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You begin by saying, if your heart is right you will generally make god choices.
I think what we call the heart is really a part of the brain. Our brain of course is what is thinking and responding to the senses and ideas and input. We are the sum total of everything in our brains.
there was a guy who never in his life had any desire of pediphilia. Then he got a brain tumour that was pressing on a part f his brain and he developed this horrible obsession. The rumour was removed. His pedophilia feelings vanished. We would say he was a victim of his brain. We wouldn’t blame him. The growth returned ad so did he unhealthy thoughts.
a similar story of a man who was never violent but one day found himself with a gun shooting people. He left a note and asked that they examine his brain. He just felt something was wrong with it. Again, a tumour. He was right.
we are victims of biology. Some of us are born with ADHD. We didn’t choose that. And so we will struggle with focus and perhaps won’t be able to sit still. We might not do as good in life and struggle to keep up. Another person might be born with great genes into a family where everything just seems to go right. Still another, born with the genes for bipolar. He is prone to delusions and seeing far to far into things that aren’t there. He struggles with life. He didn’t choose his genes. He didn’t choose his parents. He also didn’t choose the programming put in his brain from childhood.
there’s a scripture that says god draws whom he wants to him. Well does he draw those that already have god hearts. How did they get good hearts. What of the bipolar man who doesn’t have a good job and gets very manic and angry at people and drinks heavily to deal with the pain. Will get draw him since his heart is so good? We are victims of circumstance. We are victims of biology and genes. We didn’t choose our parents. We don’t choose our wants.
if as you say you are capable of choosing good, I would argue you are ONLY capable of choosing what you choose. Seriously, could you choose otherwise right now? No. It’s simply not available to you. And for someone on the other side it’s equally not available for them to choose the things that never arise in consciousness for them to choose. In the same way you couldn’t choose a city you’ve never heard of or choose Allah to worship because you don’t have countless “Allah” connections built into your brain, you can only “choose” that which available for you to “choose.” There is no freedom in that. It’s like a person telling a homosexual to be straight and then the homosexual says, “okay, now you “choose” to be gay for one minute.” You can’t do it. And nor can he.
I like the driving analogy. But I believe we are always on what you call autopilot. You are simply not free to turn into traffic. That “choice” isn’t there for you. You can only “choose” to stay in the lines and do exactly as has been put in your head and not otherwise.
someone with a very different brain chemistry who is suicidal can make that “choice”. But when they make the choice to turn into traffic, they aren’t making a choice. They are doing exactly as you would do if you had their exact brain. There would be no way for you to do any different if you had their brain in that moment.
“Free will just means when you need to make a decision you can”
I already gave this example but if you had to make the decision to come up with any city, to me that seems like there can’t be a freer choice. And yet when we look, it’s hard to find the freedom. Out f the millions of cities only a few arose in consciousness. You weren’t aware of the process in your unconscious brain selecting these cities or promoting them into consciousness. You had no conscious control over it. Some cities just popped into consciousness. Like “Vancouver…Chicago….London.” And you know the names of hundreds of cities probably but your brain only promoted a couple for you. Then you went to “deciding.” Or perhaps coin flipping.
I thin this is a key point. You might “choose” Vancouver” and you might have a story to tell about why you seemingly chose Vancouver. But that story will almost certainly be fabricated on the spot. After the fact. And perhaps you come up with a reason like: I was just in Chicago so I’ll say Vancouver. But why didn’t your brain think: I was just in Chicago so I’ll say Chicago? You can’t account for it.here, a very simple “decision” that you need to make: pick a city. But even this to me doesn’t seem to be free will. And if we can’t find it here in this very simple example, I’m not sure we can find it anywhere.
Hi David,
You said:
You can’t control the strengths or objects of your desires. It’s they that control you.
Sure you can control the strengths or objects of your desires but you might have to go through a detox of some kind or counseling, along with replacing bad habits with good habits with the help of the LORD. Otherwise, the verse instructing us to take every thought captive would be useless.
1 Cor 10: 5 …we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ
You can choose to feed your desires or say no to your desires. If that were not true, men would be having all sorts of affairs instead of choosing to say no to the lustful desires that can be triggered so easily. The more you choose to say no to your desires, the easier it gets, imo. We are not victims of our flesh, we can die to our flesh, with God’s help in fact we are commanded to do so.
LU
Probably all the brain david, but the head is analytical thinking and the heart being the place of feeling. Fo you feel in your heart?
Saying there isn’t free will is a farce. I chose God with my own will. It was a sense of doing right vs sinning which felt good. Both were compelling. Have you not heard that God increases his Spirit to strengthen us when evil rises up. It’s so we have a fighting chance.
So if both are compelling then why choose one over the other. Depends on the state of your heart. You will do that which you love the most. It shows your heart. Don’t tell me there is no free will. If you deny truth you are a fool because reality happens right. Just not instantly. Be wise and you will make good decisions. God will not let you be overwhelmed to the point you have no ability to choose. That is an excuse for those that love sin more than God.
Proclaimer. …..go back and reread what you just wrote, you say God will not “let you” chose what’s not right , Where is FREE “WILL” IN THAT?
A WILL IS THE PRODUCT OF A DECISION YOU HAVE MADE , AND THAT DECISION IS BASED ON WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOU MIND, EXACTLY AS DAVID SAID. . We are all held “captive” By what’s going on in our minds. That is exactly what “causes us to will” if the Spirit of God is working in us it “CAUSES” US TO WILL” AS THE FATHER AND JESUS AND THE OTHER SAIN’T DO. HAVEN’T YOU READ, ….”for it is God that “WORKS” in you , BOTH TO “WILL” and do of “HIS” good pleasure”.
And again “can I not do with you as this potter does the clay, says the eternal God”. “ALL” WILL’S ARE “CAUSED”, by what going on in the mind, that’s what holds every man in captivity.
your false teachings steal glory from God, and apply it to the person themselves , you teach you are your own savior, and do it by you own so-called “freewill” thinking, You couldn’t be more further from the truth then that.
“for we are saved by grace and that ,”not of” “ourselves” , it is a gift “from” God.
Jesus even said , we can not even go to him unless “the Father draw you” our salvation is a predetermined salvation of God, we do not “freewill” ourselves into salvation, this applies to us all except those who think they control there lives their own, so-called, “freewill’s”,
Jer 10 : 23. ……”O LORD, I Know that the way of man is not “IN” himself” ; it is not “in” man that walks to direct his steps”. SO if it is not “in” him to “direct” his steps, what makes him think his own “freewill” can , makes his “own right choices.
pro 16: 25……“there is a way, that “seems right”, unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death”
Freewill, is an OXYMORON, because none exists, freedom to excerise our “captivated” will’s does exist .
Just as David brought out. For some, it ends tragically, but none the less what happens to a man is what he is posses by, and what he is possesed by, is what is going on in his mind.
Jesus came to set the “captives” free. all are held “captive” by what going on in their minds.
Peace and love to you and yours. ……….gene
Proclaimer. ….You did not choose God by your own “will” , scripture says “no one chose him” , no not one, he chose you by “his” own will, you simply are a recipient of his grace, love and mercy. we all are.
Peace and love to you and yours. ……….gene
God chooses and man chooses, OBVIOUSLY.
14Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; cast aside the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15But if it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then CHOOSE FOR YOURSELVES THIS DAY WHOM YOU WILL SERVE, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!” 16The people replied, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!…
I like the driving analogy. But I believe we are always on what you call autopilot. You are simply not free to turn into traffic. That “choice” isn’t there for you.
You are free to do that. Hopefully you aren’t that stupid though.
Proclaimer. …..go back and reread what you just wrote, you say God will not “let you” chose what’s not right , Where is FREE “WILL” IN THAT?
Gene. I think you are out of your depth again. Quote exactly what I said or give me the post number so I can correct you again.
Proclaimer. ….You did not choose God by your own “will” , scripture says “no one chose him” , no not one, he chose you by “his” own will, you simply are a recipient of his grace, love and mercy. we all are.
Out of your depth again I see.
God chooses and we choose to respond. Like a man chooses a woman but then the woman chooses the man or not. That is how love works.
When you chose your wife, did she not have any say in the matter?
What about you David. I’ll assume you are married for now.
Did you choose your wife? Did she in turn choose you in return? Or was it just a matter of two robots forming a relationship by following a program?
Proclaimer. …..“for “all” That is in the world, the “lust” of the eyes , and “lust” of the flesh , and pride of life , are from the world, and the world is passing away and the “lust” with it”.
Many confuse lust for love , but the love of God works completely different then the love of the world,
The love of the world is just another word for “lust”, to get! , the love of God works though sorrow and is giving and forgiving. or haven’t you ever read this,
2 Co 7: 10……For godly “sorrow” , works repentance , to salvation, not to be repented of:, but sorrow of the world works death.
There is a difference between the love of the world and the love of God. The word love does mean a desire for, in either case, but one type of desire is for the good of self , while the other is for the the good of the other person! sometime that takes a long time to truly develop in a marriage, and sometime it never does.
Peace and love to you and yours. ……….gene
So did yoy choose your wife and she choose you?
According to you the answer is no. You both were not free to choose each other.
A world without love is not a world that God endorses Gene.
Gene, you demonstrate free will by teaching the opposite to many precious truths in scripture.
You choose the opposite, but you are free to change and embrace truth too, even if you do not realise it.
No excuses.
Proclaimer. ……Did that post just fly over your head? go back and reread it and this time please think about it, and the scriptures I quoted.
Peace and love to you and yours. ………gene
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