Our Freewills

[Marnie]

I think we have been through this Marnie. The "good" that unbelievers do is good only in our eyes, civil righteousness. It is not good to God. Bill Gates and Ted Turner give millions to charity but God is not impressed.

Sorry to bore you. My point is...good is good regardless of who does it; a saint or a sinner. And yes, I am referring to righteous acts done in the flesh as those are the only ones we can see. We both agree G-d is not impressed with those acts, so let's stop that particular spitting contest, shall we?

Also, sound doctrine that is from Scripture is not really "man-made" as you say. The idea of man's depravity and sin is straight from the Bible and was taught by the great men of the Church including, Augustine, Luther and Calvin.

TULIP is an invention of Calvin and his followers. I have looked high and low and cannot find TULIP as Calvin expressed it in the Bible. I believe, since there are Scriptures that prove both Calvinism and Arminianism, the truth is in the middle; that both extremes are to be avoided. I know, free thinking is frowned upon here, but what can I say? I am just a rebel with a mind and am able to think critically. I respect the works of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Zwingly, and all the early Church Fathers and Reformers, but I have never once seen their works quoted in the Bible.

There is a view by some Christians who are extremists in a strange form of fundamentalism that says if something is not word for word out of the Bible then its not biblical. Heretics who reject the Trinity see Scripture that way. I hope that is not what you are advocating.

No, while "trinity" as a word is not found in the Bible, the concept is implicit from Genesis to Revelation. I guess I am one of those nasty fundalmentalists who believes if it isn't in the Bible then it is man-made. That is not to suggest all of man's ideas are bad. In fact, it might surprise you to know I was one of the writer's of our church's constitution and bylaws. However, the teachings of the Word must always take primacy over man's ideas. So, in a way I am advocating the notion that "if it's not in the Bible, it's not Biblical." But don't misquote me; many things "not in the Bible" are good and helpful. You know, things like the car, the radio, you know, things like that.

Doctrine is what we believe the Bible to say.

By definition, "doctrine" is simply a systematic, logical apologetic for what you believe.

Obviously there is sound doctrine and bad doctrine but you can't just reject that which you disagree with by dismissing it as "mad made".

I do not dismiss all "man made" doctines, only the ones I disagree with. There is no law that says only a Calvinist will go to heaven or that all right-minded Christians believe what a particular segment of the Church teaches. Christianity is not a matter of man's opinion nor is it institutionalized. I have no war with those who esteem TULIP, nor do I think less of those who lean towards an Arminian concept of salvation. If asked, I will offer my opinion and defend what I believe to be true. I do not believe the Lord has given me or Calvin or anybody special revelations to understand Scripture. I believe the Bible is what it is: G-d's revealed Word to His children, written for all men to understand.

SW

[Smalcald]

SW,

In the ability to choose the bad, you simply mean that we do indeed have the power (or free will if you choose) to reject the grace offered, but do NOT have the power to call down God's grace, the power to choose to be saved, correct?

I believe in Christ as my Lord and Savior because of the Holy Spirit, not because I was somehow more likely to believe by any act of my own prior to God sending the Holy Spirit into my life, thus I have nothing to brag about at all, I am no better than the worst sinner.

[EricH]

For an excellent treatment on David's census and the "G-d/Satan" controversy, I would direct you an issue 10 of Trinity Journal, an article by John Sailhamer entitled "A Case For Inter-biblical Interpretation." At this point in Jewish theology, they did not have fully developed doctrine of a personal devil. The word "satan" used in the Chronicles passage simply means "the adversary." It wasn't until much later that Jewish thought and theology realized the existance of a personal devil. That is why both good and bad were attributed to G-d. Now, that is not to say that G-d did not send plagues and various judgments, for we know that He did. So, one could argue that being out of G-d's will, He was now David's adversdary.

Again, you really have not adressed the issues I raised here. I sat in Dr Sailhammer's classes while at Trinity and am familiar with his arguments (I have read that article). They are not without detractors (even at the school itself when he was there) and raised much controversy. There were other professors there who disagreed stringly with many of his positions regarding the text and how we interpret it.

Your logic is this:

1. Historical studies tell us the doctrine of Satan was not fully developed in Jewish thought at the time of the writing of.

2. The author of the passage in question was Jewish.

3. Therefore it could not possibly be a reference to Satan, because a Jew writing at this time would not have understood who Satan was

That is just not solid logic. Your case would be stronger, if all we had was the knowledge of that author to work from. But we have more than that. God inspired the text. God was aware of the existence of Satan at this time. The hebrew word Satan can mean advesary. But it does not always mean that. If as you say we are free to use the NT to help us understand parts of the OT that are less clear, we understand the adversary is Satan.

In my view you are guilty of what D.A. Carson in Exegetical Fallacies called uncontolled historical reconstruction. It is an attempt to read history and backgounds into the text in an uncontrolled way.

Jewish thought and culture (Hebraism) must of necessity be taken into consideration when achieving a balanced interpreation of the OT. It cannot be understood apart from it.

It is true that the cultures and backgrounds of the writers do play an important part in the understanding of the text. Where I see you missapplying this is that you want to limit the meaning to that which the author could have known by living in the culture in which he or she lived. The issue with this approach is that it limits them from receiving new revelations directly from God. If the meaning of a text is limited to that which the author could have known by living as a Jew in the time of David, prophecies of future events would be impossible.

Cultural considerations can help us understand figures of speech and back grounds, but they do not play a part in telling us what was possible in terms of God revealing truth to the writer.

Further, one must also understand that the NT sheds much light on difficult passages. In the case of Pharaoh's hard heart, we are told that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all in 1 John 1:5. James also says, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.(James 1:17). If we believe G-d cannot act outside His essential Nature, which is perfect, then to insinuate that He would cause someone's heart to harden is unthinkable.

First of all 1 John 1:5 and James 1:17 do not address the concept of predestination directly (or the pharaoh passages). You are connecting them on the principle that somehow the doctrine of predestination violates the character of God that these passages address. Namely that:

1. God is light (without sin)

2. That God is the giver of all good gifts

Predestination does not violate either of these passages. The fact that God is light means that there is no sin in him. Classic predestination hilds that while evil falls under God's sovereignty (as everything must or He would not be sovereign), he is not the responsible moral agent.

In terms of the James passage it seems to me you have defined good using your own definitions them imposed that on God. For God to harden Pharaoh does not violate in any way God's eternal nature. Romans 8 teaches us that God causes all things (including the bad) to work out for the good. We see from the story that pharaoh's hardening did work out for the good. So James was not violated

Your observation about the James passage is quite correct; it is about temptation and not predestination. My point in raising it was that the Lord, by sheer force of His will, does not cause a person to give into the temptation, He simply knows whether or not he will. To be otherwise makes G-d into a jester, a cruel Being who holds out a temptation with no possibility that the poor sucker being tempted can resist! My G-d is not given to fraternity pranks like that.

I don't see how where you are landing is any better. If God knows who has strength to resist and who doesn't, and allows those whom He knows will not resist to experience it anyway, that seems to me to be just as cruel. If I knew in advance someone was going to fall off a cliff and allowed them to proceed just to preserve their freedom that is questionable as well.

The problem with these kinds of analogies is that we are reading onto God our understanding of freedom. We do not understand all of His purposes. All we know is what the text says. It says that He hardened pharaoh. We have 2 choices:

1. Believe the text

2. Attempt to explain it away

Your last point about Moses misquoting G-d is funny. Of course he didn't misquote the Lord. I believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture; it is not in error. It is, however, a book steeped in Jewish culture, especially the OT. It was written by the Jews, in this case Moses, and it follows that G-d would communicate in such a way as His people would understand.

So your position is that God, in order to communicate to his people in a way they would understand, intentionally stated something about Himself that was not true. Thats not funny, it is sad.

[Marnie]

Eric,

As usual you have totally taken my comments the wrong way. I am through with the spitting contest. You're Bible is bigger than mine, I concede that. I do not have to win an argument to maintain my beliefs. I deal with testosterone-filled writers all the time in my business, and there is no way of winning. By an act of my freewill...I willingly refrain from looking at this thread any further as I am predestined to blow my top, but not lose my salvation.

[st. Worm]

Smalcald wrote:

SW,

In the ability to choose the bad, you simply mean that we do indeed have the power (or free will if you choose) to reject the grace offered, but do NOT have the power to call down God's grace, the power to choose to be saved, correct?

I believe in Christ as my Lord and Savior because of the Holy Spirit, not because I was somehow more likely to believe by any act of my own prior to God sending the Holy Spirit into my life, thus I have nothing to brag about at all, I am no better than the worst sinner.

SW responds:

Hi there Smalcald. Of course, the unregenerate ALWAYS rejects the grace offered and always sins. But even the regenerate as our Confessions state can reject grace. Free will as those like Marnie portray it is of course a myth. If we think our free will has saved us and that we are saved because we were smart enough or religious enough or clever enough to make the right choice, then we indeed think too highly of ourselves. Lutherans and even Calvinists know the truth about total depravity and call a thing what it is.

In summation those who are saved are saved by God's grace and those who are condemned are condemned by their sin.

SW

[Openly Curious]

'EricH'

I don't see how where you are landing is any better. If God knows who has strength to resist and who doesn't, and allows those whom He knows will not resist to experience it anyway, that seems to me to be just as cruel. If I knew in advance someone was going to fall off a cliff and allowed them to proceed just to preserve their freedom that is questionable as well.

OC

This analogy is I dunnnnoo crazy maybe in my mind when I try to process it and break it on down. I see that you are comparing yourself to God if you yourself had foreknowledge of an event that was going to happen before it actually did happen. So in this regards I'll give my thoughts. If you did have foreknowledge someone was going to slip or fall off a cliff and just let them fall without any intervention on your part even when you knew it was going to happen. How in the world can you say you are preserving anything especially their freedom when you left them to just fall? It really had nothing to do with their freedom in which to preserve. It had to do with saving the person life that was falling off the cliff plain and simple.

No different with God he will let you jump off the cliff if you so desire freewill is more powerful than we think it is. God don't want us to jump off cliffs and he has put his people in places so that he can intervene in the affairs of men so those who want to jump off cliffs can get saved but it not so God can preserve their freedom. It don't need to be preserved it is our soul that need to be preserved should we fall off cliff. Freewill was given by God to choose willingly what we want in life same way as in our country soldiers sacrifice to give us those freedoms of choice. So I can see God sent his son jesus to get us out of our prison so we can be free once again and not a captive. I beginning to see it is my freewill that need to be chained to Him.

OC

Eric

The problem with these kinds of analogies is that we are reading onto God our understanding of freedom. We do not understand all of His purposes. All we know is what the text says. It says that He hardened pharaoh. We have 2 choices:

1. Believe the text

2. Attempt to explain it away

OC

I think freedom is liberty and not freewill two different things.

Text say that He hardened pharaoh yes it does say that I don't deny it. But their are those in the world who at the very thought of God get hard. Their are those in the world just as Pharoah who was an idol worshipper that detested God and was hard to God. It is in this way I believe text is speaking God hardened Pharoah. Their are some people on the other side of the coin who are not hardened when it comes to God God soften these hearts Moses was the man in story. Well I guess I just did #2 on that one. I beginning to see to let God soften me at heart is good thing now.

[st. Worm]

Open Curious says:

Hasn't God dealt to everyman a measure of faith sinners and saints alike I don't think anyone can be drawn of God if it wasn't for that fact alone we simply wouldn't be drawn or respond to God. I don't even think I could have been saved on my own but God give me a measure of faith to act upon the salvation message that the preacher was preaching. And at the preaching of the word my little measure of faith as a sinner grew as I was listening and started to believe that even I could be saved and my "freewill" lead me to altar

SW says;

Sorry OC, but for someone who is openly curious and wanting to learn what the Bible says you are failing terribly and instead of responding you are merely spewing out the old Pelagian heresy. What you just said has absolutely no Scriptural basis. You can't let go of the idea that you played some part in your salvation. Those who are saved versus those who aren't is not based on the amount of faith they have (small versus large) but on whether they have faith or not at all. What God does he does for His own glory and not ours. Give him His due and give Him thanks. Your salvation is 100% based on the work of Christ and your faith is 100% a gift from God. "... not of yourselves, but a gift from God." Amen.

SW

[Openly Curious]

SW

Sorry OC, but for someone who is openly curious and wanting to learn what the Bible says you are failing terribly and instead of responding you are merely spewing out the old Pelagian heresy. What you just said has absolutely no Scriptural basis.

OC

my scriptural basis is Romans 12:3 "according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith" for these are my father's words and I believe them. If you think me a heretic so be it for I think things also. I think as a teacher you may be falling terribly in winning a student but now I think you lost one for good.

SW

You can't let go of the idea that you played some part in your salvation.

OC

No I will never let go of that idea for I know of a certainty one day I said yes and I confessed my sins and I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. Yes I did that of my own freewill. If that makes me a heretic so be it. But the change that came within was all God's doing for He made me a new creature.

SW

Those who are saved versus those who aren't is not based on the amount of faith they have (small versus large) but on whether they have faith or not at all.

OC

I never said it was based on the "amount" of faith they have I just said everybody has faith in which to act upon or not act upon it no different than our childlike faith growing up unless you want to deny we had that faith in us growing up.

SW

Your salvation is 100% based on the work of Christ and your faith is 100% a gift from God. "... not of yourselves, but a gift from God." Amen.

OC

I see it as my salvation is the free gift of God in which I accepted by an act of my freewill God's grace is also a gift from God bestowed upon my life as a result of choosing christ as saviour I could never change myself and make myself a new creature in christ that took God and I give God the glory all I could do was simply "Come"

[EricH]

Eric,

As usual you have totally taken my comments the wrong way. I am through with the spitting contest. You're Bible is bigger than mine, I concede that. I do not have to win an argument to maintain my beliefs. I deal with testosterone-filled writers all the time in my business, and there is no way of winning. By an act of my freewill...I willingly refrain from looking at this thread any further as I am predestined to blow my top, but not lose my salvation.

Hmmm. If you did not want to have a discussion about this, why did you post in the first place? The statement regarding testosterone is just an attempt to avoid having to discuss the issues. It is a logical fallacy called "poisoning the well" (if you can degrade the opponent personally you have no need to address their points because people already look down on them for your personal attack).

I was more than willing to hear what you had to say and respond with my take. I expected you to do the same. I find I learn more in these types of discussions because I am interacting with a person who holds an opposite view. Pbviously we both feel we have a handle on the truth. I am not accusing you of arrogance. I understand you believe strongly. But I do disagree with you and will feel free to show you where. Please do me the same consideration. Just because I disagree with you does not mean I am filled with testosterone. It means I believe just as strongly as you do. The trick is to discuss our difference civily

[EricH]

St Worm, are you one that believes in the heresey that God predestined certain people to be saved before the foundation of the earth, and others to be lost? I haven't been a part of this thread, so it is quite possible I may have taken you wrong? I am just trying to figure out how far you are taking the idea that we have no part in our salvation?

John,

Genuine believers aree on both sides of this issue. Please refrain from accusations of heresey for doctrines that are considered to be in the realm of orthodoxy. Argue points from scripture. If your argument is not strong enough to stand without the labels, it is not strong. I am speaking in the moderator mode here