or accuse Him of being unfair.

Can you tell me of anyone in Scripture who wanted to not obey Gods call that God let walk in ongoing complete rebellion? He did not accept "no" from Moses, Abraham, Jonah, the Apostles (including Paul)....or me.

He chooses those He saves. He also enables who He chose to choose Him. He gives us the faith that is necessary to be saved, and that is His grace that saves us.

Ultimately these men obeyed, but what about their sin within their journey to obey? Wasn't that free will disobedience? Or do you suggest God caused that sin within them?

 

[The Biblicist]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I gather from your post in other threads that you seperate the inner man (spiritual man) from the fleshly man. The inner man cannot sin and thus has no freewill at all to sin. So how do you see the fleshly man? Can he sin at (free) will? What I am wondering is if you believe there is any such thing as a free will within a human being.

He has a bigger problem! If the inner man can do no sin and the outer man can do no righteousness then what aspect of our nature is commanded to "put on" the inward man? If the outward man can do no righteousness then it will not "put on" the inward man as that would be a righteous thing.

Who or what aspect of our nature is the "I" in Romans 7:14-25 which delights in the law "AFTER THE INWARD MAN" (obviously is not the inward man) but ends up doing evil???? The same "I" is willing to do good but finds no power to do good (v. 18).