makesends
Well-known member
Lol. Your keep-up-manship doesn't do it, though! It is simply self-contradictory to call God sovereign and then turn around and say he is not sovereign over whatever he chooses to not be sovereign over. (lol, not to mention that a preposition is not what a phrase should be ended with
). I heard that a man once told a friend of mine, "It is the most sovereign thing God can do, to give up some of his sovereignty!" It's poetic, I suppose, and probably appeals to a wide swath of believers, but it is self-contradictory.But let's say here, that we are piddling around with words, badly expressing what we mean to be conveying. Let's say that the Arminian is not saying that God is not sovereign over absolutely everything —that nothing happens without God being (at least) the first cause of it— and even admits that God both causes that everyone have libertarian free will and causes that whatever choices are made are actually made. What it comes down to is the question of whether libertarian free will is actually logically possible.
(I'm currently arguing with one of the most vehement and staunch Reformed members of another site about this very thing, though on the surface it is currently an argument over the meaning of "contingencies". He actually believes that God is the "inventor" —my word for it, not his— of not only everything that will come to pass, but also what COULD come to pass. I say that there is no such thing as what he assumes there. So the Arminian who posits Libertarian Free Will is in pretty good company there, but for semantics.)
From what I have seen, Libertarian Free Will, as opposed to the mere ability to will(verb) a choice, is defined as the will unconstrained to choose one way as opposed to the other. Implicit in the definition is the idea that God does not cause one to choose one way or the other. Yet those within this self-determining frame claim that they do choose as they wish. Logically, then, are they not admitting that at least they are constrained to that one thing —their inclinations? You might say that yes, that is true, but what we mean is that the will is not necessarily encumbered externally, but only internally. So, I ask, where did that internal inclination come from?
Here I don't mean to argue compulsion, but simple inclination: If the will is neither inclined to choose one way nor to the other (with which I don't agree), yet the choice is indeed made from the will (with which I do agree), then how can a choice be made at all? So, it is axiomatic: The will is inclined one way more than the other, even if only for that moment of decision.
Then, why is that will inclined more one way than the other? Can you do more than merely posit that man is not constrained to choose one way over another?
We can later get to the question of whether other things can happen besides what actually does happen.
They go against Gods Innate attributes.
