Whetstone
Member
You misunderstand the "control" of God....God is a Sovereign God and He rules justly
If God rules then only he has real free will.
Heart2Soul said:....He does not control....He teaches us to seek His Will not our own
Can you not see the irony in that statement? A teacher controls the environment, controls the choices, restricts actions and steers people down the path THEY want the person to tread. How is that free will? Teaching humans how to conform to and obey God's will is clearly the very antithesis of free will. It is teaching people to be subservient.
Heart2Soul said:...confusing control with His Will for us is a grave mistake and causes many to be misled.
Again, if we are destined to simply follow "his will" then that is not free will for us
Heart2Soul said:You err in your knowledge and understanding of our Father and how He leads us but does not dictate how we should live. He leads us in a way to go but we must choose to go.
I just can't understand why people struggle with this so much. I think it's a form of denial. Our very existence in this physical world is forced upon us, it is not a choice, not free will. The environment we are stuffed into is completely dictatorial. The Earth is already totally controlled by groups of human who control all the resources, all the laws, all the prosperity and wealth. We are born into a slave world to live whatever years are afforded us as debt slaves, existing in laws and systems of taxation that ensure the vast majority of us can never get ahead of the game and are always treading water. We are not remotely free.
When you restrict the choices a person has then you remove free will. If you pass laws that say a woman can only have ne child, then you have removed her free will. She may still choose whether or not to have that one child but that does not alter the fact that she does not have free will.
The value of that choice, is greatly lessened by the limitations imposed.
I'm in some agreement with OP here. Choice does NOT equate to free will.
In fact it's the complete opposite !
The fact that ANY choice is offered is evidence that we do not have free will.
That's because any choice, by very definition must be some form of restriction, some level of limitation of options and control by external force.
The greater that control is, the less and less the value of the choice is.
Only God has free will because he is not bound by any choices and can "will" anything he desires.
Nothing he wills has any threat of punishment attached to it. He can kill at will, he can create at will.
He is free
We are not