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From: "Uncle Davey" <noway@jose.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.uncle-davey
Subject: Re: A riddle that was set me...
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 16:13:02 +0200
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Uzytkownik "Grinder" <grinder@no.spam.maam.com> napisal w wiadomosci
news:0tc4f.249987$084.245527@attbi_s22...
> Uncle Davey wrote:
>
> > A participant on www.usenetposts.com/forum asked a
> > riddle, as follows:
>
> >> This is what just came to my mind which I would like
> >> to discuss with all of you:
> >>
> >> Is human will free? If it is not free, then people
> >> cannot be held responsible for their sins, as they
> >> don't have the capacity to abstain from sinning. But
> >> if human will is free, then God is not all-knowing and
> >> almighty, as people might choose to behave this way or
> >> that.
> >>
> >>Now, what is the solution to this?
>
> > And my reply was the following:
> >
> > First you would need to define "free".
>
> [snip]
>
> > There is freedom to make choices between possible alternatives.
>
> [snip]
>
> > That's how I would answer your riddle
>
> I see you didn't really trouble your answer with the conflict between
> our free will and God's omniscience.
>
> If God already knows what we're going to pick at any give choice, how
> are we free to choose any of the possible alternatives? Either:
>
> a) We can choose any of the alternatives, including those different than
> what God *knows* we're going to pick -- thus invalidating his omniscience.
>
> b) We can only choose the alternative that God has forseen for use, thus
> making free well an illusion.
>
> I've outlined this conundrum a dozen or so times to theists who hold
> that God is omniscient, yet we have free will. So far, I have only
> received complimentary dance lessons.
As I say, the answer is in Christ.
We do not have a freedom not to commit sin. That choice was made for us.
The choice that we have is whether or not to believe in the saviour.
With regard to repentance and faith, it is true that God does determine
those to whom he gives truth. Even Jacob when repenting before meeting Esau
in Genesis 32 says to God that he doesn't deserve all the truth he knows.
Then shortly after this the risen Christ comes and wrestles with him, and
gives him the name of Israel. That name, which remains on everyone's lips to
this day, came to a man soon after his acknowledgement that he didn't
deserve any truth from God, and had been given it out of mercy.
This is the beginning of wisdom. To understand that God does give as He
pleases, truth as well as any other gift. That is why we are not free, in a
sense, to chose His truth and believe it for our salvation, he needs to give
it. But at the same time you can do as Israel did and bind God to a
struggle, saying to even the most high God "I will not let thee go, except
thou bless me". Wonder of wonders! Of course the creator and redeemer Christ
could have had power to wrestle with Jacob in such a way as to crush his
every atom at the subquantum level, or to fling him into interplanetary
disintegration, but he allows jacob to win a blessing! So in the same way we
can come, and lay claim on blessings from God. Only later we know, that we
could never have come without his grace, but you are free to go to God and
claim the promises, that those who come to Him He will not cast out. That
those who pray "o Lord, help me to believe" receive their faith. You can
choose to believe in God.
And if you believe on Christ for your salvation, then it will be as an act
of will on your level whatever it may be looked at from another level.
I hope this is an answer for you. If not, I will try again.
Uncle Davey
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