Sunday, 27 May 2012
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Currently
The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED
By Ted-Future We Create
see relatedIs Religion an Abusive Relatinship?
This is how Christianity felt to me at the end of my tenure as an evangelical. I truly felt like I was being brutally punished by some asshole who judged me by thoughts I couldn't control.
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Comments (54)
@wizexel22 - They are compatible. I explained how. It's God's sovereign decision to allow us to make moral decisions. He was in control and made that choice. Nobody else did. And I don't believe we are the ultimate decider of our salvation. We are a part of it. We could not be saved unless Jesus died for our sins. God decided for that to happen, not us. And God must first draw us to himself because of our depravity before we can make the choice. Yes we can use our freewill to try and pursuade others, but we can't force them to believe.
An example others have used as an analogy of God's will and our will is a chess game. God is a Grandmaster and we are a novice. He allows us to freely choose what moves we make. In the end, the Grand Master will always beat the novice. God is able to allow us to make choices and still use those choices and accomplish his will.
And freewill is expressed all throughout the bible. We see God allowing us to make moral choices, starting with Adam as I explained. God told Adam "his will" was for Adam to not eat. God doesn't then contradict himself and go against his own will by forcing Adam to eat. That makes no sense. God is still sovereign as I already explained. He made the sovereign decision to allow Adam to choose whether or not to obey him. It's very simple. And without freewill, love cannot exist. Love has to involve choice. If we are forced against our will to love, that is not love.
Many people ignorantly lump foreknowledge, predestination, and freewill together. They are separate things. God has foreknowledge of what we will choose to do. This does not take away our choice. He merely foreknows what we will choose. If we would have wanted to make a different choice, then he would also have foreknown that choice. No matter what choice we make, he foreknows it. To understand this further, start with the premise that we do have freewill. Now just because God foreknows what we will choose does not mean we don't have the choice or that it's predestined. You could say we are destined in the future, not predestined by God, to choose what we want to choose. Or, we will choose what God foreknows we will choose. I foreknow that tonight for dinner, I will not choose to eat pizza. Just because both God and I foreknow that, does not take away my choice.
Now there are times in certain circumstances when God chooses, that he does predestine some things. God predestined that Jesus would die for our sins. And sometimes as judgment, he will go against someone's will as he did with Pharaoh when he hardened his heart. But even that was in response to Pharaoh first choosing to disobey God and hardening his own heart.
@Jenny_Wren -
I see how it is plain in scripture that God has complete sovereignty over all. I see how it is logical that if he has complete control, and he created us, than we have no real control over our decisions. It makes a lot of sense.
I disagree as I explained in my previous comment.
@musterion99 - I go on to explain that the fact that we have the ability to choose is also plain in scripture, and that while it is logical to say that God has programmed us and can flow logically to a certain point, it is not sound when considering God's nature and what the rest of scripture has to say.
I just finished "God is not Great" by Christopher Hitchens and was really impressed with it.