Featured Question for Calvinists

It is by no means a "deflection." There is no such thing as "Free will" in the sense you are using it. You are intending to argue for a libertarian free will which is free from every influence, etc. That simply doesn't exist in any philosophical category or in any theological category.

Whether you are proceeding in the following manner, I don't know. But, the libertarian free will people say that man acts first and then God responds to man. Nothing can be further from the truth. God always acts first; man is always the responder.

Again, you're conflating two issues, seeking to use pre-Fall Adam as an example of our situation now. That is a deflection.

And, I might ask again: How else can a heart which is "desperately wicked" and an only-evil-continually-desiring heart choose God except God intervene and change that heart?

The Archangel

 

Your answer is to deflect again. And we both know we are not speaking of a "libertarian free will which is free from every influence, etc.". I cannot jump up into the air and stay there defying gravity or any such thing concerning the parameters God has placed in Creation. One cannot choose to receive the gospel unless God first draws them by the Holy Spirit.
Let me try to restate it simplified.....Did Adam have the freewill to choose death or life? If yes, then your charge against the non-cal over sovereignty is disingenuous.

 

Adam's pre-fall will was not tainted by sin. He did not possess a sin nature. He had a unique position that no human being born since his time (save Jesus Christ) can replicate. Once Adam sinned every person born inherits a sin nature. Our nature is fallen. We are captive to our nature. We cannot act different than our nature because we lack the ability to do so. It takes unilateral action by a sovereign God to give us the ability to choose Him.

 

Greetings brother! You may have missed the argument at hand. Arch is laying charge that if a person believes God is giving man a freewill choice, as Adam had before the fall, then that person is declaring God turning over His sovereignty or limiting it. So I point to Adam before the fall, when God gave Adam this freewill choice, did this limit God or take away God's sovereignty?? Arch refuses to acknowledge the double standard he is adhering to.

 

I understand what you are both saying. What I am saying is that God has never really given post-Adam mankind the same type of free will that Adam possessed. Of course, my understanding of free will proceeds from a very Reformed understanding of scripture. I think that is obvious to all.

Post-Adam, man's nature is fallen and his will held captive to that nature. When God rescues man from sin, and liberates his will, man's will is not free so that he may reject God; man's will is free so he can choose God.

 

Yes, we are clear about these differences between Cal and non. However the issue is over God's sovereignty pre-fall when God gives Adam the freewill to choose life or death. Do you have any insights to add to this issue? Does God giving Adam freewill to choose life and death take away from God's sovereignty?

 

No. God's sovereignty was not imperiled because Adam had free will, pre-fall. In fact, God was sovereign over the fact that Adam would choose to sin.

My question to you: how does Adam's free will, pre-fall impact your understanding of the human will today?

 

Thank you! I agree. So then we should not bring God's sovereignty into question from either pov. God is still sovereign even when He gave freewill to Adam, and IF He gives freewill to men after the fall. Sovereignty is not an issue and it is disingenuous to bring it up over and over in the debate.

I do not see Adam's spiritual death as a Total Inability to hear God or respond to God in a positive way. I conclude this from the scripture's revelations of how Adam still heard God, spoke with God, and responded to God after the fall. Also Cain as well sought God's approval with his sacrifice.

Furthermore, God had to block Adam from taking of the tree of life after the fall. According to TULIP teaching, Adam would no longer have any desire or ability to freely take of the tree of life and live after spiritually dying. There would be no need to block his path.

 

And this is why the debate continues, and has continued, since the time of Augustine and Pelagius. Both sides disagree as to their definition of God's sovereignty. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I get the feeling you consider it a minor issue. It's really not. It gets to the core of our entire theology.

 

By the way, it's mostly in venues like this, and seminaries, where this issue is debated. I know some people grow weary of the debate. They say things like, "It will never change anyone's mind, so what use is it?" Actually that's not true. Most Baptist Calvinists today were not always Calvinists. If they weren't always Calvinists, what caused them to change?

 

Now you are digressing back to making the issue God's Sovereignty. If it does not question God's sovereignty to give Adam freewill pre-fall, then it would not question God's sovereignty to give Adam and his race freewill after the fall, if it be so that is the case which is the debate, not sovereignty.

 

This is an excellent observation. Do we here of any Calvinist abandoning their view in favor of freewill?

From my pov, I see this as a warning sign. Folks do not start out as Calvinist. They need to be coerced with much outside influence, just praying and reading the scriptures does not produce Calvinist, they must be indoctrinated from others opinions and interpretations. I ahte to say this, but I believe God resist the doctrine of TULIP with them and then if they persist and persist, He simply turns them over to it and they cannot escape it lest maybe someone faithfully prays them out of it.

 

Steaver, I am not trying to be unkind, but your argument is not logical. It is progressive, but not logical. You are glossing over total depravity and total inability. If you truly understand Calvinism you know we believe the Bible clearly teaches both. The product of that belief is that God has not endued man with the same free will that Adam possessed pre-fall. All of this is rooted in God's sovereignty, which cannot be divorced from the debate.

 

Certainly, but that is comparing apples and oranges. Armianism is the dominant belief system in most churches today. Ergo, most new Christians start off as Arminians. There are exponentially less Calvinists becoming Arminians then vice versa.

Anecdotal and subjective, but not really an argument. I would tell you that I became a Calvinist after wrestling with the issue of God's sovereignty over a period of years. What was the catalyst of my change? The Word of God. I fought against Calvinism all the way. I did not go quietly.

 

Here is what you said, and I thought we agreed......"God's sovereignty was not imperiled because Adam had free will, pre-fall".

The argument is not over Sovereignty. It is over freewill. If God's sovereignty was not imperiled pre-fall by a freewill, then IF (IF is the debate) there is a freewill post-fall it cannot be said that it would then BE imperiled.

 

Well, if you agree that freewill pre-fall did not imperil God's Sovereignty, then Sovereignty is not the issue. Freewill post-fall is the issue.

 

I don't understand why you're not getting this. God's sovereignty impacts everything. God sovereignly pronounced the penalty of death on Adam, and his posterity, due to Adam's disobedience. This is where original sin came into being, which plagues every person. God's sovereignty is inexorably linked to His will of decree.

 

To put it another way, God sovereignly decreed that the soul that sins must die (Ezk. 18:20). You deny total depravity and total inability, but Calvinists believe that texts such as Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14; and Eph. 2:1 clearly teach both. The consequence is that man does not possess the same free will as Adam. All of this is within the scope of God's sovereignty by decreeing the penalty for sin; both to Adam and his posterity.

I am not asking you to agree with my conclusion, but to at least understand the biblical basis for my argument.

 

This I get and agree upon...THIS IS NOT THE ISSUE! :tongue3: I don't understand what you are not getting this.

This is about Calvinist declaring man having freewill would imperil God's sovereignty post-fall but NOT imperil God's sovereignty pre-fall. I don't know how to make it any clearer than this.
raying:

 

Let's revisit the issue of Adam pre-fall, because I think the discussion somehow got sidetracked.

First, did God create Adam with a free will? Yes. But to what extent did Adam have free will? Adam's free will was confined to his moral choices. He could not use his free will to exceed those choices. For instance, Adam could not freely choose to create a new species or a new galaxy. Those things would exceed Adam's ability since he was a finite human being with limited capabilities. Adam had what theologians refer to as moral free agency. Moral free agency allowed Adam to choose between obeying or disobeying God, without a predisposition towards sin.

Let me expand on the above paragraph a bit more. In his pre-fall state, here is how Adam's human nature would be defined:

Pre-Fall
able to sin, able not to sin.
posse peccare, posse non peccare. (Latin terminology)

This is the moral free agency I was referring to previously. All of this was within the sphere of God's sovereignty.

When Adam sinned, by disobeying God's command (Gen. 3:6), his human nature immediately changed. He was no longer a moral free agent. His nature was now organically altered, changed. This is what's referred to as The Fall. Adam now had a predisposition towards sin, whereas he did not have that predisposition previously. Post-fall here is what happened to Adam's human nature:

Post-Fall
not able not to sin.
non posse no peccare.

I believe scripture teaches that Adam was forgiven for his sin by God killing an animal to make clothes for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). This act of grace was not just to provide clothes. The killing of the animal is the first instance of blood being shed. This is a picture of Christ's eventual atonement for sin on the cross by the shedding of His blood. But prior to God killing the animal Adam could no longer choose to obey God. Adam lacked the ability to choose not to sin, because he was now in a state of sin. Therefore, no matter what he did, it was the product of sin. This is a hard thing for some Christians to accept. Is it a good thing to feed the hungry and provide shelter to the homeless? Certainly. Those things are beneficial to the hungry and homeless persons, as well as to society in general. But if they are not done in the Lord they are not considered a "good work" by the person doing them. Eph. 2:10 states that Christ saved us because "we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." God did not create unbelievers for good works, although He certainly uses all people for His sovereign purpose.

So, I've established that Adam was created as a moral free agent with the ability to either obey or disobey God. After Adam sinned he ceased to be a moral free agent. His nature was now fallen and he was pre-disposed towards sin. None of his works could please God because they proceeded forth from a person who was in a state sin. God, in His mercy and grace, forgave Adam for his sin, in Christ, through the shedding of an animal's blood, much like the later sacrificial system would accomplish.

Now that Adam was forgiven his nature would once again revert back to his pre-fall state in that he could choose to sin and choose not to sin. However, Adam's body and mind would continue to experience the results of sin. Adam would battle with sin for the rest of his life. Eventually he would die. Prior to The Fall, Adam did not have a predisposition towards sin. Once he sinned he had a predisposition towards sin. Paul eloquently writes about this internal conflict in Romans 7. Paul states in Rom. 7:21, "I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good." So, we see that even a forgiven sinner, a Christian, will fight a battle against temptation and sin for the remainder of their life. They will have final victory when they enter the presence of the Lord.

But back to the person who is in a state of sin. Do they have the same type of free will (moral free agency) that Adam possessed? I believe the overwhelming evidence of scripture answers that question in the negative. In fact, we see the answer to the question right in the creation narrative of Genesis 2:

Genesis 2:16, 17 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

The Lord God did not warn Adam that if he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would merely become sick or impaired. The Hebrew word for die (mûṯ) means physical death. But in Adam's case mûṯ meant more than just physical death. Adam was driven from the garden because he was now sinful. The garden represented the holiness of God, and Adam could no longer remain there. Adam's fall was complete and total in regards to his human nature. It was only restored in its ability to choose between sin and righteousness by God shedding the blood of an animal to atone for Adam's sin.

Today sinners are in the same condition as Adam before God atoned for his sin. Sinners are "strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:13). The human race, closer to Adam's time than ours, was described this way by God:

Genesis 6:5 Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

We do not read of sinful man exercising his free will to believe in God. Indeed, God decided to rescue only Noah's immediately family, leaving the rest of mankind to perish. Sin begets death, so God was justified in His actions.

Those of the Arminian or Semi-Pelagian persuasion dismiss Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14; and Eph. 2:1 as scriptural evidence that man is not only totally fallen, but totally unable to exercise faith in God without God first making man able to do so. But it is not just the New Testament that teaches this, it is also the Old Testament as revealed in The Fall narrative.

So, back to free will. The unregenerate sinner does not posses free will. He possesses an enslaved will; a will under bondage. Even the good that the sinner does is considered sinful because it proceeds forth from a sinful nature. The sinner is no different than a pig that rolls in the mud. You can give the pig a bath and send it to obedience school, but once it goes back in the sty it will roll in the mud. Why? It's the pig's nature. The sinner can do nothing else than sin because he is a sinner. Left to his own devices he would never seek God. He does not possess the freedom of the will unless someone changes the status quo. That someone is the Lord God Almighty.