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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655

Posted 5/15/2003 11:50 AM (GMT -6)

I have a question- suppose it is true that we do have radical free will. What if I, in my free will, decide that I don't want to have it anymore. I want to "let go and let God'', so to speak. If I pray to ask God to remove my free will - in other words, give away my freedom, then what? Is that possible? If not, why not?

DLW
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457

Posted 5/15/2003 12:25 PM (GMT -6)

Presumably, you want to give it back to God. Be holy and pure and what-not.

I have never heard of anyone doing this. I think there is more to our free-wills than our ability to go against God's will. I think we do have choices that cannot strictly be ranked as right and wrong.

To give up our free-will, would be to renounce what God originally created us for, to participate in his creation, with our own creations...

dlw

Prayer from Kenya

From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.

Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 5/15/2003 12:51 PM (GMT -6)

Sorry, you can't. We're simply not THAT free. And we can't complain either, because we're, sure as hek, not free in a whole lot of other ways that we could easily gripe about! (I'm not saying your griping.)

For keeping free will . . . what we have of it.

Starkman

Am I right? I say, am I right?
Charlie Brown

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 5/15/2003 3:14 PM (GMT -6)

You are in an awesome place Gina,

Luk 22:42 . . . not my will, but thine, be done.

I also want your will for my life Father, not my life, as I will have it to be; But the way you would have it to be. To be done with it what you would have me to do dear Father, I let go and let your embrace of tender mercy and graces hold me forever, Amen.

ReasonableDoubt
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655

Posted 5/15/2003 5:29 PM (GMT -6)

So I just don't get it. My free will is that I want to give it up. And God says, sorry, it don't work that way? !! So doesn't that mean that GOd has DETERMINED that each person has to do whatever he wants, but not if he wants to give up his will?
So the Lord's Prayer - Thy will be done....that doesn't hold water now. B/c if someone truly desires to give up their own will and let God have his way, they somehow are now prevented.
I really don't get it.

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell

Asher
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 477

Posted 5/15/2003 6:19 PM (GMT -6)

And using my ability of free will, I want to give up my ability to think ;)

To make a free will choice of giving up your free will is...or so it seems to me...and granted, I'm wrong frequently enough ;)...it seems to me to be saying, "I choose not to be a human." It is the pot saying to the potter, "Why did you make me like this?" And this in reference to the very nature of what the pot is, not about some shaping of the pot being enacted via use of it's inherent abilities. It's saying right at the start, "I don't like who and what I am, make me something different." Don't you think this is so?

God's way is that you DO have free will and use it.

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 5/15/2003 6:31 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
So I just don't get it. My free will is that I want to give it up. And God says, sorry, it don't work that way? !! So doesn't that mean that GOd has DETERMINED that each person has to do whatever he wants, but not if he wants to give up his will?
So the Lord's Prayer - Thy will be done....that doesn't hold water now. B/c if someone truly desires to give up their own will and let God have his way, they somehow are now prevented.
I really don't get it.

Gina, Gina, Gina (said like Cary Grant)-

Where to start? OK, first...

1) WHY do you want to give up your free will absolutely? That's really important to know.

2) Be encouraged, you ARE giving up you libertarian free will. Everybody is. The longer we live, the more compatibilistic we become as we SPEND our freedom. We spend it by repeatedly choosing over time. The more we do this in a uniform fashion, the most settled into a predictable sort of person we become, for better or worse.

RD: So doesn't that mean that GOd has DETERMINED that each person has to do whatever he wants?

Tom: No, it only means that God has determined that YOU, the reality that is Gina, get to choose X OR Y. Not God choosing for you. Not your upbringing and not chemicals in your brain. YOU, the PERSON who will have to give an account for the choice, are not reducible to chemical reactions and sorry upbring. These all influence us. But we determine our own choices.

RD: So the Lord's Prayer - Thy will be done....that doesn't hold water now. B/c if someone truly desires to give up their own will and let God have his way, they somehow are now prevented.

Tom: When WE pray "YOUR will be done," what does that mean if your right that God's will is inevitably done? Remember impetratory prayer? Praying that God's will be done is not giving up our CAPACITY to choose, it's CHOOSING; choosing to allign ourselves with what God wants, choosing to offer ourselves as instruments. We could do otherwise (and many do), but we choose to partner with God.

Tom

Iconoclast
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 5/15/2003 6:59 PM (GMT -6)

ReasonableDoubt

I have a question- suppose it is true that we do have radical free will. What if I, in my free will, decide that I don't want to have it anymore. I want to "let go and let God'', so to speak. If I pray to ask God to remove my free will - in other words, give away my freedom, then what? Is that possible? If not, why not?

Iconoclast

It depends on what you mean. I can think of two possible interpretations of this:

1. I want to give up my free will and become a robot controlled by God.

2. I want to "give up my free will" in the sense of aligning my free will with God's will.

I don't think God would grant #1 above because He loves us and love does not compel, it does not control. He may, however, allow us to sink back to being a "rock" with no consciousness, so in this sense He might grant it over time. But I think He gives us a bit of time to really make sure that this is what we want.

#2 is, I believe, the definition of love. To love God is to align our will with God's will. But what is God's will? It is that we love Him (align our will with His) and love one another (seek to benefit others at a cost to oneself). But this is not something that God simply grants once and for all, for that would be to compel. What if we change our mind? I think that #2 means that we have to continually choose to "give up our free will" and align our will with God by continually choosing to love one another in the concrete situations we find ourselves in. I would suppose that after some time doing this the "choice" becomes less of an active will-full process and a bit more "wired" (synaptic connections tend to strengthen and grow through continual use).

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Starkman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 5/16/2003 1:17 AM (GMT -6)

We must all remember that we do not have complete freedom. We simply are not free do to certain things. To demand that we be free to do anything we wish (and I'm not saying you are, Reasonable) is to want to be one's own god. Oh, how we should examine what freedom we have to appreciate what freedom we do not have (and shouldn't have).

Limited freedom, by the way, is almost the first thing God brings up going out the gate (Adam and Eve's creation): "Of the tree of . . . you may eat . . . . Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . . . you shall not eat of it." Hek, even before that Adam would have had a limitation of freedom: "WOMAN, I'll get the garage cleaned this weekend, okay!" I mean, right there the whole freedom thing just went out the door!

For . . . living in apartments with no garages,

Starkman

Am I right? I say, am I right?
Charlie Brown

Edited by - Starkman on 05/16/2003 06:19:11 AM

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 5/16/2003 4:16 PM (GMT -6)

Your right . . .

John Earp
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715

Posted 5/16/2003 8:12 PM (GMT -6)

This topic reminds me of a funny episode from early in my marriage. My wife was asked to head up the Vacation Bible School at our local church. Her first priority was to select and order the curriculum. When I noticed that the catalogs for the curriculum were still sitting on the coffee table with only a couple of months until the beginning of VBS, I gently asked her if she had ordered the stuff yet, as lots of kids (and adults) were depending on her.

Her reply was simply hilarious. Sighing, she said, "Pray for me that I'll quit procrastinating!" After nearly busting a gut laughing at her, I said, "Honey, you don't need me to pray for you to quit doing what only you can quit doing. Pick up the catalog, I'll help you decide if you want, but for goodness' sake, just order the stuff." To which she replied, "Sometimes I wish God would just take away my free will!" I finally said, "Honey, God's not gonna to take away your free will. It's your personhood. Just order the stuff and quit trying to blame God for your own inaction."

But to RD's question, yes, we must voluntarily give away our freedom to God in one sense:

Rom 6:16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone {as} slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in {further} lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20 ¶ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.

revivaltheology.net

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 5/17/2003 3:48 AM (GMT -6)

Though I would like to think of myself as sufficient for all things, I do not have the ability to accomplish anything of eternal or lasting value (John 15:5). It is my natural human response to maintain that with a renewed interest in God and a bit of zeal, dedication, and commitment, I will proceed with the godly life in glorious fashion.

Though this may be an exhibition of love for God, such devotion ultimately fails to fulfill God’s purpose for me, so long as it is mustered from my personal strength and will. Godly living is surely important to the Christian’s life and walk, but it must be observed that Scriptures call me to live godly only through Christ Jesus. There is only one resource sufficient to bring me into a genuine worthwhile service of God—and that is the power of God Himself. As God’s children walk in faith and humble dependence, looking to the Lord for His sustaining and redemptive work, God will supply them with His sufficient grace for godly living.

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