Posted on 06/29/2013 2:31:49 AM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans
“I believe what I’ve just read from you is a person explaining how they skillfully used their free will to come to the conclusion that they have no free will.”
I kinda figured that that was what you were aiming for, but you never defined “free-will” to begin with, in the way I asked, so therefore you confuse the existence of the “will,” which I never denied, with “free-will,” which is a wholly mythological thing.
Free will as defined as what you just illustrated. This is why I wished a specific example to work with.
Examining and evaluating facts and experience, using judgement, making choices determined by a chosen criteria and choosing to act based on these choices and conclusions.
What is your definition of free will?
“What is your definition of free will?”
That it’s “free” number one, and it most certainly isn’t free, as I mentioned in my previous post:
“This assumes that your idea of “free-will” actually exists. None of the Reformers ever denied that mankind has a “will,” and the scripture does not say we have no will either. But, it certainly isn’t a “free” will, as it is either described as being under bondage to sin, taken in “the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim 2:26) or held captive in the will of God who “works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Php 2:13). So to even utter the phrase “free will” is ridiculous. It is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusion projected by a corrupt nature that does not know itself. So you say that your life can have no meaning unless you have a free-will that simply doesn’t exist. In that case, you should, perhaps, find a new meaning for your life instead of fables!”
If you actually had “free” will, then you wouldn’t need the Holy Spirit to believe in Jesus Christ. You wouldn’t be in the bondage of Satan, and you would be able to cease sinning, as it is a ‘free’ choice to make. But, on the contrary, the unregenerate will is so wholly given over to sin, that it is incapable of even believing or even seeking God:
Rom 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (11) There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (12) They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
So therefore you can have a “will,” but it certainly is’t “free” will. It’s a will that acts, under necessity, according to its nature. In the case of the unregenerate, to death and sin. In the case of the regenerate, to believing in Jesus Christ.
Sounds like your describing a raging hormonal teenager.
Children - until a certain age - are willful, completely selfish without concern or consciousness of the other.
Is this your view of the non-elect?
“Sounds like your describing a raging hormonal teenager.
Children - until a certain age - are willful, completely selfish without concern or consciousness of the other.
Is this your view of the non-elect?”
I didn’t say “non-elect” or “elect,” I said unregenerate and regenerate, as we are not regenerate until the Holy Spirit quickens us, according to the Father’s good will and purpose before the world began.
Eph 2:2-5 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: (3) Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. (4) But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, (5) Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
So to answer your question, is this my view of the unregenerate and the fleshy parts of the regenerate? My answer is: NO! My view is a WHOLE lot worse of humanity.
This seems to describe a humanity comprised of only demons or angels. Why is this not what we see in reality?
In your view, could you have come to a different conclusion in your reading of scripture than that there is no such thing as free will? Or is that impossible for the regenerate such as yourself?
“This seems to describe a humanity comprised of only demons or angels. Why is this not what we see in reality?”
The argument would actually lend itself to conclude that we were all devils if left alone by God, for the scripture says that “all our righteousness are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf; and our inequity, like the wind, hath taken us away.” In Romans 3, “There are none who are good, no, not one. There are none who seek after God,” etc. And in Jeremiah 17, “The heart is deceitful above all thing, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” And in many other places, which make it clear that no man can stand before the throne of God and claim that they are good.
Luk_18:19 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God.
But in the regenerate, there is a new man who, though he wars with the old man, is nevertheless the redeemed child of God:
2Co_5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Rom 7:22-25 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
It is this new creature in Christ who is the “angel” you seek, but certainly not one as a result of human action, owing to some internal goodness in a dead and depraved man seeking out, of itself, to love God. He is totally the creation of God, “born again” by the will of the Spirit.
Thanks, but I don’t see the explanation for why we don’t see a world comprised only of demons and angels..
“Thanks, but I don’t see the explanation for why we don’t see a world comprised only of demons and angels..”
Only if you’re still fighting the strawman that the Reformists teach that man is ruled by compulsion, rather than necessity owing to their nature. If the regenerate have a new nature, though with an old man still clinging to it, it stands to reason that they are still capable of sin, though their new man walks with God.
Rom 7:22-23 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
And unless you disbelieve Christ when He says that there is “no one good, save God,” then you certainly cannot argue that mankind is good. And if they are not good, then they must be wholly bad.
I’m just not seeing what the theology claims as either/or.
Either we are in the snare of the devil or held captive in the will of God as you said.
Is there some back and forth from captive of devil to God in our not-free choices?
“Either we are in the snare of the devil or held captive in the will of God as you said.
Is there some back and forth from captive of devil to God in our not-free choices?”
First you need to go back and define “free will,” or at least defend it from my definition, before you start talking about “free choices.” I don’t see how you can come to these conclusions with anything I have written, except perhaps if this was your conclusion from the very beginning.
Your logical mind must see this as an error, right?
“Your logical mind must see this as an error, right?”
How so? You’re going to have to explain how someone who isn’t good, isn’t bad.
My only conclusion is that Calvinism is an intellectual construct that fails theologically and in human experience - and that it results in a concept of God that is antithetical to what Jesus taught.
Other than that, it’s a really good system.
:)
So I’m exploring the dichotomy between what Calvinism teaches and what reality is.
This isn't your position though is it?
Left out a qualifier there, yes?
Back to free will then. Are you not making free choices here? Seriously.
Is you choosing what to type and whether to type all an illusion here?
It seems to me you’re saying it’s not you make these choices. How am I thinking wrong here? What’s our impasse in definitions?
“My only conclusion is that Calvinism is an intellectual construct that fails theologically and in human experience “
But notice I’m the only one who has brought forward anything from theology and human experience, while you’ve not once quoted the scripture or even thought of any, and you have yet to even define or defend the “free will” you came to champion.
“Is you choosing what to type and whether to type all an illusion here?”
How about you actually try responding to what I have said, instead of making all these irrelevant attacks against strawmen? If you’ve nothing more to say except repetitions, I think we’re done with the thought experiments.
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