Free Will?

Recently, I've been thinking if we indeed have free will.
I mean some things are fated and all, so is it already pre-programmed what is going to happen? After all, if God knows the future, then he should have already known I'm about to make this post, what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, how I'm going to think etc etc.
Therefore everything is already planned out and we're just living out a movie of sorts, on a cosmic scale. Everything is pre determined how we're going to act, the choices we make have already been pre-determined.

What are your thoughts on this matter? I really hope this is not the case...
Maybe I have been filling my head with too much science fiction...

"Oh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"

Part of the problem with wrapping your brain around free will is definitely the predetermination problem. After all, if something is already "determined", it's not free at all. I believe that for the most part, there is no predetermination...only "precognition", if that makes sense. IE: If I decide to go commit murder tonight...God already knows about it...but He isn't forcing it to happen.

I think the problem arises from the fact that to predict something with certainty, we humans need a 100% chance of it happening. Because of that, we tend to put God in that same light...but I believe it is quite possible for Him to see what is coming even though we have not decided it yet. I can't quite wrap my brain around that...but I also can't understand a lot of things (how is there no beginning? I mean, come on!) If you accept that as a possibility, then it becomes completely possible for free will and God's omniscience to coexist.

I also think there are many areas that dictate there must be free will, such as accountability, meaning, being made in the image of God, and love. If I am simply a chain of chemical reactions that is nothing but a train on inescapable tracks…then I say I am not guilty of any sin I commit. How can I be guilty of something I could not possibly avoid? We’re all guilty…not because we “can’t” live a sinless life, but because we choose not to. That’s a minor but important distinction. Secondly, if we are simply chemical robots, then our time here is quite meaningless. What’s the point? If we’re made in the image of God, it leads me to believe we would have free will as well. This isn’t a 100% bullet-proof statement, just something that seems like it would make sense to me.

I think the biggest argument for free will is love. I believe we were created solely for the purpose of loving God. Love can’t exist without free will…without having the choice to not love. Of course, giving people choices is what led to our current condition. So, because it is essential to allow us to do evil in order for making the right choice (loving God) to mean something, you make it certain we’re all doomed, and not worthy of heaven. But, since we know the rest of the story…it’s good news!

Something to bring up here is Freewill vs Free Agency.

What's the difference between freewill and free-agency?

While descriptions may vary, I find the following explanation to be helpful. When it is said that people have no "free will" it does not mean that a person is coerced from the outside and must act against his will. Let that be clear up front. With this in mind, it is important that we learn to distinguish coersion vs. necessity. We are indeed free of external coersion but not free of necessity. Let me explain:

What we mean by denying a (fallen) person has free will is that he/she will act, by necessity, according to the corruption of his/her nature. They are in bondage to sin meaning the love of God and His law are not the unregenerate persons' deepest animating motive and principle (nor is it his motive at all), in anything he does. No one is coercing a sinner to act as they do. Man eagerly volunteers his submission to sin. This means, the unregenerate person will always choose according to who they are by nature, driven by their disposition. In other words, our choices are all voluntary, but we are not free to choose otherwise because we will not understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2:14) and indeed are hostile to them, according to Scripture. Men love darkness and hate the light and will not come into the light (John 3:19, 20) Without the Holy Spirit, man, by nature, is hostile to Christ. In other words, we are in bondage to sin until Christ sets us free. Jesus himself says that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, that a thornbush cannot bear figs. Jesus is teaching us that the nature of a thing determines BY NECESSITY (not coersion) the direction he/she will take...

Thus the Bible defines freedom, not as the freedom to choose otherwise in any way we please (contrary to our innate disposition), but as holiness, freedom from sin. Read Romans chapter 6. When Jesus says He will set people free, He does not say they are now free to choose good or evil but He will set them free from the bondage of sin. And where there is bondage, by definition there is no freedom. Yes we have free agency, that is, we can voluntarily choose according to our desires, but because our desires are in bondage to corruption of nature this is not freedom in the Biblical sense. Liberation of the will occurs when the Holy Spirit acts to free us.

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excerpt taken from here

Allright, thanks, interesting read. However, please allow me to rephrase:
I have 2 fruits in the fridge, an apple and an orange. I ate the apple. Is it already pre-determined that I would eat the apple, or did I choose in real time that I would eat the apple and not the orange, and that my choices are already pre-determined?
Like from a year back, does God already know I would choose the apple? (note that assuming I like those two fruits equally, as God knows my innermost and therefore knows which fruit I prefer).

Or, when they said God knows the future, do they mean the future is still liquid, not as solid as this theory, and that he knows the outcomes of possible options?
Otherwise, there would have been no point sending all those prophets back in the day if fate was linear. So thats my theory...

You're making it too complex, and giving yourself a headache in the process, I'm guessing.

Look at it this way... since God is both the Beginning and the End, He has 20/20 hindsight to see what happens thru history, even though it's our present....and He has known since the beginning what the outcome would be.... in the same way you know what's going to happen in a football game that you've already seen the DVR of...but back it up and watch it again.

Yeah this concept really gave me a headache at first. However it will be nice to know we arn't characters in the great movie of life just acting out our roles. We feel we have a choice but that it actually is already determined which choice we'd take.

I don't think you are over-analyzing it. Some people can just "accept" things without question. Others like to know "how" things work. I don't think either of these are the "wrong" approach, although both definitely have their dangers. I can say that I definitely fall in the latter group, and often find myself pondering existential quandaries such as this one.

I guess the first question to be asked is...can we "prove" one way or another that free will exists? Really, there are a lot of questions out there that we might not be able to find an answer to. I guess to sum up my post above, if we do not have free will, then:
* How exactly can we disobey God if we have no choice to do so?
* How can we be held personally accountable without choice?
* In lieu of the above two questions, what is the point of Jesus coming to save people who had no control over the "sins" they have committed?
* Without free will, how is our "love" worth anything to God?
* Many more, these are just a few.

Please note: I'm not trying to say that if we don't have free will, God is a big, evil meanie who I disagree with. What I am saying is that I can't think of any answers to the above questions that make any sense whatsoever. Therefore, I believe it's much simpler/more likely that free will is essential (Occam's Razor). Maybe someone else can come up with some better answers than I have, because I really didn't have any choice in the conclusion I came up with.

Lastly, a few scriptures I googled. These really all bear the same question: What is the point of telling people to choose if they have no choice?

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." (Deut 30:19-20)

"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.'" (Josh 24:15)

"Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways," (Prov 3:31)

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." (James 4:11)

silverleaf said:

Allright, thanks, interesting read. However, please allow me to rephrase:
I have 2 fruits in the fridge, an apple and an orange. I ate the apple. Is it already pre-determined that I would eat the apple, or did I choose in real time that I would eat the apple and not the orange, and that my choices are already pre-determined?
Like from a year back, does God already know I would choose the apple? (note that assuming I like those two fruits equally, as God knows my innermost and therefore knows which fruit I prefer).

Or, when they said God knows the future, do they mean the future is still liquid, not as solid as this theory, and that he knows the outcomes of possible options?
Otherwise, there would have been no point sending all those prophets back in the day if fate was linear. So thats my theory...

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I believe it was your choice (NOT predetermined) that you ate the apple, but that God did ineed know a year ago that you would eat said apple. How does He know? I have no clue, aside from "hey, He's God". He probably uses the same h4x used to create the universe from nothing, haha.

I would direct you again to my post above. You guys are confusing free will with free agency. You most certainly have the freedom to make choices without coercion (that is called having free agency). But your will is most certainly not free as you are either a slave to sin or you are a slave to Christ. Either way your will is bound and affected by the necessity of your nature.

ewoksrule said:

I would direct you again to my post above. You guys are confusing free will with free agency. You most certainly have the freedom to make choices without coercion (that is called having free agency). But your will is most certainly not free as you are either a slave to sin or you are a slave to Christ. Either way your will is bound and affected by the necessity of your nature.

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I did read your post above, and I apologize if my responses ignored that. Please don't get me wrong - we are definitely all a slave to something. I just think we choose what that something is, and look at our natures as a more of a “heavy influence” than uncontrollable forces.

I guess the main problems I have (personally) with the idea of free agency are along the lines of the following:
1) If we are forced to act according to our nature, how does one (with a sinful nature) recognize that Jesus is their lord in order to be saved? Necessity would dictate we continue to blow him off until the day we die.
2) On the flip side of the coin - if one becomes a new creation with a new nature when they are born again, how could they possibly commit sin? Necessity dictates we do only holy things.

Would you be able to provide a little more insight here?

Ultimately, I think this is one of those topics that are very easy to disagree on, because sooooooo many related beliefs that help build one’s conclusion on this subject. For example, how does one define sin? If you think sin is "any action you do that wasn't directed by God, either through prayer or the bible", then unsaved people are incapable of anything BUT sin. If you define sin as “reflecting God’s nature”, then an unsaved person can most certainly do good if they exhibit one of His qualities…even if they don’t have Him in mind when they do it.

One more question on "free agency" I thought of after the fact...
If it is necessary to sin because of our sinful nature...how is it that people before Jesus did anything other than sin? The holy spirit didn't come until Jesus.

Just want to say I'm not trying to attack your beliefs, really just trying to foster some constructive conversation on the matter.

Well going by your theory of free agency, then in this case all non christians will be sinning all the time without a concience. Yet that is not true, I have unbelievers as non-immediate family members, granted I don't know them too well, but they seem pretty allright to me...

Anyway, thanks for trying to answer the question, but problem is as with the other threads I searched, most of the reasons you provided (and understandably so) are reasons why free will must exist, but not really going into the technical mechanics. Maybe there are no technical mechanics, so just like you can't prove God, you can't prove free will, but it will be nice to have somewhat of an understanding.

I'm not sure what you mean by technical mechanics. I would think the technical mechanics are the reasons why it must exist. Given the thought that every choice we make we were programmed to make, it would be impossible to prove the existance of free will. All we really have to go by is what the bible tells us.

"1) If we are forced to act according to our nature, how does one (with a sinful nature) recognize that Jesus is their lord in order to be saved? Necessity would dictate we continue to blow him off until the day we die.
"
That is correct, John 6:44 "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day." We would argue that we know "good" non-christians. First of all, that is by our standards that we measure this, not Gods. Secondly, it's not that they can't choose or do "good" things, but that those works do not produce any spiritual fruit.

"2) On the flip side of the coin - if one becomes a new creation with a new nature when they are born again, how could they possibly commit sin? Necessity dictates we do only holy things."
That one's a little trickier. We know we can be saved and sin, so it seems to not fit. John 6:43 "For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." If we look at this from the other angle, it's not that we can't sin, but that we are not producing bad fruit. We are going to Heaven, so instead of piling up more and more bad fruit to be judged by and punished for, we are just building up less treasures for ourselves in Heaven by sinning.

"One more question on "free agency" I thought of after the fact...
If it is necessary to sin because of our sinful nature...how is it that people before Jesus did anything other than sin? The holy spirit didn't come until Jesus."
First of all, there are many Old Testament referrences of the Holy Spirit on Earth, and working in peoples lives. What we have now that's different from then is the permanent indwelling of the spirit. Rev. 13:8 "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Isaiah 53, mostly past tense about what Christ would do. Romans 3:25 "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;" God is outside of time, just because Christ didn't die until roughly 32AD, doesn't mean it didn't wash the sins of those who dies before him. God had forbearance on them, if they had faith. It is God's grace that saves us, nothing else, and we obtain this grace through Faith. So to answer your question, before Jesus, you were saved the same way you are now, through Faith, and therefore were able to "choose" to do "good" things and build up good spiritual fruit.

I found this an interesting topic

I guess for myself I always thought of people as having free will, I thought of it was one of the greatest gifts the Lord gave to us, the power to do great things and the power to do bad things, it means when we choose to do good and follow the right path it has so much more meaning as we had a choice in it. The Lord wants us to choose HIM, otherwise he could have just made us differently so we would follow without question.

Anyway my 2 cents don't think I’ve posted over here before

viglundr said:

I found this an interesting topic

I guess for myself I always thought of people as having free will, I thought of it was one of the greatest gifts the Lord gave to us, the power to do great things and the power to do bad things, it means when we choose to do good and follow the right path it has so much more meaning as we had a choice in it. The Lord wants us to choose HIM, otherwise he could have just made us differently so we would follow without question.

Anyway my 2 cents don't think I’ve posted over here before

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You have not and thank you for your post Rob

silverleaf said:

Anyway, thanks for trying to answer the question, but problem is as with the other threads I searched, most of the reasons you provided (and understandably so) are reasons why free will must exist, but not really going into the technical mechanics. Maybe there are no technical mechanics, so just like you can't prove God, you can't prove free will, but it will be nice to have somewhat of an understanding.

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Yeah, no clue on the mechanics. I think that's the problem about "proving" it, we can't because we can't understand it. The best we can do is look at evidence and guess. I think the question is less of "how does free will work" and more of "how does the SOUL work". I mean, I understand the science of how light travels to my eyes and is picked up by receptors, but how am I SEEING it. I think the answers are based on concepts we don't even have a concept of, and I hope to find out when I meet "the man".

PS: Food for thought/Devil's advocate....if free will exists, how will Heaven be without sin? /head explodes

I'm of the school that God knows our decisions not because he knows what they will be or has laid out a path that we can not deviate from but because God knows us personally and perfectly. God has a plan for us and will put us on it and through out that plan there will be hurdles for us because God put them there and God knows how we will react because God knows us.

Sassamo said:

I'm not sure what you mean by technical mechanics.
...
We would argue that we know "good" non-christians.
...
So to answer your question, before Jesus, you were saved the same way you are now, through Faith, and therefore were able to "choose" to do "good" things and build up good spiritual fruit.

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As for "mechanics", I believe he meant "if" free will exists, but "how". I have focused on the "if", because I felt like he was also asking "if".

Considering Jesus said that even He isn't "good", I would not argue that there are any "good" people. If you commit 1,000,000 "good" acts and one sin, you are "bad". I'm simply trying to say that I do believe people can do "good" things.

As for the other question...I was not asking whether or not people before Jesus could be saved. Abraham, for example, was specifically mentioned as being counted as "righteous". What I was saying is...if one must act by their nature, how then did Abraham do anything but sin without the personal indwelling of the holy spirit?

RyanB said:

Yeah, no clue on the mechanics. I think that's the problem about "proving" it, we can't because we can't understand it. The best we can do is look at evidence and guess. I think the question is less of "how does free will work" and more of "how does the SOUL work". I mean, I understand the science of how light travels to my eyes and is picked up by receptors, but how am I SEEING it. I think the answers are based on concepts we don't even have a concept of, and I hope to find out when I meet "the man".

PS: Food for thought/Devil's advocate....if free will exists, how will Heaven be without sin? /head explodes

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Heaven isn't without sin, as you can tell by a certain angel's betrayal...
Well once again, thanks for asking, but I guess really no one under heaven can properly explain this. Yeah the following are great grounds, you proved free will can exist (not in a scientific way but nothing about faith is scientific) to me without a doubt. However, I still don't, and I doubt anyone here does, understand how it works.
Just like you can see and use the computer but most of us won't know exactly how it is made and how it ticks.

Thanks!!

RyanB said:

Considering Jesus said that even He isn't "good", I would not argue that there are any "good" people.

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Luke 10 said:

17As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

18"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone.

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I think that your interpretation of his words are slightly out of context. Jesus said that none, except the Lord, are good. He was challenging the rich man to either recant his statement, or admit that Jesus is Lord. The rich man already acknowledged that Jesus was a rabbi.

Luke 10 said:

22At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

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Because the rich man did not acknowledge Jesus as Lord, he tacitly withdrew his statement.

silverleaf said:

RyanB said:

PS: Food for thought/Devil's advocate....if free will exists, how will Heaven be without sin? /head explodes

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Heaven isn't without sin, as you can tell by a certain angel's betrayal...

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I think he means after Jesus returns and establishes His 1000-year reign. Which of course, is on Earth, not in Heaven. Although it is a bit confusing because when asked about Heaven, Jesus mentions the house with the many rooms.

John 14 said:

1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God[a]; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

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But to answer RyanB's question about free will in heaven... once we are purified and Satan is banished from the world, we will have no reason to sin. There will be no Father of Lies, so there will be no lies. It's just speculation on my part, but once we're at the foot of the Throne, our desires will be purified. Revelation talks about all of Heaven singing and praising the Lord. I figure we'll be to preoccupied with getting to know God more intimitely than ever before to bother with lying, cheating, stealing, or lusting.