No. I mean the actual definition of the word.
Sorting out often used expressions
- Thread starter oatmeal
- Start date
No. I mean the actual definition of the word.
Derf
Well-known member
Why is this distinction so important to you and @Right Divider? I agree with you, but it seems a distraction hardly worth the time, brought up when other topics are at issue.
Because it inherently informs the rest of one's position on the matter, especially when it comes to the topic of God's sovereignty.
Right Divider
Body part
Fundamentals are always of critical importance. They are what we build everything upon.
Derf
Well-known member
Yes, but if someone is building on the idea that we have "free will" and it means the same as what you mean when you say "will". how does the result change someone's idea of God's sovereignty?
oatmeal
Well-known member
Thank you
Right Divider
Body part
The problem comes when someone thinks that "will" means something other than "free will", like Calvinists.
Right Divider
Body part
You're welcome.
Derf
Well-known member
Ok. Did somebody say they thought that in this thread?
Right Divider
Body part
Not to my knowledge.
I came in when someone claimed that "will" had "other definitions" than that of free will. I asked what those definitions are. I got no response. The definitions that I provided all made it clear that a "will" is deliberate and intentional.
oatmeal
Well-known member
However, like I said, God uses repitition to emphasize great truths.
Isaiah 26:3
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.
The words "perfect peace" are the Hebrew, "shalom shalom" peace peace.
You might want to tell God that He did not need to say "peace peace" when "peace" would have been sufficient.
Good luck with that.
Being redundant is quite different than repeating something for added emphasis.
In fact, doing so is, by definition, NOT redundant.
Derf
Well-known member
While I agree that evil is not forced on the world by God, He certainly allows it temporarily. But I expect there will be a day when it is no longer present, but still allowed.
I say this because if we in our spiritual state (resurrected to die no more) have free will still, then we can still choose to do wrong, but we don't. It's not because God will have made us robots in the resurrection, but because we have seen God's love and mercy and with the removal of our fleshly desires (the old man) we will always choose to follow God's commands.
ttruscott
Well-known member
Please consider:
If I am being coerced to decide something by another person then my decision to acquiesce to the coercion is indeed a true choice but since if I acquiesce to their will then it is not my will I follow but the other guys. Thus it cannot be said that I am following my own will which is the meaning of a free will, not whether I am choosing by my will to go against my own will or not.
My definition of the words:
FREE means is uncoerced: not an ability to choose.
IF GOD set it up so HIS new creation had no coercion or constraints upon their choices, forcing them to choose anything, they had free will.
The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:
1. Free will can't be coerced:
Nothing in their created nature could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all genetics...
Nothing in their experience could FORCE them to choose love or hate, good or evil, including all, cultural or familial experience...
Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could FORCE them to choose good or evil, love or hate.
In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.
[Ref: definition of ingenuous: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ingenuousness as: 1. Lacking in cunning, guile, worldliness; artless. 2. Openly straightforward or frank; candid.
2. Consequences must be known but not proved:
The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a true choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?” must be answered in full detail. How can a person make a real decision about a path in life if they have no idea at all what path to take to find they happiness they seek and avoid the suffering they wish to avoid?
But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death here,” “life there,” was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.
If it were proven you would die if you went left, are you truly free to choose to go right? No, you are forced by your knowledge to go right. Therefore they must know, but without proof, the nature of the consequences of their choice.
Only then are they following their own desires, their deepest hope in the nature of reality, defining the reality they most hope will bring them a long and prosperous life..
Aside: our enslavement to sin and total depravity means that though we make choices all the time they are not by our free, uncoerced, will since our wills are eroded by the enslaving addiction to evil. To paraphrase: not by my will but by sins will...so how can our will be said to be free?
Peace, Ted
Right Divider
Body part
If you succumb to the coercion of others, you are still making your OWN free choice.
Try again...
You still made the decision, did you not?
You could have decided otherwise.
That makes the decision done a free choice. You exercised your will.
Let's not rely on one's personal definitions. Let's look at what the word ACTUALLY means:
Free means not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes.
In other words, according to one's will.
Coercion may influence the decision being made, but it cannot prevent someone from making a decision.
Begging the question is a logical fallacy.
As RD said, none of this changes the fact that if you are the one making the decision, then you have a will, and are exercising it freely. If you did not make the decision to do something, then your will had no part in the decision, and thus, you did not make the decision freely.
Even if someone was presented with a choice between life and death, a choice that will be made by all eventually, those who choose life do so freely, and those who choose death do so freely. They had the ability to choose otherwise.
oatmeal
Well-known member
God is not redundant, He repeats things for emphasis. The expression "free will" has elements of both redundancy and repetition for emphasis.
oatmeal
Well-known member
That is true. The word "free" does not imply easy. It could be very difficult to exercise our freedom to choose.
Hebrews 11 lists such dilemnas.
24 By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter;
25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.
32 And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:
33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.
34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38 (Of whom the world was not worthy
they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
Irrelevant.
Is there such a thing as a will that is not free?
If not, then "free will" is redundant, because you're essentially just saying "free [will that is free]."
If so, then please provide an example of a will that is not, by definition, free. You cannot, because a will is, by definition, free, and since "A = !A" is false (law of non-contradiction), there cannot exist a non-free will.
oatmeal
Well-known member
Well, perhaps you should be instructing God about and with your superior intellect