revprodeji said...
This is quoted from a friend of mine who goes to Union college..
"the big thing is my definition of free will, unlike calvinism, i hold that God calls all men to him. The bible teaches that God's call is necessary for salvation, ergo, all must be called since God desires all men should be saved. However, This also means that God's call can be rejected. this necessitates for the existence of free will and the permission of God, since nothing can occur without him knowing about it and allowing it. This means that he does allow men to reject or accept his call.
Good so far.
revprodeji said...
This is quoted from a friend of mine who goes to Union college..
However, he is also aware of all that happens and all that will happen. since he knows and allows it, he must have a better purpose for it (since God is by nature all good, in Him there is no evil at all) However I do hold that God definitively knows the future, including our choices. This does not negate our responsability for them, since they are still our choices. God's exhaustive knowledge of each individual allws him to predict with absolute certainity what will be a decision, not on the basis of what he has ordained to be (except in the case of good works, which the bible teaches he preordanined for us to , as per ephesians) but on the basis of the choice of the individual through his perfect knowledge of the individual"
How would you approach this?
I don't see how he made that logical jump from free will to "however....."
"Free will" means that the grounds for the truth of my decisions are me. But if I don't exist yet, what are the grounds for the truth of my decisions?
If it's God, then those aren't my choices since the grounds for their truth existed before I ever did. God would have determined those choices and grounded the truth of those decisions in Him, long before I came into being. That's determinism and it doesn't appear your friend holds to that.
If the grounds for the truth of my decisions are me, long before I exist, then I exist long before I exist. And that's illogical.
Does your friend think the future exists somewhere else, right now? Ask him where and then book a flight there on expedia.....
Either God actively determined what this definitive future would be or He passively views it, which means it has always existed...... somewhere. And where would that be?
The alternative is, the future isn't definitive.
Post Edited (ThatDarnCat) : 7/22/2005 11:20:08 AM (GMT-5) |