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The plan of salvation was there before the cosmos came into being. God who is the creator of life and worlds, gave certain living creatures free will in order to allow them to love him in return. If there was no free will, then there would be no genuine love for God, because any semblance of love without free will would be simply obeying a command. It would be a mere robotic response. As the saying goes:
“if you love someone, set them free; if they come back to you, it was meant to be.”
But free will comes with risk. Creatures with free will have the ability to reject God and go their own way. It would be logical to assume that within eternity, there would at least be one world that would fall. So God allowed it to happen when it did, but he let it be a witness to angels and a great cloud of witnesses to see the wisdom of such a thing. Of course, it not only led to evil, sin, misery and an increasing lack of love, but it ultimately lead to death. Now that this has happen, God who is love offered a way for this world to be redeemed. He gave each one of us the right to become sons of God, despite our sin. Here is what we know when we read the Bible:
- Jesus Christ the Lamb of God died for our sins.
- There is a Book of Life.
- It is called The Lamb’s Book of Life.
- It has names written in it.
- They were written in it before the foundation of the world.
- Christ was foreordained to be a sacrifice before the foundation of the world.
- This sinful world however has a silver lining.
- It offers opportunities through suffering to attain certain wisdom that you would not get in a perfect world. And even the son of God himself learned obedience by suffering in this world.
- Further, concerning the mystery of Christ, even angels long to look into these things.
When I have left this world, I hope the wisdom I have learned through suffering in this sinful body and world will make me a better soul. To be a wiser person and more appreciative of good things.
If you never saw a world fall, then with vain imaginations, you could think about the freedom to do whatever you want when you become your own God. The reality is quite horrific though. Because all good things come from God, when you reject God you reject goodness, love, life, and wisdom. What you get in return is the opposite or lack of these things. Death, hate, evil, foolishness, etc. And the argument about enjoying sin in hell is wrong too. You cannot enjoy anything without God as joy comes from God. In short, you will fade away without sustenance from God.
In the end, there will be those who are taken out of this world to become sons of God. And there will be those who will fall with this world and will become like chaff to be blown away in the wind of history. Surely witnessing this will put to bed any vain idea that rejecting God and going your own way could be a good idea.
Proclaimer….Freewiller’s are their own God. They actually believe their “own” choices saves them. But they can’t explain how or why it says , the chosen were saved before they were ever born. (From the foundations of the world), were does that fit into a “freewill” existence they, “think” they live in?
Tell us how that works in your so-called “freeway” world you think you live in?
I believe we are being “created ” unto good worked” and again, “He” (God ) worked in us “Both” to “WILL” and do good works.
Scripture makes God the cause of both Choice and works, you on the other hand make you own will. Free of influences the cause of , of a self choice salvation through your own “freewill choices”, Completely form to what the Bible teaches.
“FREEWILL ” is a “OXYMORON ” , no such thing exists.
peace and love to you and yours……….gene
Why are you trying to convince me of stance in free will if free will doesnt exist?
Deep down you must believe it exists. How else do you explain trying to convince me, because I can only choose to believe you if I have the freedom to choose.
Lol. This is the oxymoron.
Proclaimer……”ALL” Will’s are “caused” , by what is “influencing ” them the most, Nothing “FREE” about it. You getting a freedom God gives us to exercise our “influenced” Will’s , mixed up with the Will’s themselves being “free’, themselves.
Again Proclaimer there exists no such thing as any WILL being “Free” itself. The term “freewill” is a “OXYMORON “, Because no such thing exists.
peace and love to you and yours Proclaimer………gene
Proclaimer….Freewiller’s are their own God. They actually believe their “own” choices saves them.
This is misinformation. Salvation is a gift. Like all gifts, you need to receive it. To receive something or reject it means you need the ability to choose. Without free will, there is no choice and by extension, no love.
God is love. This is why he has bestowed free will.
You would hate it if your belief was true. Who wants to exist if there is no love. How would you feel if you didn’t obtain eternal life because you did something that you didn’t yourself choose.
You would be the first to complain if you were right. Lol.
Proclaimer……”ALL” Will’s are “caused” , by what is “influencing ” them the most,
What influences you the most is purely determined by the state of your own heart. A pure heart has different priorities to a polluted heart.
Gene, don’t complain if you are right and you do not make it. This would be in line with your own teaching.
The truth however is God will show you what choices you made that gave you that outcome.
But your doctrine means the blame lies squarely at the feet of God and no one else because all his will.
In reality, God’s will is none should perish. But some will perish because other wills are at play besides his own.
A Case Against Free Will ?
Traditionally, “Free Will” is one of those things that is supposed to separate human beings from everything else in the universe. Human beings have free will, it is said, and nothing else does (except, perhaps, for God).
Morality: It is often assumed that the possession of free will is a necessary condition for moral evaluation. Nonhuman animals do not have free will, it is said, and this is why it is meaningless to speak of their actions as being “right” or “wrong”. But, human beings can freely choose their actions, and so are subject to moral evaluation.
The Problem of Evil: As we have seen, free will is a popular (and incomplete) response to the Problem of Evil. Why would a benevolent god allow evil to exist? Because God gave human beings free will, and the exercise of free will in finite, imperfect beings inevitably leads to evil.
Robots: The notion of free will is also invoked to challenge the idea that a robot or computer can truly be said to make decisions: Computers are just automatons that slavishly follow instructions…their decisions are made for them by their programs.
Free will is said to be extremely valuable. Many people would say that life would not be worth living without it. So…what exactly is free will?
Roughly, having free will is a matter of having control over one’s actions. This seems to imply that free will requires that our actions are not determined by outside forces.
Fatalism and Determinism
Are there facts about the future?Consider the proposition that the Yankees will win the World Series next year. No one knows for certain whether this proposition is true. But, in general, whether something is true doesn’t depend on whether anyone knows it. Fatalism is the idea that the proposition about the Yankees–as well as every other proposition about the past, present and future—has already been settled. There is a fact of the matter—right now—as to whether the Yankees will go all the way next year. Of course, we won’t know what that fact is until next year, but it has already been settled and nothing that is going to happen is going to change it.
If Fatalism is true, then it would seem that free will does not exist. After all, if all facts about the world (including past, present and future) had already been settled before we were born, then it is hard to see how we could have any control over our actions.
Ancient theologians considered this problem in the context of God’s omniscience:
The Argument From God’s Foreknowledge
1) Because God knows everything, they argued, God knows everything that will happen in the future.2) But then God must know every action that we will take.
3) If that is the case, then there is nothing that we can do differently (if we were to do something differently, that that would contradict the idea that God knew what we were going to do).
4) In other words, our every action and choice has already been settled in advance.
5) Therefore, we have no free will.
While the argument above assumes the existence of an omniscient God, Fatalism leads trouble for free will regardless of whether God is in the picture. (Instead of formulating the problem in terms of God knowing the future, we can formulate it in terms of there being facts about the future).
Naturally, people are inclined to deny Fatalism. “The future is not set”, people say. But Fatalism is supported by a closely related doctrine:
Determinism
“To say that a system is deterministic means that everything that happens within it is the result of prior causes, and that once the causes occur the effects must inevitably follow, given the surrounding circumstances and the Laws of Nature.” (PP, p. 102)While fatalism says that the future is settled, determinism tells us why it is settled. The future is settled because it has been determined by causes that will bring it about.
Examples of deterministic systems:
· A billiard table (or, for that matter, any system that can be described by Newtonian physics)
· A computer (or any other predictable machine)
Are there examples of non-deterministic systems? Certainly, there are things that we can’t predict, such as the weather (although meteorologists have gotten better at this). But does this mean:
A. The weather is not a deterministic system.
OR
B. We simply don’t have enough information about the causes of weather and the exact initial conditions to enable us to accurately predict future weather.
?
In general, determinism doesn’t entail predictability.
The Argument from Sufficient Reason
1) Take some arbitrary event, E.2) If E had no cause sufficient to bring it about, then it wouldn’t have happened.
3) But E did happen.
4) Therefore, E had a cause sufficient to bring it about.
5) Since E is arbitrary, we may safely conclude that all events have causes sufficient to bring them about.
6) It follows that all of our actions are caused by prior events.
7) It also follows that the prior events leading to our actions were caused by other prior events, and so on…
8) Therefore, everything we do is the result of causal chains extending backward in time long before we were born.
9) Therefore, everything we do is caused by forces over which we have no control
10) If our actions are caused by forces over which we have no control, we do not
- _
11) Therefore, we never act freely.
In addition to general philosophical arguments, we can consider various theories and evidence regarding what causes human actions.
Genetic Determinism
Genetic determinism is the idea that our genetic makeup determines all of the important facts about ourselves: Not just what we look like, but also our personalities, our talents and shortcomings, virtues and vices, and so on. People are disturbed by genetic determinism for a couple of reasons. First, it would mean that a person’s life will be largely determined by his or her genes, and there is little the person (or anyone else) can do about it. This doesn’t appear to leave much room for free will. Second, people find it hard to reconcile genetic determinism with the idea that “all men are created equal”. Moreover, there is the worry that it will lead to people being treated differently depending on their genetic make-up, regardless of how the person has actually behaved. For example, if a person is believed to have genes that will make him prone to violent behavior, then it might be suggested that the person be carefully monitored by the authorities and given mind-altering drugs that suppress violent tendencies. We normally think that such measures would be justified only if the person had already committed violent crimes; it offends our sense of fairness to treat an innocent person this way. Yet, if genetic determinism were true, then wouldn’t it be foolish to pretend otherwise? Suppose that you believed in genetic determinism and you were hiring a babysitter. And suppose that an applicant has genes that you believe lead to violent behavior. Would you hire this person?….link https://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/intro/free%20will.htm#:~:text=1)%20Because%20God%20knows%20everything,action%20that%20we%20will%20take.&text=4)%20In%20other%20words%2C%20our,we%20have%20no%20free%20will.
Proclaimer…..you said, “Your doctrine says that the blame lies plainly at the feet of God” .
Exactly right, everything does lie at the feet of God, and God the Father takes responsibility for “it ALL”.
Are you so nieve that you think God could not have prevented mankind from falling in the first place if he wanted to?Tell me Proclaimer, why did God offer up Jesus “HIS” lamb offering, for, the sins of the whole world, if he wasn’t taking responsibility for the sin of the whole world then?
Do you actually believe he didn’t know from the very beginning that mankind would sin and do evil. Do you ACTUALLY think that was not part of God the Fathers overall plan in the beginning, when he made mankind, with that kind of propensity that he put in them, that MANKIND would not do it?
Proclaimer……. your “free”-willed, choices unto Salvation from “self”, doctrine, only produces pride and arrogance. Everything falls at the feet of God the Father, and he takes credit for it “ALL” to, both good and evil.
We are being “CREATED ” unto good work, and that “CREATION” is of God the Father, “Alone”, “ALL” the Glory goes to him and him alone. IMOpeace and love you and yours Proclaimer………gene
Hi, ……God created Adam and Eve with free will and to the extent that the use of that free will was in the right direction, continually their lives would have been more and more wonderful and happy and the tree of the knowledge of good. and evil and the temptations of Satan would have been eliminated as well as Satan himself.
ThinkingExactly right, everything does lie at the feet of God, and God the Father takes responsibility for “it ALL”.
Rubbish.
You will be judged for things that you have done and the choices you have made for good or bad.
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.
But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.
It really is amazing how many verses you ignore gene on this and many other matters. You do not seem to believe the scriptures because you teach against them.
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