ECT IDW's 'Supposed' 'gifted' 'Free'will
- Thread starter Lon
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oatmeal
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Good post!
Slaves do not always obey their masters. In fact, they rebel against their masters and leave the service of their masters as Onesimus of Philemon did.
The Israel nation rebelled against their Egyptian masters, in fact God helped them to overcome their masters with the leadership of Moses and Aaron...
In the Biblical and similar Eastern cultures people could be purchased as workers or they could willfully choose to serve a master.
Joseph in Genesis had no choice about who his human masters were ( I suppose he could have refused to serve them including Pharaoh ), but Joseph always kept God as his spiritual master
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Not if Lon is of the "Sins, past, Present and Future Forgiven" club. He probably is, given his head knowledge.
Lon
Well-known member
Let's see. "You can have a pickle or go to bed." Do you have a 'free will?' I say nope. Why? Because you might not want either!
Paul disagrees with you:
Rom 7:15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
Does that sound like a 'free' will to you? :nono: Look, I understand your commitment to this. I'm just trying to get you to think beyond its borders for a moment. I'm okay with disagreement. I just want to give you a scripture or two to think about.
Limited isn't 'free.' When we talk about 'freewill' it isn't just a layman's conception, but a theological proposition that goes a bit more in-depth than just my ability to choose chocolate or vanilla. It is about being in bondage to sin so that I and you, like Paul, says "That which I don't want to do, that I keep doing."
He is talking about bondage of the will.
Rom 7:17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Rom 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
Rom 7:23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Next verse.
Romans 7:25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
This is huge. You can disagree with me, but just take these verses in.
oatmeal
Well-known member
Wow, what a fine post, if I might say so myself!
It took Biblical records into account, instead of offering opinion as its basis.
People read that they could learn some valuable truths from scripture.
But will they read, will they learn, will they remember?
oatmeal
Well-known member
Romans 14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
We will most certainly reap what we have sown.
Galatians 6:7
7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
We need to be sowing what God wants us to be sowing so we will reap the harvest that God would have us harvest.
Galatians 6:8-10
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.
I guess you know what you're talking about. :chuckle:
It sounds like a will to me. "Free will" is redundant. If it is not free, it is not a will.
I don't understand your commitment to disagreeing with what I say. The word "will" has free as part of its definition.
There are physical limits that everyone faces. There are no physical constraints that can overcome what you choose to believe or what you wish were true.
Then use a word that encapsulates what you mean instead of stealing a word and twisting its meaning. "Flesh" would work. :up:
Looks to me like he's talking about bondage of the flesh.
Much as when a man is chained, his ability to act is limited, but his will can never be shackled.
oatmeal
Well-known member
Your position makes sense.
Free does not imply unlimited options that we have inherent ability to appropriate.
It simply means the ability to move about as one pleases.
Applied to will, and as you say, there is an element of redundancy there, we can think what we want and will what we want, but actually appropriating what we will to imagine is not included in the concept of free will.
Romans 7, as Lon pointed out, seems to be teaching that there is no free will, but that is not what Paul is speaking of.
We all were born with a sin nature. But that sin nature does not limit our choices, it only slows our progress in appropriating the right choice which is to love and serve God.
Paul was teaching the Romans that even he was still frustrated at times with his lack of fortitude to do what was right, even though he knew better.
We have the free will to choose to serve God, but having free will does not remove obstacles to exercising that free will.
Paul in another epistles made it very clear that he exercised his free will to do God's will.
I Corinthians 14:15 Paul exercised his free will to pray with the understanding and he exercised his free will to pray in the spirit.
Philippians 4:13 I can do
Romans 12:1 Paul beseeches the believers to present their bodies as living sacrifice to God. It is the choice of all believers as to whether they do that or not.
What actions would we be taking if we did present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God? We would be, for starters, doing what the rest of Romans teaches, what Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians.. etc, teaches us we should be doing because we are capable of doing it if and when we choose to do it.
Romans 12:9 Not all Christians love without hypocrisy/dissimulation, but should they choose to, they could.
Nor do all Christians choose to be abhorring that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good.
etc.
Free will to choose among options cannot be intermingled with the concept of having the power to implement options.
An atheist can not choose to get rid of God, God is eternal, he is not going away. the atheist may choose to ignore God, but God is not going to disappear because an atheist chooses to ignore God.
A believer may choose to not believe in the Devil as the source of all evil, but that does not eliminate the Devil, nor his works nor his devices.
II Corinthians 2:11
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I would say it is and was a necessity if God was to have his "many sons brought unto glory":
"For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Hebrews 2:10 (KJV)
Obviously, there was no surrendering of the will of Jesus in any of that, right?
what does that mean?
Means God is really your boss. Arminians are God's boss
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Good reply, Stripe. You are catching on as I did. It is a condition with Calvinists that destroys an otherwise intelligent discussion: when their "wiggle room" is taken away from them.
I don't think it's an "element." I think it is wholly redundant. If you say you have a will, it must be free. If you say you have a free will, it implies there is something you are forced to believe no matter what. That would be wrong.
I would say it "bars the way" rather than "slows the progress."
We have wills to choose to serve God, but having a will does not remove obstacles to exercising the will.
With the amount of posts I have under my belt, it had to happen sooner or later.
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I don't think it's an "element." I think it is wholly redundant. If you say you have a will, it must be free. If you say you have a free will, it implies there is something you are forced to believe no matter what. That would be wrong.
I would say it "bars the way" rather than "slows the progress."
We have wills to choose to serve God, but having a will does not remove obstacles to exercising the will.
With the amount of posts I have under my belt, it had to happen sooner or later.
Question: what does "free" mean? Perhaps, what does it imply?
Free means the ability to choose otherwise.
In the case of a will, people are always capable of desiring or believing as they choose; no amount of pressure or persuasion can guarantee that they will decide according to some entity other than their will.
nikolai_42
Well-known member
I don't think it's an "element." I think it is wholly redundant. If you say you have a will, it must be free. If you say you have a free will, it implies there is something you are forced to believe no matter what. That would be wrong.
I would say it "bars the way" rather than "slows the progress."
We have wills to choose to serve God, but having a will does not remove obstacles to exercising the will.
With the amount of posts I have under my belt, it had to happen sooner or later.
If I can jump in here. Not to confuse things (Lon may not agree entirely with what I say...I don't know) but I wanted to add a couple thoughts here.
You say that any will that is not free is not a will. You may well "will" to do X, Y, and Z - any one of which may be "Do God's will" or "Obey God" or some such thing. But what are you really willing? What are you signing on to? All that which goes along with it is what is really at stake. So when you get to a requirement that directly contradicts what you "want" to do, you find that while you may have willed to be obedient to God (in name only) the truth is that you don't - at heart - have the real ability to do so (nor the inclination). File that under the Jeremiah 17:9 category. It's of the same type of deception that people who think they are good encounter. They find they aren't. The Ten Commandments are a good way of revealing that.
Only God wills and does of His own good pleasure. So regardless of what we think we are willing the ability to do what we want is hampered. So even if we assume we can will properly to do good on our own (I think that's debatable), we are unable to do so.
But a little more on the philosophical side, this idea of the will being free misses the deeper issue (I think). To me the concept of this free will is illusory. It only goes so far - and is really inadequate to cover the depths of corruption we know as fallen sons of Adam.
Don't think of an elephant. Of course you probably did (and you have no doubt done this before). That's how easy it is for sin to gain an entrance into our minds and hearts. That elephant can waltz right in and do what it wants (provided God allows it). Sin is actually even deeper than just the thought - it then goes to the intents of the heart. The deep recesses that are covered by Jeremiah 17:9 above. The REAL intents and thoughts that a man has apart from God are all wicked and lead to death. You may be "free" to will differently, but without the Spirit of God there is no real defence against your own lusts and the wiles of the devil. And you (again, apart from God) naturally desire to please yourself.
The Word of God (Hebrews 4:12) penetrates to the dividing of soul from spirit...thoughts from intents. And the man who knows the depths of his own heart apart from God knows (without a doubt) just how true Jeremiah 17:9 is for everyone. The "free" will is just a superficial assessment.