"A Christian's Freewill & Those Days"

Jesus-is God,

I have witnessed what you talk about in your observations bacause I have spent time in Calvinist churches, but I think God is raising honest voices to confront the counterfeit.

I just listened today to a sermon by a Calvinist ( haven't done that in a while) titled " Why Revival Tarries" by Alan Cairns. Despite his malicious attack at Finney, I think it was a very good sermon and worth listening to.

We must be honest though and say that the church as a whole is in a backslidden state, whether it be Roformed Baptist, penticostal, or Mennonite.

Friend, the 'calvinism' you have outlined above could only be described as blasphemous heresy. John Calvin did not teach what you have set out and the Bible certainly doesn't teach this.

The acrostic TULIP must be considered carefully. Most of the terms create misunderstanding because they are used to fit a stupid acrostic. For example 'total depravity' suggests we are as bad as we could possibly be. It would be better termed 'radical falleness' because the teaching that, incidentally, it was created to challenge is that because of sin, our free wills(which we very much have) are incapable of trusting Christ ie the fact that we have a free will is our problem. We will always make the wrong choice, freely. Unless God does a work of grace in our hearts.

You are of course entitled to disagree with Calvinism (I prefer the term 'doctrines of grace), but be careful not to misrepresent them.

In Christ

David

the 'calvinism' you have outlined above could only be described as blasphemous heresy.

our free wills(which we very much have) are incapable of trusting Christ

You mean that we are like an eagle who have a broken wing.
He has the choice to fly and break his neck.

What kind of nonesense is this?

Jesus is God

Paul writes of the last days in 2 Timothy: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come” 2 Tim 3:1 (KJV). All that were in Asia had turned away from him.

But the foundation which he had laid would continue up to Christ’s coming.

“Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” 2 Tim 2:19 (KJV)

And today, The Lord knoweth them that are his. Even in the churches you speak of, there are those with a heart after Christ, those who depart from iniquity. And He knows them.

I see from your posting the way you have come, and so, can understand why you place the emphasis where you do. But you must agree that, free will/ choice etc system of doctrine can also lead to belivers loosing their way, not departing from iniquity, but falling away from Christ. Neither teaching is perfect or complete in itself.

But in both, the Lord knoweth them that are His.

David

@ Jesus is God

I would have to respectfully disagree with the way you have portrayed the doctrines of Grace. I will not say much, there isn't much point in fanning the fires of an ancient debate. I will just make some humble points.

1. The fact that many people have laid claim to the doctrines of grace and yet ended up living in wickedness does not prove that the doctrines themselves are wrong.

2. I grew up in a very "free will oriented church" so to speak. I don't think you can say the easy believism is only a "calvinist" problem. Many non-calvinist :) have also fallen into the rut of "pray this prayer", "acknowledge these four truths" type evangelism. The root evil in easy believism is that the doctrine of regeneration is swept under the rug. And also easy believism festers greatly in places were false profession is not warned of.

3. In a christian, the doctrine of election produces great humility not pride. Esteem for God's honor for sure, but no boasting of self.

4. The Doctrine of Perserverence is that all sincere believers, through God's grace, will grow in sanctification, holiness throughout their lives. A growing of repentance and humility, more brokeness over sin yet more victory over it. Evidence of God's discipline in their life and a constant battle and struggle to make their calling and election sure.

5. In concerning the will, only God alone has a perfectly free will. He alone can do as He please and who is there who can hold back His arm? He never contradicts His moral character which is infinite in its scope and thus He is free within Himself. Man first made in the image of God has a limited will. But there are many things we may wish to do which we cannot. We are moral creatures absolutely. But upon the fall man's will became enslaved to sin. We still have a will but it loves sin and even the good things we do are done with a sinful motive. Consider a totaled vehicles where even the steering wheel and column are totally disabled. It is there, but it does no good. We resist God's will from day one, dead in sin. The beautiful thing is that the way God saves a person is that He regenerates them and persuades and enables the will to turn to Him in faith. An irresistible drawing made effectual by God.

Jeremiah 24:7 (New American Standard Bible)

7'I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

Jer 32:38-40
"They shall be My people, and I will be their God;

39and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them.

40"I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.

Psalms 110:3 Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power;
In holy array, from the womb of the dawn,
Your youth are to You as the dew.

A biblical calvinist will not blame God for his sin. But he realizes that apart from the grace of God he has no hope. Apart from Christ he can do nothing. There are two biblical truths that we must recognize. God is Sovereign, that means ,Sovereign, and secondly Man is Responsible. Our finite minds are incabable of understanding how these two truths can be reconciled. But that does not negate that they are true. But neither can we understand how God can make something from nothing. Neither can we understand how God is eternal and without change. But with Him all things are possible. I could easily post many scriptures clearly stating that we are saved by God's grace alone, not by the will of man or flesh. There is much also to support security in Christ, evidenced by a perservering toward the goal, we must always remember the Grace is the root of the fruit. what do i have that i have not been given?

Here is a little mantra that helps me, i can have fellowship with any arminian provided he believes that salvation is by God's grace alone, not man's will or flesh, and also with any calvinist who believes wholeheartedly in proclaiming the Gospel to all people. :)

I shall say no more, perhaps i have said too much already

therick2018

You said enough. Amen

This is not of my words, but speak to where my heart is coming from. Albert Barnes says it much better than I can.
I do agree whole-heartedly.

"""According to the ((((foreknowledge)))) of God the Father. The Father is regarded, in the Scriptures, as the Author of the plan of salvation, and as having chosen his people to life, and given them to his Son to redeem and save, Joh 6:37; 17:2,6,11. It is affirmed here that the fact that they were elect was in some sense in accordance with the "foreknowledge of God." On the meaning of the phrase, Cmt. on Ro 8:29. The passage does not affirm that the thing which God "foreknew," and which was the reason of their being chosen, was, that they would of themselves be disposed to embrace the offer of salvation. The foreknowledge referred to might have been of many other things as constituting the reason which operated in the case; and it is not proper to assume that it could have been of this alone. It may mean that God foreknew all the events which would ever occur, and that he saw reasons why they should be selected rather than others; or that he foreknew all that could be made to bear on their salvation; or that he foreknew all that he would himself do to secure their salvation; or that he foreknew them as having been designated by his own eternal counsels; or that he foreknew all that could be accomplished by their instrumentality; or that he saw that they would believe; but it should not be assumed that the word means necessarily any one of these things. The simple fact here affirmed, which no one can deny, is, that there was foreknowledge in the case on the part of God. It was not the result of ignorance or of blind chance that they were selected. But if foreknown, must it not be certain? How could a thing which is foreknown be contingent or doubtful? The essential idea here is, that the original choice was on the part of God, and not on their part, and that this choice was founded on what he before knew to be best. He undoubtedly saw good and sufficient reasons why the choice should fall on them. I do not know that the reasons why he did it are revealed, or that they could be fully comprehended by us if they were. I am quite certain that it is not stated that it is because they would be more disposed of themselves to embrace the Saviour than others; for the Scriptures abundantly teach, what every regenerated person feels to be true, that the fact that we are disposed to embrace the Saviour is to be traced to a Divine influence on our hearts, and not to ourselves. See Joh 6:65; Ro 9:16; Tit 3:5; Ps 110:2-3."""
end

Forknowledge; Ephesians 1:3-5 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

Praise God for His Good Pleasure of His Will.

I have also said too much, This argument has been hashed 2000 years. I just believe God did it and I had nothing to do with my election. His foreknowledge certainly could see I would never be able to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He is now my Savior, God and Brother to our Father, by whom I now believe.

Sanctification?

In Christ: By God's birthing of the Incorruptable Seed Jesus Christ in me. The Mystery revealed by and to Paul.

I am Born Again. By a Fathers Seed, "Christ in you the hope of glory".

The Oxymoronic Concept of Free-Will in Human Beings as Taught by Many in Christendom.

Choose - To select from a number of possible alternatives (The American Heritage college Dictionary).

Seth Lloyd, an expert on quantum computing and professor of mechanical engineering at the Mass. Institute of Technology said in a NY Times article that, “If by free will you mean the ability to choose, then a simple laptop computer has some kind of free will.”

Free - not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being. (Webster’s Collegiate).

Will - the mental faculty by which one deliberately chooses or decides upon a course of action. (American Heritage).

Free will - 1. the ability or discretion to choose; free choice.

Free will - 2. The power of making free choices that are unconstrained by external circumstances or by an agency such as fate or even divine will. (American Heritage College Dictionary)

Free will - freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention. (Webster)

Even scientists recognize the illogical reasoning of free-willism. Even Albert Einstein who did not speak until 3 years of age.

Causation - “Every Cause has an Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to law; Chance is but a name for law not recognized; there are many planes of causation, but nothing escapes the law.”

“The Principle of Cause and Effect-embodies the truth that law pervades the universe; that nothing happens by Chance.”

“Chance is merely a term, indicating that a cause existed, but not recognized or perceived. That phenomenon is continuous and without break or exception.”

Now that is good science and good logic.

The Principle of Cause and Effect underlies all scientific thought, ancient and modern, and was enunciated by the Essenic Teachers in the earliest days. While many and varied disputes between the many schools of thought have since arisen, these disputes have been principally upon the details of the operations of the Principle, and still more often upon the meaning of certain words. The underlying Principle of Cause and Effect has been accepted as correct by practically all the thinkers of the world worthy of the name. To think otherwise would be to take the phenomena of the universe from the domain of law and Order, and to relegate it; to the control of the imaginary something which men have called “chance.”

About 425 BC the greek philosopher Socrates propounded this method of argument modernly called, ‘The Law of Cause and Effect.’

Socrates was put to death partly for his diehard view of this one solid fundamental principle called ‘The Law of Cause and Effect.’

People experience free will. They have the sense they are free. Yet reality teaches otherwise. Free-will is merely a feeling which humans delude themselves into thinking they have and that it exists.

Self determination is a real and powerful reality. But in reality it is just that. It is self determining. What self wills. We are all filled with self-will. Not free-will as understood and defined by most.

Another has said, “that a human can very well ‘do’ what he wants, but cannot ‘will’ what he wants.”

And then goes on to say, "If free means without a cause, then you can make choices, but you can’t make ‘free’ choices, because there is no such thing. If free will is something one controls, then by its very nature it is not free. It is a self-contradictory term, it’s an oxymoron, it’s like dark light, cold hot, or true lies, it’s a square circle."

In the universe, you either have determinism or randomness and both are bad news for free will.

“I think that exposing free will as an illusion, would have little effect on people’s lives or on their feelings of self-worth. Most of them would remain in denial.It’s an illusion, but it’s a very persistent illusion; it keeps coming back. Comparing it to a magician’s trick that has been seen again and again. Even though you know it’s a trick, you get fooled every time. The feeling just doesn’t go away.”

I purposely have chosen the approach above. And I did it freely and willingly. As one of His children, predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, I do as I do freely and willingly. Those not predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, also do as they do freely and willingly. God accomplishes His will and purpose through every creature He has made for His own glory. I do His will in and by faith out of love,whereas God accomplishes His will through them and their evil, in spite of them, and in spite of their hatred of Him in their hearts.

Job 12:16 With him is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are his.

It is certain that God needs neither you nor I to defend Him and what He has done,is doing, and will do,and that, from all eternity.

Its kinda weird to compare calvinism as a fall away.
calvinism was before arminians.
and most famous missonaries, theologians and psalm writter of olden day where all calvinists.

famous calvinists are : John Bunyan author of pilgrims progress, John Newton author of amazing Grace, William Carrey the missonary father who went to India. Adinoram Judson the Burma missonary. Charles Spurgeon the prince of preachers. George whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, John Gill a famous baptist theologian and John Knox the scottish reformer.
The first baptists in my counry that came here years 1845 where also calvinists.
Then George Muller was a lutheran they have almost the same theology as the calvinists.
Todays calvinists : John MacArthur, Paul Washer, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Tim Conway etc.
then most people that ever managed to write systematic theology are either calvinists, puritans or Lutherans.
and last but not least Augustine who put the bible canon together was a calvinist.
Puritans had same doctrines as the calvinist do not forget that.

the term sola scriptura actually also came from the reformers, Luther, Calvin and Knox.
It was because of sola scriptura that luther and calvin stood against the pope and papacy.
and if we should be sola scriptura the word in 1 petr 1:2
about foreknowledge is in greek prognosis and can mean decided in before hans also.
my countries bible do not use the term "foreknowledge"
it uses the term "predestined"
God foreknew because he had elected already.
even if he "saw into the future" he stil knew who would accept him because he had already elected them he wrote them up in the book of life before the foundation of this world rev 17:8.
Why would man "accept christ" now when we did not in the old covernant?
if there is no election there is no salvation.
even if you elect according to forknowledge wich some claim. it is stil an election and predestination.
but thoose saying God elected according to foreknowledge who he knew would accept him. that condradicts the bible that God elects according to his will not ours.
We do not elect ourselves.
Remeber Israel where elected, no other people nor country where elected to be Gods People.

either you belive or not there is nothing in between.
here comes the gift of faith, will you belive that you will belive? or will you choose not to belive or not?
If I tell you my name is Josef either you belive or not.
there is nothing in between.
no either you belive or u do not belive.
How can you choose this? either you belive but even if you doubt and not fully belive then you do not belive.
you cannot choose to belive this or not.
if man would accept christ without an election then whats the purpose of the cross?
that option was also in the old covernant.
people could choose good and god and nobody did because they where bound to sin.
the free will is bound into the will of sin.
there is either an election 100% from God according to his will and man has nothing to do with it.
or salvation is some part God and the rest is man.
but then man would get the glory and not God.
And salvation would come from the man,
and we all know from old testament that man cannot save himself.
therefore people dont like calvinism because its an offence to the carnal mind that dont want to give worship to a God that elects some and other not.
Israel was choosen and egypt was not.
same today some are elected and therefore they will belive.
others and not elected and therefore they will not belive.
otherwise God would not be sovereign and almighty.
A God that did acually put 2 trees in the garden and knew they would eat it and knew people would go to hell.
And God even created satan and knew he would rebel.
If God is 100% almighty and sovereign, everything will go according to his plan and thoose elected will belive or are you saying God could fail? are you saying God is not sovereign nor have control over his creation or what is happening around him?.

/Josef

That is truly sad that every time Jesus-is God asks for Biblical verses someone posts a bunch of human reasonings.

Why don't you list Scriptural verses? What is so hard about that?

I know savannah have posted a a long post a while back about the depravity of the will. but they were taken out of context, and way too many to try to answer every one of them. why not post one verse at a time and give the chance for the other person to reply. I think that is fair and that is what JiG is asking for.

What are we actually discussing here?

It seems to be just a mish mash of thoughts on Calvinism and freewill with a lot of misunderstanding and jargon.

Some thoughts,

calvinism was before arminians. and most famous missonaries, theologians and psalm writter of olden day where all calvinists.

I don't understand your point, do you imply that the elder MUST be "better" than the later? what about the RCC then?? Regarding the "great missionary", what about John Wesley, William booth,C.T Studd, Watchman Nee, Charles Finney and his Great Revival and the others??
For Great preachers: Ravenhill, Tozer, Reidhead, Wilkerson,etc.
I think- and I am more and more convinced- that God does NOT actually check whether His man believe in the "Doctrine of Grace" before He uses such a man, but rather check whether the same is deeply humbled and understand how weak he is without God, that's what Hudson Taylor said before he reached China, I've never heard a great man of God (even Charles Spurgeon) stating that God uses him because he was calvinist, i.e better...

and last but not least Augustine who put the bible canon together was a calvinist.

Sir, Augustine must NOT have been calvinist, was Abraham a jew, or Levi a great sacrificator??? That said, I think Augustine theology differs a little bit from that of calvinist, e.g, He believed that the elects are taken from the regenerated (that brings a better alternative to calvinist -HUGE- difficulties to explain the warnings against falling away from the faith found in the bible, the parable of the sower, Heb 6:6, Mat 24:13, Revelations 3:5 ) regarding Luther, I am sorry sir but he only believed 3 out of the 5 points of the "doctrine of grace".

Sir, my attempt is not to bring disgrace on calvinism, i actually like the Piper, Washer, Mc Arthur (until i knew he pledged to demolish Finney's testimony and theology who does not fit with the "doctrine of grace"), Alistair Begg, etc. but I have noticed that the "die hard" are mostly found in the calvinist camp and i wonder if this attitude is actually a "coerced" one, i.e that it is God's will

Blessings,