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is it important to change mind about freewill ?
Kat:
Hi Reko,
We have always welcomed questions and your questions hit on a topic we have discussed here numerous times. I don't mind helping anyone any time with questions. But this forum is totally inadequate to explain this or any subject to someone in and of itself in bits and pieces, post by post. It primarily is for people that read the articles on the main site to come and discuss what they have read, it is that base of understanding that brings us together.
Ray has written an enormous amount of very detailed articles on the very questions you are asking. If the articles are too tedious for you then there are videos and audios. But the bottom line is if you really want to understand these truths to a greater degree you must take time to read and study, there is simply no way around that. Here are some links for you to check out.
Ray's Videos
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,8227.0.html
Ray's Audios
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,2641.0.html
Ray's 2008 Audios
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,8256.0.html
Transcripts of Audios
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/board,12.0.html
mercy, peace and love
Kat
GaryK:
Kat from Ray:
"And so the real question is: "Does God have the right to make mankind subject to the desires of their own heart?" Think about it, as I have, for a few thousand hours, and maybe God will grant to you the spiritual understanding of this matter.
God plainly speaks at times and at others He speaks in mysteries. Here is a plain statement from God that explains the mystrious ones: "For My thought ARE NOT your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, SO [in like manner] are My ways HIGHER than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8-9).
Now there IS the answer, yet we will not accept that answer because we don't understand that answer."[/b]
Hi Kat, thanks for the wisdom you’ve shared and leave it to Ray, as usual, to speak in absolutes and that is in the above question, or, “does god have the right?” There’s a lot to that question, much deeper thinking and much more below the surface than just reciting it over and over as if to accept it should be just based on ‘well, he said it…it must be true’.
Reciting and acceptance at face value is fine for some, but not for me.
My life has been one of absolute structure, receiving orders and implement by giving orders. No random allowed, but, should random occur you can believe there will be a page in a manual on how to deal with it. Patience may be a virtue but the only time patience was allowed was the time between the command and the carrying out of the command. No exceptions. Some people like the chain of command and find comfort in knowing it exists and where the buck stops. I’m one of them. I just don’t see it in God’s structure of things yet so Ray is right again, or:
“Think about it, as I have, for a few thousand hours, and maybe God will grant to you the spiritual understanding of this matter.”
To me, if he has the right then I have to know why and how and when and where. Not because I'm 'somebody', but, because it must be from structure, otherwise, things don't pull together in a harmonious way that I can understand it.
Somewhere, and at some point, there will be peace in this statement:
"For My thoughts ARE NOT your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, SO [in like manner] are My ways HIGHER than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8-9).
Thanks to all for the ear and the patience for my ramblings.
So be it Ray, I’ve trusted you up to now.
adiamondintheson:
My husband, Dennis, and I study together and he felt a need to reply to this thread with some thoughts of his own. Connie
"On the subject of 'Free Will'. There have been several ,who in one form or another have confused blaming God for sin, if there is no free will on our part to sin. However, using the “cause and effect” approach, God does grant us choices between good and bad. There can be many past events or future desires, etc. that we may know of that will cause us to choose; but whatever we choose is the cause of the following effect, be that immediate or delayed.
I believe Ray used this example in the past. He explained of a pilot flying over a river looking down to see some rafters on the river. From his vantage point he could also see a mile or so ahead, there was a very large waterfalls. If the rafters know this they will stop before they get to the waterfalls... if they don't and choose to continue, the effect can be very dangerous or disastrous to them. Hopefully, no one would go rafting down a swiftly flowing river without knowing that there is a waterfall ahead and just blindly raft along. We can liken God to the Pilot in the plane who can see the future, or see ahead, and it's up to us to study to avoid those types of situations. God tells us 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.... He also says, 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Notice that He says “we must STUDY”, present tense... or in other words we must continue to study to become more like Him and to project the fruits of the spirit which are quoted in Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
This is my understanding of why God does NOT give us a 'Free Will' and is also why when we first start to follow Him we have the faith of a mustard seed and are expected to build that by studying His word and in turn our faith will grow with it. Paul tells us: Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
I am always open to correction if I have misunderstood, or misquoted anything in this post."
Hope this is of some help...
Dennis
odading:
--- Quote from: adiamondintheson on November 21, 2011, 12:14:08 PM ---My husband, Dennis, and I study together and he felt a need to reply to this thread with some thoughts of his own. Connie
"On the subject of 'Free Will'. There have been several ,who in one form or another have confused blaming God for sin, if there is no free will on our part to sin. However, using the “cause and effect” approach, God does grant us choices between good and bad. There can be many past events or future desires, etc. that we may know of that will cause us to choose; but whatever we choose is the cause of the following effect, be that immediate or delayed.
I believe Ray used this example in the past. He explained of a pilot flying over a river looking down to see some rafters on the river. From his vantage point he could also see a mile or so ahead, there was a very large waterfalls. If the rafters know this they will stop before they get to the waterfalls... if they don't and choose to continue, the effect can be very dangerous or disastrous to them. Hopefully, no one would go rafting down a swiftly flowing river without knowing that there is a waterfall ahead and just blindly raft along. We can liken God to the Pilot in the plane who can see the future, or see ahead, and it's up to us to study to avoid those types of situations. God tells us 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.... He also says, 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Notice that He says “we must STUDY”, present tense... or in other words we must continue to study to become more like Him and to project the fruits of the spirit which are quoted in Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
This is my understanding of why God does NOT give us a 'Free Will' and is also why when we first start to follow Him we have the faith of a mustard seed and are expected to build that by studying His word and in turn our faith will grow with it. Paul tells us: Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
I am always open to correction if I have misunderstood, or misquoted anything in this post."
Hope this is of some help...
Dennis
--- End quote ---
Rather than thinking that God deliberately WILL that the raft is to go blindly to the waterfall then the raft fall (potter&vessel in Rome) - I very much prefer your analogy of the pilot (potter&vessel in Jeremiah), totally agree to be honest :)
Thank you Dennis for your enlightenment.
regards,
odading.
Kat:
Hi Dennis and Connie,
I understand how there is so much that Ray has said that it can be very difficult to verify something we can remember he said, so sometimes we just put it our words as we think he said it. I have searched and can not find, nor can I remember, Ray speaking about a raft and a waterfall. So we have to be careful in contributing something to Ray, that's why I like to use copy and paste for putting direct quotes of Ray's in posts.
Here is a couple of emails that may help in this idea that God is just an observer.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?action=printpage;topic=9822.0 -----
You are not understanding this subject and the principle behind it. You ask: "Is it man making the choices or is it God's predestination of things?" It is BOTH. Listen: God is SOVEREIGN! Man therefore has NO FREE WILL OR NO FREE CHOICE. That's it. That's all there is to it. That IS the principle. That IS the Truth. That IS what the Bible teaches. It is not a contradiction to say that "Man makes his own choices." You and millions of other just think it is a contradiction to say man makes his own choices if indeed God is sovereign and God is behind all in His creation. It is not a contradiction. It only sounds like a contradiction for those who do not believe that "God is Sovereign, and Man has no free will."
I hardly know what else to tell you. God made man's heart. Man did not make his own heart, or his body, or his mind, or his brain, or his will, or his hopes and dreams. They are all PREDESTINATED by the foreknowledge of God. So then we don't make choices, right? NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO....WE DO MAKE CHOICES. It's just that they are CAUSED by things we can't always see. Sometimes we can see what makes our choices and some times we can't, but either way THEY ARE CAUSED. And God, not us, already knows in advance the outcome of all of those caused choices. How does He do that? He is very smart (has over a 150 IQ), plus HE IS SOVEREIGN, ALL WISE, AND ALL POWERFUL.....and don't forget LOVE.
So, does God FORCE EVIL MEN TO RAPE LITTLE GIRLS? Well, does He? Does God being Sovereign prove that God forces evil men to rape little girls? That's what evil theologians deduce from the truth of no free will. They turn the Sovereignty of God into one of the biggest evils in the universe. If God is Sovereign, then God must be EVIL, because there is so much evil in the world, and God is in control of all things, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong! Man makes all his own choices. Just because they are CAUSED does not mean that he does not make them. He is, in fact, CAUSED TO MAKE HIS CHOICES. But God does not directly do this. He is responsible, but He does not directly cause those choices. Things like the Devil do such things. And who created the Devil? That's right, that One Who is Sovereign and in charge of all things. Evil men like raping just like evil theologians like stealing widow's social security money. God doesn't make them do it--THEY LIKE TO DO IT. They volunteer with little outside influence. God made humanity this way. He created them spiritually weak. Eve couldn't help but sin. God has a good purpose and God will straighten it all out in the end.
I guess I could just keep writing and writing and writing and one day someone will say................OHHHHHH, now I get it. Maybe today is your day. I'm pulling for ya!!!
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?topic=3095.0 ------------
You and those who cannot see the simple of Truth concerning the Sovereignty of God use words like puppets, atomatons, and robots, as though they were DIRTY WORDS. You utterly fail to see that we are billions of times more complex than "puppets" or "atomatons." You fail to see that we LEARN. We have the ability to accumulate, process data, AND LEARN. That God puts us in the situations necessary to accomplish this is no sin.
We "train" our little children by our SUPERIOR POWER AND KNOWLEDGE, and we in fact, FORCE (if you want to use a strong word) our will upon them, by LOVINGLY TEACHING them right from wrong. And thankfully, THEY DO LEARN, and that is no sin on our part for having superior knowledge, wisdom, and power to enforce our will on theirs in this learning process. We ARE God's children.
You are fighting the Scriptures and the laws of physics. There are NO uncaused effects anywhere in the universe except in the deceived minds of carnal-minded men. Listen to my Bible Study from Sunday on our Forum. It is on "free will."
God be with you,
Ray
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