rxhe01

This concept is really really hard for me to accept and understand when I first heard it, actually I am still struggling with it. In fact, I think this whole predestination and free will thing is beyond our human logic and understanding, because we can not see the future, and we are not eternal, we live in a space and time, God is beyond that. Therefore this is just one of the many things we dont have the capability of fully grasping base on our own knowledge. Therefore we must trust God and his words, and as many posters in this thread have quoted scriptures that FULLY support the fact God has chosen his people before everything started. There are also scriptures that supports that we make our own choices to follow him or not. There are also scriptures that clearly states salvation is offered to everyone who choose to believe in Jesus Christ. You can't just choose to believe in part of the Bible and choose to ignore the parts you dont understand. Well you can ignore it if you can't understand it, but you cant deny it's facts. Again, I might be going really philosophical here, but I think this topic involves a lot of deep thinking to even make a bit of sense out of it. When you said "Those that are saved have no choice." Again you are not thinking clearly about the definition of a choice? What is a choice and free will? I think I explained it in my lost post. But I will try to state the main point again, free will is to choose the choices that are presented to you base on your own knowledge, experience and etc. Once you have discover God, you will want to lose that free will and let him make the decision for you. Even though God has chosen you to enter heaven, in the end you still choose to follow him. This does not conflict at all. Yes in human term, it wouldnt make sense, because for example if I choose to marry someone, the other person might say yes or no. Why? because I am not God. I am not perfect. Once God has shown you the glory and grace, you basically cant say no. Not that he mind control or made u into a robot. But because God is so great. And Once God has chosen someone, he is not going to do a halfass job about it. He will eventually influence you into the path of salvation and holiness. His glory and grace will simply NOT fail. "#2 Those who are not saved have no chance." Yes, that sucks, actually for me, I wish that EVERYONE would be saved, but I am not God, it is not up to me to decide. And without Jesus coming down to earth, everyone would be in hell anyways, the fact that some of us will be saved has shown the mercy and grace of God already. And we can not focus on this, because we dont not know who is chosen or not, as far as we know, we are suppose to live on this earth and grow spiritually and become more like Jesus and then preach the word of God to EVERYONE and go with the mentally that you will try to save every soul that you can with the guidance of the holy spirit.

what influence you to choose these things? who guided you into the path of salvation? Control, the word doesnt not mean making a choice, just because you make a choice doesnt means you have control over the choice you make. ex: A teenager was peer pressured into doing drugs, does it mean he has a lot of self-control over the situation even tho ultimately he made the decision with his own judgement. I think control in this context means the ability to make a wise choice. And as human being, because of our sinful nature, we are NOT able to make wise decision, we are BLIND and LOST without God's guidance. The choice you make that are based on your own knowledge and instinct is like a blind man trying to walk on the street by himself. A blind man cannot cross the street with pit holes everywhere on the ground(temptations and sins) But with God's guidance, you can see, and even when you are getting suck into the pit hole sometimes, God will always pull you out. Sinners that cant see will not even realize they are blind, because they have always been like this. God choose to make you see and guide you toward his kingdom, therefore you choose to follow him. If it wasnt because of God, you would have been still blind and be controlled by sins. And please dont tell me that some people that can see will be willing to jump down a pithole than to go to the kingdom of Heaven that is clearly visable ahead of him. Because when God's grace is upon you and you see his glory, there is no way you can turn your back to him. If you could, then that would mean God's glory and grace is limited.

I think people that are leaning toward the fact that we obtain salvation solely because of our own free will and "wise" choices to follow him is really not understanding the definition of free will. Think about it. " I think ''free will'' means we have the ability to choose between the choices given to us. However that doesnt mean the choices given to us will be always equal, sometimes one choice will seem a lot more appealing than the other. And as human being we will ALWAYS choose the choice that is more appealing to us. Our "free will" is more like a scale, a bunch of choices will be given to us, and we will weigh them with our personal scale (depends on ur own knowledge, experience, point of view, etc) and then we make the choice base on these. " If you dont agree with this, please explain how my logic failed. Now think about your own knowledge and wisdom, is it really great? Now compare it to God's wisdom. yah, thats right, we are blind and stupid compare to him, therefore He will ultimately makes the decision on who will obtain salvation, not us the blind ppl. Do you really want to believe that you just happen to bump into God with your blindness or he intended it to happen? It has to be one way or the other, you cant say God intended to save some ppl, and yet they are not saved because of their own blindness, because that will not happen, since God will be able to make them see(show them his glory), and as soon as they see, they will follow him. Our free will is basically a scale to measure what is most benefit for us to choose, but it is a broken scale, since we are stupid and blind. Therefore when we believe in God, we actually dump that free will and follow him and let him make the decision for us.

I am really confused here again, haha. I think the core to this debate is that if God does choose the people that are going to be saved, what makes those people so special? Or are we just lucky. God just rolled the dice and randomly choose a bunch? Pretty sure it is not randomness or luck, there is a probably a prefect reason, but i dont think anyone knows right now except God. And also the word "free will" always gets throw around in religious debate, but seriously this term is so vague and useless sometimes to the topic we are discussing. I dont know why we use it so much, like seriously what does it mean when u say someone has free will? Does he mean he can do whatever he wants? No one can do whatever they want. I want to fly in the air with wings, can I? I think ''free will'' means we have the ability to choose between the choices given to us. However that doesnt mean the choices given to us will be always equal, sometimes one choice will seem a lot more appealing than the other. And as human being we will ALWAYS choose the choice that is more appealing to us. Our "free will" is more like a scale, a bunch of choices will be given to us, and we will weigh them with our personal scale (depends on ur own knowledge, experience, point of view, etc) and then we make the choice base on these. Therefore without God's grace, the scale will never tip toward him, because our sinful nature cause us to be blind to his goodness.

hey guys, reading and thinking about this whole topic has been making my head spin in circle. and make me come back to this predestination vs free will thing. I am not sure if I am right, but basically predestination is God has already chosen the people that is going to be saved and accept his grace. He chose us first, and then we are able to choose him. It is also not possible for anyone that is chosen by God or have their name written in the book of life to not be saved (this part really really contradict with the free will). But free will does exist because we were given the choice, just that without God's grace, we will end up in hell given our sinful nature, but with God's grace it is so strong and beautiful anyone who is blessed with it will want to follow God. Is this correct?