Your Luke 13 e.g. shows free will with the conditional/contigent 'if'...you....perish is the consequences, not a coercion of the choice to repent or not.
Is English your first language?
toldailytopic: Did God choose an eternity ago who would, and who wouldn't, be saved?
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Your Luke 13 e.g. shows free will with the conditional/contigent 'if'...you....perish is the consequences, not a coercion of the choice to repent or not.
Is English your first language?
elohiym
Well-known member
Do you think everyone is as dumb as you?
No one is denying choice! You keep posting "free" without explaining what the choice is free from.
The example I gave shows the choice is coerced...IF you don't repent, YOU WILL perish. That's a threat!
Your idea of free will doesn't exist! You can't even define it, and have thus far have refused to define it.
The choice to repent or not is free, not coerced. The consequences are not within our free will to change because God will take some to heaven and cause others to not be in heaven.
The choice to hang oneself or not is freely chosen. The consequences of death naturally follow the wrong choice (no choice not to die under right circumstances).
You are on a weird wavelength, so communication is not possible (cf. sozo).
elohiym
Well-known member
What is difficult to understand about me asking you to explain what you think your choices are "free" from?
You continue to use terms that you refuse to explain.
My choices are free from outside causation or coercion. Being in the image of God, I am a self-determining moral agent. This contrasts with deterministic views. The ultimate cause and explanation goes no further back than me as an agent. This is why love and relationship is possible, in addition to mundane and moral choices and personal responsibility. It is self-evident, so the burden of proof is on you to show why compatibilism or determinism is even worth considering. Any other view leaves God responsible for evil (theodicy problem).
elohiym
Well-known member
You will have to explain what you mean by coercion.
According to the English language definition of coercion, when God tells you to repent or perish, it's coercion.
God does not coerce us to repent or not. His command to repent can be obeyed or disobeyed. Quit using your own definitions or English word definitions if there are more precise theological understandings available.
Are you confusing influence and coercion? God is not forcing people into heaven or hell apart from previous choices. If He picked us up by the scruff of the neck and tossed us into one place or the other, this would be coercion. If He places life and death before us and tells us to choose today whom we will serve, this is choice between alternatives, not force/causation/coercion.
If a parent says to pick chocolate, vanilla, or nothing, this is a genuine choice involving alternatives and contingencies. If a parent picks a baby up and throws it against the wall, there is no contingency/choice on the babies part, just causation. If a person is bound, gagged, and raped, there is coercion. If a married couple consents to intercourse, this is love/choice, not coercion. If a sperm unites with egg and produces a baby, this is a consequence/causation relating to a prior free choice.
I think you need a course in semantics and modal logic (you seem to confuse contingency, necessity, certainty, possibility, probability, influence, causation, coercion, etc.).
Determinism/fatalism belongs with Islam (? Calvinism), not biblical Christianity (free will, relational theism).
Besides, who cares about all this if you think I am going to be wiped out despite my faith in Christ alone for salvation. You are not worthy of a respectful discussion on any topic.
Oh no... it's Sozo
New member
This is a wrong conclusion. God is by nature Holy. It is impossible for God to change His nature. He cannot become unholy. It is an absurd suggestion to say that He can. When God became a man, His nature was still divine. Jesus did not have two natures (another subject).
How is that an example?
It is impossible for Jesus to go against His nature. The Bible is clear that those who are born (begotten) of God CANNOT sin. You have the children of God being greater than God, and you have Jesus not being born (begotten) of God.
1Jo 3:9
"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."
1Jo 5:18
"We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not."
You cannot say that these do not apply to the BOC, because it matters not who is being spoken of here. Whoever it is that is born of God, they cannot sin, which (according to you) would make them greater than God.
You don't have a mouse?
Once again, I am not a closed theist.
Of course He can. There is nothing unrighteous or unholy about changing the amount of raindrops.
I'm surprised that you hold to the idea that God has those attributes.
Agreed, and that is proof that God cannot sin (see above).
Completely untrue.
Is it possible for you to not be offended, even if someone is trying to offend you?
If your dog has no interest in onions, you've proved my point.
So?
You might want to rethink this.
Based on what?
There is no logic to this assertion.
Was Jesus tempted to molest children?
You do not have an accurate understanding of what it means when Jesus was tempted.
I'm amazed a smart guy like you doesn't understand the difference.
Was Adam free to be righteous after he ate from the tree, or did God have to send His Son to die for his act of disobedience?
Sorry, but that is just plain foolishness.
That's what I've been saying.
The Bible disagrees with you.
God made the Law for the unrighteous. Are you disagreeing with Paul?
No it's not. That is a common, but false theory.
So, I've never suggested such a thing.
God is not defined by the Law. God is Spirit, and against the Spirit there is no Law. Again, you are making the Law God.
God is not under the Law. Again, you have His children being in a better position than He is.
God cannot lie. Do you own a Bible?
GuySmiley
Well-known member
The ability to choose, or choose otherwise. Free will is not free from influence. But to a determinist, God wouldn't need to influence, like we see God do with Pharoah. God could've just reached into Pharoah's head and make him think what He wanted him to think. But that's not what we see in the Bible.
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beloved57
Well-known member
Quite frankly, those whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation, God made them to be vessels of wrath, they were born to be taken and justly condemned for their sins.
2 pet 2:
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
That word made is the greek word:
gennaō:
of men who fathered children
a) to be born
b) to be begotten
1) of women giving birth to children
beloved57
Well-known member
Not of the seed of the devil. Jesus did not die for satan and his children, Just Gods children.
elohiym
Well-known member
That's what you mean by will. What do you mean by free? Free from what?
Okay. What do you think your will IS "free" from? :idunno:
When you had a carnal mind, did you have the free will to be subject to god? Yes or no. Rom 8:7
Okay, but I'm not a determinist.
God doesn't make us think what He wants us to think.
We have the mind of Christ. 1Cor 2:16.
Influence is not causative. Proof texting a verse instead of interpreting it in light of many other verses is not a sound argument against self-evident free will/self-determination.
How do you explain your creative typing of posts? Is your mind and will involved or are you a sock puppet (elo)?
How do you explain your creative typing of posts? Is your mind and will involved or are you a sock puppet (elo)?
elohiym
Well-known member
:squint:
Influence is the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways.
God only knows what you mean by mind and will.
You refuse to explain the meaning of the terms you use.
I have shown you that the carnal mind has no free will. Rom 8:7.
That is self-evident, yet you refuse to concede it.
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GuySmiley
Well-known member
I think the term is redundant and I only use it because its common language.
Free from being determined by someone who isn't me, which is to simply say that I have a will, or that will exists.
No, I was a slave to sin. I put this in the same category as being subject to gravity. I cannot will to be free from gravity.
Ok. Didn't know.
Like you said, you aren't a determinist, so cool.
The law of cause-effect applies to inanimate creation (gravity).
The law of instinct relates to animate creation (migration).
The law of love/free will relates to moral creation (man, God, angels).
Confusing metaphysics (being) with morals (volitional element) is philosophically, theologically, biblically problematic.
Compatibilism/determinism is more in the cause-effect category, but it negates freedom, love, relationship, responsibility. Incompatibilistic/libertarian free will retains these biblical truths that resonate with reality.
The law of instinct relates to animate creation (migration).
The law of love/free will relates to moral creation (man, God, angels).
Confusing metaphysics (being) with morals (volitional element) is philosophically, theologically, biblically problematic.
Compatibilism/determinism is more in the cause-effect category, but it negates freedom, love, relationship, responsibility. Incompatibilistic/libertarian free will retains these biblical truths that resonate with reality.
greatdivide46
New member
I dunno, I just always thought that since God is omniscient that He would know me before I exist. You don't think God knows the future, or at least is a very accurate prognosticator of the future?
God is omniscient knowing all that is knowable. Unless determinism is true, the future is at least partially indeterminate (contingent choices), so it is known as such (reality). Once you are conceived, God can extrapolate things about your physical being from genetics/DNA. Trillions of years ago, the probabilities/contingencies are less knowable. Exhaustive definite foreknowledge is not compatible with libertarian free will.
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