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Free Will

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ned:

--- Quote from: Karen on August 03, 2006, 01:02:41 AM ---II PETER 2:4 FOR IF GOD DID NOT SPARE THE ANGELS WHO SINNED, BUT CAST THEM INTO HELL AND DELIVERED THEM INTO CHAINS OF DARKNESS, TO BE RESERVED FOR JUDGEMENT.                                  ABOUT THIS FREE WILL QUESTION. IF GOD DID NOT SPARE HIS ANGELS. THIS ANGELS MUCH HAVE BEEN CREATED WITH THERE OWN FREE WILL TO CHOOSE TO SIN . WHY WOULD A ANGEL SIN THAT IS SPIRIT?  I DIDNT THINK ANGELS WHERE CREATED TO THINK . JUST AS SATAN WAS A SPIRIT. TO ME IT SOUNDED LIGHT ANGELS WAS ABLE TO MAKE THERE OWN CHOICES APART FROM GOD. WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK ABOUT THIS SCRIPTURE? ~KAREN~

--- End quote ---

Hi Karen, I don't know that they had their own choices apart from God. But it sure seems they were definitely subject to err:

Job 4:18 "Behold, He put no trust in his servants; nor in His angels, in whom he put light."

Jude 1:6  "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day."

1 Cor 6:3 "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?"


Blessings,
Marie

hillsbororiver:
Good point Bobby, I found some interesting quotes on "Free will" from the philosophy/science  view of the matter;

Baruch Spinoza compared man's belief in free will to a stone thinking it chose the path it traveled through the air and the spot it landed. In Ethics he wrote, "The decisions of the mind are nothing save desires, which vary according to various dispositions." "There is in the mind no absolute or free will, but the mind is determined in willing this or that by a cause which is determined in its turn by another cause, and this by another and so on to infinity." "Men think themselves free because they are conscious of their volitions and desires, but are ignorant of the causes by which they are led to wish and desire." [4] [5]

Arthur Schopenhauer, concurring with Spinoza, wrote, "Everyone believes himself à priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life... . But à posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns... ."[6]

You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.

— Schopenhauer, On the Freedom of the Will, Ch. II

I can do what I will: I can, if I will, give everything I have to the poor and thus become poor myself — if I will! But I cannot will this, because the opposing motives have much too much power over me for me to be able to. On the other hand, if I had a different character, even to the extent that I were a saint, then I would be able to will it. But then I could not keep from willing it, and hence I would have to do so... [A]s little as a ball on a billiard table can move before receiving an impact, so little can a man get up from his chair before being drawn or driven by a motive. But then his getting up is as necessary and inevitable as the rolling of a ball after the impact. And to expect that anyone will do something to which absolutely no interest impels him is the same as to expect that a piece of wood shall move toward me without being pulled by a string.

— Ibid., Ch. III

Schopenhauer's saying, that a human can very well do what he wants, but can not will what he wants, accompanies me in all of life's circumstances and reconciles me with the actions of humans, even when they are truly distressing.

— Albert Einstein, Address to the German League for Human Rights, November 1928. Credo

orion77:
Joe, that was an interesting post.

I wonder if the proponents of free-will believe they willed themselves to exist.  The idol of freewill is hard for many to let go. 

I liked the quote from, Ibid, chap. III.  Straight to the point and simple to understand.

God bless,

Gary

Craig:
The beast is within us all.

The lifeblood of the beast is the idea of free will.

That is why it is so hard for us to accept and let go of, I know I still struggle with it.
The beast does not want to die.

Craig

snorky:
Another helpful topic!

I was at a camp meeting last night (we still have these in West Texas), and, amazingly, the preacher quoted "The Sermon on the Mount" verbatum! Anyway, regarding the section Matthew 7:21 about only those doing the will of the Father will be in heaven:

Isn't it true that ultimately ALL (including those in Lake of Fire) will do God's will? So doesn't that mean ALL will eventually be in heaven?

snorky

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