God's sovereignty and choice

[Guest shiloh357]

What this amounts to is the issue of God's sovereignty vs. man's free will to choose.  Adam was given the choice to obey or disobey.  What Adam was not given, was a right to choose without having to face the consequences of disobedience.

It is in the consequences of disobedience to God's commandments that we see the sovereignty of God highlighted.  God always presented man with the command to obey and also the consequences for disobedience.   God promised blessing for obedience and judgment for disobedience.

The same applies to us today.  God is going to judge the nations.  Many nations including, the US, are already under His judgment because we have decided to do what is right in our own eyes, and the result of that will be catastrophic. We still have a period of time to repent and turn back to God and live according to His ways and his laws.  But there is no way to know how long that period of time will remain open.

God is patiently calling us back to Himself, as people as a nation.   The door of grace is still open. There is still time to repent  But as long as we demand our "rights"  to live as we please and make our choices, our cup of iniquity only gets fuller.  The day when the door will shut is coming and only God knows what day that will be.  The door will shut, but not because God has run out of patience; but because man has run out of time.

[nebula]

7 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

What this amounts to is the issue of God's sovereignty vs. man's free will to choose. 

True, but this puts and different perspective on it.

Basically, if choice is taken away, where is free-will allowed?

If there were no "bad Tree", there would be no choice.

At what point do you legislate away the ability to choose? 

His point was that legislation in God's way should punish that which directly causes physical harm to another, but not the ability to choose something that could lead to such (referring to the case about alcohol vs. drunk driving I mentioned in a previous response).

[Guest shiloh357]

2 minutes ago, nebula said:

True, but this puts and different perspective on it.

Basically, if choice is taken away, where is free-will allowed?

If there were no "bad Tree", there would be no choice.

At what point do you legislate away the ability to choose? 

His point was that legislation in God's way should punish that which directly causes physical harm to another, but not the ability to choose something that could lead to such (referring to the case about alcohol vs. drunk driving I mentioned in a previous response).

I don't have the legal right to murder anyone.   I don't have the legal right to walk into someone's house and steal their stuff.  

Laws don't take away your ability to freely choose to murder.  But it takes away your right to do so  in that you have to face the awful consequences of your action.   A "right" implies what you can do without facing legal reprisal for doing it.   Making something illegal doesn't take away my ability do that which is illegal.  It punishes me for imposing my immoral actions on another person.  

 

 

[nebula]

3 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

I don't have the legal right to murder anyone.   I don't have the legal right to walk into someone's house and steal their stuff.  

That agrees with the point that was made.

 

Quote

Laws don't take away your ability to freely choose to murder.  But it takes away your right to do so  in that you have to face the awful consequences of your action.   A "right" implies what you can do without facing legal reprisal for doing it.   Making something illegal doesn't take away my ability do that which is illegal.  It punishes me for imposing my immoral actions on another person. 

Let me try it this way.

The law legislates action but not the objects used to do the action. 

[Guest shiloh357]

13 minutes ago, nebula said:

Let me try it this way.

The law legislates action but not the objects used to do the action. 

I can buy that.

[Running Gator]

1 hour ago, nebula said:

Can you name one choice for evil that doesn't harm another down the road?

A example he gave in his explanation was as such:

God allows people the freedom to drink alcohol and to get drunk, and government should not make laws against such. But, the government should make laws against you then driving in your drunken state because you can injure and/or kill people that way.

So, by "hurt" or "harm", he was meaning directly physically injuring or killing someone.

If indirect or down the road hurt was included, then alcohol should be made illegal because alcoholism does hurt other people beyond the person.

 

Putting another twist on it - guns harm people. Should the choice of gun ownership be taken away to all because of this? It's the same principle.

This is basically the argument I used for marijuana not being illegal.  Personal liberty should be a main priority when making any law

[nebula]

33 minutes ago, Out of the Shadows said:

This is basically the argument I used for marijuana not being illegal.  Personal liberty should be a main priority when making any law

It is things like this that the teaching got me thinking on.

But at the same time, articles such as this highlight to me why I had problems with the concept of legalizing it to begin with (including many consequences that hadn't even crossed my radar):

http://www.newsweek.com/unexpected-side-effects-legalizing-weed-339931

[Flsnookman]

So since God knows the end from the beginning and thus already knows what choices we will ever make, does that negate free will? I have heard many say the script is already written, we need simply act it out.  But if that is not the case then decisions yet to be made could not be known as we could decide either way. Again, the problems we run into when we try and put God into a box we can understand.

[Running Gator]

2 minutes ago, nebula said:

It is things like this that the teaching got me thinking on.

But at the same time, articles such as this highlight to me why I had problems with the concept of legalizing it to begin with:

http://www.newsweek.com/unexpected-side-effects-legalizing-weed-339931

As with all new things, there is are growing pains that will work themselves out with time.

[nebula]

24 minutes ago, Out of the Shadows said:

As with all new things, there is are growing pains that will work themselves out with time.

I wonder about that!

The agricultural industry stuff - that's a whole can of worms in and of itself.