Luther believd that we have freewill. He said that God gave us freewill and Adam execised it on our behalf, so we now only have freewill to sin.

This seems to me to be similar to Paul.

Thanks James

I am not a Calvinist. I just follow what I believe the bible teaches. In some points that may coincide with Calvin, in others not.

The bible tells me that "no man can come to Jesus except it were given unto him of my Father. " I believe that
The Bible also says God is not willing that any should perish. I also believe that.

"No man can come to Jesus except it were given unto him of my Father"...Scripture with Scripture, we read in John 12:32: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

James
http://www.excatholicsforchrist.com

I am just curious, doesn't having a free-will mean that it is ok to disobey God? So is it truly free then if it does not?

Just curious,

Jim

I came across this and felt it reflected the composite, truth of Calvinism on the subject of predestination:

Love in Christ,

Jim

AMEN and AMEN!!

And here is the best short-cut version of the doctrine of Free-Will:

Love in CHrist,

Jim

Here are some verses in support of the Calvinist doctrine on predestination:

Perhaps this is semantics (I have met others who believe that free will is an illusian...we can't make decisions but we think we did because we were supposed to-that's belief in no free-will.)

Free will is ours because if I wanted to I could put my leg on my desk right now, or I don't have to--The Bible says to CHOOSE many times and also has many of what I call "If, Then" (If you do this---I'll do this). If free will were a myth than we would have to accept that our Lord has a nastey sense of humor...."I'm gonna tell you not to do something that it would be impossible for you not to do."....It would be like if Jesus (and excuse my parable please) said to the blind man...If you don't tell me how many finger's I'm holding up I won't heal you (except that the blind man would at least have a chance--whereas we wouldn't)....And if sin is to death, and Grace unto life...then what are we redemed from assuming free will is a myth? God's will? No. God is not will ing that ANY should perish, but the Bible teaches clearly that some will surely perish (John 3:19)....Is god's hand short? No, He CHOSE to give us a choice--so He did. It will be to His Glory, of that I can assure you.

Now, let me explain what I think brought about this whole "No free will" thing...this is an opinion and a thought--I don't pretend to understand everyones reasons for this belief. But look at the verses listed above, and think of how bad it can hurt when we fall short of God's will (i.e. sin)... ESPECIALY when we know we had the strength to resist, but chose not to...(mabey I'm the only one who has sinned after this manner post-repentance). This is painful, but how alleviating it would be to be able to berlieve that I really had no true say in the matter--I was just doing exactly as was planned to do. This would be alleviating....So is that good? The answer NO. Paul explained that earthly sorrow is vain (and corrupt), such as, "Boo-hoo, I won't be able to buy that car I wanted", or even "But I WANTED such and such"...But godly sorrow brings us to a much needed place of repentance...2Cr 7:10 "For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death." So to alleviate this godly sorrow is a bad plan of action (though it may feel good for a season).

As it pertains to "predestination"...No, I don't believe in that either, however...I believe whole heartedly that though God knows what we will do before we do it He did not Predestine us to do so---To know something is differant than to cause it. Allow me to put this in a parable as well.

A man was on his way to work one morning and saw a fellow cutting a branch off of a tree....the odd thing was that this individual was on the branch he was cutting. So the nice fellow going to work stopped and said, "Hey, man! If you keep cutting that branch, then you're gonna' fall on the ground with it!" The poor fellow cutting the branch responded, "I've cut down hundreds of branches...you don't know what you're talking about!", So the gentleman continued on his way to work. Of course the tree cutter fell, and so he thought..."That evil neighbor of mine made me fall just for cutting that branch!!".

Of course we can all see the folly in this line of thinking, but it can be applied just as well to the topic at hand! Do you see what I mean?

P.S. For those of you who have read "The sneezing mule" (or whatever it's called), I know that this fall's in line...I changed it for the purpose of this parable...

Don't turn me in for copywrite infringement or something!! J/K

Love

I did not get to read Jim's post prior to my last one (he posted it while I typed...So let me just say that (seeing as the Bible says so), let my logic fall at the mercy of God's Word....He is True. One ought to look into the definition of "predestined" as it is used in the Bible (sometimes the earthly definition of a word is differant than the Bibles...(i.e. Grace)

Thanks Jim!

Agur, truly you humble my heart, thank you and I love you.

A while back I got into a huge debate here on the site, in the Lord's wisdom we decided to delete the whole topic, but it was based on Calvinism. I was accused of being a Calvinist, and ironically I didn't even know what one was, so I stated that I was not.

After God's grace came upon me, I was shown that what I have believed my whole life was none other than Calvinism, not hyper-calvinism mind you, but a true awestriking revelation of God's perfect will. I realized the enormity of my guilt of ever thinking I was anything in God's eyes. I realized my humanism.

I was so humbled brother..... it even now is bringing tears to my eyes at how wretched my belief was that I had anything to do with my salvation at all.

God is true, and every man is a liar. I believe God certainly does not want anyone to perish, and He most certainly did foreordain the elect to Salvation, but He alone knows His plan and sovereign Will, and who are we to question it?

Love to you brother in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Jim

This post was last modified: Fri Feb 03, 2006 02:55 PM by Jim.

When I say "Anyone", I better clarify that I speak of the "elect", not every soul on earth, sorry about that.

Most people I know, don't give any notice of wheter they are Calvinist or Arminian. Of those that do and have said, all but one were Calvinists. I was later told by someone that the one who called himself an Arminian, believed exactly the same as those who called themselves Calvinists.

I think in the OT you can find cases of free will and predestination.

Free will Duet 28. IF..............

Predestination. Esau and Jacob, David, Josiah, Cyrus. (the latter two named more than 100 years before they were born.


Love in Christ

"Free will is ours because if I wanted to I could put my leg on my desk right now, or I don't have to"

No that is free will in YOUR mind because you THINK you chose because you cannot see the future.
If God created time, is all powerful and knows everything, he already knew whether you would or would not put your leg on the table before he created time.

If we do indeed have free will then is it not the case that God is not all powerful and it is therefore within the realms of possibility for man to become as powerful or more powerful than God, aka presumably the thinking of Lucifer?

Whilst I think the Calvinist version is correct, I quite happily sat in a mission being held by the Independent Methodists (who would be Arminian) and all I heard preached was the word.