Subject: This is why...? |
Bible Note: I asked where on this forum would be the best place to direct this post, and you were the where. Not exactly the where I was expecting. I have as it happens read almost all of your posts, so I have a good list of Scriptures. But before I begin studying them for application, I want to make sure that my understanding of free will is correct. If you would be so kind... God is the only one with THE free will. What I would have called 'free will' is actually volition. Choice, but limited in its very nature. Or limited free will. THE free will belonging to God, in which I have no free will (or even will??) has to do with God's Will of Purpose. (Or what some posts have referred to as God's Sovereign Will??) This will is immutable, unchangeable Will and is the necessary and the determinative. (God's Purpose/Plan??) Volition, or limited free will, is choice and it was what God gave to Man (in His image and likeness?-- like but not the same??) but it is limited to God's Will of Command, but I am having to stretch (w/o much success) to equate this to what has been called in other posts God's Moral Will. This is what God wants, but He is leaving it basically to us? (And if so, then is this why there is the argument that we do not choose to be saved or not, because this is more about our walk instead of our salvation?) God's purpose (sovereign will) is immutable, never changing, so only Jesus who was 100 percent inclined towards God's Will can share it (or does He have it also??) and even then He was still limited (as Son of Man) with immutable self-determination.(??) Our limited free will, would be mutable, changeable, self-determination. This being what was given to Man. Given with the inclination being towards God. And it is with the exercise of this changeable self-determination that we changed our inclination. Being inclined towards God was our nature. Adam as he was created, inclined towards God, was without sin. Upright or righteous, so more than just innocent. (So would innocence be that debated state of being created without inclination towards God or sin??) With his disobedience Adam changed (or would it be exchanged?) his inclination to become inclined towards sin. (So is that what sin actually is? Not so much disobedience, but more the inclination of our nature towards sin instead of God?? --with sin being the noun and sins being the verb; i.e., sin being a state of being and sins (such as disobedience) being the action within that state of being) By his choice though, we were left with our nature changed. So Adam, who was created inclined towards God in his nature, was created in God's image. While we, who descend from Adam, are in his image because we inherited his nature, inclined towards evil. Okay. That's where I am with this. How far off am I? Thank you, she |