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Free Will Origin of Sin

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by loDebar, Nov 27, 2018.

  1. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
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    It is hard for me to understand how a person who professes to be a Christian can post such a vicious lie.

    Tell you what I will do. I will give you 24 hours to find a post on the Baptist Board written by me and quote it in this thread where I have ever claimed that Go is the cause of sin.

    It is no 11:19 AM Central Standard Time. The ball is in your court.
     
  2. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    Do you have Free Will?
     
  3. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
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    Did you read what I wrote?
     
  4. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    Time? I said it repeatedly already, You need to consider the result of your positions,

    You don't write it but it is the logical conclusion for not having a Free Will. If I can't make my own choices but that bad decisions occur, then where did the bad decision come from...?

    Does God cause a sinner without Free Will to sin? That is your position.
     
  5. TCassidy

    TCassidy Late-Administator Emeritus
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    No, it is not. Now either post something from me that says that or apologize for telling an untruth.

    Once again you fail to understand that "free will" and "making choices" are not the same thing. We all make choices every day. Some good choices, some poor choice. Making choices is not free will. Free will is the denial that the lost are in bondage to the law of sin and death and can come to God on their own merits, IE "making a good choice."

    No, as I have said about a dozen time.

    Again you lie about my position. Don't do it again.
     
  6. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    We cannot use a wrong definition that you subscribe to, as Calvin uses.

    Free Will does not include the ability to bring a desire to fruition.

    We have to use the scriptural definition .

    Do you agree with this?

    thelēma

    1. what one wishes or has determined shall be done
      1. of the purpose of God to bless mankind through Christ

      2. of what God wishes to be done by us
        1. commands, precepts
    2. will, choice, inclination, desire, pleasure
     
  7. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    No one has even implied we can come to God on our owe. That is part of the error , to include the ability to act on desires.
    We cannot save ourselves as scripture plainly says. but we can realize our condition and WANT a solution. We may not know of Christ but desire a solution. Many seek the wrong solution to their desires. We that seek God get a solution.

    Isa 6:5
    Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

    Psa 14:2

    The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, andseek God.
     
  8. Alan Gross

    Alan Gross Well-Known Member

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    You Must Be Born Again.
     
  9. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    Why did you say this? Yes, we must be born again
    We have been given the power or exousia power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases,the power of authority (influence) and of right (privilege) to become sons of God

    Jhn 1:12
    But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
     
  10. Alan Gross

    Alan Gross Well-Known Member

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    You Must Be Born Again.

    I do not know of any evidence of your following degree and I do not beleive any evidence exists: "We have been given the power or exousia power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases,the power of authority (influence) and of right (privilege) to become sons of God"

    [Questioning salvation of fellow posted]

    A child of God will believe the Bible, when God Says, "gave he power" and gain the understanding that "as many as received him" & "them that believe on his name" are those who, first, Had the Switch Flicked when God Says, "gave he power", BEFORE THEY exhibited the evidence that God had given them the power, in the day of his power, AND WITH THE ENABLEMENT of THE HOLY SPIRIT REGENERATING THEIR SOUL, HIS CHOSEN CHILDREN "received him" & THEY THEN, AND THEN ONLY ARE THOSE "that believe on his name".

    JESUS SAID, "YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN".
     
    #130 Alan Gross, Dec 6, 2018
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 6, 2018
  11. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    not at all, saved to the uttermost a long time ago. My degrees are not in Bible. I was trained at the feet of good Baptist teachers.
    Are you referring to a verse?
     
    #131 loDebar, Dec 6, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2018
  12. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    I'm wondering when God gifted you with the ability to judge someone else's soul. Could you tell us when that was?
     
  13. Alan Gross

    Alan Gross Well-Known Member

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    Right now. The Calling to demand that a Spiritually dead sinner is Spiritual did not originate from God. Beginning with the premise that a lost Spiritually dead soul is 'Free' to chose something other than sin is purely the work of the flesh and an indication of never having Experienced Salvation. Water is as Free as a Bird to Flow right straight up Mount Everest and form an Icecycle pointing straight to God that is 800 feet long. Free as a Bird to FLY and run UPHILL all it desires. Fly Water, you're FREE. The hallucination dreamed up of 'a sinner who is spiritual' is as far from the Revelation of God as a dead person in a casket explaining to you the latest news, before they are buried. This philosophy is Godless, God-hating, and Anti-Christ. That is why a heretic that does not have the Spirit of God that would Make them Teachable is Commanded to be REJECTED. God Has Rejected them first and Brought the Judgment of God on them, to believe A LIE. They DO NOT Reject God's men, they have Rejected God. So be it. NOTHING IN THE BIBLE SUGGESTS THE FOLLOWING BLASPHEME, previously Decreed, Demanded, and Commanded from on high, in the Realm of Supernatural Evil, from the apostate enemy of God: "The natural man is not the same as a sinner who is spiritual and can choose to be saved.

    If a sinner cannot choose to repent, what is the point of Christ?

    You were a sinner that choose to repent to accept salvation. you could have chosen not too as the rich young ruler.
    If God makes he decision, for you it is not fee will, If God interferes in free will, then why did He make some choose sin?
    If He makes some to choose sin.then he is the cause of sin
    Truly you must see the result of the decisions in this error of thinking
     
  14. InTheLight

    InTheLight Well-Known Member
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    Of course you have scripture that says if someone is in error about free will they are not born again. Where is that found again?

    Maybe take a nap and settle down.

    Cage-stager, fer sure.

    God condemns people to bring himself glory. Got it.
     
    • Winner Winner x 1
  15. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    If a sinner can choose to be accept Christ there is free choice.
    If a sinner cannot freely choose, there is not free choice and , God chooses who can be saved, or not, The choice is God's,
     
  16. percho

    percho Well-Known Member
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    Before the foundation of the world, was man going to need to be born again?

    Was the first man Adam created needing to be born again? Was he created a living soul with his life being, being in his blood or was he created a spiritual being, with his life within himself?
     
  17. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    Are you copying and pasting ? try internal quoting. our words and position run together.
     
  18. Dave G

    Dave G Well-Known Member

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    No man realizes their condition before God without the Holy Spirit making him or her realize it ( Acts of the Apostles 2:37 ).
    But, to ask the question,
    "How does a person who hates Jesus Christ the light of the world ( John 3:19-20 ) change their mind and start to love Him?

    " We love him, because he first loved us." ( 1 John 4:19 ).

    There's only one reason a person who hates Jesus Christ comes to love Him.
    Because He first loved them.
    Cause ( God's love for His children ) -----------> Effect ( His children loving Him back ).

    No one I know of has come to Christ based on the premise that they desire a solution to address their sin problem...without the Holy Spirit being the cause of coming to that realization.
    Everyone I know, that truly loves the Lord, has come to Him because of something unexplainable, connected directly with their exposure to His word; not to a desire to know God or an emptiness because they've realized their sin condition first.

    Cause ( God drawing or calling through His word ) ------------> Effect ( a person responding in faith and repentance, confessing Christ as Saviour ).


    The Bible teaches that men love sin and darkness rather than light ( Romans 1:32, John 3:19 )
    The Bible teaches that no one seeks God ( Romans 3:10-12 ).
    The Bible teaches that no man comes to Him outside of God the Father drawing them ( John 6:44 )
    The Bible teaches that no man comes to Him ( believes on Christ ) outside of God doing the work ( John 6:29 ).
    In the end, the Bible teaches that salvation is entirely of God.

    I know of no one that has come to true faith in Christ, and exhibits the fruits of the Spirit, that does not know that their coming to Him was mysterious, from their end, and they then find out the how and why afterwards...
    That salvation is by grace through faith, not of their own efforts.

    No, we haven't.
    Those who "receive" Him do so because they are the recipients of God's work ( John 6:29 ), not because they do so of their own "volition".

    Again, free will that accomplishes a person's desire to escape Hell by coming to Christ is an illusion.
    One cannot come to Christ unless they are drawn, and all that are drawn will participate in the first resurrection ( John 6:44 ).

    So, if anyone does not come to Christ, it's because they were not drawn...not because their will "got in the way".

    God's will is more powerful, by far, than man's will.
    There is nothing in Scripture that says that man's will over-rides God's will....attempts at persuasive arguments notwithstanding.


    Here's the passage I believe you have referenced above:

    " He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
    12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name:
    13 which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
    ( John 1:11-13 )

    In verse 12, the word, "elabon" in the Greek means, " received" or "obtained"...not "gained" or "chosen".
    Subtle, but different.
    The difference is between something being given and received, and something being taken or acquired.

    "Exousian " in the Greek means "power" or "authority / right"...privilege, not power of choice or influence.

    " Genesthai " means "to-be-becoming", "be-granted", " to occur", " to take place / happen" or "come to pass"...not to go from one thing ( a child of the Devil ) to the other ( a child of God ).



    Finally, verse 13 tells us that man's will or his position in some bloodline ( like being a Jew, for example ) does not determine or "trigger" the process of being born again...God does.
     
    #138 Dave G, Dec 9, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2018
  19. Mr. Roy

    Mr. Roy New Member

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    I have been following this thread for a while and thought that it might be the time to add some comments. They are taken almost verbatim from the Baptist apologetic book "Circumcised By Water" (Christian Faith Publishing, 2018) While not directly addressing some of the finer points to the issue regarding salvation, it might serve to shed some light on the overall discussion. More importantly, it will affirm that "God is the true author of our faith, and man must play a completely passive role as the covenant works to save us." We may possess the inherent responsibility to exercise the faith that is given, but it remains a gift nonetheless - and not a choice.

    ".... Historically, there has been a great deal of spiritual angst concerning the relationship between God's sovereign rule and our freedom to choose the path we take in life. Some theologians (A.W. Pink, et al) think that they can be joined together, and are at pains to describe the place where they touch and meet. However, like a seesaw whose one end carries concrete implications for the other, it soon becomes obvious that it is virtually impossible to affirm both God's sovereignty and the innate responsibility of man without assigning diminished capacities to each. Especially as they are said to operate within the same realm.

    Therefore, it must be recognized that this view renders the full expression of each aspect fundamentally lacking in definition, for the moment the power of God is affirmed to any degree, the decision of man is diminished by the same extent. Only an approach that overlays one upon the other has the power to preserve the true essence of each, where the sovereignty of God and the free will of man are shielded from the inevitable degradation that occurs when they are brought into the same space.
    However, in order to define the interplay between them, we first need to set the position our natural-born freedom has in relation to the absolute rule of God.

    Objectively, we must humbly admit that pure human freewill is a fallacy, for if man ultimately has the power to act independent of God, we could conceivably counter any plan God may have, including His plan for our individual salvation. Paradoxically, man is not a puppet either, for we all possess a degree of autonomy in in acting upon any circumstance that confronts us. However, all God has to do in order to preserve both His sovereign rule and our ability to make a (subjective) free choice is to withhold aspects of the master plan from our minds. Here He acts in limiting our perception of time to the sequential, where events that are decreed remain hidden within the secret purposes of His will. This divine act of ommission allows the will of God to be seamlessly overlaid upon the responsible acts of each man as a created being. Hence our collective wills are ordered to take part and carry through with the eternal decrees (incl salvation) that God has set to occur in history, all without affecting our natural "freedom" to choose the paths we take in life.

    Accordingly, we all act in accordance with our own prerogatives in contribution to the unseen purposes of God's will, where His objective power in carrying through with the events of human history will always remain unhindered by the will of man to counter any aspect of the master plan. Forged together under the press of the present moment like a zipper that follows its course along the boundary of two patches of cloth, history is thus divinely made by the joining of His sovereign will to the actions of independent creatures whose minds operate unaware of the events that are predestined to come to pass."
     
  20. loDebar

    loDebar Well-Known Member

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    God draws all men, The Spirit calls all, but the decision to accept or deny Christ is entirely to an individual
    When we have the power to become the sons of God , it is not discussing the power to save oneself but access the power to redeem freely offered to all. By His authority He has given us the power to accept redeemption/
     
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