Hi George Kuhns,
Read this excerpt below or click the link and read the entire transcript; your answers are there and in other studies on the forum.‘FREE WILL’ IS AN OXYMORON . . . . . . Biblestudy Jan. 2007
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5154.msg40740.html#msg40740It’s amazing, even when people are educated that this can not exist, like a magician’s trick, they still go out from this Bible study and think some how they do have free will anyway, because it APPEARS that way. I mean the magician really did pull a rabbit out of a hat, and you know it’s a trick, he showed you how he did it. But when he does it, it still ‘appears’ like he did something magical and you believe it.
Now here we get down to an ethical point, that I think is quite worthy.
Dr. Wegner said, “We worry that explaining evil condones it. We have to maintain our outrage at Hitler.”
Did you get that? He said, that if we explain the true cause of evil, people will think we condone it. We must maintain our outrage at Hitler.
How many emails have I gotten just like that. ‘Oh your saying, so Hitler is going to be up in heaven with us?’ ‘Oh really, nice Ray, and I suppose Sadam Hussin will be having tea with us and taking the last supper with us.’ You know they get real sarcastic like that. Why? Because they want to be better. They want to be better than Hitler, they want to be able to always think that Hitler made choices to do bad and he’s going to suffer for all eternity for it. And they say, ‘I on the other hand, I choose Christ and I’m going to be saved.’ So people feel this way.
I don’t mince words any more. The reason Christians feel this way is they despise the Word of God. You may say, ‘well that’s pretty strong, Ray. Maybe they just are deceived about it or confused.’ No! Sooner or later people come to the point where they are confronted with the Word of God and they either eaccept it or reject it. That is a choice, we have that ability. But it’s based on some cause, what we feel, what we know, what we see, what we hear. The mind can process data and make a choice. The Bible doesn’t say you can’t do that. I’ve never said you can’t do that, and even my cats can do that.
That is not free moral agency, however.
Now in James he says if you break any one of the laws or commandments of God, you’re guilty of all.
James 2:10 “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”
Now he didn’t say if you steal, you killed somebody. He didn’t say if you steal you kill, no, he didn’t say that. He said if you break one your ‘guilty’ of all. How so?
He said because you are a ‘law breaker.’ There are laws, and if you break any one, you are a law breaker. Well what if you break that one, you’re are a law breaker, well what if I break this one, you’re a law breaker, ok. This is not rocket science.
God has laws, when you break one, guess what you are? You’re a law breaker! It doesn’t matter if you break the first or the second or the forth, you’re a law breaker. That’s what you are.
Now, God says He’s no respecter of persons. So if somebody breaks a big law and somebody breaks a little law, if He can forgive the breaker of the little law, can He forgive the breaker of the big law? Well this is where it gets kind of fuzzy for some people. Because a lot of people don’t think they have broke many of the laws.
You know I have heard ministers tell the audience on international TV, the sins of their youth. I have never heard one yet say that he likes to suck another man’s body parts, never. Never have I heard of someone saying that he use to lust after little children. Never have I heard that, never.
Here is what I have heard maybe a dozen times, from the top leading evangelist in the world, here are their sins. ‘Well when I was young, you know 18 or 21, I was a little aggressive. You know I had a lot of vanity, about wanting to accomplish things.’ So that’s it? That was your sin? ‘Yea that was really vanity on my part.’ Wow, that’s not really too much to repent of, is it. I mean that’s something you could tell the whole world about and not even be embarrassed (chuckle). You see what I saying?
I’m not saying that every man has homosexual tendencies or every man slapped his mother at some time or every man lusted after a child. I’m not saying that!
I just thank God there are certain sins that I just never was tempted to have or partake of. I’m so thankful for that. But if you think that I’m so stupid, that I can’t see that under the same circumstances, of whoever you want to take, say Manson, that I can’t see and know and understand in my very heart and being, that if I was born in his family under those conditions and circumstances, I would have been Charles Manson. This is the thing that people will not come to grips with. That’s why these people say, ‘Oh yes I was a little aggressive.’
That’s what Herbert Armstrong said, that was his sin. He said his sin was being too enthusiastic to succeed in life. Oh what a horrible sin that is. But he didn’t tell us the problem that he had with his daughter, did he. No, that had to come out later, you see. And don’t condemn Mr. Armstrong, for that even, other than it is a horrible sin.
You and I under the same circumstances, would have done the same thing. Why can’t we see that?
george.