How can we have free will if God influences our lives and rewards/punishes our actions?

Question

I don't understand how the the ideas can be compatible. If you think they are compatible, why do you think so?

Answer 1

Good question.

Actually your question can be divided into two issues as follows:

1. Freewill and rewards/punishments;

2. Free will and God's influence.

First issue:

The concept of rewards/punishments is compatible with the concept of free will.

When God creates creatures without free will, He has decreed that the law of rewards/punishments is not applicable to the creatures.

For example: God creates angels without free will. Angels will not be rewarded or punished in the Hereinafter. They will not go to Hell because they never committed any wrong doing or sins.

Another example: Animals have instinct. Animals such as lions kill for food. They will not be rewarded or punished in the Hereinafter. They will not go to Hell. Why? Because God did not give them free will.

It is different with human beings. We are given free will. We have the mind, heart and power to choose to do good or bad. So, if we do good things, we are rewarded and when we do bad things, we are punished.

It is like this analogy:
Our Government makes laws and we are required to follow the laws. However, we have the capacity to choose whether to follow the laws or not. For example, when the light turns red, we must stop our car. We can just disregard the red light and drive. But if we are caught by the police, we will be punished with a ticket.


Second issue:

We must understand God's law to appreciate what God has given to us. God's influence on us is not like God hold a wireless remote control or joy stick: when He press right, we will go to the right and when He press left, we will go to the left.

God has many influences on us. He creates oxygen and make it law that human beings need oxygen to stay alive. This one of many ways God influences our life.

Even though God influences us in many ways, but He still give us the capacity to choose to do good or bad. When God give us this capacity, it doesn't mean that we are allowed to do bad things such as robbing banks, killing innocent people etc. Being given the capacity to choose is not the same as given consent to do bad things.

If we understand the concept of God's influence as explained above, we can see that God's influence and the concept of free will are compatible.

Answer 2

God is not a supporter of free will. When God commands something to be done there is no free will of reasoning or questioning. The worst thing anybody can do, believer or not, is to deny and be against the will of God. With the will of God it is either do or die because God hates the ones that despise His every lasting will. Which in the case of being against God's will, God will punish to the extremes when this kind of behavior is done.

Sodom and Gomorrah says it all I think.

Answer 3

Free will simply means you have a free will to chose to believe in him or not, It has nothing to do with if you do right or wrong of your actions, you have the choice to make the action or you have the choice as to how you will except actions that others make toward you.
It dose not mean you can do anything you want and not pay a price or be rewarded for what you chose to do.
U.S.A. is what is called a free country, but if you commit a crime you will still go to jail or be fined.

Answer 4

unfastened will is defined as will (the potential to make judgements) with none impact (extremely a sovereign one). So technically God is the only guy or woman with unfastened will. Logically that finally ends up in the tip that we don't probably have a decision in any respect, in case you agree for that God is sovereign and on top of problems with ALL issues. extremely all our selections are dependant on something else, and so we actually purely persist with a single course. That being suggested whether in actuality we do decide on, and so none will stand in the past God and say that on no account had a decision in anyhing, because of the fact all of us be responsive to that we do. We could desire to be careful to not flow into an physique of strategies of fatalism and for this reason no duty because of the fact our meant loss of decision. Our call is to consistently love God and others. My end to the full situation is unquestionably merely.. God chosen you... so decide on Him.

Answer 5

We do have the free will, however its bondage to our sins.

“God had endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil.”

Furthermore, “Man, by his fall into a state of sin, had wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.”

Yet the Bible also teaches that God has predestined all things before the foundation of the world. And, His eternal decree is not conditioned by any act of human will.

However, God's predestination does not preclude human responsibility. On contrary, our actions show forth what God has predestined before the foundation of the world.

Though man has free will to choose good or evil, man always chooses what God has predestined.

Judah Iscariot exercised his free will by betraying Jesus to the cross; nevertheless, Judah by his (free will) action fulfilled what God had predestined before the foundation of world; “Jesus the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of world.”

Answer 6

Thank God we have free will, which are choices to make. Do we want to do good and go to heaven or give in to sin and go to hell? No one is making you make the choices but yourself so you can't blame it on God.

Answer 7

This is Monotheistic Concept. Most Neopagans think that we freewill and we are responsible for it