Free will?

[cjrose]

Free will is not a biblical doctrine. God restrains when He need to to accomplish His will.

Volition is the correct biblical doctrine. The ability to choose is not the same as free will.

Ge 20:4 But Abimelech had not come near her: and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation?

5 Said he not unto me, She is my sister? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother: in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.

6 And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.

God kept Abimelech from interfering with His plans even though he would have chosen.

LT

Free will be may not be biblical but as Christians we are convicted by the Holy Spirit and have the discernment to know what choice to make.

[lypse]

I hardly have to try very hard. There's no way of convincing me that your God is anymore real then Allah, Elegua, Loa, Zeus or Ares, just to name a FEW. Others feel the presence of a personal deity with their respected religions. This same argument can be presented to any religion that believes that their god is an omnimax deity.

Why? What was the White door leading to? She never said!

I'm not sure, but I think you were refering to me, so I think I should let you know that I'm a male.

[st. Worm]

I have free will because I know not what God foreknew of me! The reality is I don't know myself what I will choose. God gives me that right. He doesn't ordain my choice, but He knows what it is.

If he knew what it was and didn't act to change it then he ordained it. Free will is a myth since the Fall.

sw

[lypse]

I have free will because I know not what God foreknew of me! The reality is I don't know myself what I will choose. God gives me that right. He doesn't ordain my choice, but He knows what it is.

If he knew what it was and didn't act to change it then he ordained it. Free will is a myth since the Fall.

sw

if free will is a myth, then surely you're created for a purpose....correct?

[st. Worm]

"if free will is a myth, then surely you're created for a purpose....correct?"

Is this something you are getting from Rick Warren?? Man's purpose is certainly open to debate but it has little to do with the free will question and the effect of sin and the Fall on our will and its inclinations. An interesting answer to your question is found in the first question of the Westminster catechism. It says the purpose of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

sw

[GODchaser77]

First of all, it's impossible to fully understand God because He is God and his ways and thoughts are higher than ours. Second the Bible clearly says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. However, people perish everyday (both physically and spiritually). So that must mean that God's will is different from what He actually allows to happen. He may will (or want) something to happen but it may not happen. That doesn't mean He isn't all-powerful, that just means He allows it to happen (just like he will allow the Antichrist to take over the world, proclaim himself God, persecute the saints of the tribulation and the Jews). If God did everything that He willed then there would have been no sin, Lucifer would still be a holy angel, there would be no death, sickness, etc. Obviously not everything God will comes to pass. I'm pretty sure God doesn't want (or will) these things to happen but He does allow them to happen. Again we don't know why, but we won't always know because God is God. God's second type of will is His plan. He has a plan that can be changed or delayed, not by human ability to destroy His plan but because He waits for us to do or not do something before He will allow His plan to be done (alot like how God wanted the Israelites to inherit the Promised Land after the Exodus but because they continued to rebel and disobey Him, He delayed their blessing and made them wander in the wilderness for forty years). God's final type of will is His definite unchangeable will (the kind that we humans can't change or delay). This is the same kind of will that will cause all of the prophecied end-times events leading up to the millenial kingdom to take place. I believe that when Jesus told his disciples to pray "Thy will be done" the phrase carried multiple meanings. It meant the disciples should pray that they would conform to God's plan, but also that He would allow His wants to take place. I say all of this to say that humans do indeed have free will and we can either conform our wills to that of our Heavenly Father or we can go our own way and perish. God does already know which choice we will make but he still allows us to make the choice.

Edited August 21, 2006 by GODchaser77

[Guest charlye]

Free will? Of course we have free will. If we didn't we would all be robots because God would make the decisions for us.

God wants us, of our own volition, to turn to Him .. He doesn't force us to do anything!

[wouldhe]

It's not a contradictary argument.

God will let us have our free will, to a certain extent.

Take Salvation.

If he forced us, though all would Be saved (what a world!) it woulddn't b through love for him that we did it by.

It doesn't mean he doesn't know what we are going tod o or not do, it doesn't mean he can't STOP us (oh how fvery so untrue!) and it certainly doesn't mean he doesn't want to if we go down the wrong path!

I rest my case.

[Observer of dreams]

Care to refute this.....

The Two Doors

Imagine you are in a room with two doors, BLACK and WHITE, and you decide to leave the room. (1) Since God is all-knowing, he must know which door you will choose to exit the room BEFORE you make the decision. If he did not know this, then he would not be all-knowing, which is a logical CONTRADICTION. Suppose you end up choosing the BLACK door. (2) God knew you would choose the BLACK door before you chose it. (3) He even knew it before he CREATED you. (4) But if he knew you would choose BLACK before he created you, then God had the POWER to create you with a DIFFERENT nature so that you would have instead chosen the WHITE door. If God did not have this power, then God could not be all-powerful, which is a logical CONTRADICTION. (5) Since God had the power to create you to choose either the BLACK or the WHITE door, then God must have DECIDED to create you so that you would choose the BLACK door. If he did not make this decision, then he is not a purposeful god, which is a logical CONTRADICTION. (6) Since God CREATED you with the PURPOSE to choose the BLACK door, then you could not have chosen the WHITE door at all. If you could choose differently, then you would have the power to thwart God's purpose, which logically CONTRADICTS him being all-powerfull, all-knowing, and purposeful. (7) Therefore, there is only a SINGLE outcome: You will go through the BLACK door. (8 ) Since there is only a single outcome, then there could not have been any other outcome, and so there could not have been any FREE WILL CHOICE of more than one alternative. (9) Therefore, you did not have the free will to choose the WHITE door over the BLACK door, so this 'decision' was not actually one of free will, because God created you with the purpose to choose the BLACK door. (10) However, God also knew, before you were created, the outcome of EVERY decision you will ever make, and -- following this same argument -- his power and purposefulness mean that every decision has been fixed by God before you were created, and you do not have the power to thwart God's purpose, so (11) NONE of your 'decisions' are of the FREE WILL variety. If they were, then this would logically CONTRADICT the attributes of God. (12) But if none of your actions are based on free will, then the Christian concept of FREE WILL IS LOGICALLY CONTRADICTORY with the attributes of God.

???

If I see into the future and watch an apple fall from a tree did I make the apple fall? The answer is no, but I knew it would.

If I knew you were going to write this topic does that mean I made you write it? The answer is no, but I knew you would.

Imagine you are in a room with two doors, BLACK and WHITE, and you decide to leave the room. (1) Since God is all-knowing, he must know which door you will choose to exit the room BEFORE you make the decision.

If I look at a history book and learn about the American revolution and what actions George Washington took does that mean I made him perform those actions?

If you say no because George Washington already performed those actions. I say to you that it is us who have already performed OUR actions, and God knows us as if we were in the past just as you know mr. Washington was in the past.

[billie]

That's good, Observer....