Predestination

[Floatingaxe]

In my sinful, unregenerate state, I exercised the free will I was born with to receive Jesus' sacrifice for my sin. My will was not bound and chained. It was free, given to me as a creation of God.

Arguing this again in another thread is arduous and unnecessary.

Floating axe you already admitted that to you free will is simply being alive. So you are quite right that it is futile to tell you that some people have enslaved wills since they would be dead. Unless of course you are willing to admit that some people are walking dead.

Everyone who is among the 'walking dead', which the Bible describes as reprobate, have had a free will up until they exercised it against the free offer of salvation.

Well this is what I mean by such a contradictory term as free will. Now you say all those who have excercised it against the free offer don't have free wills. Yet Paul was once Saul who excercised it against the free offer. So he therefore could not have believed via free will according to your own logic. Moreover these people that you say have lost their freewills, are they now enslaved wills? For they certainly have wills. More proof that the term free will, the noun as an absolute doesn't exist.

Yes, everyone is born with free will. Everyone believes in Jesus Christ does so by the use of their God-given free will. We choose life over death.

Reprobates are locked in by their choice. They will not be free. However, God is pretty much the only one who knows who these people are, except that he may give some of us the power of discernment concerning them.

If everyone is born with free will the 'noun' defined as an absolute, then why are we all regarded as reprobate and vessels of wrath before coming to Christ? Why do we need to be reborn of the Spirit of God? Why not simply choose not to sin? Where does the bible ever say anyone chose Christ? Choosing with the will is a matter of mental deliberation. Believing in Christ is a matter of the heart and is not cerebral.

2 Timothy 3:7

7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

We are born sinful as a default, but not as reprobates---just as people in need of a revelation of the cross and Jesus Christ.

By faith we engage our own will to follow Jesus Christ, and embark on a life of continual surrender of our will to His. That is what the Lord calls us to do throughout all of Scripture, and He helps us do it by the work of Holy Spirit who takes up residence within us who believe.

The bible talks copiously about the stubbornness of men---that is their willful refusal of the truth.

Jeremiah 18:12

But the people replied, “Don’t waste your breath. We will continue to live as we want to, stubbornly following our own evil desires.”

Zechariah 7:11

“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.

Mark 16:14

Still later he appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating together. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead.

Acts 7:51

“You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!

Acts 19:9

But some became stubborn, rejecting his message and publicly speaking against the Way. So Paul left the synagogue and took the believers with him. Then he held daily discussions at the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

Romans 2:5

But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

[childeye]

In my sinful, unregenerate state, I exercised the free will I was born with to receive Jesus' sacrifice for my sin. My will was not bound and chained. It was free, given to me as a creation of God.

Arguing this again in another thread is arduous and unnecessary.

Floating axe you already admitted that to you free will is simply being alive. So you are quite right that it is futile to tell you that some people have enslaved wills since they would be dead. Unless of course you are willing to admit that some people are walking dead.

Everyone who is among the 'walking dead', which the Bible describes as reprobate, have had a free will up until they exercised it against the free offer of salvation.

Well this is what I mean by such a contradictory term as free will. Now you say all those who have excercised it against the free offer don't have free wills. Yet Paul was once Saul who excercised it against the free offer. So he therefore could not have believed via free will according to your own logic. Moreover these people that you say have lost their freewills, are they now enslaved wills? For they certainly have wills. More proof that the term free will, the noun as an absolute doesn't exist.

Yes, everyone is born with free will. Everyone believes in Jesus Christ does so by the use of their God-given free will. We choose life over death.

Reprobates are locked in by their choice. They will not be free. However, God is pretty much the only one who knows who these people are, except that he may give some of us the power of discernment concerning them.

If everyone is born with free will the 'noun' defined as an absolute, then why are we all regarded as reprobate and vessels of wrath before coming to Christ? Why do we need to be reborn of the Spirit of God? Why not simply choose not to sin? Where does the bible ever say anyone chose Christ? Choosing with the will is a matter of mental deliberation. Believing in Christ is a matter of the heart and is not cerebral.

2 Timothy 3:7

7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

We are born sinful as a default, but not as reprobates---just as people in need of a revelation of the cross and Jesus Christ.

By faith we engage our own will to follow Jesus Christ, and embark on a life of continual surrender of our will to His. That is what the Lord calls us to do throughout all of Scripture, and He helps us do it by the work of Holy Spirit who takes up residence within us who believe.

The bible talks copiously about the stubbornness of men---that is their willful refusal of the truth.

Jeremiah 18:12

But the people replied, “Don’t waste your breath. We will continue to live as we want to, stubbornly following our own evil desires.”

Zechariah 7:11

“Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing.

Mark 16:14

Still later he appeared to the eleven disciples as they were eating together. He rebuked them for their stubborn unbelief because they refused to believe those who had seen him after he had been raised from the dead.

Acts 7:51

“You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you!

Acts 19:9

But some became stubborn, rejecting his message and publicly speaking against the Way. So Paul left the synagogue and took the believers with him. Then he held daily discussions at the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

Romans 2:5

But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

I know I was born with sin and consequently not a free will that was free to choose otherwise. I could not choose to believe in the Christ until I admitted that and surrendered to the Truth of it. Therefore, I am not saying men don't choose to follow their evil desires in opposition to God. I am saying that those who choose to do so are in darkness to begin with and darkness is not freedom anymore than ignorance is knowledge.