Hi Rick, you are right when you said "that all circumstances and choices are not in my control"... God being sovereign makes that an impossibility. But certainly you can see that there is a purpose behind our having no free-will and the trials we face? I believe that purpose is for our learning... we come to knowledge by the things we experience and this learning experience is critical for our understanding of right from wrong.
This is from the Bible study on 'Free Will.'
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,12957.msg113686.html#msg113686 ---
LEARNING THROUGH STRUCTURED LIVING
If we had free will there is no guarantee that anyone would ever do anything right. Why? Because the will is always free, there is nothing there, no law, no principle to guide it to go this way or that. It’s always free to do whatever it wants. Always free, no hindrances. So if we think the world is chaotic now, imagine if people did have free will and God was not controlling things.
We are born in a structured environment and we are taught by our parents. We are taught how to play with things, we are taught how to eat and so on. We learn. We learn those things. Now those things that we learn are the things that cause us to think and do the things we do when we are a little older. You never forget how to walk when you are 6, 7, 8, 9. You will have learned it at age 1, but you are still doing it at age 5, 6, 7, 8, right? You learn these things. Robots don’t learn things like that.
Then we go to school. School is structured. You are not free to not go to class or not do your homework or not listen to the instructions, you will flunk out. People do flunk out, but what I’m saying is the structure is there to help you to learn. Hopefully to learn to do things better and more beneficial for humanity, it’s the derelicts that drop out. Why do they? Because they are not learning, they are not inculcating the good principles that they should have been learning as children. So they are operating by the law of sin and death, by their lusts. They are still operating under law, but those that become more useful, they learn to operate under a structured environment. When you go to work for somebody, they tell you how and what to do, you’re not free to just do it any ole way. There is structure you see.
God is putting us through a lifetime of all kinds of structured living and we are suppose to learn from that. Whether we are rebels or saints we do learn. Even criminals learn how to do things, some of them are very clever.
We are so far from robots... we are so marvelously made that it’s almost an insult to suggest that either you have free will or you are a robot, that’s just nonsense.
So we learn. Now that is one of the things that separates us from a robot, we learn.
v
What makes real sense is to be able to learn things. To learn things and based on what you learned make sound decisions.
If people had free will and they never learned anything, it would be totally useless. But the minute you start talking about learning, you start throwing out the free will. Because now you base what you do and think, not on your freedom of will, but on what you learned.
Some people will say phrases like, ‘well you can’t legislate morality.’ Well that has a certain amount of truth to it, you can legislate some morality.
You know we have speed limits for example, some people go over a little bit, but you can’t drive down this highway 120, at least you won’t do it too often or you will go to jail. If you go to jail too often or stay there too long, guess what? You won’t want to do that anymore. You can have your freedom of will or whatever you think you’ve got, but you won’t want to do that anymore. Because you have ‘learned’ that when you do this, the consequences are that, and ‘that’ is not much fun. You learn.
The very fact that we learn to do things and learn to do the right things, now that makes sense.
v
If there is a God and He is the creator God, then of course His power is just unfathomable and He knows the future. If the future is known then it can’t be otherwise. Therefore all choices have to be as they are, they cannot be otherwise. They are not free to be otherwise.
THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH
So God not only has to know the future, He has to know every single chain of events leading up to whatever the future is.
It says in Romans 8. The “carnal mind,” that is the unregenerate, perverted, reprobate mind of humanity, as we are before we learn to do anything good or right, “is not subject to the law of God.” But therefore it is lawless, right? He said free will is lawless and if the carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, then it is lawless? So then it can have free will, right? Wrong paleface, let me show you. Just because it is not subject to the law of God, doesn’t mean it’s not subject to law.
Rom 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
v. 7 Because the carnal mind is enmity (means hatred, animosity) against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can (or able to) be.
So if carnal minded people who are not converted are not subject to the law of God then they are free to do whatever they want, right? Because they can’t be subject to the law, which tells them or shows them or makes them live a particular way. Then they are free, right? Nope, go back to verse 2.
Rom 8:2 For
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free FROM
THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH.
See that, we will all follow “the law of sin and death.” It’s one law or the other, you are under law. We are under law one way or the other. We are under law, we cannot get away from that.
v
With people when you say you don’t have a free will that can act independent from all of the circumstances that can cause you to do and say and think and be what you are. You say God’s in control! ‘Yes God’s in control. But then if I sin, God is making me sin.’ No! God doesn’t have to make us sin, we are sinning machines. We volunteer.
James 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man:
v. 14 But every man is tempted (how?), when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Does God make people sin? Does God make these dirty old men rape little children? That like the epitome of evil, does God make them do it? No! They volunteer. Do most of them even want to do it? They do it in secret, they do it at night. Why? They know it’s wrong. Well why do they do it then? Lust! Just plain lust.
Now here is the flip side of this. Sometimes you’ve got to read a little more of the context to get a fuller understanding of things.
James 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.
That’s what we just saw. We either live by the spirit of life in Christ or we live by the law of sin and death.
James 1:16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.
v. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights…
So there it is. Does God make people sin? No. But when anything good happens, it’s attributed to God. If you sin it’s attributed to your lust, He does not make you sin. But people when they get frustrated they will say things like that.
There are laws governing these things. “The law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2 ), that has to do with your lust and it’s built in. It takes power to overcome it. You can’t just decide, ‘well I won’t give in to my lust any more.’ It takes training, it takes judgment, it takes suffering. You have to suffer to overcome some faults they are so big and so hard and so strong and they take you over and they control you. It takes suffering, it takes something really strong sometimes to get you to stop doing those things.
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mercy, peace and love
Kat