Free Will

Crucible

BANNED
Banned
This would be a great point, but it's dead wrong.

Genesis 1:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

You believe in a god who creates a reality and then wipes his hands clean when it goes rogue. That's the bottom line- you try and say that it is righteous to create something in which you know will be disastrous- in order to condemn the notion that all is predestined according to His will.

Supreme intellectual sin is all that amounts to. 'Free will' is a narcotic that you all cannot get off of, and Calvin blasted you all for it :)
 

JudgeRightly

裁判官が正しく判断する
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Gold Subscriber
You believe in a god who creates a reality and then wipes his hands clean when it goes rogue.

Except that's not what I believe. God didn't wipe His hands, He set in motion a plan that would redeem His creation.

That's the bottom line- you try and say that it is righteous to create something in which you know will be disastrous- in order to condemn the notion that all is predestined according to His will.

Many times, God said that He wished that He could destroy His people, but He loved Abraham enough to not do so. However, you're forgetting that I don't believe that God knows the future. Sure, He can react to what is happening, and He can plan ahead, and He can determine that people who do certain things will be set apart from the rest. That doesn't mean He knows every person who will and who won't, it just means that the people who do will be set apart.

Supreme intellectual sin is all that amounts to. 'Free will' is a narcotic that you all cannot get off of, and Calvin blasted you all for it :)

There is only will that is free.

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app
 

JudgeRightly

裁判官が正しく判断する
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Gold Subscriber
You don't actually believe in God then, you believe in a wizard in the sky.

And
So much for prophesy.

Wat? "a wizard in the sky"? Seriously? I'm saying that God is infinitely wise, that He's alive, that He is capable and willing to react to circumstances, and you're saying that I believe in a "wizard"? No.

You put prophecy over love, over righteousness, over justice, over goodness, over GOD HIMSELF. You are SO FOCUSED on prophecy that you believe it trumps all else. It doesn't. You're like the people who believe in the Fates of Greek mythology, saying it was prophesied, so it must be true.

Do you remember the myth of Oedipus?
http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Oedipus/oedipus.html
Disgusting, no?
You're like the Greek, who places prophecy above all else.

Yet God. DOES. NOT. God places man's ability to repent over prophecy. God says that if He speaks concerning a nation, to destroy it, but then the people of the nation change their ways, then God WILL NOT DO what He said He was going to do. The reverse is also true, where if a nation is good in God's sight, and He says He will bless them, but they turn away from Him, then He says He WILL NOT bless them, like He said He would.

And NO. This DOES NOT make God out to be a liar. It shows that God is Just, and Righteous, and Good. It shows that if someone loves God, then He will bless them. If they hate Him, then He will not bless them.

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
:yawn:

@Cete was a rabble rouser in churches, but has never actually spoken to a learned theologian.
Is this all you've got?

Rabble rouser?

I asked a question in Sunday School and I did so respectfully at that. No one got mad or even got their feelings hurt. He was simply stunned into silence, that's all. He, like you, was, in the end, unmoved by logic so simple that any child could understand it.

That's the only thing to gether from your post, Clete. Everything you stated just beats around the bush, with a mere declaration that Calvin is wrong.
Which is usually the case with anti-Calvinists.
We're just getting started, Crucible. The main thrust of my post had nothing to do with proving Calvin wrong in the first place. I had begun to lay the groundwork for such an argument but the thrust of my post was aimed at demonstrating that your claim that Calvin taught that we have free will is unvarnished stupidity.

What Calvin perpetuated was anathema to those who preach free will because it is destructive to every single congregation that does so- the 'free will' crowd is inherently fanatical and make up virtually all the thousands of denominations that have sprouted over the past several centuries.
And yet you make the claim that Calvin believed that we have free will!

You all try to say that 'God is unjust' in Sovereign Election, but yet you ignore the fact that God still nonetheless willingly created a reality in which millions of people would suffer in Hell for eternity.
This is question begging at its finest.

God created a world where such suffering was a possibility but He did not create a world where such suffering would occur by necessity. Adam and Eve could have told Lucifer to go pound sand. More than that, Lucifer didn't have to rebel against God by tempting Adam and Eve in the first place.

It's pretty much a non-argument on yalls part, and you all are too obsessed with your free will to see it :wave2:
Figured out that I'm not the pushover that you're used to "debating", did you? :rolleyes:

Coward!

You stupidly attribute Arminian doctrine to Calvinism and then when I prove that you're wrong and posit the concepts of love and justice as proof that Calvinism is also wrong, you have nothing to say in response and instead of either engaging the debate or entertaining the idea that what you've been taught is in error, you tuck tail and run.

If you're unwilling to debate, what the heck are you even doing here? I mean, this website is the single biggest waste of time in existence if you're not willing to debate the issues that you bring up!

Resting in Him,
Clete
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Wat? "a wizard in the sky"? Seriously? I'm saying that God is infinitely wise, that He's alive, that He is capable and willing to react to circumstances, and you're saying that I believe in a "wizard"? No.

You put prophecy over love, over righteousness, over justice, over goodness, over GOD HIMSELF. You are SO FOCUSED on prophecy that you believe it trumps all else. It doesn't. You're like the people who believe in the Fates of Greek mythology, saying it was prophesied, so it must be true.

Do you remember the myth of Oedipus?
http://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Oedipus/oedipus.html
Disgusting, no?
You're like the Greek, who places prophecy above all else.

Yet God. DOES. NOT. God places man's ability to repent over prophecy. God says that if He speaks concerning a nation, to destroy it, but then the people of the nation change their ways, then God WILL NOT DO what He said He was going to do. The reverse is also true, where if a nation is good in God's sight, and He says He will bless them, but they turn away from Him, then He says He WILL NOT bless them, like He said He would.

And NO. This DOES NOT make God out to be a liar. It shows that God is Just, and Righteous, and Good. It shows that if someone loves God, then He will bless them. If they hate Him, then He will not bless them.

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app

Johan 3:4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

Jonah 3:10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.​
 

JudgeRightly

裁判官が正しく判断する
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Gold Subscriber
Johan 3:4 And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day’s walk. Then he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

Jonah 3:10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.​
Jonah 4

"But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.*2*So he prayed to the*Lord, and said, “Ah,*Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You*are*a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.*3*Therefore now, O*Lord, please take my life from me, for*it is*better for me to die than to live!”

4*Then the*Lord*said, “Is it*right for you to be angry?”

5*So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.*6*And the*Lord*God prepared a plant[a]*and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.*7*But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it*so*damaged the plant that it withered.*8*And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is*better for me to die than to live.”

9*Then God said to Jonah, “Is it*right for you to be angry about the plant?”

And he said, “It is*right for me to be angry, even to death!”

10*But the*Lord*said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.*11*And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”"



Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
You believe in a god who creates a reality and then wipes his hands clean when it goes rogue. That's the bottom line- you try and say that it is righteous to create something in which you know will be disastrous- in order to condemn the notion that all is predestined according to His will.

Supreme intellectual sin is all that amounts to. 'Free will' is a narcotic that you all cannot get off of, and Calvin blasted you all for it :)

In my previous post, I said that this argument was question begging and I just want to expand on that just a bit.

Notice the assumption that is made here.

"...which you know will be disastrous..."

The assumption here is exhaustive divine foreknowledge, which is a Calvinist doctrine.

So you see what he's done, then? He put Calvinist doctrine into the minds of non-Calvinists and then points to the contradiction. His argument is that you can't be and not be a Calvinist.

Well, okay! I reject the whole of Calvinism. Including exhaustive divine foreknowledge.

What are you going to do with that, Crucible, call me a rabble rouser again?
 

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Jonah 4

"But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.*2*So he prayed to the*Lord, and said, “Ah,*Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You*are*a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing harm.*3*Therefore now, O*Lord, please take my life from me, for*it is*better for me to die than to live!”

4*Then the*Lord*said, “Is it*right for you to be angry?”

5*So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city.*6*And the*Lord*God prepared a plant[a]*and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.*7*But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it*so*damaged the plant that it withered.*8*And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is*better for me to die than to live.”

9*Then God said to Jonah, “Is it*right for you to be angry about the plant?”

And he said, “It is*right for me to be angry, even to death!”

10*But the*Lord*said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.*11*And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”"



Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app

The book of Jonah and Calvinism are mutually exclusive. (The whole bible really but the book of Jonah really puts it into sharp relief.)
 

JudgeRightly

裁判官が正しく判断する
Staff member
Administrator
Super Moderator
Gold Subscriber
Don't blame us, God thought of that but you won't know it. Sad
Then read Jeremiah.

Actually, while you're at it, read the whole Bible a few times over, then do it again. And again, and again, until you get it into your thick skull that God's love and need for justice is greater than any prophecy.

Sent from my Pixel XL using TheologyOnline mobile app
 

Crucible

BANNED
Banned
The reason why Reformed doctrine is superior is because it acknowledges the myriads of verses in the Bible that reveal God's sovereignty, election, predestination, and foreknowledge.

From Genesis to Revelation, Calvinism is stretched throughout. But you all find the few verses in the Bible that speak of free will and try to conform the entirety of scriptures to it.

You all are drunk on free will- free will is your god :wave:
 

God's Truth

New member
Why? Again, the principles, meanings and values I communicate are found in the bible, and are consonant with human experience. Not everything has to have a specific bible passage to have validity, value or meaning. In fact, the subject here in general, has been treated by metaphysicians, philosophers, scientists (not just theologians) for centuries, its a very complex subject, an issue of 'debate' on a variety of different levels.

The subject of free will is huge. - it extends beyond a biblical context,...we just happen to be discussing it within a 'religious' context, which includes the Bible, of course, and in fact all religious traditions, human experience and cultures. 'Free will' isn't limited to the Bible, its discussed/explored in other fields of study and discipline as well.

If you're following, I'm in favor of 'free will'(genuine freedom of choice existing, however within a limited range of options, contextually speaking) and that its plainly revealed in scriptures, per passages we've already shared here. Some deny this, and one in particular keeps asking "where is free will in the scriptures?"...despite numerous obvious passages shared. Its a merry-go-round.

Because my God is a jealous God.
 
Top