Ex-Free Willer

[TedT]

He can do whatever He wants with His creation.

But the mere fact that God can do whatever he wants...

That GOD can indeed do whatever HE wants with his creation doesn't mean what people usually mean when they claim HE can do whatever he wants. The usual meaning is often that HE can be cruel, unloving, unjust or impatient etc without being impugned for sin because 1. HE is GOD after all and 2. we are HIS creation. BUT in fact GOD can only be HIMself, HE can only want what is in accord with HIMself.

GOD is love - HE would never want to be capriciously cruel, ie, the Calvinist fallacy of unconditional nonelection.

GOD is light - HE would never want to be dark or support darkness by creating evil in any way or creating evil people by any means by a decree of HIS own will, the sin by Adam and not by our free will fallacy.

GOD is lovingly patient - HE would never want to shut the gates of hell upon anyone just because they did not accept the gospel quickly enough to please HIM, ie, the Armenian fallacy.

"A loving God would not..." you have abandoned the authority of Scripture and set your personal view of God above His word.

IF a loving GOD is not reconcilable with an unloving supposition then it might be that it is an erroneous interpretation of scripture that is being abandoned, not the scripture itself, as per

For example double predestination is unloving for those who have no choice to be saved.

in which it is not the doctrine of reprobation that is unloving but the doctrine of UNCONDITIONAL reprobation that is rejected as unloving and unfitting for HIS impartiality.

I have had my hat knocked off a few times by Calvinists who claim that my contention a doctrine is unloving is patently false because GOD can do whatever HE wants with HIS creation and because Calvinism is just the gospel rewritten.

GOD can indeed do whatever HE wants with us but HE cannot do anything Satan might want to do with us...our GOD is NOT a house divided,
not righteous and evil at the same time;
not lovingly impartial and uncaringly destructive at the same time;
not just and yet condemning as guilty those that cannot have had any mens rea or real choice to sin !
...that is the nature of a pagan god, a gnostic god, not our GOD.

ImCo...

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

GOD is love - HE would never want to be capriciously cruel, ie, the Calvinist fallacy of unconditional nonelection.

"Capriciously cruel" is your human fallen opinion. You have no idea what motivates God to elect some but not others. Have faith that it is all for his good purpose.

GOD is light - HE would never want to be dark or support darkness by creating evil in any way or creating evil people by any means by a decree of HIS own will, the sin by Adam and not by our free will fallacy.

If you want to use logic, then evil could not possibly exist without God ordaining it to be so. Call it "allowing" evil, if you like. But by foreknowledge and allowance, God ordains it to be so. Otherwise, God is not omnipotent. Why would a loving God do so? You don't know. I don't know. His ways are beyond us.

To paraphrase Scripture, "Who are you, oh fallen human, to talk back to God?" Whatever God says is just, is just. Whatever God says is right, is right.

Your God is too small. We must not judge what God does as good or right, but know that things are good and right because God does it. That's faith.

 

[TedT]

Your God is too small.

Indeed! HE does not include any sin, any darkness, any unlovingness....HE is smaller by that much from the gods who do!

If someone does not know what it is to be unloving, there is little more to say. When I am asked, "how do I know if I really love her?" I say, you don't love her yet because when you do, you will know.

 

[Behold]

There are lots of ex-Calvinists in this forum

There certainly are....

Also, You just wrote a Thread.
You chose to do it....and that is your Free will.

Free will is "choice", and you'll use it again, real soon.

Enjoy your Free Will.

 

[Behold]

Reader..

Let me show you why this idea that "there is no free will".. .is straight from Hell.

LOOK.

If You dont have free will, then that means that all you do wrong, is God caused. = Pre-destined.

That means that Hitler had no choice but to Kill those Jews.
That means that Stalin had no choice but to Kill 30 million Russians.
This means that all those women who aborted 60 million babies , had no CHOICE - pre-destined. = no free will.

That means that if you end up murdering someone, or if your best friend ends up murdering 40 people.... then its God's fault, as the person had to do it. = Pre-destined. = God caused.

See that?
Isnt that "crazy" to teach that, or believe it, or follow someone who teaches this kind of "crazy"?

Now let me show you the BIGGER picture..

If you have no choice, no FREE WILL, then How can God hold you or HITLER accountable, when you were caused to do it? = Pre-destined?

What this Theology is really trying to do, is BLAME GOD... and who would want to be the "accuser" of God?

A.) Satan

 

[TedT]

Capriciously cruel" is your human fallen opinion.

GOD can't be capriciously cruel is knowledge given to me by the self revelation of my LORD.

Synonyms of capricious (adj. given to sudden behavior change)

• arbitrary.
• careless
• erratic.
• fickle.
• flighty.
• helter-skelter.
• impulsive.
• quirky.

To make a decision based upon NO REASON, ie, no condition for the decision, is capricious. IF the elect were chosen for no condition found in them to separate them from those not chosen then those not chosen were just as equal to be chosen as those who were chosen to salvation but were passed over for election which is equal to being chosen for reprobation, ie, damnation...for no reason!

Being judged as guilty in Adam of a damnable crime for no reason or by no choice of our own to sin is a cruelty. Any sophisticated argument to the contrary is wrong according to the meaning of the words.

The doctrines of unconditional election and being liable to suffering and death for the sin of Adam, not our own choice to sin, makes GOD out to be capriciously cruel. Scripture assures me HE isn't. Guess which I follow...

 

[TedT]

Free will is "choice", and you'll use it again, real soon.

Free will is NOT the ability to choose - it is the ability to choose without any coercion nor constraint from any other power. Sinners are enslaved to sin... and as an addict is swayed in some part of their every decision by their addiction, no decision of a sinner is free from the force of his addiction to evil. Good decisions, bad decisions, all are tainted by the sinner's addiction to evil, not free.

 

[Behold]

Free will is NOT the ability to choose - it is the ability to choose without any coercion nor constraint from any other power. Sinners are enslaved to sin...

Sinners are enslaved to sin.
Some believers are confessing sin because they think this cleanses their SIN, and they keep SINNING and Confessing... believing that IF they keep doing that = hopefully they wont lose their salvation..

So, Your point is??

So, here is the thing.... unbelievers have the free will to choose Christ, exactly the same way the born again did.

They are not caused to believe, and they are not predestined to believe.
Instead.. "FAITH comes by HEARING" The GOSPEL...... as that is how that works.

Its a choice to believe the GOSPEL., and God will honor your Freewill choice after you die.

Thousands went to hell today, because they made the wrong choice. = Freewill
They CHOSE not to believe.. and died, and went to hell like a bullet.

Here is the thing..
Everyone in Hell right now.......Now believes Hell is real, and they all Believe in Christ now.
Every single one.
They are still there.......notice?
See, you can't be born again, in Hell.

 

[TedT]

LOOK.

If You dont have free will, then that means that all you do wrong, is God caused. = Pre-destined.

I agree - you have it right.

But a sinner has no free will because of his enslavement to the addictive power of evil. So sometime before we became sinners we had a time, a life, an existence, BEFORE we chose to be sinful in HIS sight and by our free will, not HIS will, we became sinners.

If we inherit something of Adam's guilt and sinfulness at our creation / conception, then we have become sinners by no choice, free will or not...

Since death is the wages for sin, that is, death is not a consequence of life, death proves sinfulness. But some people die in the womb proving that we are indeed sinners at (not by) our conception. Sin at our creation by our conception would mean we die for sin with no free will decision to sin and thus become liable to death as you suggest so death in the womb proves we must have chosen sinfulness by our free will before our conception on earth.

Sin and being guilty of sin can ONLY accrue by a free will decision (ie, not coerced nor constrained by any other power). NO free will or becoming a sinner at creation / conception means no mens rea, no intent to sin, ( really, look it up!) and therefore no free will decision to sin... an impossibility that sin would be assessed!


...an intro into Pre-Conception Existence theology, (PCE).

 

[Behold]

I agree - you have it right.

But a sinner has no free will because of his enslavement to the addictive power of evil.

"man"....is created in the image of God.
Adam chose by free will to bow his knee before Satan.

And God only allows people to go to hell, because they chose to never believe in Christ, while they were alive.
A "Christ rejector" is a choice.
In Hebrews 10:26 and in Acts 28:28, you find Hebrews choosing to reject their Messiah.
That's free will, in process.
Read it.

God honors our free will, He does not choose our thoughts for us.

Temptation come to test the free will of an unbeliever and a Believer.
Some Believers watch soft port NETFLIX movies and shows, and some unbelievers wont let their child have a cell phone or use social media.

God is not causing you to be here on the forum TedT.
He is not causing you to consider what im teaching.

Adam had Free will, and chose to obey the Devil.
Cain had freewill and chose to murder Abel.
Demas had freewill, after he was in Paul's ministry, and Demas chose to leave it, "having love this present world".

Free will is universal, regarding all of humanity.... saved or lost.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Again, not only is the free-willer's God too small, their reasoning is too small. It's not "free will" vs. "determinism". Fallen men have free will in that we freely choose what we are inclined to choose, and that is enmity toward God. We are slaves to sin of our on free will. And God is able to use that according to His good pleasure, as was the case with Joseph's brothers "free-willing" evil against Joseph.

But God regenerates His chosen, opens our eyes and ears to the truth which we cannot help but accept. And He sanctifies us so that we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness. Of course we still sin, but now we have the Holy Spirit to guide us.

 

[Behold]

enmity toward God.

Paul teaches in Romans 8 that a born again believer can have enmity toward God... as this is the un-renewed CARNAL MIND, in a born again Christian.
And that wrong mind keeps them fighting their flesh, and they have no power over it.
They mind is this...>>"sin consciousness"... and they are STUCK in that mind.

They literally exist here...

Jesus said "Apart from me you can do nothing".. and He means, when you faith is wrong, when you mind is carnal, you have no power, no deliverance, and no way OUT.

This is the..."That which i hate i do, and that which i want to do i can't'.... deceived Believer, who is carnally minded and STUCK with no way out, until someone like me gets them to SEE what caused them to "fall from Grace">

 

[TibiasDad]

God is Love. But nowhere in Scripture does it say "A loving God would not...". That's a lie free-willers invent to justify their soteriology.

We read is scripture that God is love, not merely that he is a loving God, which means that Love is the foundational principle of his being and character, his very nature.

We also read what the character of love is
1Cor 13, which defines for us at a minimum of what boundaries are established for how one acts when loving, and especially how one who is love can possibly act.

So we as students and proclaimers must judge the actions of God according to the biblical description of his nature and character. You, as a Calvinist, do the same type of thing with to what and why God acts the way he does.

God does not give, nor is He obliged to give His reasons for doing anything.

Acts 17:24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

Verse 27 is the reason God did what is described in 17:24-26.

33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

Amen, but this doesn’t prove what you’re saying it proves. Certainly we cannot understand all of God’s actions, but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand what he has revealed to us in his word about who and what he is.


Doug

 

[TedT]

LOOK.

If You dont have free will, then that means that all you do wrong, is God caused. = Pre-destined.

I agree - you have it right.

But a sinner has no free will because of his enslavement to the addictive power of evil. So sometime before we became sinners we had a time, a life, an existence, BEFORE we chose to be sinful in HIS sight and by our free will, not HIS will, we became sinners.
If we inherit something of Adam's guilt and sinfulness at our creation / conception, then we have becme isnners by no choice, free will or not,

Since death is the wages for sin, that is, death is not a consequence of life, death proves sinfulness. But some people die in the womb proving that we are indeed sinners at (not by) our conception. Sin by our conception would mean we die for sin with no free will decision to sin and thus become liable to death so death in the womb proves we must have chosen sinfulness by our free will before our conception on earth.

Sin and being guilty of sin can ONLY accrue by a free will decision (not coerced nor constrained by any other power). NO free will or becoming a sinner at creation / conception means no mens rea, no intent to sin, ( really, look it up!) and therefore no free will decision to sin...


...an intro into Pre-Conception Existence theology, (PCE).

 

[Behold]

and therefore no free will decision to sin...


.

Adam chose to bite the Apple....

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Adam chose to bite the Apple....

We are not in the same position as Adam was. Our nature is the result of what Adam did.

 

[civic]

We are not in the same position as Adam was. Our nature is the result of what Adam did.

and just where does the bible say mans nature changed or the image of God in man changed ?

 

[praise_yeshua]

We are not in the same position as Adam was. Our nature is the result of what Adam did.

It is not solely the result of Adam's sin. We definitely have a predisposition to sin but Adam did too. Adam was never crafted to be above sin.

 

[civic]

It is not solely the result of Adam's sin. We definitely have a predisposition to sin but Adam did too. Adam was never crafted to be above sin.

Exactly since he was given a free will- free will is part of the image and likeness of God. And love requires being free to love without coercion or force but the freedom to love in return.

 

[praise_yeshua]

Exactly since he was given a free will- free will is part of the image and likeness of God. And love requires being free to love without coercion or force but the freedom to love in return.

Exactly. This is something that is lost entirely in Calvinism.

It is why I have often said that God is too smart to force someone to love Him. It is one of the reason that love without choice is not really Godly love.