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This is incorrect, Ironmaw. This is only recognizing that God has created the world with rules and laws that have consequences if they are violated . . . like the law of gravity or any of His moral laws. These do not CONTROL our Free WIll . . . but they do constrain it to stay within them or accept the consequences. We also have Dominion over the earth by God's will . . . so WE are in charge of what happens down here, period (within the bounds of God's laws). This does NOT encroach on God's sovereignty or diminish God in ANY way since HE WILLS IT TO BE SO! It also accounts for the existence of evil and sin . . . US. Tragedies and other natural disasters are just part of what WE must endure and OVERCOME in our Dominion . . . they are NOT GOD's actiions or punishments or anything else.
Then we agree to disagree ... I believe man certainly has will, and can choose, but the same can be said of a dog. Even the artificial intelligence in my computer games makes choices ... But that is not free will ... It simply adapts to mine own actions.
Even then I still check both boxes. God can determine beforehand that Jonah would rebel, then be swallowed by a fish, then repent and testify to Nineveh all the while Jonah is making choices, no different than we do everyday (although inside the fish would be a choice made under extreme duress, but sometimes we make choices under extreme pressure too). There is no conflict between God's sovereignity and the normal everyday acts of willing and choosing.
Could Jonah have chosen to obey God from the get go? He could have had he wanted to but he did not want to. And God foreknew that. Could Jonah have continued to resist God from inside the fish? He could have if he wanted to but he did not want to. Could Jonah have willed himself to want to continue to resist God from inside the fish? No. It is extremely difficult to will yourself to want what you don't want. Much like climbing a wall that you lack the strength to climb.
So your choice is the second one since you think Jonah choose his destiny instead of God. You simply say that God knows it, but Jonah decided it. Therefore, Jonah is in control not God.
So your choice is the second one since you think Jonah choose his destiny instead of God. You simply say that God knows it, but Jonah decided it. Therefore, Jonah is in control not God.
No, I check both boxes. Jonah chose and God chose.
God chose Jonah's destiny and so did Jonah make choices along the way. If I let go of a ball at the top of a hill it rolls down the hill. I choose the ball's destiny. Now replace gravity's interaction with the ball with something more complex: Jonah's will, including Jonah's ability to choose. God knows Jonah's will as much as (better than) I know how gravity acts.
There is a fallacy I think that gets in the way. People tend to think that something can have only one cause. That's not true. Jonah not testifying and later testifying to Nineveh can have multiple causes. God's will, Jonah's will, the fishes will. Though ultimately God is over all, the ultimate cause. When I let go of the ball I am a cause of the ball rolling down the hill. But gravity is also a cause. If I had made gravity, I would be the ultimate cause.
It couldn't be any other way . . . unless God gave up His sovereignty and released ALL His laws of physics and morality to return the universe to chaos. Your presumption that a Free Will MUST have ABSOLUTE unconstrained freedom is an absurd strawman unworthy of consideration . . . we would HAVE to be God. That does NOT mean that God cannot WILL that we have Freedom to choose within the realm He gave us Dominion over . . . it remains His sovereign domain. This sort of all-or-nothing reasoning is rampant in religious doctrine and the precepts of men . . . it is absurd.
Then we agree to disagree ... I believe man certainly has will, and can choose, but the same can be said of a dog. Even the artificial intelligence in my computer games makes choices ... But that is not free will ... It simply adapts to mine own actions.
God bless ...
As you wish, Ironmaw . . . ALL is constrained to the laws of God . . . but within those bounds He has GIVEN US Dominion and Free Will by His DIVINE WILL. I believe He intends that it be so . . . so I believe it is so. God Bless, my brother . . . keep up the good work. You are a capable advocate of our loving God.
There is a fallacy I think that gets in the way. People tend to think that something can have only one cause. That's not true. Jonah not testifying and later testifying to Nineveh can have multiple causes. God's will, Jonah's will, the fishes will. Though ultimately God is over all, the ultimate cause. When I let go of the ball I am a cause of the ball rolling down the hill. But gravity is also a cause. If I had made gravity, I would be the ultimate cause.
The problem with your argument is foreknowledge. If God knows everything is going to happen one way, then can it happen any other way? No, of course not. So are we able to choose the option that God foreknows won't be chosen? No, of course not. Then how do we really choose our own fate? We can't. (Or I could say that we do, but that our choice was predestined and yatta yatta... same thing.) Our choices are 100% affected by other things that cause us to choose a certain way. The original cause would therefore predestine everything.
It couldn't be any other way . . . unless God gave up His sovereignty and released ALL His laws of physics and morality to return the universe to chaos. Your presumption that a Free Will MUST have ABSOLUTE unconstrained freedom is an absurd strawman unworthy of consideration . . . we would HAVE to be God. That does NOT mean that God cannot WILL that we have Freedom to choose within the realm He gave us Dominion over . . . it remains His sovereign domain. This sort of all-or-nothing reasoning is rampant in religious doctrine and the precepts of men . . . it is absurd.
I am simply using the terms as defined by Erasmus and Luther. Check out his book: The Bondage of the Will.
The problem with your argument is foreknowledge. If God knows everything is going to happen one way, then can it happen any other way? No, of course not.
So far so good.
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So are we able to choose the option that God foreknows won't be chosen? No, of course not.
We are physically able to choose either option if we wanted to, it's just that we won't want to.
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Then how do we really choose our own fate? We can't.
Yes we can. We select exactly what we want to and that is all that is required to make a choice.
Let me give you an extreme example. Suppose I offer you a choice of exactly two alternatives. You can either
a) eat a bowl of ice cream
b) toss yourself into a vat of hot oil to die a painful death
Assuming you are sane, I can foreknow 100% what you will choose, because I know something about human preferences. Yet even though I know what you will choose, you still make a choice. My knowing your preferences changes nothing that is actually happening.
Another observation. Though you make a choice in this intance, you do not choose which you prefer. You prefer ice cream but you do not choose to prefer ice cream. You were born with that or you learned it. So you do not need to be free to choose your preferences in order to choose according to your preferences. Your preference for ice cream was effectively predestinated, outside your control. Yet you still choose between ice cream and hot oil.
The flaw in your argument is that you think we need to be able to potentially will ourselves to prefer any of the options in order to be making a choice. We don't. We only need to be allowed to apply our will including our innate preferences to the sitiation.
Last edited by Thy Kingdom Come; 02-15-2010 at 07:02 AM..
We can desire to do something all we want, but if God hasn't ordained that we do a certain thing, we will not do it. That's how I see it. I recall a story about a man who decided to end his life, but everything he tried didn't work....tried to hang himself and the rope broke, tried to shoot himself but the gun wouldn't work, decided to go to the river and jump off a bridge and drown but fog rolled in so that the cab he hailed could not find the bridge. In his misery he came across a Bible and sat down and read and discovered the love of God.
I can see TKC's viewpoint for it certainly seems like we have control over our decisions but I do believe that our wills are shaped by every circumstance in our life. You can't get past the fact that God is our creator. If He gave us free will, He might know what we decide to do but He wouldn't have been able to control the outcomes. I believe He is in full control. In a very limited sense, if we create a robot, the robot only has the power to make choices that we programmed into it.........if A then B, etc. I do NOT believe that God could will us to have free will I believe that God set out to build something and knew exactly how He was going to finish it. As I've stated before, I no longer believe that He created Adam in a finished state and then sat back hoping He would choose good on his own, of his own power. I believe that God is still in the process of creating us but during this whole process we have no power to go against that which God has destined for us at this time, at some point each has or will have the capability to understand why and how all that occured, is occuring and will occur fits into His plan and that He is good. It does get tricky but I believe Satan, whether he be an individual or whatever our psyche convinces us to do contrary to what God would deem as good, only for a season, in order that we know good from evil. God did not set out to do something, not having all the necessary plans and tools etc to accomplish exactly what He meant to accomplish.
It certainly appears that we make our own choices, and I agree we have a will which sometimes may agree with God's or not, but unless He wills it to come to pass, I don't believe it will. He has the power to send some circumstance to thwart or change our mood at any given time. And I don't think He does this on a whim of the moment but that it was all worked out from the very beginning...as Christ is said to have been crucified before the creation. I don't think about God controlling me though. I don't lie in bed and say, ok, if God wants me to get up, He will make me get up. I act as if I have some degree of control and that's the way He designed it to seem. So yes in some ways it IS our will but only because HE designed it to be that way. I think we mainly think that He created empty vessels and let's us fill it on our own, but we don't control who our parents are, our friends, even the personality we were born with. That was sort of programmed into us.
But for the big events to happen, that almost all acknowledge God had control over, such as a war, thousands and perhaps millions or billioins of things happened to lead to that declaration of war at just the right time in history that it was meant to happen. I am poor at explainnig things, but that is how I view what is happening during these ages of time. I believe during the next few ages, things will be explained and revealed, and then we will be completed in Hs image, just as Christ was.
May God bless each of us today with peace and renewed love for those who we perceive to be our enemies.
Even then I still check both boxes. God can determine beforehand that Jonah would rebel, then be swallowed by a fish, then repent and testify to Nineveh all the while Jonah is making choices, no different than we do everyday (although inside the fish would be a choice made under extreme duress, but sometimes we make choices under extreme pressure too). There is no conflict between God's sovereignity and the normal everyday acts of willing and choosing.
Could Jonah have chosen to obey God from the get go? He could have had he wanted to but he did not want to. And God foreknew that. Could Jonah have continued to resist God from inside the fish? He could have if he wanted to but he did not want to. Could Jonah have willed himself to want to continue to resist God from inside the fish? No. It is extremely difficult to will yourself to want what you don't want. Much like climbing a wall that you lack the strength to climb.
Good explanation! One might even say God intended for Jonah to initially disobey so the riches of God's mercy might eventually be shown.
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One might even say God intended for Jonah to initially disobey so the riches of God's mercy might eventually be shown.
