Molinism

[childeye]

I blame the will of the flesh for sin. The one option that is missing amongst your choices. I've already answered this. What I have against freewill is that it does not esteem God as our Light. I blame the devil for this lie, that god is not trustworthy and men can choose a seperate path because they are their own independent beings.

The fact remains, Jesus gave his life so that sins can be forgiven, not so that people can be blamed...Therefore I can see from which way the Light is shining and therefore see which way is darkness. Forgiving is headed toward the Light, condemning is into the darkness.

God is my Savior and my King, he is my Lord and my Maker, He is my Redeemer and He is my light. He is the light I persevere to live by and emulate.

I have the free will to state this, and I have the free will to reject it. That I chose Him when he knocked was a matter of free will, free will He knew I would exercise before I was born.

I am not a robot. God does not do robots. Robots have no free will, robots only do....

Robots follow a set pattern of instructions, a set of laws if you will, and they are able to do this even in darkness.

Thing is, having no free will, they don't know the difference between freedom and just doing.........

I am not a robot. I have a family, a couple of dogs. I feel emotions, I cry, I laugh, I have a soul etc... I am a man no better no lesser than you and made from the same lump of clay. The difference between what you believe and I believe is that I see no choice but to serve God, I desire no choice but to serve God. All things began in a holy and pure of heart servitude to God because He was honored as trustworthy, not because we chose to... He is my Light and my Life, (my sentience). I lost that once in Adam and I got it back in Christ. I didn't choose the Christ, I believed in the Christ. Upon the revelation of him, I believed because the remnant of the Word of God in my heart recognized the Word come in the flesh. I therefore could not do otherwise. To consider that I have the option to reject God, is ignorance of God, vanity, and a lie of the devil. There is no I believe today but I may not believe tomorrow. Either God is trustworthy or He is not, there is no in between. The faithful do not do unfaithfulness.

I didn't choose the Christ, I believed in the Christ.

Ahhh...Free will at work then!

I don't see grace as freewill.

[OneLight]

Nevertheless, freewill is an accepted form of thinking all over the world. Most every person believes that they are in control of their actions whether they call it a gift from God or evolution. Most people do not stop to think of what it means to believe unto righteousness, and why the spirit of Christ is a necessity to have that righteousness that defeats sin. Everyone bases the necessity of believing on freewill for there to be responsibility. As if all hell will break loose and everyone overnight will start to murder, rape and steal without fear of punishment. Not so. For Love does not exist upon the fear of punishment. That is only one of the lies in the subconscience which belief in freewill brings with it.

Wow! I have no idea where you came up with this. It surely is not from anything I have said. Let’s keep is simple and not go into what people all over the word are thinking. We will never finish that discussion in our lifetime because peoples thought change as time goes on.

Allow me to show you what I am saying by using a bit of history to ask you a question.

You find yourself in Nazi Germany during WWII. You have been hiding the innocent Jewish community in secure areas of your house. There is a knock at the door. Opening the door, you are asked if you have any Jewish people in your house. You have a choice to not lie and give them up to certain death, or lie and keep them safe. Is it your choice or not to continue to hide them or give them over? I am not asking if you feel any direction from God in this matter. I am asking you if you have to make a choice.

[OneLight]

It is in fact the responsible thing to admit that we are helpless in overcoming sin without that righteousness that comes through the Faith that God is our Light. His righteousness causes us to walk in His ways and act more responsibly. We must cherish the Love that is God in us. You need only use the word "will" to establish that we make choices. But behind our moral choices are either powers of darkness or powers of Light and are by definition not freely made so long as ignorance of this exists. See the thousand demons cast out of the wild man into the pigs, who immediately all run off a cliff unto their deaths.

You almost agree with what I consider free will. Even if we do not understand all the powers that are at work behind the scene, and to be honest we never do, we still have the freedom to make a choice. They may be made while not have a full understanding, but never the less, they are made because of the freedom of having the ability to make a choice.

[childeye]

The process of sinning is through our free will as we chose to sin. Your understanding of what free will is not the correct understanding and that is what I have been spending days trying to show you. For some reason, you think having a free will diminishes God, it does not.

I understand what your intentions are. You have made it loud and clear. You do not want people to think it is okay to sin, particularly and especially in Christ. I have seen many forms and degrees of a moral freewill. Mostly they describe some gray area where God and sin become a man's prerogative to choose between. I acknowedge man's ability to reason but discard the idea that Love is at one's discretion.

There is still a little difference. Nothing of God is by our free will, nothing. Our free will is the ability to choose which road we travel down. Free will does not change anything God has for us, nor does it create. We are not robots or puppets where we are not able to decide for ourselves.

I don't like the term robots. In my view It is always a half true proposition. Robots as we know can decide for themselves. For example, The self learning computer program named Watson, that just beat the greatest champions in the game of Jeopardy. This computer does not however comprehend Love. It can describe what love does or would do, but it cannot feel. But yes, just like this robot, we can choose which road to go down and yet I would not say this robot has a freewill as pertains to morality. Also,all computer language is written in binary code, something is or is not, O's and 1's.

One more thing which I find quite revealing about the human will is something xero has said in a post on this thread. That is that the will is not only about making choices, but also inheritance. Hence scripture says this:

1 John 3:8-15

New International Version (NIV)

⁸ The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. ⁹ No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. ¹⁰ This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

[OneLight]

Morally speaking, the option to sin was never proposed by God. For when did God ever say, I have given you the ability to reject me and live? It was the devil that proposed we had a choice to disobey God and not die. Hence those who believe in freewill would include atheists and humanists and secularists. Never does it come into their minds that the devil is controlling them through deception, nor that the love in their hearts is God rather than their prerogative, because of their blindness of freewill.

Yes, they do include everyone who ever lived. Free will never guarantees one salvation, only the ability to make choices.

[OneLight]

Any references to what I have seen in you derived from your own words, what you have said in our conversations. Even when we do know the truth, we still sin. The choices we make are due to seeing through a glass darkly, since we are not perfect. To have a goal in this life to not sin is unrealistic, and God knows that already. We can refrain from the actions, but it is almost impossible to refrain from sinful thoughts. Our thoughts are where we filter the good from the bad.

I must agree that the temptor is ever present in the air, but not in my heart. So yes he is ever in my thoughts as I put him under my feet through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Hence I count a moral freewill one that is set free through the knowledge of God (The Holy Spirit of Truth which comes in the name of the Christ). I can even agree that I have a home while others are homeless and I am warm where others are cold, I am full where others are hungry. Therefore I am a sinner. But the walk in Christ does end vile passions as people walk in the spirit of a pure and understanding forgiveness, thankfulness, and charity.

Again, you are confusing direction with free will. The Holy Spirit guides us, yet we have to be willing to follow. We are in a relationship, which take two working together to be successful.

You also stated that because you have a home while others are homeless and are warm while others are cold makes you a sinner. This is not true and a lie from Hell. Satan is trying to make you feel guilty of His blessings. Don’t let that happen. The sin comes when He moves you to help another and you turn away, refusing to help.

[OneLight]

And yes we see through a glass darkly, so I do not see everything. But, it doesn't set people free to tell them they knowingly and wantonly sin because they simply choose to. For this means they simply could choose not to which undermines the Gospel. I feel that such teaching brings condemnation upon people when they struggle to not sin and only fail. They become convinced they must be no good and God becomes a terror of hell, so they leave the faith, though they never even truly experienced it.

Again, free will is the name given to the ability to choose. There is no need to add anything else to the definition of free will.

[OneLight]

Jesus was not saying we are sick sinners. Jesus was saying that those who believe they are right in Gods eyes are not the ones He is trying to reach, because they are self righteous, deaf and blind. Instead, He came for the lost who know they are lost. He was using the sick as an analogy.

I don't disagree entirely. But this I must say. That Paul speaks of the infirmity (weakness) of the flesh many times, and it is not an analogy. God has chosen the lowly things to put to not the High and Mighty things so that no man may boast, but only God be glorified. Peace.

To God is all the Glory given! There is a difference between what Jesus was saying and Paul. Nobody ever said they were the same.

[Fez]

I don't see grace as freewill.

Kindly explain your concept of Grace?

[childeye]

i only jest, childeye.

we are partly in agreement, because i don't believe i can even lift a finger to type this if not by His Divine Providence, but at the least, i am given the illusion of that liberty by which i will be judged.

the tares will be righteously punished because they willingly chose to be slaves to sin.

Interesting. Please expound.

sure, thank you for your interest in my views.

well, i believe i have already expressed this to you in other words... i don't believe my apparent free will is potent enough to cause any true change in this world, because the origin of the power made manifest through me is not mine.

my supposed will can be broken, as was proven to me upon being born again as a new creature through Christ Jesus.

i do not even own myself, for i was purchased at a price.

to assume i possess anything that i am not merely a steward of is folly. so in this sense, we are in agreement, partly.

but i am, at the least, given the illusion of that liberty upon this grand stage of Creation, wherein the wheat is separated from the chaff.

is it not within your purview to choose righteousness over wickedness?

as for my second statement, those who have formally rejected Jesus Christ in their hearts, have done so willfully and whether or not they are blinded to the Truth by deception is irrelevant.. because their blindness is by choice.

those who are slaves to sin knowing very well who their master is, willingly choose that slavery to the whims of their flesh, and are without excuse.

willing participants who happily exercise wickedness, and knowingly reject righteousness.

Adam and Eve were not cursed for their ignorance of the serpent's subtlety, they were cursed for their disobedience, and exiled from paradise. they failed their test.

those prudent enough to truthfully seek, love and worship the Lord Jesus Christ through all tests of patience, will surely find sufficient oil within their lamps in their weakest hour.

and the same are those who must be willing to assist the weaker brethren in their walk. Paul would have traded in his salvation for the salvation of another. that love is pure.

but those lacking in True love and faith will be exposed, and cast into outer darkness because God knows the wickedness that brews within the hearts of men, and He is Holy and Just.

it is the Father's will that all come to salvation and the knowledge of His Son, and His everlasting mercy is made manifest upon that Cross.

and so your promoting of forgiveness is justified, in that we are to approach all matters concerning each other in the same loving kindness our Father has displayed for us.

but i believe that willful disobedience must be appropriately defined.

we are all sinners, but we are all imparted the power to overcome sin by He who is All-Powerful, and so sin should be judged as what it exactly is. Sin.

love to you.

Thank you for this post. I now see better what is at the foundation of your reasoning on this matter. Essentially the difference between my view and yours is, you look at it as a test, and I look at it as a lesson. More on that, But first, I would like to address, this question.

is it not within your purview to choose righteousness over wickedness?

Yes, it is but not by my freewill, or independent intitiative, but by divine providence of God's Word in my heart mind and soul. There is nothing good in the flesh that would recognize righteousness. Nor would the word righteousness even mean the same thing to the carnal mind. And so it is that semantics will now become a problem. For what if I am yet carnal as Paul so aptly put it? And this is why I make the distinction between a test and a lesson wherein both terms intersect from two perspectives. So that the failures of a test given, become a lesson learned if indeed any progress is made towards that end. And here where progress is stymied is also where I see pride. Hence a fool (proud) despises correction, and the wise Love instruction.

So that brings me to the question of, what is behind this pride that despises correction? And I seek an answer so that I may learn a lesson. If I were to simply answer because I could, I have gained no insight. And so I note that the bible states that the children have the characteristics of their father. And these character traits are described in the moral paradigm as either to be born of God or born of the Devil. So I look to the devil to understand the foundation of the vanity in creation that usurps what is the energy of the Creator. And here I find that the devil is enamored with himself, not because he is made by God with many gifts and talents, but because he is unthankful, and therefore does not have the ability to understand what great gifts they are without being Lowly and without them. And this is revealed in how he shows disdain for those less gifted than himself. As if they could have been like him, if only they wanted to. Hence the scriptures show him in heaven accusing the brethren day and night with the idea that men sin because they simply want to in selfish servitude to themselves, rather than due to their weaknesses in being made of flesh which he cannot understand. Hence God chose the lowly and weak things to put to not the High and mighty things. Hence men will judge angels.

Consequently, the devil is in fact projecting his own vanity upon those under him unbeknownst to himself in a blind hypocrisy. He is enamored with the clothes God gave him and has forgotten his nakedness. This mindset would therefore reject correction simply because it thinks it needs none and is all knowing like unto God. But this is a lesson for all, so that we who have been chosen out of the lowly things should remember lest it happen to us.

Which brings me to this statement, Adam and Eve were not cursed for their ignorance of the serpent's subtlety, they were cursed for their disobedience, and exiled from paradise. they failed their test.

When Adam and Eve chose disobedience they accepted in their subconcious the same vanity inherent in Satan's false and subtle premise. Of course through the gift of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God and His Christ I can see this now. Therefore just as Adam and Eve were innocent, I too was vulnerable to this same premise which begets vanity prior to God's ecellent instruction through the Holy Spirit. So yes, Adam and Eve were not cursed for their ignorance which I think cannot be helped. For such vanity is inevitable in my estimation according to humility. They were cursed for their disobedience which was in fact, in the big picture, a blessing by which they could learn to be thankful for that which they originally took for granted. In all of this, I fail to see a freewill other than the one I described as a will set free by the knowledge of God. I have never discounted that we make choices or that we must willingly choose a direction in the moral paradigm, only that those choices are preceded or limited by an ignorance and knowledge of God. As a created being who has received some enlightenment in this matter only by God's grace, I see no avenue for blame without falling into the same vanity that began the whole ordeal.