Free will. What is it?

[ReverendRV]

may I ask what this even means?

if our will is not free. Is God not the author of sin?

Did Adam not have the complete ability to deny eating of the tree?

Arminus said the Will of God and Man flow Concurrently without mixing. I've always looked at this like an Interstate and a Frontage Road; they flow together. This example fails because they eventually meet at the Off Ramps. This is why people believe God is Culpable for Sin; "The Wills must meet somehow!". But God's Will and your Will are like an Interstate and Frontage Road that flow forever without intersecting. Both routes agree on their destination, the direction they are going. There are Strip Clubs and Liquor Stores on the Frontage Road; but who has ever seen them on a Interstate? God Meant our Route for Good, while we Meant it for Evil...

Look at Genesis 50:20 as a Frontage Road and an Interstate. Both God and the Brothers Traveled the same Route. Both Meant the same Act of Selling Joseph into Slavery. When all was said and done, they went the same way. Though God and Man's Act was the same, their Meaning/Will for the Act never Merged...

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

If you are drowned, and someone reaches in and pulls you out and resuscitates you, you will, upon consciousness, hold on to your new situation for dear life. THAT, to accept and hold on —after rescue and resuscitation and upon regaining consciousness— is your decision and effort. To be rescued and resuscitated, is God's decision and work upon you —and for that, and the further effects of regeneration, and most of all, to include Heaven, is the reason he made you.

I will hold on just as fast if I was rescued

again, The people of Israel were dead. the serpents poison was flowing through them. Yet they still lived and breathed. they still had to chose to trust what God sent to save them from death, or in unbelief reject this salvation.

I was the same way, still living, still breathing, still able to chose.. But dead spiritually. the serpents poison was in me, and without rescue I would die. so I could just like them, Look in faith To Gods provision, or continue in unbelief and refuse to look.

Same for you..

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

Here we go again with "force". Already dealt with, but I will repeat. It is not against one's will that God regenerates them. Regeneration is a changed will.

You dealt with it to satisfy your own reasoning.

It does not satisfy mine.

when you say God did it without our consent or permission. your in essence saying God forced.

I know you do not like that term. but I see it no other way

It is no more "forcing" them than he forced them to exist, to begin with.

I disagree,, WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT....

If I did anything to you without your consent to make you do something, I in essence have forced you to do it

This insistence on the basic value of a person apart from God is an empty assumption. Does a newborn complain that they have been forced to exist? It hardly even KNOWS that it exists.

Thats the difference.

I was not a newborn when I came to Christ. I knew I existed..

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

Arminus said the Will of God and Man flow Concurrently without mixing. I've always looked at this like an Interstate and a Frontage Road; they flow together. This example fails because they eventually meet at the Off Ramps. This is why people believe God is Culpable for Sin; "The Wills must meet somehow!". But God's Will and your Will are like an Interstate and Frontage Road that flow forever without intersecting. Both routes agree on the direction they are going on their own. There are Strip Clubs and Liquor Stores on the Frontage Road; but who has ever seen them on a Interstate? God Meant our Route for Good, while we Meant it for Evil...

Look at Genesis 50:20 as a Frontage Road and an Interstate. Both God and the Brothers Traveled the same Route. Both Meant the same Act of Selling Joseph into Slavery. When all was said and done, they went the same way. Though God and Man's Act was the same, their Meaning/Will for the Act never Merged...

I am not Arminian or Calvin.. I am just trying to define free will. so people can understand me when I see free will as I want to know everyone elses.

God told Adam, do not do this

Adam had to chose when Eve ate of the fruit and handed him this fruit to obey God. or to obey self.

Adam chose self.

Now if God was the cause of this, and adam had no choice in the matter, for any reason. then the one who caused him to do it is the guilty one.

 

[Arial]

What we must do to be saved, why we need to be saved. and what God did to help save us (the gospel)

This is your answer to my question "Understand what?" Because so much time has passed between one part of this conversation and this part, I must reiterate what we are talking about.

If we can't understand it we can't believe it. It is the believing that gives eternal life, not choosing. (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; John 1:12; John 3:36 etc.) Everything in that post after "until" is ongoing sanctification and learning. Not salvation itself which is what Paul is talking about in 1 Cor regarding the natural man

Understand what?

What we must do to be saved, why we need to be saved. and what God did to help save us (the gospel)

That does not really answer the question of what it is we need to understand in order to believe. It is a generalization. And it presupposes we have to do something from our own power in order to be born again. (Remember we are talking about what comes first, and I have been showing from Scripture that first must come the new birth.) So what we have to believe is who Christ is and what he did. We must believe that his person and work is what saves us. Our understanding of these things may be small or great since there are things we need to learn from his word. And they can only be learned after we believe. Before that, they are foolishness to us.

So we are back to another question I asked, that you have responded to and I will get to in a minute. "How does God do this?" At the time I asked the question it was to another of our exchanges where you said that God helps us in our understanding or words to that affect.

 

[ReverendRV]

I am not Arminian or Calvin.. I am just trying to define free will. so people can understand me when I see free will as I want to know everyone elses.

God told Adam, do not do this

Adam had to chose when Eve ate of the fruit and handed him this fruit to obey God. or to obey self.

Adam chose self.

Now if God was the cause of this, and adam had no choice in the matter, for any reason. then the one who caused him to do it is the guilty one.

Calvinists don't say Adam didn't have a Free Will choice; Hyper Calvinists and Provisionists say that about Calvinism. Adam's Choice is like that Free Will to pull off the Frontage Road at the Liquor Store; God Meant it for Good but you Meant it for Evil. Adam Meant his Original Sin for Evil; it's the Meaning in an Act that determines if it's a Sin or not...

Let me cut to the chase and use my argument for a Free Will which is Bound. According to the Chalcedonian Creed, the Deity and Humanity of Jesus Christ are inseparable and Unmixed. This means the Will of the Logos of God and Jesus the son of Mary are unmixed in his Person. Jesus prayed, "Not my Will but your Will be done ". He was speaking of God's Will being done on Earth as in Heaven; despite him wanting the Cup to pass. This is a Biblical example of God's Will and Christ's Human Will flowing without mixing. Just as God's Will and your Will flow Concurrently without mixing. Just like when God's Will and Joseph's brother’s Will flowed together without mixing...

The Westminster Confession of Faith says it's established that our Will is at Liberty as a Secondary Causation. Look at this as God's Will being an Interstate (first Cause) and your Will being that Frontage Road (second cause). You are as Free to go up and down that Frontage Road as much as you want; but you're never Free to take God's Interstate. To do so, would make you God...

I don't Mind listening to your position. I, like you, am just stating my position...

 

[Arial]

Which is why we need God to help us understand

thats the Job of the HS.

Your response to this:

If we can't understand it we can't believe it. It is the believing that gives eternal life, not choosing. (John 3:16; Acts 16:31; John 1:12; John 3:36 etc.) Everything in that post after "until" is ongoing sanctification and learning. Not salvation itself which is what Paul is talking about in 1 Cor regarding the natural man.

How does he do that?

1. He convicts
2. He teaches
3. He draws
4. He helps us to understand.

He does all those things to be sure. But where does the new birth come into the equation? Jesus says one has to be born again before they can enter the kingdom. And what does it mean to be in the kingdom? John tells us the same thing, that those who believe are born of God and the flesh and man's will had nothing to do with it. Jesus tells us in John 10 that the Jews who did not believe even though his works proved who he was, did not believe because they were not his sheep. He says he knows who are his sheep and they hear him and follow him. He says the Father is giving them to him and that he would lay down his life for them. So why is it, and how is it, that some believe when they hear the gospel and some don't? Why is it that perhaps you heard the gospel for years and never believed it, and then one day you did?

Why is it that you seem to be fighting against being born again of God before he gives you understanding and prefer that you first understood something (what has still not been given) with your own mind, independent of God but with his help, so that you could of your own free will choose to believe or not believe? To accept or reject a gift he was offering. Why the idea that he gives us enough understanding to accept or reject? Is it that "free will" and faith causing the new birth rather than the other way around, are really a safe guard against something you find repugnant and that wars against the flesh of fallen man? That being, that God is sovereign in salvation. In making it possible in Christ, in applying it to a person, and in choosing who to apply it to---and that before the foundation of the world. That salvation and sanctification are monergistic from start to finish.

 

[Arial]

I do not need to address how he made us alive. I think we both agree.

We do not agree as long as I am saying the new birth must happen before anything else happens and you are saying that it is faith that causes the new birth. Jesus says, "no one can" unless "they are born again by the Spirit." If it takes faith in the person and work of Jesus to be saved and justified, then a person must be born again in order to have that faith. And that faith is not their own (generated by choice) it is given (a gift) from God.

I also already stated that John 3: 1 - 9 is Jesus stating

1. What must be done (we must be born again)
2. What It means (that which is born of flesh is flesh. that which is born again spiritually is spirit
3. How it is done.

How it is done is stated by Jesus to be by the Spirit. And there is not so much as a hint of "faith" in those passages. The question asked by Nicodemus when Jesus told him a man could not even see the kingdom of heaven unless he is first born again, was "How can that be?" And then Jesus told him how a man is born again.

It does not matter if we do not understand WHEN it is done and WHY it is done.

It does matter when it is done. The position of "before" faith or "after" faith and by faith. The latter changes soteriology and it changes the sovereignty of God in salvation as monergistic into a synergistic salvation. Of course to do that leaves room for the flesh's cry for a bit of independence from God while still wanting to be saved by him. And it drastically changes Christ's work on the cross from being a full and perfect accomplishment, into one entirely dependent for its efficacy on the choices of men. So, yes, it matters.

The order of salvation is simple

Believe in the name of the lord Jesus christ and you will be saved, you and your household.

Right. So where does an implied "Choose to believe" come into that sentence? What causes the believing? I ask, since that is what we are discussing.

You did stop it short. Because you explain WHAT it is. You explain HOW it is, But you do not explant WHEN it is.

Paul explains when it is. When we were dead in our trespasses and sins.

Please tell me where I got it wrong

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:

1. Who are them? Those who have reci9eved him (but as many)
2. To THEM, he gave the right (power) to become children of God
3. Even to those who believe in his name (which is why they received him

I will gladly change my view if you show my mistake.

I have shown you and you did not change your view. Your mistake is in saying two things. That faith comes before the new birth. And by reading into the passages about receiving and believing the idea of "choosing". That is a direct result of having synergistic salvation. I.e. Our faith is what causes us to be born of God. Our faith is what gives us the right to be his children. That faith is a gift from God that we can either accept or reject, which logically makes no sense.

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

This is your answer to my question "Understand what?" Because so much time has passed between one part of this conversation and this part, I must reiterate what we are talking about.





That does not really answer the question of what it is we need to understand in order to believe. It is a generalization. And it presupposes we have to do something from our own power in order to be born again. (Remember we are talking about what comes first, and I have been showing from Scripture that first must come the new birth.) So what we have to believe is who Christ is and what he did. We must believe that his person and work is what saves us. Our understanding of these things may be small or great since there are things we need to learn from his word. And they can only be learned after we believe. Before that, they are foolishness to us.

So we are back to another question I asked, that you have responded to and I will get to in a minute. "How does God do this?" At the time I asked the question it was to another of our exchanges where you said that God helps us in our understanding or words to that affect.

I do not know why we make it so hard.

when I go to a class. to church, or to anything. Someone helps me to understand what it is I am tryign to learn.

when I try to make an agreement with someone. someone helps me understand the agreement, then I chose to agree or disagree.

God helps me to understand the Gospel.

to say I somehow got this understanding myself makes no sense. because it is impossible. I can not fathom up who God is what God is, what I am and what I need to do on my own. SOMEONE has to help me.

that someone is God

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

Calvinists don't say Adam didn't have a Free Will choice; Hyper Calvinists and Provisionists say that about Calvinism. Adam's Choice is like that Free Will to pull off the Frontage Road at the Liquor Store; God Meant it for Good but you Meant it for Evil. Adam Meant his Original Sin for Evil; it's the Meaning in an Act that determines if it's a Sin or not...

Let me cut to the chase and use my argument for a Free Will which is Bound. According to the Chalcedonian Creed, the Deity and Humanity of Jesus Christ are inseparable and Unmixed. This means the Will of the Logos of God and Jesus the son of Mary are unmixed in his Person. Jesus prayed, "Not my Will but your Will be done ". He was speaking of God's Will being done on Earth as in Heaven; despite him wanting the Cup to pass. This is a Biblical example of God's Will and Christ's Human Will flowing without mixing. Just as God's Will and your Will flow Concurrently without mixing. Just like when God's Will and Joseph's brother’s Will flowed together without mixing...

I see Jesus aligned his will with God.

I see Adam did not use his will to align with God. and he sinned.

I would say all facets of sin is rejecting the will of God. and choosing our own will

The Westminster Confession of Faith says it's established that our Will is at Liberty as a Secondary Causation. Look at this as God's Will being an Interstate (first Cause) and your Will being that Frontage Road (second cause). You are as Free to go up and down that Frontage Road as much as you want; but you're never Free to take God's Interstate. To do so, would make you God...

I see it this way

I am on my own highway. headed the wrong way.

I have no hope. I can not anything to save myself.

God enters in, and shows me my sin, shows me his love, and shows what I must do to be saved of this.

Once I receive him, Jesus pulls me off this highway and places me on his highway.

I don't Mind listening to your position. I, like you, am just stating my position...

same here. and thank you for explaining

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

That does not really answer the question of what it is we need to understand in order to believe. It is a generalization. And it presupposes we have to do something from our own power in order to be born again.

Please do me a favor and remove this from you thinking.

I do not believe we have do do something from our own power to be born again. No one I know thinks this. except for a legalist who thinks they must merit salvation.,

if you remove this from your thinking. maybe you and I can finally see what each other is saying

 

[Eleanor]

Amen, 100% in agreement!

But it is still required for one to be born again.

No, the new birth is required for faith.

Spiritually dead people cannot do anything spiritual, just as physically dead people cannot do anything physical. It's the meaning of "death."

To spiritually believe, they must be raised to eternal life in the sovereign new birth (Jn 3:6-8).

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

Your response to this:





He does all those things to be sure. But where does the new birth come into the equation?

Jesus told you. When you look to the cross in saving faith. and receive the gift of salvation.

Jesus says one has to be born again before they can enter the kingdom.

Agreed 100%

And what does it mean to be in the kingdom?

It means to be born again, Adopted. Sanctified, Justified, redeemed. Made alive, etc etc etc..

John tells us the same thing, that those who believe are born of God

yes. this is what I have been saying all the time

and the flesh and man's will had nothing to do with it

I never said any of these things

. Jesus tells us in John 10 that the Jews who did not believe even though his works proved who he was, did not believe because they were not his sheep. He says he knows who are his sheep and they hear him and follow him. He says the Father is giving them to him and that he would lay down his life for them. So why is it, and how is it, that some believe when they hear the gospel and some don't? Why is it that perhaps you heard the gospel for years and never believed it, and then one day you did?

Jesus answered.

You do not see because you do not believe.

He who believes is not condemned, he who does not believe is condemned already.

The jew rejected Jesus because of their hard hearts. Thats why the saw the evidence, and ignored it.

Why is it that you seem to be fighting against being born again of God before he gives you understanding

Because it is not true

I am born again BECAUSE I was given understanding from God. and looked to the cross in faith.. Until then. i was dead in sin.

why do you seem to be fighting against the fact a just God will keep his justice intact which means one must be justified BEFORE they can be made alive?

and prefer that you first understood something (what has still not been given) with your own mind,

I prefer that God was able to work through my thick head and pride and brought me to repentance.

and he did not have to alter his justice or character to do it

independent of God but with his help, so that you could of your own free will choose to believe or not believe? To accept or reject a gift he was offering. Why the idea that he gives us enough understanding to accept or reject? Is it that "free will" and faith causing the new birth rather than the other way around, are really a safe guard against something you find repugnant and that wars against the flesh of fallen man? That being, that God is sovereign in salvation. In making it possible in Christ, in applying it to a person, and in choosing who to apply it to---and that before the foundation of the world. That salvation and sanctification are monergistic from start to finish.

since you mentioned the word, what I find repugnant is the thought that God overrules his own justice to make people alive against their own will. and then refuses to allow the person next to them the ability to even have a chance to be saved.

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

No, the new birth is required for faith.

thats fine if you think this

I can not.

Spiritually dead people cannot do anything spiritual, just as physically dead people cannot do anything physical. It's the meaning of "death."

Falling on muy knees as the tax collector is not spiritual. it is responding to the grace of God. and calling outr for his mercy

To spiritually believe, they must be raised to eternal life in the sovereign new birth (Jn 3:6-8).

Again, if you think so that is fine.

I can not agree and have seen nothing that would make me see any different

 

[Eleanor]

I will hold on just as fast if I was rescued

again, The people of Israel were dead. the serpents poison was flowing through them. Yet they still lived and breathed. they still had to chose to trust what God sent to save them from death, or in unbelief reject this salvation.

The problem with that is in one case (the physical) you are alive and can choose to trust God, while
in the other case (spiritual) you are spiritually dead and can make no such spiritual choice (1 Co 2:14).
You must be raised to spiritual (eternal) life in the new birth in order to be able to make the spiritual choice to trust God for salvation.

No one can come to me unless the Father enables him (Jn 6:65 ), and for mankind who are all spiritually dead and by nature (with which we are born) objects of God's wrath (Eph 2:3) that enablement means the new birth.
There is no coming to Christ apart from the sovereign rebirth of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3-8).

I was the same way, still living, still breathing, still able to chose.. But dead spiritually. the serpents poison was in me, and without rescue I would die. so I could just like them, Look in faith To Gods provision, or continue in unbelief and refuse to look.

The problem with that is everyone is spiritually dead, unable to spiritually see or choose, until they are sovereignly born again of the Holy Spitrt.

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

The problem with that is in one case (the physical) you are alive and can choose to trust God, while
in the other case (spiritual) you are spiritually dead and can make no such spiritual choice (1 Co 2:14).

I was alive, as were you when you came to christ. You were not dead in the fact you could not know. understand or have the knowledge you were alive

The Israelite in moses day was aware. they were also as good as dead.. but still had to chose. they rejected the one sent to save them.

You must be raised to spiritual (eternal) life in the new birth in order to be able to make the spiritual choice to trust God for salvation.

I disagree. I see no reason to believe this.

No one can come to me unless the Father enables him (Jn 6:65 ), and for mankind who are all spiritually dead and by nature (with which we are born) objects of God's wrath (Eph 2:3) that enablement means the new birth.
There is no coming to Christ apart from the sovereign rebirth of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3-8).

The problem with that is everyone is spiritually dead, unable to spiritually see or choose, until they are sovereignly born again of the Holy Spitrt.

Answered this multiple times now.

 

[Arial]

Jesus told you. When you look to the cross in saving faith. and receive the gift of salvation.

That is not what he is saying. He is saying that he must be crucified, and raised up, in order to save those who believe in him and to give them eternal life.

John 8: 28 "And Jesus said to them, 'when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he.'"

John 12:32 "And I, when I am lifted up, from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

14. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

All of those passages are discussing who Jesus is and what he must do. Not what being born again is. But what must be done before any can be born again.

He has already said in the previous verses that one must be born again before----first----they can enter the kingdom. And he has already said that is by the work of the Holy Spirit and according to the will of the Father. According to the will of the Father is being applied to the analogy of the wind in bringing about the new birth. Not salvation in general.

 

[Eleanor]

I was alive, as were you when you came to christ.

Indeed your dead spirit was made alive, by the sovereign rebirth of the Holy Spirit, whereby you were then made able to spiritually come to Christ.

 

[Eternally-Grateful]

That is not what he is saying. He is saying that he must be crucified, and raised up, in order to save those who believe in him and to give them eternal life.

which is exactly what i said

John 8: 28 "And Jesus said to them, 'when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he.'"

John 12:32 "And I, when I am lifted up, from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

14. "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

All of those passages are discussing who Jesus is and what he must do.

Amen and Amen

But it does not stop here. something else must happen for anyone to receive the results of what Jesus did

Not what being born again is. But what must be done before any can be born again.

All that needed to be done was the cross.

But that alone will not save you if it did. everyone would be saved

He has already said in the previous verses that one must be born again before----first----they can enter the kingdom.

Yes,

if your still under the penalty of sin, you can not enter the kingdom

And he has already said that is by the work of the Holy Spirit and according to the will of the Father.

Yes. and what is the will of the father.

whoever sees and believes

According to the will of the Father is being applied to the analogy of the wind in bringing about the new birth. Not salvation in general.

Salvation is new birth.

I was dead because of sin, God saved me, in doing so he made me alive

you can not seperate the two

 

[makesends]

once again

If a man had no choice. Then the one who caused it is at fault.

I do not understand your logic.

Who said he had no choice? I said the very opposite!

Here's the last line, to which you responded:

Like I said, not only have you not demonstrated your claim here, but you seem, (to me, granted), to be boxing the air. Nobody is saying we don't have choice.

MANY times, and consistently throughout this thread I have repeated that we do choose. We have choice. I have not said otherwise. I doubt you could find anyone on this thread saying that we do not choose.


And, lest you forget, you have not demonstrated your assertion that God gave man FREE will, nor that it was because he loved man that he did so.