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Hi t8,
I greatly appreciate your answer, it is definitely revealing as to how you view God. Interesting how you have made comparison of God carrying out His plan to how men carry out their plans, where specifics could be established later.
With men, their specifics to carry out their plan can go wrong, even fail, and they have to think up new specifics, where in the end there’s no guarantee that their ultimate goal will even be reached. Now do you believe this is also true with God, seeing how it is that you have already compared Him with man?
t8, is man foolish because of ignorance? Are people easily influenced, gullible, easily deceived?
I greatly appreciate your answer, it is definitely revealing as to how you view God. Interesting how you have made comparison of God carrying out His plan to how men carry out their plans, where specifics could be established later.
Men are made in the image of God. Men do things similar to God, but obviously not at his scale or expertise.
For example men love their partners and children. The Bridegroom loves his bride and God loves his children.
Obviously, God’s love cannot really be compared, but you get my point.
With men, their specifics to carry out their plan can go wrong, even fail, and they have to think up new specifics, where in the end there’s no guarantee that their ultimate goal will even be reached. Now do you believe this is also true with God, seeing how it is that you have already compared Him with man?
God is all powerful, but he gave man free will. So God works around men’s will at times.
For example, God can give a prophecy of doom, but if men repent they can be spared.
T8……if Jesus was before the foundations of the earth as scripture says, then the answer has to be, yes. But you have cleverly found a way out. So the saying is true “it’s hard to catch a rabbit in a byire path”. You simple refuse to see that JESUS CAME INTO HIS (only real) “EXISTENCE” THROUGH THE SEED OF KING DAVID. as CLEARLY WRITTEN. Bad form brother. You still are half way out, but fail to come all they out. IMO
You can call me clever, but I am simply saying what I observe.
God has an overall plan. He then works through men who have the ability to be part of it or not.
For example, Saul was King then David. If I remember rightly, Saul rejected God or in the least hardened his heart.
I think your beliefs are shaped by the idea that men have no free will, thus God is pulling all the strings and therefore had it all planned from the beginning including sin and the fall of Satan.
This view is terrible, but if it were true and you believed it, then if God forced you to reject him on the last day of your life, you would have no case to bring to God because you believed this could happen, were happy with it, and thus you have to accept the outcome.
Quite ironic too. You feel better than others because you think you are right with this, but then, your belief means you are forced to accept that those who believe in free will are forced by God to do so and you got lucky in that you were chosen to not believe it. But like I said, when the table turns against you, you have to accept it because this is the reality you believe in. I think it is sad what you believe this.
Of course scripture is clear. We can choose God or not. We choose to love or hate. We choose to believe or not. And we are judged by our choices because they are OUR choices.
T8…..So in your false belife God plays no “real part” in you salvation it’s all a matter of your so-called “free will choice”.
If that were the case no one could ever be really be saved “forever”, because you never know when a peoson might change his “free will” MIND, and further it would be impossible for God to know the ” end from the beginning “, because everything is of a person own “free will”, in your world, You have very cleverly left God Out of the salvation process, good luck with that.
So God does not create in us a new heart and write his law in our hearts, in your world of “free will” you create your own new heart by you own “free will”, God does not take out of you the stony heart and give you a heart of flesh, that s your own “free will’ doing it right? Pure garbage
T8, God knew from our very beginning of life who we are and what we would do, or haven’t you ever read, “whom he forenew he also predestined, to be conformed unto his Sons. Salvation is a works of God alone , because it clearly say he could not find one who was rightious, and no one saught him, not even one.
T8…..it’s all about the “power” and “will of God”, who brings about his perposes in “ALL” THINGS. And by the way Saul was rejected because he did not obey what God told him to do.
Peace and love to you and yours. ……..gene
Hi t8,
I believe man is easily influenced, gullible, easily deceived by himself and others.
Hitler had the power to influence, the world is full of adversaries that influence mankind.
God likewise has power to influence, it is referred to as His calling. He is light that can shine on darkness, exposing the FOOLISHNESS of men who thought they were wise. The fruits of His Spirit that He gives, also known as His mercy upon us, is the product of His influence and He gives it by measure according to His will.
God has a purpose and a timing for everything, there is an order to His calling to faith, and an order to receive of His promise of being made perfect. God is wise, He is all knowing, ONLY God is GOOD, and as such He is the source to all true wisdom and goodness. When He chooses to place influence upon a man no matter what the measure be, that influence is more powerful than all else.
God is teaching us that we can do nothing of ourselves. If He did not we would not know the source to our own goodness, we would think ourselves to be gods, and likewise we would not know the true God.
Read Romans 9, Paul speaks to this topic, how God has had to make His power and mercy known.
Jesus has the full measure of God’s Spirit, he has all his ways directed by God, he is a light because God has placed His full influence upon him. By such Jesus was able to overcome all other influences, all temptation. God promised that Jesus would not fail, He WAS ABLE to make that promise because God’s power of His influence is a sure thing.
I don’t know t8, your view makes it sound like God should not be making promises, and that worldly influences can be more powerful than God.
It sounds like you do not believe in God’s calling, and His order, as those are His promises.
T8……Jodi and I are right, we are not made right by our own “so-called” free wills, because there is no such thing as a will being free, the term “freewill” is a “OXYMORON “. all wills are being “influenced” they do not exist in a free state at all or they simply wold not be a will, now would they? Common sense 101.
Peace and love to you and yours. ………gene
lol.
So why bother debating anything including whether we are free to choose or not. Ridiculous because you view suggests that I who do not believe in free will is made this way because I have no free will. Hahahahahahaha. And you act like there is free will by trying to convince me to see your view and then choose it over the one I hold now. That is the rub right there. Hilarious.
Of course, my belief in free will stems from the many scriptures that tell us to choose this day….
In a way I suspect that your conscience bothers you deep down somewhere and to hide this you hide behind the doctrine of no free will and not having to be straight up in your answers. I think you guys should just come out into the light and yes it is scary being transparent, but if you have no pride, you will realise any corrections are there to make you better able to reflect God’s light and many colours of that light.
A dark prism is not as beautiful as a transparent one.
Up to you guys at the end of the day.
I can only really work on myself each day. That is the measure of control that I have.
Hi t8,
You don’t get it.
People are given freedom to make choices. We don’t have people making choices for us, unless you are a child and your parents are making a number of decisions for you, or you are elderly and now your children are making decisions for you as you aren’t capable of making them on your own, or you are in prison and have lost certain rights, otherwise we get to make up our own minds and decide on things.
As we are FREE to make choices, we are thus free to make up our own minds. This freedom to make choices is NOT what your WILL IS, your will is of the second part here, your will is of your own mind of which you make a decision from.
Now, if you have been able to CONTROL ALL THINGS throughout your entire life, ALL EXTERNAL INFLUENCES, as well as YOUR OWN GENETIC MAKEUP that AFFECTS YOUR PERSONAL CHARACTER, ONLY THEN would you have a WILL that could be considered as FREE.
When you go to make up your OWN MIND, choose that which you will, your thoughts in making a decision that MAKE UP YOUR WILL ARE DEPENDENT upon FACTORS, that dependence does not equal freedom.
Your will is the decision made which was dependent on your knowledge, your memory, your character that involves your genetic makeup of which you had no control over. What you have heard, seen, smelt, tasted, felt, learned, perceived, experienced, stored in your memory, plays a DIRECT role in what your will is. You haven’t had control over all those things throughout your entire life. You would have to be in control of every single thing around you, which is impossible, but it is only then by that circumstance that one could say that their will is actually one that is free.
Your will is free to make a choice, as in no other person is making the choice for you. If that is what you are calling free will, then I would agree with that.
But your will itself is that of a decision, and how you made that decision is DEPENDENT on factors, certain factors that since you were born you had NO CHOICE OVER, thus you cannot say that your decision and thus your will itself, is a product of freedom.
Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, guilt, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen.
When you write out a will, that is you deciding on who gets to inherit what.
Of course there are many things that are not chosen. I cannot choose what species I will be or I cannot even necessarily choose what nationality I want to be.
What people understand free will to be is situations where there are choices and we are able to choose among the options. In other words it means we are free to choose God or reject him. We are free to choose the gift of salvation when it is offered or reject it. We are free to help the poor if we have abundance or we are free not to help. Such things we are judged and rightly so because we were free to choose the good thing or the bad thing. And our choices reflect our heart. They prove our character.
We are also free to let our yes be yes and no be no or to baffle people with pages of BS in order to hide our shortcomings.
t8, God chooses individuals according to His timing and PLAN, when you choose Him and believe in Him and His Son, that is because God INFLUENCED you and if it is His calling then He holds your hand and keeps you.
t8, you speak as if it is up to the individual, and each individual has an equal ability in their life to choose God and their salvation. You take a child raised in a loving prosperous family with a mom and a dad who believe in God, verses a child who doesn’t even know his father, lives poorly and his mom is a drug addict and thief, and then you want me to believe they have the same opportunity through their own accord to choose God? NO! That’s absurd and just wrong! God will have mercy and bless as He chooses according to His will and plan. The second child might receive a calling and God keeps him, whereas the first may not and the first may go astray from the way he was taught by his parents.
It IS God’s WORK, His CALLING, His INFLUENCE over you that CAUSES you to believe, no matter what your personal memories and life experiences have been like, His calling does not fail.
Like I said go read Romans 9.
Hi t8,
Yes or No?
A person’s FEAR can impede their will, where that fear within them causes them to choose differently than if they did not have that fear.
Yes or No?
A person’s individual measure of inner strength has a direct impact on their own will.
Yes or No?
No two wills are the same, as no two people have grown up having all the same experiences with the same perception to those experiences.
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