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Just need to vent how about you?
rick:
Hi Theophitus,
( I think some of the posters come across as having the attitude of "Well I do what I do because I have no free will". )
Not having free will is exactly why some of the posters come across as having the attitude of "Well I do what I do because I have no free will"
It’s a learning process where some have greater understanding than others but wherever we are, its where God wants us or intended for us to be right at that precise moment at that precise time on that precise day and year.
Its so fascinating to me how God controls us so fully and complete yet we think or feel its us doing it but in reality its God.
The more I get my arms around this no free will thing the greater my fascination becomes, its totally incredible to me how great God is.
theophilus:
--- Quote from: Rick on December 19, 2013, 05:38:01 PM --- Hi Theophitus,
( I think some of the posters come across as having the attitude of "Well I do what I do because I have no free will". )
Not having free will is exactly why some of the posters come across as having the attitude of "Well I do what I do because I have no free will"
It’s a learning process where some have greater understanding than others but wherever we are, its where God wants us or intended for us to be right at that precise moment at that precise time on that precise day and year.
Its so fascinating to me how God controls us so fully and complete yet we think or feel its us doing it but in reality its God.
The more I get my arms around this no free will thing the greater my fascination becomes, its totally incredible to me how great God is.
--- End quote ---
Hello Rick, maybe I didn't make myself clear. I am talking about an attitude that is defeatist or that doesn't acknowledge any participation, not about the realization that we have no free will. To give you an example, a husband cheats on his wife. The wife is devastated, the kids are torn, etc, etc. Say the husband knows that he has no free will. The husband explains to his wife that he had no choice in the matter. He did what he did because he has no free will. If anyone, God should be blamed since He was the one directing his steps. You wouldn't like to be the wife in this example listening to her husband "excuse", would you? Neither would I!
I, like everyone else, battle the pulls of my flesh. But if I said, hey I could very well fornicate since this is what my flesh would like to do; I'll just do it since I am not free to not sin. No one could blame me; if anyone did, I would pull out God's sovereignty card!
I know it's a learning process, one through which God instructs us and we either do or we don't
rick:
Hi Theophilus,
Your example is something I been dwelling on these past few weeks not about someone committing adultery but rather are we given the opportunity to travel on two paths in this life, both of which are of God but not always by God ?
Lets keep it simple and use your example about the man who has committed adultery, The man loves his wife but has and issue with lust of women, He knows inwardly to be with a women outside of his wife is wrong and so now he is confronted with a choice.
Is his life predestine on one path to say no, and on the other path to say yes ? Can he choose of his own will which is subjected to Gods will to take either path ?
I think of a man who drinks to the point where its causing issues in his relationship with his wife and his drinking is causing problems on the job, his wife threatens to leave him if he continues drinking all the time, his boss threatens to fire him.
The man knows he will loose everything in his life and will become devastated if he continues on this path of drinking.
The logical thing to do is stop drinking immediately however he continues to drink, why does he keep drinking ?
Is there another force at play here ? Or does he has a choice to take the other path which is alcohol free ?
These two paths make much sense to me but I have not found it in Rays papers yet, I’m hoping Ray has written something along these lines.
I understand what your meaning is about a defeatist attitude and I know the beast within can be quite deceiving and many times I ask myself, why do I do the things I do ?
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak as the good book says and sometimes I wonder if the flesh is to weak to take the other path, the right path.
I remember Elmer Fudd , I think that was the name but he always said ( what a terrible web we weave for ourselves )
Thank you Theopilus for the correction.
Peace and love to all.
Pierdut:
--- Quote from: Rick on December 20, 2013, 02:41:44 PM --- Hi Theophilus,
Your example is something I been dwelling on these past few weeks not about someone committing adultery but rather are we given the opportunity to travel on two paths in this life, both of which are of God but not always by God ?
Lets keep it simple and use your example about the man who has committed adultery, The man loves his wife but has and issue with lust of women, He knows inwardly to be with a women outside of his wife is wrong and so now he is confronted with a choice.
Is his life predestine on one path to say no, and on the other path to say yes ? Can he choose of his own will which is subjected to Gods will to take either path ?
I think of a man who drinks to the point where its causing issues in his relationship with his wife and his drinking is causing problems on the job, his wife threatens to leave him if he continues drinking all the time, his boss threatens to fire him.
The man knows he will loose everything in his life and will become devastated if he continues on this path of drinking.
The logical thing to do is stop drinking immediately however he continues to drink, why does he keep drinking ?
Is there another force at play here ? Or does he has a choice to take the other path which is alcohol free ?
These two paths make much sense to me but I have not found it in Rays papers yet, I’m hoping Ray has written something along these lines.
I understand what your meaning is about a defeatist attitude and I know the beast within can be quite deceiving and many times I ask myself, why do I do the things I do ?
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak as the good book says and sometimes I wonder if the flesh is to weak to take the other path, the right path.
I remember Elmer Fudd , I think that was the name but he always said ( what a terrible web we weave for ourselves )
Thank you Theopilus for the correction.
Peace and love to all.
--- End quote ---
Rick,
Ray taught that there is only one way that every event in a person's life will go, and God already knows how it will turn out, and so there are no multiple paths (or two paths in life).
I thought about this myself, because had a certain event in my life been within the realm of possibility to have turned out another way, then that would have made sense to me in regards to previous events which lead to my relocation in another state after the circumstances that happened in my life which lead me there. But if it could have only turned out the way it did, then I have trouble figuring out the reasons for those 3 years of my life.
Maybe it was to get me away from the people I was hanging out with here; and then the events that happened there, especially if they could have only turned out the way they did, is what God really used to hurt me deeply.
What at first seemed like a really good thing, and I even thought that that's why God brought me to this state, to be with this person -- turned out to be one of the worst things that's ever happened to me... And that's saying a lot.
I often wish that things could have turned out differently, but I don't think that they could have. Or am I wrong?
arion:
--- Quote from: Pierdut on December 20, 2013, 08:25:50 PM ---I often wish that things could have turned out differently, but I don't think that they could have. Or am I wrong?
--- End quote ---
Your right. If things could of turned out differently than they did then it nullifies the sovereignty of God. He clearly states that He knows the beginning and the ending and that He is the potter and we are the clay. If there are truly multiple ways a situation can turn out and we are the ones who decide and not God then not even God himself could know the way we are going to go. If God knows in advance that we are going to make choice 'A', then how are we free to make choice 'B'? And yet God doesn't force us to do anything. We choose what we desire and yet God crafts the circumstances that cause us to choose as we do. Like Ray has said we are accountable to God for the choices we make yet in the end God is responsible.
When I was younger I had wished that I made different choices in life. Now that I'm getting older, I can look behind me and see that the things that happened were a necessary part of my development. I have yet to understand why many things had to happen the way that they did but I trust that God knew what He was doing even if I didn't. I'm sure that all of us can share many painful things that have happened along the journey of life and we have yet to understand how anything good can come out of them or why they were necessary. But it gives me great peace of mind to know that my choices are already predetermined. Not that it absolves any accountability for my choices but the peace comes from knowing that nothing I do can screw up God's plan for me. That was always my chief worry. Although I understood;
Rom 8:38-39 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I thought that the one exception to that is that I could choose the wrong path for myself and screw up God's plans for me. I thought that after all if I make the wrong choices and mess up God's plan for me then that is my fault and not God's fault. What a relief to know that even with my own bumbling and inept actions at times that not even I have the power to alter God's plans and timetable for me.
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