Freewill Dilemma

According to Luke 23:42-43 I have proven to you that God allows man to have a 'free will.' Ken, you have merely run to another rock to hide under by giving Daniel 4:35 as a weak defense as to God choosing some for Heaven and Hell. We do not deny the sovereignty to God in human history, but His plan at the Cross was to make possible salvation for every living human being. [Titus 2:11]

Let me guess that you will also deny man's ability to accept the Lord Jehovah under the Old Covenant system also. The Psalmist David said in Psalm 86:5 'For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto ALL those who call upon Thee.' God while speaking through David indicates His sovereign will in reaching out to all of the lost.

According to Calvinism's careless interpretation of Scripture, apparently, His mercy is only toward His chosen elect ones, rather than as He says, that ' . . . He is geared to forgive; and copious in mercy to all those who will hail on His saving reality and being.'

Brother Ken you are incorrect in you portrayal of God's love and justice. While Arminians agree that God is sovereign, we also believe in the 'free will of the human agent, in eternal matters of final destination. Calivinism pushes sovereignty to the extreme and falls into the error of totally rejecting 'Free will' making human beings not responsible for their sins. They cannot be chargeable for their actions if it were true that God controls all rational and mortal choices in matters of eternal salvation. With human beings not having a 'free will' you have hypothetically made God the Author of sin, because He prompts them to sin repeatedly until they end up in Hell. Thank God this view is not true.

Try to deal with the Scripture and concepts that I have explained rather than running scared. Let's deal with the issues.

 

No. Which means Jesus had a human will which was different from the divine will. This human will had to be voluntarily submitted to the divine will as a matter of human free will.

Nor do I think it was a matter of undergoing the physical torture, although His flesh would indeed shrink from that. I think there was something much, much more going on. Look at the words on the Cross. Hint: read the opening line of Psalm 22.

 

Ray,

What in the world are you talking about?

You said, "You suggested that 'God is almighty and He is the only one who can say what He will not do. Man could not and cannot limit his Creator.'

Your argument is plausible but it is not found on or backed by Scripture. And since Christians demand this you view is extra-Biblical."

I quoted from the book of Daniel to prove to you that the Bible does indeed say that man cannot hinder God.

I don't why you got off into all of that other stuff.

 

Of course, God has free will. Also, Jesus, as a human, did not have a sin nature. So as a human, as well as God, He had/has free will.

 

That doesn't wash, Ken. All men have free will. God is big enough for that.

 

Then the first post of this thread is proven to be "solved" since the mechanism "God knowing all things" does not prevent free will.

God the Father knowing all things about Christ - the Savior did not prevent Christ from having "free will" as much as we might want to argue "He could not do anything but What the Father KNEW He would do".

Calvinism often argue that the mere fact that "God Knows" prevents free will. But that would have also prevented Christ HIMSELF from having free will. The case of Christ SHOWS that the "mechanism" of foreknowledge IS NOT a sufficient argument to void free will.

The "solution" is in discovering that the reasonings of men under calvinism does not "equal God" - God is apparently ABLE to establish free will IN the context of ALSO having perfect forknowledge. Christ's case proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt.


In Christ,

Bob

 

Absolutely. But man isn't.

 

Ken the Spurgeonite,

With all due respect you again are not dealing with my thoughts or the Scriptures that I am using. I acknowledged the verse that you used and admitted that God is sovereign in His world.

Calvinists believe in Sovereignty but not free will; people who are more Arminian or moderately Calvinistic most often admit both free will and God's rule in His world and universe.

The other 'stuff' that you spoke about deals with the reality of man's free will and God's unbias ed love for every human being. Note: Psalm 86:5. 'For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto ALL those who call on Thee.'

 

I am glad we agree.

 

Ken, it is a real insult to God to admit that I am sovereign enough as a mother to offer my children free choices and not lose control of the situation, but that God is not sovereign enough over us to allow us free choices and not lose control!

There is no way I could insult God that way. The Bible says "Choose." Choices are there for each and every man alive. The Bible says God so loved the world. There are lots more people in the world than Calvinists! The Bible says rain falls on all the ground. The Bible says God is not willing that one should perish. The Bible says if we seek we will find. The Bible says all who look to Him will be saved.

Calvinism finds ways to reinterpret all of these verses.

I'll stick with the Bible.

 

1) God did give man free will and man blew it in the Fall in the Garden of Eden. We are now dealing with the ramifications of the fall. None of us are in the same position as Adam when it comes to free will. Agreed?

2)Me, too.

 

You know I don't agree with your conclusions. You are assigning God the role of monster with your interpretation.

We -- again -- have been given the choice of accepting or rejecting the truth we are shown in our own lives. If we accept, and if we want more truth, we will get it. And God will lead us to Christ, who IS The Truth.

We have choices. And those choices are freely offered and have eternal consequences. No one is condemned by virtue of the nature he was born with. Any person who ends up in hell will be there because he or she rejected the truth freely and willingly. Any person who ends up in heaven will be there because he or she accepted the work of Christ on his or her behalf and looked to God Himself for salvation.

It is not a 'work' to understand your own filth when God presents it to you and then ask Him for help. You can refuse that view of yourself and make excuses for yourself, or you can accept your current state of sinfulness and think you can improve yourself, or you can accept your current state of sinfulness and look to God for rescue. The first two options involve enormous amounts of futile work. It was Jesus, however, who reached out with infinite compassion, saying, "Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." It is that choice, and that choice only which does NOT involve works on the part of the person. It only involves saying "yes."

To accept is not a work. It is to acknowledge, instead, that Christ's work is enough and to depend on it. God does not want any to perish, Peter tells us, and so Christ's work is sufficient for all. The call to faith has gone out to every man alive from God Himself.

To accept or reject is the choice they each must make.

God knows, but He does not force. Free will was given to all of us, starting with Adam, and God's gifts are without repentance.

 

1)Absolutely.

2)Absolutely.

 

It's not so much what we lost, as the negative thing we gained. It is the very 'gain' spoken of by Satan -- the knowledge of evil. And with that knowledge came what I have often thought of as a sort of 'spiritual mutation' (please take that in the light that it is given!) which changed the condition of the heart from what I presume was Adam's desire to please God to the permanent tendency toward that evil (Genesis 8:21).

Adam and Eve already knew the good. They walked with God. It was the evil they did not know and found out about. The allegory to this which has come down through the ages is Pandora's Box. One little disobedience unleashed in the world all the pain and misery and suffering we see around us today.

But God never took back that precious freedom we have to say yes to Him, submitting to death and rebirth spiritually.

 

We are not saying that God took it back. We are saying that the Bible teaches that man lost it.

Obviously, since we do not have the same diagnosis of the "disease", we will not have the identical remedy.

May God have mercy on us all.

 

We lost it? Then why did Moses and Joshua command the people to choose? Why does God ask the sinner to reason with Him? Why did Jesus mourn over Jerusalem?

And why the consistent appeals in the Bible to our understanding of justice, mercy, and love if our concepts of these are so contrary to the nature of God?

If words are to mean anything, Calvinism goes against the nature of God as it is revealed in the Bible.

=========

edit: and how can you say "God have mercy on us all" when you clearly don't mean all? As a Calvinist, you must logically say something along the lines of "God have mercy on whom He will have mercy -- and I'm sorry for the rest of you!"

 

It is not God's fault that we lost free will when we sinned in the Garden of Eden. Man is not relieved of his responsibility because he sinned.

From: www.founders.org/FJ24/sidebar2.html

Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, & Arminianism:

Issues Shaping Our Identity as Southern Baptists

It might be beneficial to distinguish Calvinism from hyper-Calvinism because the two are often confused. (Indeed some writers and teachers confuse them so often and so willingly that one must wonder if the practice is intentional.) In one sense, hyper-Calvinism, like Arminianism, is a rationalistic perversion of true Calvinism. Whereas Arminianism destroys the sovereignty of God, hyper-Calvinism destroys the responsbility of man. The irony is that both Arminianism and hyper-Calvinism start from the same, erroneous rationalistic presupposition: Man's ability and responsibility are coextensive. That is, they must match up exactly or else it is irrational. If a man is to be held responsible for something, then he must have the ability to do it. On the other hand, if a man does not have the ability to perform it, he cannot be obligated to do it.

The Arminian looks at this premise and says, "Agreed! We know that all men are held responsible to repent and believe [which is true, according to the Bible]; therefore we must conclude that all men have the ability in themselves to repent and believe [which is false, according to the Bible]." Thus, Arminians teach that unconverted people have within themselves the spiritual ability to repent and believe.

The hyper-Calvinist takes the same premise (that man's ability and responsibility are coextensive) and says, "Agreed! We know that, in and of themselves, all men are without spiritual ability to repent and believe [which is true, according to the Bible]; therefore we must conclude that unconverted people are not under obligation to repent and believe the gospel [which is false, according to the Bible]."

In contrast to both of these, the Calvinist looks at the premise and says, "Wrong! While it looks reasonable, it is not biblical. The Bible teaches both that fallen man is without spiritual ability and that he is obligated to repent and believe. Only by the powerful, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is man given the ability to fulfuill his duty to repent and believe." And though this may seem unreasonable to rationalistic minds, there is no contradiction, and it is precisely the position the Bible teaches.

Why are these things so important to our discussion? Baptists have been confronted with these theological issues throughout their history. The Arminianism--Calvinism--Hyper-Calvinism debate has played a decisive role in shaping our identity as Baptists, and particularly our identity as Southern Baptists.

--Tom Ascol, "From the Protestant Reformation to the Southern Baptist Convention: What Hath Geneva to Do with Nashville?"

May God have mercy on us all.

 

To think that anyone is judged due to a condition he was born with, cannot help, and cannot do anything about, is to present God as a monster. I'm sorry, but that is what Calvinism is doing.

Christ did something about our condition. What a man chooses to do with Christ is what he will be judged on, all the rhetoric of hundreds of theolgians aside. For that is what the Bible says.

 

1) Your Arminianism is no different as a solution to the problem you perceive. All people are not on an equal playing field and most people have the odds greatly, greatly stacked against them through their environment in addition to being born as sinners, as you surely know.

2)Jesus is not standing in the dock for man to judge. Jesus is the Judge, not man.

May God have mercy on us all.