Free will

[Andrew]

I mentioned this in another thread but no one addressed my statements so here it goes...
Adam and Eve were perfect and chosen by God in his image and they had complete liberty to choose, Adam walked with God and Adam and Eve were obedient to God and had complete and true liberty. I believe free will is in todays terms a form of liberty (freedom/not controlled)... but true freedom is obedience to God as well as a gift of God.
Adam and Eve forsook God by going outside that obedience and found themselves without liberty and were condemned to living a life of sin and they both became slaves to sin, bringing down all mankind...
They lost their freedom... make sense? The freedom of choice was between the obedience and walk with God and the loss of liberty in condemnation as well as hiding themselves from God instead of walking with him.
Liberty is freedom of choice no question, but those two choices are ultimate -again -one being walking with God in paradise and the other being betrayal of Gods will and banishment from Paradise (by thy sweat of thy brow...bringing forth a living and failing miserably).
What did God warn would happen if they disobeyed him? They'd die...
Freedom of choice was not a back and forth deal, it was a one shot deal.
They missed the mark 100% and being the first perfect in the image of God they were pained to receive there children and generations as slaves to sin.
My topic is on the meaning of free will that had become a debate in this group.
Through Christ we have put on the new man (Jesus being the new Adam) and we are forgiven our sins and have the glory of walking with God and being servants of God even amongst wolves. Repent and be baptised in Jesus name by the Son Father and Holy Ghost and we shall see the Kingdom of Heaven and have eternal life and never die.
Liberty is obedience and adherence to the testimony and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, those who believe are no longer limited to being slaves to sin (formally being without liberty to walk with God)
I pray this makes sense and that you understand the message I received and am putting forth. All are redeemable but God knows that many will not adhere and will continue a life of sin stripped of true liberty-obedience and walk with God.
Btw although we are not perfect and will sin again and again we are redeemed and salvaged through the royal blood of Christ in our belief and faith.
Amen

 

[Josiah]

Adam and Eve had "free will." We don't.... at least not in Justification. "Free will" is unbiblical and simply a humanistic, prideful myth.... one aspect of the heresy of Pelagianism that won't die simply because the devil won't let it.

 

[Albion]

My topic is on the meaning of free will that had become a debate in this group.
Through Christ we have put on the new man (Jesus being the new Adam) and we are forgiven our sins and have the glory of walking with God and being servants of God even amongst wolves. Repent and be baptised in Jesus name by the Son Father and Holy Ghost and we shall see the Kingdom of Heaven and have eternal life and never die.
Liberty is obedience and adherence to the testimony and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, those who believe are no longer limited to being slaves to sin (formally being without liberty to walk with God)
I pray this makes sense and that you understand the message I received and am putting forth. All are redeemable but God knows that many will not adhere and will continue a life of sin stripped of true liberty-obedience and walk with God.
Btw although we are not perfect and will sin again and again we are redeemed and salvaged through the royal blood of Christ in our belief and faith.
Amen

Actually, I don't get the point, DH. and I am sorry to say that I do not. It sounds like if you choose to do the right thing with your free will, that's great, but if you choose to do the wrong thing with your free will, you don't have free will.

 

[Josiah]

"Free Will" in Justification (narrow)

This aspect of Pelagianism and Arminianism is predicated on the assumption that fallen man ... well.... isn't. It's founded on the assumption that Fallen Man is very much spiritually alive, alert and fully able to understand the things of God and some "choice" set before him, and can freely decide what he wants. He is not dead, he is not void of anything, he has spiritual life, he has the Holy Spirit, he has understanding.... he is good, smart, understanding and able. It's just some smart people make bad choices, and some make good ones. Both Pelagianism and Arminianism tend to deny original sin and pretty much all of the Fall.

Kind of like my going to a restaurant yesterday for lunch with some associates. I ordered a cheeseburger and the waiter asked if I wanted bacon on that. I said no. Free will. I am able to understand all about burgers and bacon.... I am able to understand the choice before me... and I made my choice (right or wrong), and I chose NOT to have bacon on my burger so I have one to blame for that situation: myself. It's all predicated on me being fully able to understand and choose - nothing needed but my own FREE will.

See 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 9:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 12:3




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[Albion]

"Free Will" in Justification (narrow)

This aspect of Pelagianism and Arminianism is predicated on the assumption that fallen man ... well.... isn't. It's founded on the assumption that Fallen Man is very much spiritually alive, alert and fully able to understand the things of God and some "choice" set before him, and can freely decide what he wants. He is not dead, he is not void of anything, he has spiritual life, he has the Holy Spirit, he has understanding.... he is good, smart, understanding and able. It's just some smart people make bad choices, and some make good ones. Both Pelagianism and Arminianism tend to deny original sin and pretty much all of the Fall.

It seems at first glance that this is too harsh a judgment, but what you say here really is correct.

 

[Andrew]

God gave Adam and Eve a choice did he not?
This freedom (liberty) was there obedient walk with God. After they failed they lost their liberty and 'hid' from God, becoming slaves to sin. So due to Adams disobedience we no longer have free will, but they did in the beginning.
I am merely suggesting a different sense of how we perceive 'liberty' in biblical terms. I am not talking about predestination.
Liberty = Walk with God = Obedience and Faithfulness = Servants of God

Sin = Hiding from God = Disobedience = enslaved to sin..

Perhaps the thread title should have been "liberty" instead of "free will" although I see them the same.

Freedom from sin is liberty and is our walk with God given by God through his Son Christ Jesus, his followers in general (broad terms, not individually named) are always Gods elect.
also
2 Corinthians 3:17

 

[Josiah]

This aspect of Pelagianism and Arminianism is predicated on the assumption that fallen man ... well.... isn't. It's founded on the assumption that Fallen Man is very much spiritually alive, alert and fully able to understand the things of God and some "choice" set before him, and can freely decide what he wants. He is not dead, he is not void of anything, he has spiritual life, he has the Holy Spirit, he has understanding.... he is good, smart, understanding and able. It's just some smart people make bad choices, and some make good ones. Both Pelagianism and Arminianism tend to deny original sin and pretty much all of the Fall.


Kind of like my going to a restaurant yesterday for lunch with some associates. I ordered a cheeseburger and the waiter asked if I wanted bacon on that. I said no. Free will. I am able to understand all about burgers and bacon.... I am able to understand the choice before me... and I made my choice (right or wrong), and I chose NOT to have bacon on my burger so I have one to blame for that situation: myself. It's all predicated on me being fully able to understand and choose - nothing needed but my own FREE will.


See 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 9:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 12:3



.

God gave Adam and Eve a choice did he not?

Adam and Eve, yes. You and me, no.


The "choice" two people had (Adam and Eve) was BEFORE the Fall.

As I noted, those who hold to "free will" in Justification tend to hold that the Fall never happened or if it did, it had no effect on man - he STILL knows God (just as Adam and Eve did before the Fall), he STILL understands all the things of God, he is STILL a child of God, he STILL has full spiritual life, he STILL can fully understand all the things of God. He just needs to make a choice - like whether you want bacon on that hamburger or prefer Pepsi or Coke - and can make that totally independent of God (no God needed) - it's just sometimes he can pat himself on the back for making the right decision (and thus God rewarding that good work accordingly).

It's pretty contrary to Scripture applying to AFTER the Fall, to those OTHER than Adam and Eve prior to that whole fruit thingy.

See 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 9:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 12:3, etc., etc., etc.

So due to Adams disobedience we no longer have free will, but they did in the beginning.

I'd agree with that. Of course, Adam and Eve didn't need salvation so even the "free choice" they had was not related to justification.

Perhaps the thread title should have been "liberty" instead of "free will" although I see them the same.

Probably.... I appreciate the clarification.




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[Andrew]

Adam and Eve, yes. You and me, no.


The "choice" two people had (Adam and Eve) was BEFORE the Fall.

As I noted, those who hold to "free will" in Justification tend to hold that the Fall never happened or if it did, it had no effect on man - he STILL knows God (just as Adam and Eve did before the Fall), he STILL understands all the things of God, he is STILL a child of God, he STILL has full spiritual life, he STILL can fully understand all the things of God. He just needs to make a choice - like whether you want bacon on that hamburger or prefer Pepsi or Coke - and can make that totally independent of God (no God needed) - it's just sometimes he can pat himself on the back for making the right decision (and thus God rewarding that good work accordingly).

It's pretty contrary to Scripture applying to AFTER the Fall, to those OTHER than Adam and Eve prior to that whole fruit thingy.

See 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 9:16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 12:3, etc., etc., etc.






I'd agree with that. Of course, Adam and Eve didn't need salvation so even the "free choice" they had was not related to justification.






Probably.... I appreciate the clarification.




.

Currently I am not affiliated with any specific denomination so my frame work of belief may not be too obvious or clear for others so clarification is all I can offer.
I certainly agree that my belief in Christ does not mean I get a high five from God or that I have saved my soul all by myself for believing on my own by my own free will.
Like I said we were born slaves to sin, God is the giver and Liberty is a gift from God.
I stated in another thread that I had a conversation with an atheist recently where he claimed that because I am a Christian I am closed off and shackled and that I should enjoy sin and be free like him... I made it clear to him that when I was an atheist (before I got saved) I was a slave to sin and had no freedom because 'God' was not an option for me then.. again I reiterate that liberty is a gift from God, Christ freed me from the shackles of 'slavery to sin'.. Liberty is granted and it's a freedom to be able to walk with God.

 

[MennoSota]

https://www.monergism.com/augustine-and-pelagius
BY R. C. SPROUL

"It is Augustine who gave us the Reformation."*So wrote B. B. Warfield in his assessment of the influence of Augustine on church history. It is not only that Luther was an Augustinian monk, or that Calvin quoted Augustine more than any other theologian that provoked Warfield's remark. Rather, it was that the Reformation witnessed the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over the legacy of the Pelagian view of man.

Humanism, in all its subtle forms, recapitulates the unvarnished Pelagianism against which Augustine struggled. Though Pelagius was condemned as a heretic by Rome, and its modified form, Semi-Pelagianism was likewise condemned by the Council of Orange in 529, the basic assumptions of this view persisted throughout church history to reappear in Medieval Catholicism, Renaissance Humanism, Socinianism, Arminianism, and modern Liberalism. The seminal thought of Pelagius survives today not as a trace or tangential influence but is pervasive in the modern church. Indeed, the modern church is held captive by it.

What was the core issue between Augustine and Pelagius? The heart of the debate centered on the doctrine of original sin, particularly with respect to the question of the extent to which the will of fallen man is "free." Adolph Harnack said:

There has never, perhaps, been another crisis of equal importance in church history in which the opponents have expressed the principles at issue so clearly and abstractly. The Arian dispute before the Nicene Council can alone be compared with it. (History of Agmer V/IV/3)

*

The controversy began when the British monk, Pelagius, opposed at Rome Augustine's famous prayer: "Grant what Thou commandest, and command what Thou dost desire." Pelagius recoiled in horror at the idea that a divine gift (grace) is necessary to perform what God commands. For Pelagius and his followers responsibility always implies ability. If man has the moral responsibility to obey the law of God, he must also have the moral ability to do it.

Harnack summarizes Pelagian thought:

Nature, free-will, virtue and law, these strictly defined and made independent of the notion of God - were the catch-words of Pelagianism: self-acquired virtue is the supreme good which is followed by reward. Religion and morality lie in the sphere of the free spirit; they are at any moment by man's own effort.

The difference between Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism is more a difference of degree than of kind. To be sure, on the surface there seems like there is a huge difference between the two, particularly with respect to original sin and to the sinner's dependence upon grace. Pelagius categorically denied the doctrine of original sin, arguing that Adam's sin affected Adam alone and that infants at birth are in the same state as Adam was before the Fall. Pelagius also argued that though grace may facilitate the achieving of righteousness, it is not necessary to that end. Also, he insisted that the constituent nature of humanity is not convertible; it is indestructively good.

Over against Pelagius, Semi-Pelagianism does have a doctrine of original sin whereby mankind is considered fallen. Consequently grace not only facilitates virtue, it is necessary for virtue to ensue. Man's nature can be changed and has been changed by the Fall.

However, in Semi-Pelagianism there remains a moral ability within man that is unaffected by the Fall. We call this an "island of righteousness" by which the fallen sinner still has the inherent ability to incline or move himself to cooperate with God's grace. Grace is necessary but not necessarily effective. Its effect always depends upon the sinner's cooperation with it by virtue of the exercise of the will.

It is not by accident that Martin Luther considered*The Bondage of the Will*to be his most important book. He saw in Erasmus a man who, despite his protests to the contrary, was a Pelagian in Catholic clothing. Luther saw that lurking beneath the controversy of merit and grace, and faith and works was the issue of to what degree the human will is enslaved by sin and to what degree we are dependent upon grace for our liberation. Luther argued from the Bible that the flesh profits nothing and that this "nothing" is not a little "something."

Augustine's view of the Fall was opposed to both Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. He said that mankind is a massa peccati, a "mess of sin," incapable of raising itself from spiritual death. For Augustine man can no more move or incline himself to God than an empty glass can fill itself. For Augustine the initial work of divine grace by which the soul is liberated from the bondage of sin is sovereign and operative. To be sure we cooperate with this grace, but only after the initial divine work of liberation

 

[MennoSota]

Augustine did not deny that fallen man still has a will and that the will is capable of making choices. He argued that fallen man still has a free will (liberium arbitrium) but has lost his moral liberty (libertas). The state of original sin leaves us in the wretched condition of being unable to refrain from sinning. We still are able to choose what we desire, but our desires remain chained by our evil impulses. He argued that the freedom that remains in the will always leads to sin. Thus in the flesh we are free only to sin, a hollow freedom indeed. It is freedom without liberty, a real moral bondage. True liberty can only come from without, from the work of God on the soul. Therefore we are not only partly dependent upon grace for our conversion but totally dependent upon grace.

Modern Evangelicalism sprung from the Reformation whose roots were planted by Augustine. But today the Reformational and Augustinian view of grace is all but eclipsed in Evangelicalism. Where Luther triumphed in the sixteenth century, subsequent generations gave the nod to Erasmus.

Modern evangelicals repudiate unvarnished Pelagianism and frequently Semi-Pelagianism as well. It is insisted that grace is necessary for salvation and that man is fallen. The will is acknowledged to be severely weakened even to the point of being "99 percent" dependent upon grace for its liberation. But that one percent of unaffected moral ability or spiritual power which becomes the decisive difference between salvation and perdition is the link that preserves the chain to Pelagius. We have not broken free from the Pelagian captivity of the church.

That one percent is the "little something" Luther sought to demolish because it removes the sola from sola gratia and ultimately the sola from sola fide. The irony may be that though modern Evangelicalism loudly and repeatedly denounces Humanism as the mortal enemy of Christianity, it entertains a Humanistic view of man and of the will at its deepest core.

We need an Augustine or a Luther to speak to us anew lest the light of God's grace be not only over-shadowed but be obliterated in our time.

 

[pinacled]

Adam and Eve had "free will." We don't.... at least not in Justification. "Free will" is unbiblical and simply a humanistic, prideful myth.... one aspect of the heresy of Pelagianism that won't die simply because the devil won't let it.

Only a rib was deceived!
And it is three ribs that the beast desires to devour.