Considering Election & Volition Through Questions Alone

Hi all,
In light of the endless debate in Christianity about election and volition (free will), I'd like to try something interesting. Instead of debating the issue, could we investigate it by assembling a master list of questions?

Personally, I'm trying to understand what God says about it. Having a list of questions to consider and answer with scripture would be a great starting place and may foster understanding of one another. Once we have a decent list, I'm glad to make a word doc with all of them available.

Regardless of your personal position, please list any questions you think an honest seeker of truth might have about election and/or free will. NO ANSWERS PLEASE, this can be done later, personally or in another thread.

Blessings,
Brian

Here are some questions I thought of:

If a sovereign God chooses to allow men whether or not to believe in Christ, would He be any less sovereign?

Is the debate between election and free will worthwhile or merely theological sport?

Does ignoring/avoiding the debate excuse one from accountability to God?

Is God’s character devalued, insulted, defamed by not taking a side?

Is a balance between God’s sovereignty and human will even possible?

Can God ‘limit’ His own sovereignty by allowing man volition? Could this be a governmental decision regarding spiritual laws, just as He institued laws such as gravity in nature - not that He had to, but that He decided to.

Is election always unto salvation, or could it be referring to God’s plan for a person in time?

Is free will more loving than election?

If God has given us consciences to convict us in regards to the law, should man heed his conscience when it screams out that election is unjust?

If Christ died for and loves ‘all men’, ‘the world’ and ‘whosoever’, why then are not all saved?

Does forgiveness have to be ‘appropriated’?

Does salvation by grace alone necessarily imply that man is incapable of choosing God? Isn’t grace paying a debt we never could and making the application of that payment available to any who will believe?

Since it is impossible for men to be saved apart from Christ’s sacrifice, how would free will save man by works?

In conceiving God, which God is mightier: The one Who programs man in order to achieve His eternal purposes, or the one Who allows man freedom of choice and still achieves His eternal purposes?

Doesn’t ‘love’ mandate choice? Without volition, how can love exist? Didn’t God pay for man’s sin because he chose to, not because He had to? In a similar way, weren’t Adam and Eve given volition so they could love God?

Does justice demand that every human who ends up in Hell earned it through choice? Does a just and loving God really create ignoble souls for the sole purpose of consuming them with wickedness and punishing them for it eternally?

I think your questions give some of your answers away.....

Here's another:

In light of the abundance of scriptures apparently supporting each position, are election and free will necessarily contradictory? Could both exist at the same time?

As Chuck Smith says, "God didn't ask us to reconcile the two." Or as Zac Poonen described a gate which, on the outside reads to the effect of, "come all who would be saved" and on the inside reads "chosen since the foundation of the world."

Is human logic getting in the way of supernatural noncontradiction?

MrC

Is human logic getting in the way of supernatural noncontradiction?

BINGO!!!

bro greg

I firmly believe that those that are "spiritual" can accept the unfathomable truths of scripture even if it does line up with shallow human reasoning even at its best.

BINGO again. there is no contradiction about this in the mind of God, the 2 are 1 serving 1 purpose, the ultimate purpose, His glory.

MisterCheez wrote

Does salvation by grace alone necessarily imply that man is incapable of choosing God? Isn’t grace paying a debt we never could and making the application of that payment available to any who will believe?

If Jesus had not first apprehended Paul on the Damascus road, would Paul have been saved?

If Paul had not accepted that Jesus was The Messiah, would Paul have been saved?

There are two parts and in that order.

Do we have a supernatural experience to testify that Jesus has met with us?

Linda

According to Romans 8:29-30:
"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified."

1) How many of the foreknown are predestined?
2) How many of the predestined are called?
3) How many of the called are justified?
4) How many of the justified are glorified?

Who's sins did Christ atone for at the cross?

How can a person believe that salvation is by grace and not by works and at the same time believe that God chose them because of something meritous they had done?

If God chooses to elect a nation of people, isn't he electing certain individuals in that nation as well?

In John 6, why does Jesus say that no one whom the Father brings to him will be lost and at the same time many of his disciples leave and never come back?

When the Bible says that someone is an enemy of God (James 4:3-5), does that mean that God is fighting them or they are fighting God?

What does the Bible mean when it refers to the 'elect'?

Why does the Bible refer to the 'chosen' so much?

In the parable of the wedding feast in Matthew 22, why does the King single out the man without the wedding garment, have him bound hand and foot to be cast into outer darkness and then make the statement 'For many are called, but few are chosen?'

Here's a few:

If God has planned out everything and has chosen things to go the way he exactly wanted then:

Did God create Lucifer purposing that he was going to cause this havoc on earth?

Did God create mankind and said this is very good because he knew that he was about to curse them for the rest of their mortal lives?

Did God create the Garden of Eden so that he could purposely kick them out?

Why did God repent from creating mankind and destroy all but Noah and family if He already knew that he had created them for destruction?

Why is God angry with the wicked if he created them specifically to blaspheme His Kingdom?

***Shouldn't God be pleased with the wicked since they are doing exactly what he purposed them to do?

Desi, Jr.

Can I break the string of questions and give an answer?

(I will try to answer your question with a question)

JaySaved wrote:
How can a person believe that salvation is by grace and not by works and at the same time believe that God chose them because of something meritous they had done?

Dorcas wrote:
Who believes this and on what basis, please?

Is choosing Christ not something meritous that a person has done?

JaySaved wrote:
If God chooses to elect a nation of people, isn't he electing certain individuals in that nation as well?

Dorcas wrote:
Where does He do this? (Sorry I'm not aware of Him choosing - inviting - anyone but individuals into faith with Him.)

Is not the common response by non-Calvinists to Romans 9 that Jacob and Esau are referring to nations and not individuals?

Are we willing to let the Holy Spirit to wipe clean the slate of our doctrine and philosophy mixture and mans clever workings and writings of intellectual vomit and allow him to rewrite His Truth on our hearts?

Does the Word of God characterize our Holy Father in Heaven in a way in which He would in eternity past will into existence evil and an entire culture of evil beings and allow them to reside in Heaven for a time that he predestined, just so that He could send and take pleasure in seeing His only Son the Holy One of the Universe, our Lord and Saviour, subjected to the ridicule and torture of humanity and subject all of mankind's sin on His person and separate Himself, and the Spirit from His Son while He hung dying on the cross after being mutilated and tortured physically and spiritually for His entertainment?

Does the Word testify of our God having this character?

Do we waste precious time debating predestination when we should be proclaiming Christ crucified to a lost world?

AMEN & AMEN!

Do we waste precious time debating predestination when we should be proclaiming Christ crucified to a lost world?

Are we not suppose to preach the whole counsel of God?

Sure God Aprehended Paul, however Paul still had a choice to make in answer to God's call to Him. We see God talk about those He Foreknew and also Predestined (Rom8:29-31).
Lets look at this from a different angle, God is multi dimensional, He is in the past, present and future. He is all knowing - he wrote the end of the book so we in part know what the end will be. So if God knows this then He can see who will be the one's to choose Him and in so doing He is able to weave them into the "bible timeline" toward the book of Revelation end. We still have free choice to accept or reject Christ, we are not robots. Does He not say that He desires all to be saved. God does not have favorites,(but if we want to distort things we could pervert things and say that Jesus favored John more than the other disciples as the Gospels refer to him as the one Jesus loved).
God Foreknew that Judas would betray Jesus because God being all knowing saw it in the future and used it in prophecy. To say God does not know what we will say and do is to say that God is not the Alpha abd the Omega, but He is a minor god.
We do not know who will respond to God's calling (only God does), but it is a command to us to tell everyone about Jesus.
Does God harden Pharoah or anyone elses heart, well I believe yes, only because they had chosen not to bow their knees to God and as such God will use them in His plans. God created man to have a free will to choose Him and to serve Him. Yes we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but we still had to respond. Every day is also a choise to carry the cross of Christ and be a light to this world (and they are many ways to be a witness).

brethren
if we look at scripture we find instances in which we are clearly told to make a choice and yet in the writings of Paul not only in Romans chapt 9, we find him talking about being called of God from before creation. Evidently we have some measure of free will, yet that free will is not independant from God's Sovereign will. The question was asked by Desi JR if God created everything willing/knowing that man would fall. God was not caught off guard by what happened in the garden. The truth of the matter brethren is that our Lord created all things for 2 purpose and Paul outlines this in Ephesians chapt 3:

[b]9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: 10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, 11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: 12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. 13 Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. [/b]

if then God's will was to show His manifold wisdom to the principalities and powers, He didn't think it too extravagant to make it so/allow it (depending on your point of view i suppose) the fall of man and everything which followed to that end.

bro Father'sheart said

Lets look at this from a different angle, God is multi dimensional, He is in the past, present and future. He is all knowing - he wrote the end of the book so we in part know what the end will be. So if God knows this then He can see who will be the one's to choose Him and in so doing He is able to weave them into the "bible timeline" toward the book of Revelation end. We still have free choice to accept or reject Christ, we are not robots. Does He not say that He desires all to be saved. God does not have favorites,(but if we want to distort things we could pervert things and say that Jesus favored John more than the other disciples as the Gospels refer to him as the one Jesus loved).

the word for foreknowledge can also be rendered and mean fore-ordained. Nothing happens outside of what God wills whether we like it or not. The purpose of God creating was for His name to be glorified and EVERYTHING is engineered to work to that one end. What you have suggested is that God is somehow reacting to whatever we do such as Judas betraying Jesus.God didn't pick Judas because Judas would betray Jesus.Judas was predesitined to do so. God doesn't react to what we do as though He has to come up daily with a contingency plan to account for our decisions. our free will is bound up in His own will for that same ultimate purpose, the glorification of the Maker's Name and the display of His manifold wisdom to all.

when we get to heaven, we will not all have the same glory. In that regard the ones with more glory are more favoured and rightly so because they have done more to please God than the rest. consider this ,shall i expect to have the same glory as Peter, who was chief of the apostles?

God Foreknew that Judas would betray Jesus because God being all knowing saw it in the future and used it in prophecy. To say God does not know what we will say and do is to say that God is not the Alpha abd the Omega, but He is a minor god.

true about the last bit, but then again God doesn't react to what we do as though He was somehow unnaware.

We still have free choice to accept or reject Christ, we are not robots.

but we can't come to Christ unless the Father draws us, see this scripture from John 6 :65

And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father

See brethren, our salvation rests entirely on God Himself. The tragedy of our state is that we are not even aware of our need for salvation unless God moves and we can't even come to Christ unless the Father draws us...

God the Father didn't send Christ here or do all these things which He has done for our benefit primarily. He did all these things to glorify Himself and to make manifest His manifold wisdom. of course this is our benefit but this is secondary. i think one of the problems is that we tend to view God as being there for our benefit (a humanistic view;we being the primary beneficiaries) while negating the need for Him to be glorified (gor being the primary beneficiary of His work, thereby assuring Himself of allt he glory).

we have free will but it is confined in God's Sovereign will because God is in the business of glorifying Himself.

Does God harden Pharoah or anyone elses heart, well I believe yes, only because they had chosen not to bow their knees to God and as such God will use them in His plans.

Pharaoh's heart was hardened by God and as a result he would not repent, not the other way around. Esau didn't give up his birthright and then got rejected by God. he gave up his birthright [u][i][b]because[/b][/i][/u]God hated him before he and Jacob could do anything.

Yes we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but we still had to respond.

Yes but we can only do that if God quickens us to our pitiful state by the gospel and His grace, and we can only accept if He gives us grace enough to do so. Consider how many people left Christ in John chapt 6...of the multitudes which followed Him, by then only the disciples were left because the rest of them hadn't been drawn to Christ by the Father as Christ said in chapt 6 65.

let us look at everything in the light of this one thing, God seeking to glorify Himself and everything will become plain.

How hard is it to respect the guidelines of a thread?

What does 'questions only' mean except 'questions only?'