Predestination vs. freewill, revisited?

Question

How does human responsibility interact with our Creator's responsibility?

It would appear that If human responsibility is overemphasized, then faith can turn into into legalism, without an appreciation for God's active power in our lives.

If God's responsibility is overemphasized, ones faith can turn into fatalism, losing the emphasis on obedience to God and service to others.

Can both co-exist, or does one negate the other?

In other words, can it possibly be 50/50 (or 90/10 for that matter), or does one make the other impossible?

How would you describe the relationship between the two, or is it one, and not the other?

I'm really looking for an answer to this one.

Answer 1

Such a magestic phrase, Free Will, was objected to by even Calvin, despite what the unlearned of Calvinism may think. Like humanism and paganism, persons believing in the Free Will think original sin did not affect them and they tend to believe they have more moral powers than they actually possess.

In the same vein as Jonathan Edwards, I believe the will of a person is "the mind choosing", implying that we make choices according to what we hold as preferential among the options in front of us. Thus there is an antecedent cause for every choice made. This antecedent cause is not the determinism spoke of when we speak of choices that are controlled by external forces. Instead we choose because we are caused to choose by the inclination of our will, i.e., self-determination, or the real essence of free will. Our own inclinations are the antecedent causes of all the choices we make.

Thus, we can only choose according to our strongest inclinations of the moment. Not that we may choose, but we must choose. No one makes a decision outside of their strongest inclined motivations of the moment. Paul spoke of these inclinations in Romans 7:15-19: the good that he willed to do, he did not do. A regenerated person struggles with this "spirit and flesh" struggle always. But, the unregenerated person, in bondage to sin, has no such struggle. The unregenerate never seek to glorify God out of a sense of natural love for Him. Thus, the unregenate may possess a natural ability to choose God, yet possesses no moral ability to do so. Christ so stated this universal inability in the unregenerated: "No one can [not able to] come to Me unless [no other circumstance] it has been granted [to give] to him by the Father."

So are we free? Do we have free will? If God exercises providential control over all events are we in any sense free?

The answer depends on what is meant by the word free.

An omnipotent God cannot create morally free agents (angels and humans) that are incapable of choosing to sin. Thus, before the Fall in Eden mankind possessed the ability not to sin and the ability to sin. After the Fall the ability of mankind changed, in that mankind possessed only the inability not to sin. In other words, in absence of some intervention by God, fallen mankind is able only to sin. Indeed in an unregenerated state persons cannot live without sinning. Yes, such persons can make real choices, and are in a sense free. But these persons lack any ability to exercise any royal freedom: a freedom for spiritual obedience.

Scripture nowhere says that we are free in the sense of being outside of God’s sovereign control or of being able to make decisions that are not caused by anything. (This is the sense in which many people seem to assume we must be free.) Nor does it say we are free in the sense of being able to do right on our own apart from God’s power.

But, we are nonetheless free in the greatest sense that any creature of God could be free: we make willing choices, choices that have real effects. We are aware of no restraints on our will from God when we make decisions. Therefore,

A morally free agent then is an agent that can make decisions without any awareness that these decisions are being restrained by outside forces.

We must insist that we have the power of willing choice; otherwise we will fall into the error of fatalism or determinism and thus conclude that our choices do not matter, or that we cannot really make willing choices.

On the other hand, the kind of freedom that is demanded by those who deny God’s providential control of all things, a freedom to be outside of God’s sustaining and controlling activity, would be impossible if Jesus Christ is indeed continually carrying along things by his word of power (Heb. 1:3). If this is true, then to be outside of that providential control would simply be not to exist!

An absolute freedom, totally free of God’s control, is simply not possible in a world providentially sustained and directed by God himself.

Answer 2

The problem goes back to the definition that has been created of God. It is an idiotic contradiction the embedded into the dogma.
If you claim god is all-knowing, including the future and has a perfect plan, then everything must be predestined. To be predictable with absolute perfection as Gods plan is claimed to be the future must be as solid and unchangeable as if it already happened.
This obviously excludes the idea that you have any effective choices to make because even your choices are part of the fixed plan.
Yet the bible also claims people have choices that matter, and that they have results that we are responsible for. This means that the future can not be concrete and is capable of being changed. Obviously this means God does not have a perfect plan, nor can he see the future. Which means God is limited, not all powerful or all-knowing etc.

This has actually resulted in religious persecutions and deaths. Check out Calvinists and Arminians.

If it was possible for religious fanatics to regard the stories as just stories that were written at different times dealing with different things then maybe nobody would have died over it.

As for getting a real answer inside of the religious context, forget it because they tried to solve this one with violence for 1200 years at least.

Outside of the religious context the question is moot.
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St Polycarp presents the Calvinist viewpoint.
Elliot represents the views of classical Newtonian physics. A stricly determinable clockwork mechanical interpretation.
Modern physics, especially Quantum mechanics, turns both of those arguments totally inside out, and backs its conclusions with strong experimental evidence.

Answer 3

Free will is an illusion. Human thought and behaviour are so incredibly complex, and the processes behind them are so difficult for us to detect, that to us it seems as though we must have free will. But in reality, everything has causes. Our thoughts, and subsequently our actions, are caused by the action potentials of neurons. These also have causes, which have causes, and so on. These causes could be traced back (by an omniscient being) to the initial state of the universe. If God created that state, then he is directly and personally responsible for any thought, belief or action that might ever occur.
Which, of course, would make him evil if he punished anyone for anything.

Answer 4

The relationship is found in man's depravity. If it reaches to the core of our being, then we can have lots of free will, none of it leading to God. This gives, even necessitates, a complete omniscience in the ability to choose whomever God wills, from before the foundations of the earth were laid. Yes, the saved and the unregenerate's footsteps are both guided by an all-powerful God who holds an intimate relationship with His own. He is benevolent enough to the non-elect, but they are left in their sins.

It's called Calvinism.

Answer 5

Somebody finally explained this in a way which made me understand. I hope I can do the same.

God allows us free will which means we are 100% responsible for our lives and destiny. But God transcends time which means he is simultaneously aware of past, present and future. While the Bible implies predestination, it is solely based on the decisions we will make in our own lives. In other words, God already knows what we will do in our lives and it's put in place, but it's all based on the free decisions we will make as we go along. Think of it as if someone has already seen into the future and written a book about you, but it's all based on what you decided to do along your path of life. Every decision you will make has already been taken into account.

Deep, huh?

Answer 6

particular the two we've loose will to compliment genuine or incorrect and to cooperate with grace we are predestined to union with God yet we at the instant are not predetermined to that we at the instant are not double predestined ( with some are 'doomed' to heaven and something to hell and there is no longer a element anybody can do for Chrsit died merely for some choose and not for all humanity, grace is impossible to stand as much as, humanity is easily wicked and all deserve Hell) Calvinism is opposite to reason and distinctive characteristic( yet can draw up an entire record of Bible verses as can the anti-Calvinist) and seems to make God the author, sustainer and completer of all evil

Answer 7

If one were a scientist, they would have to define some equilibrium between "God's will" and "man's will"......in other words, "God's Will" occupies some alpha, and "Man's free will" occupies 1 - alpha.

Unfortunately, since "God's will" can never be broken, the expected value of "man's will" must be zero.

In other words, even in our constructed environment.....the limit is a world where God exercises total control and free will cannot exist.

Answer 8

because of the fact that God knows the outcome of everyones lives does not take away from the fact that WE don't know what the outcome of everybodies lives, including our own. God does not control people as a puppet master instead He uses His sovereignty as being the all-powerful and all-knowing to establish His covenant family with those who willingly choose to obey Him. The mere fact that HE knows who will and who won't doesn't over-ride our own free will.

Answer 9

God's purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. He gives us choices, but we are free to choose good or evil. He does not impose his will on us.

Answer 10

I believe there is a master plan. IOW, God does not micromanage.